Ketamine, Depression and The Weird Things That Help.

Before I begin this story, I need to share this personal tidbit. 12 years ago I was gifted a chakra tuning session at a tiny mystical shop that sold crystals and incense. The woman, who ran the shop is a great healer, She is also soo far “Out there” in the land of woo woo and what--in-the-world , that I have to prepare myself for every encounter with her. “This is her world” I tell myself…. I give over to it. I don’t allow myself to judge, I suspend all disbelief and I go wherever she wants to take me. I don’t smirk when she performs invisible pantomimed surgeries, I don’t even raise an eyebrow when she waves her magic wand around my head. I am grateful for her gifts. As she taps the wand on my shoulder.

“ Oh you have 14 angels that surround you always” she says, listing names like ezekialbalboa shavenmunez just huge strangely biblical names, In my head for the first time ever…I have seriously never experienced anything like this in my life. I see bright electric blue lights undulating in the darkness.   They look like manta rays, that swim up to my third eye and then morph into each other . It is calming and mesmerizing.

Over the years these blue rays become companions. In shavasana, after yoga as I lay still they appear like old friends, I love them, every time they show up I feel such joy and peace, and a connection to my ancestors and a larger world. It amazes me that I never had them before but that now they appear always the same way, beautiful, loving, calm. They show up in therapy sometimes, when I am delving into my psyche to shift some things around. And sometimes as I drift off to sleep they pop in to say hello. My last MRI They arrived to quell claustrophobia, and sometimes during a massage they feel so glad for the touch.They undulate like dancing sea creatures doing a roll move with their tongue. 

Now, that you know about them , I can tell you  A year ago the depression that skulks around the dark alleys of my life, got so overwhelming I called an ambulance to my home. I felt desperate and dark.  I checked myself into a hospital because I was binge eating myself to death.  I was in agony with my thoughts, and my behaviors of were so dangerous I felt like they would kill me.

At the hospital they took away all of my belongings , gave me a shot without telling me what it was, ( a shot in the butt meat, not like a shot of fireball) I stayed completely isolated for 10 hours in a padded room. Alone. And then I was transported to a treatment facility by cop car.  It wasn’t prison, this treatment facility I went to in the throes of depression, but it was like prison adjacent. Flickering fluorescent lights, plastic prison mattresses.  Fights broke out, there was a lot of yelling.  Some threatening behavior , some creepy dudes. I slipped and sloshed in another woman's period blood. I don’t know for what crime, but I felt like a criminal. A very bad girl who wasn't allowed pencils or shoelaces.

I was however  able to get off one antidepressant that I didn't want to be on, by going on another antidepressant that I didn't want to take. I think they make me worse, but when you ask for help, you have to take the help or you are a non compliant problem and that is the last thing I want to be.  The Mental health facility I was sent to, was not a place to heal depression, it was a place for people in crisis to be safe. And aside from the fighting and possible hepatitis exposure, I was where I needed to be I guess. I needed to interrupt my destructive cycle. 10 days without binging was helpful…But I recognized that if I was going to be free of this depression, I was going to need to find true and lasting help myself.

I spent this whole past year researching supplements, shock therapy, magnet therapy, brain mapping, tapping, and  acupuncture. I tried to deny the feelings of depression, fight thru them, just be happy…I tried to guilt myself well. Think of the suffering of others.

I read hundreds of articles on depression and eating disorders. I read all of the promising statistics on Psychedelics to cure depression. In fact, what I learned about psychedelics and depression was so eye opening, I could not believe the success rates , especially for people with treatment resistant depression like I have been diagnosed with.

I grew up in the age of cast iron skillet fried eggs that were supposed to be our brains on drugs. I didn’t want to turn into a cup of orange juice, which is what I heard happens to people if they drop acid. I was afraid of it all. And yet, the more I read, the more convinced I am that we have been lied to. Nothing makes me feel more like a crazy conspiracy theorist than this.

Big Pharma, the government, the one percent can not profit off a medicine that cures people of disease in one session. They can not make money if the medicine grows on literal cow dung. All they can do is make it illegal, a felony even to hold a plant.

It is infuriating to read how Bill W the founder of AA wanted psychedelics to be part of the addiction protocol. Because it works. Something about the combination of ego death and the strengthening of new neurons and creation of new neural pathways. It helps depression, ptsd, eating disorders, addiction. I believe it. I hear mushrooms calling to me. The mycelium that grows underfoot connecting the largest organism on earth. I hear it singing.  “We are here to heal the world. We are here for you”

So..I decide I want to do psilocybin which is the hallucinogen in magic mushrooms, or ayahuasca, but they are illegal in the states, and I learned that ayahuasca and mushrooms should not be consumed on my current depression medication Effexor. . Apparently the antidepressants work on the same part of the brain as mushrooms and other plant medicines. Every place I call  suggests that I be off Effexor for a month before trying them. I apply for several drug trial studies, one is for eating disorders and depression and they will wean me off of the effexor as part of the clinical trial. I have several phone interviews, but in the end I weigh too much. It is bad when you are too fat for a research study on fat people. 

