Experienced Relief

Last night I was too groggy to thank the woman helping me. I heard beeping in my resting chamber. There was light, and multiple people were present. She approached, stopped the beeping, said something, and left. 

I didn't thank her, I thought. 

That's okay, I reassured. You're the queen. 

The resting chamber was my bedchamber, which quickly evolved into a kingly balcony, concourses of presences viewing me, as I was, apparently, the queen, after all. 

And all of this felt rational and normal.

The drug began to clear my system, however, with the IV run out, and the conclusion that I was "the queen" tickled me, as I envisioned myself explaining this conclusion to others, and I "came to" with uncontrolled, quiet giggling. 

The nurses later checked back in, explaining they weren't sure if I was crying or laughing, as both explanations were completely plausible. Just last week, as I was going under, I heard a man in another room yelling in a frightful way. One of the anesthesiologists also told me a story of some blessed idiot who decided to listen to classic rock, while his IV was running, and when ACDC's Highway to Hell came on, he had quite a terrifying trip.

I listen to ocean waves. Sometimes the waves are overwhelming, and become static, but most of the time the waves meld into the flow of the scene just fine. It's far better than "river sounds," which are far too bubbly, for my taste, or simply the sound of the fan next to me, which promptly turned into the sound of upset people who were, naturally, spiraling down the red-lined, vertical tunnel to Hell, alongside me. 

You come to learn that you can change the scenes, and I was fortunate to escape this tunnel to Hell without difficulty - though the rest of the experience was littered with robots, crossing lines of black, red, and purple, with shooting lasers, and general discomfort. That day I was a little too stressed out.

I've been doing IV Ketamine Infusion Therapy. 

I've struggled with Depression since my High School years. For many years I went unmedicated, convinced I could "solve" Depression through sheer force of will. (You can't.) Over the course of many years I tried multiple medications, eventually maxing out the doses as I struggled to find relief. Medications would show some effect, then the effects would wear off. The dose would be raised, I would find positive effects, but then the effects would wear off, in a continuing cycle of maxing out dosages and switching to new medications.

It's called "Treatment Resistant Depression," and I have it. For literal years I've dealt with Depression, and the Oh-So-Helpful, naturally depressing conclusion I repeatedly came to that I might never find relief. I've dealt with guilt regarding my condition - guilt as I'm acutely aware of how Depression affects my mood, and the affects that that depressed mood has on those around me. My Depression makes me "prickly," and I respond sharply and with anger - things that have reared their ugly faces around my closest family members, most of all. I've hated myself, as I've seen myself snap at my children, dwell on the negative with my husband, and cycle endlessly in thoughts of helplessness, despair, and dread. 

Despite feeling able to manage being Depressed on my own, I've been torn with guilt that my Depression inevitably affects the ones I love in terrible ways. They haven't complained. They've been nothing but supportive. I am my harshest critic, but this fact drove me to continue the chase for relief from Depression for years, to no avail, resulting in profound familial guilt and frustration, on my part. 

This last year I began to seriously consider another option - an option advertised to help those suffering with Treatment Resistant Depression, like me. A couple years ago I went to a clinic that advertised offering Ketamine treatments. I sat in a room and interviewed with the director of the clinic, asking him my questions, about the "how"s of the treatment. I left feeling discouraged, however. I blame it entirely upon the decor. Their clinic was in the basement of a dingy multi-office facility, and was decorated with beanbags, colorful tapestries, and a fantastic mural of Ganesh in progress. It felt very "hippie," and while I appreciated the hippie vibe very much on a personal level, it was not what I was looking for in a medical procedure, and made me dubious regarding the efficacy of treatment. I wasn't altogether convinced these people weren't all just tripping for kicks and giggles. The director of the clinic had a bit of an "I've done LSD my whole life, and I can't stop this tremor anymore" vibe, too. Again, kudos for him, but not the treatment option I was looking for, and certainly not from HIM as my doctor.

