(I can’t see)
Dense fog fills my head
(I can’t move)
Tremendous pressure traps me in bed
(I can’t speak)
My voice silenced by pain
(I can’t feel)
Emptiness – vast and bottomless, takes place of my brain
Depression has robbed me
Imprisoned me
Gutted me
Filled me with sand
(I’m so weighed down)
Depression sneers…
And watches me drown
My next infusion is a week away. This is how I’m feeling today.
I can feel myself withdrawing
Collapsing into myself
Talk is just so draining
Signs of deteriorating health
Another bad brain day
Fighting myself alone in my room
Just hang on another week
I know relief is coming soon
An endless battle of heavy darkness
Fought back by infusions of light
Forever in a tug of war
Forever I will fight.
December 9th, 2019
I truly feel like ketamine infusion treatments have been the biggest success I have ever had with treating my bipolar disorder. Life feels more manageable. The future doesn’t fill me with hopelessness. I *want* to be here, to be a part of life, to make something of myself. I feel capable and hopeful that I might be able to get control of my life again in the future and start turning it into something I will actually feel proud of.
The thing I want people to know about the treatments:
– Infusions last between 1-1.5 hours. Even after doing them every month for the past year and half, they are still generally very intense and pretty unpleasant. I do not look forward to them. They suck. 🤷🏻♀️
– I usually don’t feel better right away after the infusion. It takes me several days to notice the results.
– Some people are able to get more time between boosters. Unfortunately, my mood drops drastically right around the four week point. I have tried waiting five weeks, but toward the end of that time my depression was back and it was aggressive.
Unintended consequences:
Depression feels one billion times worse once you’ve realized what life can be like without those symptoms. While I’ve always been frustrated by my illness, I’ve never felt truly angry about it. Once I began the ketamine treatments and felt what life can be like without that disability holding me down, it became SO MUCH MORE frustrating . I found myself angry that I have to go to such lengths to achieve a level of functionality that most people probably don’t have to think twice about.
That being said, my therapist told me to try on optimism this week. So here is my attempt-
If it was not for my success with this treatment, I would have never known it was possible for me to have those moments of true wellness. I would still be stuck in the cycle of those days that turned into weeks that turned into months of suffering, hopeless, emptiness. A zombie version of myself that had started to become what felt like my true self. Dull, slow, void of emotion. Instead, I am now very aware that there are options beyond what I thought possible. Even as a last resort for someone (since it is so expensive), it can still SAVE A LIFE. It can bring you back from your zombie state. It can reintroduce you to the idea that you are not your illness. Often times with mental illness it’s very difficult to tell what parts of you are your personality and what parts are your sickness. It all starts to blend into one shitty blob until you’re certain that you’re just shitty and that’s that. But ketamine has allowed me to separate the two. I am not my illness. My illness lives along side me and it always will, but it is not me. I am so much more than bipolar, depressed, anxious.
New treatments are being born and developed each day. Mental health treatment may finally be starting to catch up with the rest of science and health. Instead of a guess and test method with medications — “this may help or this may make it WAY worse. Let us know” — they are finding new solutions with less side effects and less uncertainty. Ketamine and TMS therapies are showing promising results, and we can hope that the future will uncover even more options. [Boom, optimism!]
My next infusion appointment is set for this Wednesday, December 11th. The fight continues.
It has been a few days since my second infusion and I wanted to give a quick update. The infusion itself was much less intense and much easier this time around, which was a relief.
I am already noticing positive changes. My first thoughts in the morning haven’t been about how I wish I could sleep forever, how I don’t think I can get through another day, how I don’t see the point. Instead, I feel this little spark of resilience. A little flicker of hope in my chest that is beginning to fill up that hallowed out, empty space that was there before. I’m looking ahead to this week, rather than being stuck trying to figure out how to just get through the hour.
This is why I keep going with the ketamine. When I do finally get that boost, it gives me a foundation to stand on so that I can then use my other resources (therapy, help from friends/family) to continue my recovery. It doesn’t cure or end my depression, and I still have to put a lot of work into getting better. It’s a daily battle, but I am now feeling much more equipped to continue the fight. Depression had the upper hand for a while, but this double treatment of ketamine has helped level the playing field. I am glad to be back in the fight.