So Ketamine looks like the next best option. . It is not as natural. I do not feel the earths pulse luring me towards ketamine. But it is the only legal hallucinogen in the United States. In fact there are ketamine clinics all over the country.

In my hunt, I found an amazing program that goes around the world running Ketamine retreats .I discover it on a wednesday evening and make a thursday morning phone appt. And this feels different then the clinics I have spoken with. It seems more immersive, more ceremonial and natural, less clinical.. I feel like I am talking to a new friend after only moments. “You sound like I did at one point in my life “ they say while asking about my mental health. “Let me be your guide Ed, I really think this could help you. And if you can get to New Paltz New York Bus station by 1pm tomorrow you can join our retreat that starts tomorrow!”

“How auspicious!!New Paltz New York Bus station” I had no idea where this retreat was going to be I had just called a random phone number on their website. It felt like kismet as one of my favorite people, My cousin Allison, lives DIRECTLY across the street from the new paltz NY bus station. It felt like a wink in the right direction. When I ask the actual location of the retreat, The street, that it is on….it is my maiden name. I know that I must go. Everything in my head is dark. But this lights up for me.  I hang up the phone, buy a ticket to NY, run to the bank, do alchemy in the parking lot and pull money out of thin air. On the way home from the bank I realize I should not be driving. My wonderful friend Ian says, I can take you to the airport but we need to leave in 15 minutes.

By the time my wonderful Ian picks me up. I am in a full sweat and dry heaving. This is the most movement I have had in weeks. I have not done laundry in even longer.  I have filled the Biggest suitcase that I own with all the dirty clothes on the floor and everything a person could need at a retreat for depression. Apparently this meant zero pajamas not a single coat or a hat but 3 kneaded art erasers a wiccan logbook,two sets of watercolors and a couple reams of yarn for friendship bracelets. It does not escape my sense of humor that I am bringing my dirty laundry all over the continent. 

Somehow I make it thru airport security sweating and gagging, some how I wobble to the gate crying from pain.i survive the humiliation of seat belt extenders and I make myself as small as I can on the airplanes. Somehow I do it all and arrive in New York. at 1am.

12 hours later I hug my cousin goodbye and get into a strangers truck for an epic adventure to do psychedelic drugs and heal myself of depression..

I haven't had time to think or ask questions. We drive thru the brilliant burnt orange leaves of late autumn in the catskills. I learn I am staying in a yurt and that the yurt has no electricity. If I wasn’t so depressed I would be sooo excited for adventure!

Trying to pull a giant suitcase full of dirty laundry thru the woods makes me laugh. There is a giant boulder in front of my yurt. The boulder is fashioned vaguely like steps,  I weigh 320 pounds. I can barely do step shaped steps. Have you ever tried to hurl 320 pounds up a boulder, in flip flops?  I see that I am sharing the yurt with two other women. I already feel bad for them, I snore, and I pee 7 times a night, and I don’t really know how to sleep…oh and all my clothes are dirty, and I have to scale the steps on all fours like an angry grunting bear. I throw my stuff on the tiny twin bed and wondered briefly how the pinched nerve in my neck is going to enjoy this.

Oh. by the way, I have a pinched nerve in my neck. But first things first. I can not heal myself until I actually care to heal myself. This depression has just damped out all will or gumption.

I make it down the hill to check in, where I realize I am the oldest person here and that I am surrounded by supermodels. Every woman here is gorgeous, They have outfits and they smell good. There is make-up. People have brushed their hair?!! What kind of depressed people are these? Every one hugs me. 

I felt exactly the same overwhelm of depression that  I did a year prior when  I was stripped of all dignity in the hospital. But instead of being treated like a criminal for sadness, I was treated like a heroic explorer embarking on a journey to wellness. I felt loved and I felt safe.  I was not alone. This is how you treat depression.

My blood pressure is too high during intake. Of course it is, I am in a ton of pain , I just scaled a boulder. I am about to do some scary drugs, oh and I generally have high blood pressure .If there is a gift in depression, it's that I don't care enough to freak out about anything.

I haven't had a panic attack since the depression too hold, But I happened on a whim to pack Propranolol. It's a beta blocker, I have never taken it before, but The PA in charge of administering the Ketamine suggests it would be a good idea. I start imagining that I have come all this way and that I am too fat for Ketamine. But I don’t linger there. I take the medicine and my blood pressure comes down.

 

Soon enough I am stretched  on a yoga mat, listening to calming music and meeting all of the other participants. There are ten of us 9 women, 1 man. I hear the man say “ I guess im the only guy here, real men probably just do the street drugs, he laughs” I cringe, “ I don’t want to just do drugs, I don’t want to party or have a good time. I just want to want to be well. To get out of bed. We are divided up into partners. He becomes mine, of course he does…. universe, of course he does. 

 

I close my eyes and concentrate on my intentions, what I have come to work on. I recite to myself that I am here To heal my relationship with food. To stop binging, to treat my body with love. We are given angel cards and a word to concentrate on. I pick the word Trust. I ignore it, I am here to work on binge eating and depression, I am given a soft black out eye mask and really good bose headphones. I see my intentions clearly In my mind A playlist has been prepared and downloaded, I wait as two beautiful women make their way around the room administering this magic potion.  