But this year, a family member underwent Ketamine treatment for Depression, and swore by it, up and down. A friend of theirs had a daughter that went through the treatment, and SHE swore by it, up and down, as well. My family member claimed the treatment raised their baseline. They found themselves smiling more, sleeping better, and better able to cope with the inevitable frustrations of work and life in general. 

So I had my baby and finished that pesky "pregnancy" prohibitor, and signed up for Ketamine Infusion Therapy a couple weeks later. I went to a different clinic, obviously. No Ganesh murals setting me up, thank you very much.

I went to the Utah Ketamine Clinic in American Fork. I am fairly convinced that you will find no better human beings on this planet than those who work at Ketamine clinics. It is fortunate. If you choose a career where you literally have human lives on your hands - not just their lives, but their very psyches, as you're literally inducing dissociative states on these people - it is good to be a good person. The "tone" of an experience is very important, when people are dissociating. I believe these Ketamine employees understand that, and I've never seen one running at less than 100% care and concern, with overwhelming positivity. 

My first experience was touching. The most lovely nurse was taking care of me - my favorite nurse by far. She had a contagious smile. She put in my IV, gave me medication for nausea and dizziness, the anesthesiologist plugged my Ketamine in, turned the lights off, left the room, and away I went, feet up in the soft, sturdy recliner, with my blanket tucked in around me. 

I saw sparks of color on the periphery of my vision, first - gold. My mouth warmed, as the drug filled in my system more, and then? That warm taste in my mouth exploded into a half-mandala, with sharp, pointed edges growing and swirling from the right of my field of vision, in golds, yellows, and whites. Danged, if it wasn't beautiful and weird. But with the warmness in my mouth, the mandala growing in my blurring vision, erasing the room around me as it softly melted down into blackness, I felt a tender moment of love - something my spiritual past experiences would have described as "The Spirit." In that moment I felt an overwhelming warmth of love, and the thought - "You are very brave to do this for your children." I remember feeling a tear falling down my face, which became, instantly, divine. 

I don't know if that feeling or that thought were real or artifically induced, which, frankly, set the tone and question for all my subsequent treatments. 

That first treatment was full of blacks, golds, and comfort. I traveled up a black valley, flew up darkened mountain sides and up past their snow-capped peaks into the dark blue sky, dancing with green aurora borealis. I watched as a godlike figure - yes, it was Sazed from the Mistborn book series - climbed stairs that rose up to meet his feet, flowing in oversized pant legs, on a dazzlingly white, gold, and light orange background - each step slow, smooth, and deliberate.

I morphed into a baby - just like my own newborn. The purring of the IV machine became my cat, and I, my baby lying at its side. I sat and breathed in the calmness of that moment and the realization that my life was very complicated - that things were far bigger than me, and that I was as good as my baby in terms of what I knew and understood and could change, and that I could rest and find peace in that knowledge, or lack thereof. 

My mother, who sat in the room with me, to help me through any first-time potential complications, morphed into Whistler's Mother in her chair, when the IV medication began to wear off. I recognized that she must be incredibly bored, and that alas, that was the role of mothers after all, wasn't it? To be a bored observer? I felt very connected to that message and motivation in that moment, and the urge to find peace in it - peace in boredom, and the steady, calming purr of ignorance and powers beyond my control next to me.

Ketamine turns me into a artist, and every experience I usually have a moment of thinking, "Wow, I wish I could draw this." or "I wonder if anyone has ever tried to draw something like this." It's that wish that I could share it, and that others could understand the intimate, random firings of my brain dissociating. I've had moments where I think I've almost thought of some movie or song that almost captures it, but nothing ever captures it quite right. Though I've tried. 

It's always constant motion. It's waves, it soaring, it's morphing, drawing space out, falling into colors, sights, sounds, textures. Colors and sights are interpreted by your own knowledge, experiences, meandering, and desires, into further movement, color, impressions, and interpretations. 

