too busy living
Hello again. I had every intention of blogging on the day of my Ketamine therapy. I was excited to get back home and share all the wonderful experiences I had and what I learned. I wanted to share what Ketamine therapy feels like before, during and after treatments. I had millions of thoughts racing to make their way to my laptop. I was giddy at the thought of expressing all the observations I was going to make note of. I went into this past treatment in such a desperate state of mind. It had been a rough two weeks between treatments this round. I knew that I had been in a dark place but it wasn’t until I got my Ketamine shot that I realized how far down the rabbit hole I had fallen.
I remember the drive back to Harrisonburg. I am solid. I am relaxed. I turned to my husband and just smiled. You know, that smile that words melt into? A smile that needs no voice to express meaning. The smile that represents life. It is, for me, similar to that expression about how the eyes are windows to the soul. A smile, a true genuine smile that reaches the eyes can actually tell a bigger story. As a photographer I am aware of this when I am on a photo shoot. I have realized that since I began my Ketamine therapy I smile; a lot. I catch myself. I giggle. It must be insane to witness. I want to be a child so it is acceptable to be this silly. I know I am a little girl learning how the world works all over again. This time on solid ground that is unwavering and clear. It feels that way to me. I am experiencing reality with young eyes and it is remarkable and worth breathing in. I just feel a full sense of peace surrounding me, encasing me. It welcomes me back to the living. I embrace it. I have a calm clarity. The fog is lifted and I see the wildflowers once again. The colors are stunning. I am not lying when I say that the world looks in super sharp focus. It isn’t hazy. I realize as I am writing that the closest thing I can compare the depression to is a nasty head cold. Remember that feeling? When you fight your way through those miserable days with tissues and cold medicine hoping to get to the other side without your head exploding. You reach a point where you are stuffy, can’t breathe, throat hurts from breathing through your mouth, your head is pounding stronger than the base on your child’s car stereo and your only desire is to shut that all down fast. You want to die. Yes? Well, if you were to multiple that by infinity you might experience my world because that feeling you are remembering never goes away for those with treatment resistant depression. This description might allow you to have you a fraction of understanding on depression. I will admit nothing my past doctors have tried made it possible to get rid of that pesky, deadly head cold. Ketamine destroys that hypothetical head cold and the relief is phenomenal. I am no longer weighed down and sickly. I can breathe.
It has been a couple days since my Ketamine shot. I kept wanting to sit down and create an amazing blog describing this sensational recovery. I have so many ideas and topics to discuss. I’ve been asking myself why is it so easy for me to make the time to write when my world is falling apart yet I can’t find an hour to share how incredible Ketamine is for depression. I finally figured out why. I am delighted and ashamed to admit the reason. Can anyone guess why? It feels good in a way to put these findings down on paper. I mean, it is incredible. All these new discoveries, they are so exciting to me. I breathe in life and exhale the pain; easily. I am living. I am not locked up in my safe home afraid to involve myself in anything outside my own misery. I feel good. I want to do. I have the ability. I feel confident to do. I want to take advantage of this time. I guess I am still having issues with trust. I write that down reluctantly. I am terrified that Ketamine will disappear. I will crash and tumble to pits so low a rope will never reach me. I resent having that fear. I look forward to the day when Ketamine is covered by insurances and doctors will think of Ketamine first before subjecting people to the horrendous side effects of antidepressants, other medication cocktails, and hospitalizations, but I degrees.
It occurred to me today that the reason I wasn’t writing was because I am out there living. I am not noting the glories of Ketamine because I am too busy living. And what, I ask you, could be a more profound statement of the abilities of Ketamine than that simple fact. I am too busy living…..
continues to attract attention and more people become aware of the huge benefits that Ketamine offers for treatment resistant depression. I was visiting the site today and decided to finally register and post. I have been reluctant to in the past because I can get pretty overwhelmed by others emotions and experiences. I admit that even today it was upsetting. However, I did remind myself that tomorrow is Ketamine day and that I have been ready for my treatment 10 days now. It is not shocking that I would cry and hurt when reading about others’ histories and pain. It is a very fresh feeling for me. What I mean by that is I am too close to the depression. I feel some days it is too raw and painful. I know that after 9:30am tomorrow I will feel substantially better. I won’t falter. I feel broken today. I have much to accomplish and no, absolutely no drive to do. I want to accept and embrace where I am today but I admit I am angry. I am human. I am a little irritable, okay extremely so. I am definitely struggling with my depression lately. I am very uncomfortable. I am fighting for breath. My disability to center myself is compounded by the constriction the depression causes in my chest and stomach. I am feeling immensely negated. I feel I could disappear and nothing would shift or change. It will be as though I never was; nothing loss. My head is heavy and I believe I am close to auditioning for Sesame Street as the letter C because when I looked up and saw my reflection in the window that was what came to mind. I am curling into myself. It is physically more difficult to move and function mentally when the depression has latched its rotten teeth into me. I want that shot. I need that shot.