– Kristin
11/17/19
11/14/19
Thanks to the major support of my mom, I am going in for a second infusion treatment tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed it does the trick and helps pull me out of this. 🤞🏻
Thank you to all my friends and family and everyone who has reached out to offer their support after my last post. Knowing I’m not alone in this fight is tremendously helpful.
Depression tricks you into thinking you’re all alone, that nobody can understand the struggle or can actually help you. It tells you that you are worthless, that you are a lost cause and not worth fighting for. Don’t listen to it. Reach out, ask for help. Fight that voice in your head with everything you can. People need other people. You are not alone.
The Appointment
Yesterday’s appointment was a rough one. People have often asked me what the actual ketamine infusion feels like, and it is pretty impossible to explain. I’m sure it is different for everyone, but I’ll try my best to describe how it feels for me.
During the infusion I often feel like I’m Alice in Wonderland but in a medical setting (not quite as fun). The room grows, shrinks, transforms. I feel at times both weightless and like I’m sinking into nothing. Objects feel heavier, I can’t really move and I feel super disconnected from both my mind and body. My eyes feel as if they are spinning but I don’t feel dizzy. It’s hard to focus on any one thing. The music I listen to melts out of my earbuds into my brain and feels unbelievably intense. I sometimes want to speak but it’s impossible to get the words out. It becomes difficult to distinguish between what is really happening, what is my brain reacting to the drug, and what is a mixture of the two. Since it is in a medical office, I am hooked up to machines that measure my heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen levels. A nurse comes and checks on my stats every 15 minutes or so. While they are incredibly considerate and discrete, that can add to some of the confusion or fear. Once I had an infusion appointment shortly after watching Netflix’s show Maniac (highly recommend). During the treatment I briefly felt that I was being part of some crazy medical experiment. That is one example of how all your thoughts, along with anything you hear or see during the process can all influence your experience while you’re “tripping”.
Amidst all of that, there remains a small part of my brain that is aware. It is telling me this is all part of the infusion, trying to figure out what is real, trying to help me get a grip. That part of my brain is what sometimes sends me into a panic. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on and ground myself but when I can’t discern what is real and what is not anymore, my body goes into panic mode. This wave of intense panic usually happens towards the end of the infusion, when things are most intense. Luckily with the comfort of my mom, the incredibly kind staff, and some anti-anxiety medication, I can get through it. The intense panic doesn’t happen every single time, although I usually get some bouts of anxiety during each session.
Thoughts/Next Steps
With everything going on externally in my life, plus the intensity of this particular depressive episode, Dr. Patel suggested I would benefit from another infusion booster in quick succession (within the next week or so). He said that it might be the extra kick I need to get myself back. In a perfect world, I would choose this option in a heartbeat. I have been missing work, feeling incredibly hopeless, and my will to fight has dwindled considerably. But each infusion is costly – $500 per treatment. It is frustrating that I have to seriously consider whether I can afford to get myself the help I need.
Dr. Patel also brought up an interesting point – ketamine treatments keep people from having to be hospitalized. When people experience this intense distress, lack of functioning, and debilitating hopelessness, they are often treated in-patient at a psychiatric hospital to keep them safe. Since ketamine treats intense depression and suicidal thoughts/ideations, it often can completely prevent someone from having to go through that. As you can imagine, in-patient treatment at a hospital is considerably more expensive than ketamine treatments. Our healthcare system is broken and seems to always be more reactive than proactive – and that’s why these treatments may never be approved by the FDA. As someone who will be dealing with this their whole life (there is no cure for bipolar disorder or depression), that thought makes me want to scream.
I would like to try to end on a positive note. This treatment works for me. It exists in my lifetime. I am fortunate enough that I have people in my life willing to help me afford it, wonderful and selfless people who think that I am worth the investment (thanks Mom ❤ ). I have some hope that whether I get this second treatment soon or not, I’ll be back on my feet in the near future. Until then, I am just trying to survive.
November 7th, 2019
I haven’t updated in a long time. I’ve been trying to reflect on why that might be and came up with a few things.
