Emily Eakin in the New York Times:Nearly everyone struggled during the pandemic, but Justin Smith-Ruiu’s struggle took a particularly disturbing form. He caught Covid the same month, and though he recovered from the virus, he sank into a deep, existential despair. “I had the sharp sense that the things that we take to be real just aren’t real,” he told me. “It was quite extreme.”Smith-Ruiu, 53, could have sought counseling or joined the Great Resignation by quitting his job. Instead, he turned to drugs — first cannabis, then psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) and, finally, muscimol, a psychedelic made from another mushroom, the fly agaric.