I am aware and can acknowledge these perceptions I have of myself and how they affect my interpretation of the world around me. The variety of pills I have been prescribed over the years have definitely placed brick walls in my way.
It is disappointing that more people don’t embrace what an amazing life we have been given. I want to live in the now. I am training myself to be present. I won’t lie. It is excruciating. I am trying to discover myself in this new world that has opened up to me and it is quizzical. I am enjoying most of my discoveries even through my confusion. I just don’t want this new world full of half living individuals to destroy me. I am discouraged today. I am working again. It is a challenge. I am grateful that I am able. I feel I have so much to offer. I am running into closed doors and tall unbreakable walls. This is all still so fresh to me. I am processing. I want to be a better person. A whole one. I am having emotions I don’t necessarily have experience with because the depression numbed me. I think, I didn’t know all the emotions I could feel. I have had to redefine my emotional language. What I mean by that is my knowledge of the definitions of feelings was strong. I believed I was in touch and self aware. However, my first hand experience was damaged by my mental illness. I feel with Ketamine I am distinguishing the differences. I will give you an example. As I have stated I have lost many things because of my depression. Friends have passed away. Disappointments, massive ones, have occurred and my depression deepened. I did not grieve. I thought the depression was evidence that I was going through the stages of loss. I have recently realized I was crying when I thought I saw a friend that passed away almost three years ago. It startled me. What was going on? What were the tears about? It had only been a few days since my Ketamine shot. I was perplexed and afraid. Was the depression resurfacing during the period between treatments? I think feeling any sadness at all has been my deepest concern. I question with fear. It was only after months of treatment that I realized everyone gets sad. Grief isn’t clinical depression. Having a day of tears doesn’t equate to a lifetime of spiraling depression or hospitalizations. I have to constantly remind myself. I try every day to use the correct terms to express myself. I feel this is an valuable asset for my recovery. It is definitely a frustrating component. It is also the way in which I have grown most over the past year. I am still a work in progress just like this website…
will write about aspects of Ketamine that you may want to reject. You may think it is great that it works for me but you are different. Am I correct? I know I had these same exact thoughts. The people that were helped with Ketamine are lucky. I won’t be that fortunate. I am sure I have suffered too long to be helped. I bet those helped didn’t have “my kind of depression”. I had all the defenses, and mistrust I have grown to feel when approaching new treatments. As I have stated before and want to impress upon anyone reading now is I was at my end. No light on inside. I know from reading my journals that I didn’t have high hopes for Ketamine. I stayed around and fought for my family. If there was something that could help, didn’t I owe it to them to try it? It was not an easy endeavor. I was profoundly depressed and so angry about it. I write now and my feelings about the future are positive. I guess I worry that a depressed individual may blow me off because it seems so far fetched. I know, I had these thoughts. My family did so much research and were so hopeful that this treatment would work for me. I think they had to believe that because they knew I had basically checked out and was just playing the waiting game. I think I didn’t believe it would help me. I felt nothing would because the fact is nothing ever did. I couldn’t get my hopes up like my therapist and husband were. It is important to me to have you realize how far from the sun I was. I had been for years. I know now my depression
was always present. It just manifested itself in a variety of different ways. I have used many crutches over the years to combat my illness; without success. I was fighting off depression with running shortly before my most recent break and hospitalizations. I was training for a marathon, and my body betrayed me. I ignored it. I needed to run. I was being chased by the demon. I couldn’t seem to run fast enough or long enough. I would run when I was broken because I knew what was in store for me if Satan out ran me. The evils of depression go beyond any will power you think should kill it. I have lost so many, many things and people because I was ashamed of my mental illness and would go into hiding when the symptoms were at their worst. Many of my observations have been years in the making and others I found with the help of Ketamine. Depression is an insidious disease. It will steal everything from you. It will make life unbearable. It makes suicide seem rational. It embeds itself deep within and suffocates you in a world others can’t see. It painfully kidnaps you and leaves behind only a shell of who you once were. I was on my last breath. Ketamine turned out to be my oxygen. It forced air in, so to speak, and loosened the grip that bastard depression had on me. I was reviewing my journals and they saddened me. I have experienced much personal growth since my journey began. I recognize the girl
that wrote the words spread across the pages of my journals, but I am not her. Thankfully. I still find myself angry that I didn’t discover Ketamine sooner. I am trying to accept that I found Ketamine when I did. I think I will be way ahead of the game when I accept and embrace my diagnoses. I have spent a great deal of my life denying my illness to others. I didn’t want to appear weak. I didn’t want to be labeled and judged. I still don’t. I do know that if we don’t start discussing it more freely without the fear of repercussions, more will suffer in silence. It is a raw subject and just slightly intimate which frightens the general population. People don’t want to discuss illnesses they can’t see. I want people to understand the true severity of mental illnesses. It is just so cruelly debilitating. We need to realize we have a voice. We need to be heard.
ken of in our home. Matthew was taking a research class at the time and decided to write his semester paper on Ketamine. He was then invited to present his finding at the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program’s yearly presentations. It was all so exciting and fascinating. Matthew’s 
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