I have been doing ketamine infusion treatments for almost a year and a half now. While there have been some major improvements, it’s also not exactly what I had hoped it would be. I’ll start with the biggest victories: I am off all medication for bipolar/depression (I still take medication for anxiety and sleep). Being off meds was a huge goal of mine from the beginning. Antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers all come with their own slew of side effects and long term effects. They can be harsh on your liver, cause weight gain, diabetes, and a have long term effects we are not even fully aware of yet. While I think medication is a great thing and something I will likely be back on in my lifetime, it has felt incredibly freeing to be able to be off medication and still be a functional human by treating my illness with just the ketamine.
Now for some of the challenges: I had to stop the at-home ketamine treatments. Ketamine gives me migraines, and taking it at-home 3x/week meant getting migraines essentially three times a week. Those headaches were affecting my way of life more than the depression was at that time. We weighed the options, and decided to see if I could still maintain my mood and current infusion schedule reasonably well without the at-home doses. So that was a bit disheartening. The other frustration has been that I am still getting depressive episodes. Nobody said ketamine was a cure – but I had hopes that maybe my episodes would be fewer and further between. Yet I’m still pretty regularly finding my mood falling quite a bit right before I need another booster (which currently sits right at every 4 weeks).
Back to the good news: I’m managing okay without the at-home treatments. The ketamine infusions DO improve my mood and help tremendously with functionality. Even when I start getting depressed again, I’m still mostly functional – keeping up with my responsibilities, maintaining my self care, sleeping well.
Overall, the ketamine is still the greatest treatment I have found for myself. It allows me to feel hope. It allows me to keep fighting. It shines a light toward the future where if I squint, I can almost make out a better version of myself. So for now I am sticking with it.
I also think it’s important to address that you have to still work *with* the ketamine. You have to use those “ketamine superpowers” I have talked about in the past and put them to the test. Make yourself stronger. Use that boost in order for it to reach its full potential. That is something I will definitely have to work on more. When you are so used to living life with something constantly dragging you down, it’s hard to make that change even when you’re feeling good. The ketamine lifts you up, but you still have to be the one to take those steps forward into the light.
Note: I debated with myself on writing this update right now. Having lost someone close to me to suicide at the end of September, my last few ketamine infusion “results” have been skewed by grief. My depression has been deeply compounded by that grief and I have not been functioning well or taking care of myself as I should be. Taking all that into consideration, I really can’t imagine where I’d be if I didn’t have this treatment plan to keep me from completely going off the deep end. I have my next infusion Wednesday, November 13th. I will try to update after that.
Sometimes I think the emptiness is the worst part. They say the opposite of love and caring isn’t hate, it’s apathy. When you feel hopeless and apathetic about your own life…that’s when it gets scary. I guess being numb has it’s benefits, but mostly it just makes me think of things I could do to try to make myself feel something. Feel anything.
Imagine waking up one morning. You open your eyes, yawn and stretch. You look out the window to a foggy grey day, but it barely registers. You glance at your phone to check the time, noticing you have a missed call. Whatever. You trudge downstairs, and as you’re fixing your coffee you realize something is missing. It almost feels like you’re dreaming. Your body is going through the motions, but your brain and your heart are nowhere to be found.
Even upon this unsettling realization, you feel nothing but a subtle curiosity at the fact that you woke up today as an empty shell.
Sometimes depression strikes hard, like a bolt of lightning in a clear blue sky. Other times it creeps up on you slowly, filling your mind with its poison drop by drop. Whether it’s suddenly and aggressively eliminating your hope and livelihood, or steadily drowning it over time, it always ends the same. The lightness you held on to so tightly is once again taken away.
Sometimes it’s like the intellectual part of my brain and the rational part of my brain are being held hostage by this crazy, paranoid, dramatic, agressive piece of my mind. The piece that wears tin foil hats and tells me everyone is out to get me. This wild-eyed and desperate piece of me also likes to bombard me with all these awful thoughts, tossing them at me like fucking grenades.
I’m brushing my teeth and then: HEY REMEMBER WHEN YOUR GRANDPARENTS DIED!GUESS WHAT EVERYONE YOU LOVE IS GONNA DIE.
I’m watching a show, minding my own business when GRENADE: YOU PUSHED AWAY ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND YOU WILL NEVER GET BACK THE PERSON YOU USED TO BE
And the more you fight it, the louder its voice gets. Tossing more grenades until you can’t make a move without one exploding. The sense that something truly terrible is going to happen envelopes you. Rational mind, intellectual mind, and batshit crazy mind all agree- it’s not safe.
Kristin on Ketamine 