I've seen God, creating. And I've created. The room has swam around me in sketched blacks and whites, and I've found myself interpreting, "If I come out of this now, will I be an atheist?" The room swirled with greens and golds, architecture, leaves, pillars and stone, and I've found myself interpreting, "If I come out of this now, will I be Hindu?" And it all made perfect sense. I've looked for God in these artificially induced visions and I've found God. I've also looked for God and recognized the biological, physiological randomness of it all instead.

I've questioned and watched the process of the drugs taking my body through these spins and visions. I've also done as John Lennon recommended, to "Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream... That you may see the meaning of within." (Lennon did drugs. He knew what he was talking about! I was happy to take his advice.) The things I dredged up were all things from inside of myself - impressions I already knew, of things already considered, but not quite so vividly or with the exact processes or images. It was all random, very much so, but when experienced, I knew it was all mine. 

So has it helped with my Depression? There have been days where I've doubted it. I'm just as stressed as before. But then, in retrospect, did I really think that Ketamine would change my life situations? I'm still raising three children, one a newborn who doesn't let me sleep and yells at me regularly, one struggling with ADHD who needs frequent reminders and monitoring, and the other with a sassy attitude who likes to "flop" to the ground if I ask him to go anywhere. I have to remind myself that EVERYONE would feel overwhelmed about this, and that being stressed out, frustrated, constantly argued with, and sleep-deprived is not the same thing as being Depressed. 

My Depression has historically taken the light out of my days. I remember once, years ago, recognizing that I knew if my medication was working if I enjoyed listening to music, or caught myself singing. And in the last several weeks, I have caught myself singing. I've found myself smiling. In turning off the light in my boy's room, yet again, I didn't bemoan the messy state of their floor, like I usually would. Instead I noted that it appeared they were making a blanket fort! and I took joy in their spark for life. Just a few days ago I caught myself folding laundry right out of the dryer, without making a "laundry heap" in the hallway, for days on end, as I usually do. For me, that was a big deal. And I was happy while I did it. I made a meal plan for the week, and have stuck with it, without Depression driving me to make excuses for takeout. 

Yesterday and today have been long days. The children all have a cold, and I'm suffering from the slightly nauseated, dizzy remnants of my Ketamine infusion last night. No one is on their best behavior, and there have been several angry, frustrated moments. I questioned, today, if the Ketamine infusions have been worth it, as my final one is tomorrow night, almost $2,000 later. 

Last night was a night of textures and voices. The nurses were chatting with each other in their office across the hall, and the pleasant conversation carried through my visions as inaudible, happy mumbling. I DID hear "No pressure!" to laughter, which set a light-hearted tone. I fell into fabrics, cushioned rooms and cities. I was even carried to my living room's black fur rug, which was scanned foot by foot with calm, soft precision, to the dull, happy mumbling of unseen others. And yes, it was good. 

I pulled the room lengthwise, turning it into white, arched doorways which, when stretched, pulled downwards into a black river, with a head like a lizard. I fell into a rug of ripped fabrics, surprisingly soft, which I floated in, like a seaweed-y river - and I thought to myself, "At least being fat makes me happy and comfortable."

Were my Ketamine infusions worth it? 

I think so. Undoubtedly, time will tell. I have seen results. The nagging question and worry, which experience has trained me to be cynical in, makes me wonder how long it will last. They do have return appointments - only one infusion for follow-ups, not the initial six, which they state work wonderfully. Some people return every few months. Some people never feel the need to return! (The Ketamine MIRACLE?!) 

Time will tell. But I'll take what I can from the experiences. Be bored. Recognize your ignorance and inability to fix everything, and embrace that. Be satisfied with your body. Recognize your potential. Embrace that your type of "goddess" self might not be stereotypically feminine - all the best female gods are gods of war, and there is absolutely comfort and purpose in that. I have the ability to change what is unbearable, but being uncomfortable is not the end. The scene will flow on and turn eventually, and who knows? At the end of it you might even discover that you are the queen!