     

They have long shiny clean hair and open faces, they look at me so lovingly I have to turn away. I repeat my name and birthdate a triple check that I am getting the correct dosage. The shot goes in and they pull my blankets up for me. They adjust my eye mask, Rubbing my arm softly “enjoy your journey ED” they say. 

I concentrate on my breathing as I listen to the music. It feels perfect, calming, clean, new music. I feel like I am embarking on a roller coaster. I have sat in the cart and it slowly eeks its way to the top of the roller coaster hill. “Cure this depression, be good to your body, love yourself, heal your relationship with food,” I am trying real hard to stay focused as I Slowly slowly slowly clink along almost to the top and then Woooooshhhhhhh I am flying. Wow it is beautiful I think to myself. Omg, I think I feel good. I immediately see my blue rays. There they are, right here along with me for the journey, I am so happy and then….wait a minute, wait a minute, THESE ARE NOT MY BLUE RAYS. These are not my sweet angels. AT first They looked just like them but I got closer and their shapes shifted into evil faces, angry faces, mean scolding dangerous faces, blue and glowing laughing maniacally. I start to feel afraid, I remember that with psychedelics, fear is a doorway, I tell myself to walk thru it, to get closer, to be unafraid. And as I get closer I see a muddy ravine, 

 

The journeys last 90 minutes. I spent the majority of that time in this muddy ravine, it was a death march, the ravine was full of wounded men, this was a trench, it was wartime, I see filthy men screaming, severed limbs, severed body parts, wails and horrors. Men bloodied and bandaged, caked with mud, infection already setting in. They carry the most wounded on their shoulders. Their mouths are full of mud. The dead look like clay sculptures. The living have eyes with no white parts. They are a different kind of dead, exhausted, trudging trudging. I tell myself to not be afraid, I say this is going to be messy ed, we have to get this bad stuff out, before we can let the good stuff in. At some point I see shamans dancing with feathers and headdresses, their faces contorted, there is a mountain of vagina, its vagina mountain, some followers are praying and chanting by her stream. And then it is back to the trenches again. I see men clawing at the mudslides flanking them, burying them, they are getting too crowded to move, they heave and ho trudging on slower and slower. Thats how the ketamine works…. Real fast and then it slows down and kind of peters out. I am now just a person listening to music, laying on my back feeling all the pain in the world. 

  

The journey ends I remove my mask, I sit up and I am still depressed. I had read that many people are cured of their depression instantly, and for others it takes several tries. Success rates over 80 percent. I try not to feel discouraged. But I wonder….Have I made a mistake?

  

We have this amazing vegan chef. Who has prepared a beautiful meal for us, I think it is a root vegetable stew and it is adorned with edible flowersI  Her name is Tova, and she has prepared root vegetables, to ground us after our journey…I think how beautiful and intuitive that is . This is how I want to eat, this is how food should be. 

I think back to The white bread and jelly I was given in the hospital, I ate it knowing that it would not bring me any closer to healing. I know that you can not heal depression with sugar. But this root stew and colorful vegetables, it was clean and alive. I would be me again if i could allow myself the gift of eating like that. And among friends already too. We sat as one big family, the ten participants, the shaman, the medicine man who encouraged me to come , the dr and administrators, the chef, three dogs. I love it here. I sip water out of a mason glass. 

Getting to know everyone a little more, I learn that out of the 10 of us, 3 women are licensed therapists specializing in eating disorders. That seems hilariously serendipitous to me. They, having read the latest research about ketamine and eating disorders wanted to experience it themselves before blindly recommending it to their patients. I loved them all instantly. 

After dinner we meet for an integration circle to share about our experiences. I am asked to go first and for the first time in maybe my whole life , I  am not ready to speak. I am afraid to sully anyones spirit with negativity. I don’t know if by putting something scary out there it could effect someone elses journey. I listen as everyone describes the most beautiful experiences. When It gets back to me, I say just that, I am afraid to share of my terrible trek of death and dying thru the mud . I am encouraged to share and at somepoint it occurs to me to say that I am really struggling to trust myself. I don’t trust that I know how to eat or breathe, I don’t trust that I can  take care of myself. Or get better  And yet somehow in this horrible vision I trusted myself to watch unafraid .and then I realize. I have said trust a whole bunch of times. That was the angel card that had come to me. Trust. Oh and for all my  diligence in preparing to work on my eating disorder and body and depression.  The ketamine took me where it wanted to go. Maybe I can trust that too?

We wandered outside and sang by a fire. Having no jacket I wrapped myself in blankets and someone named me the Queen of Comfy Town! (That’s a great name right!) . Everything felt copacetic.

I walk unafraid thru the woods at night and manage to sleep a bit. I wake up to pee and step outside in the cold. I can not make it to the bathhouse so I squat in the woods. As I look up at the sky, I see a shooting star.  It feels like it is just for me. I feel an ancient tug of connection.

I do yoga in the morning, I don’t want to but I force myself to show up, and then our next journey. I ask for more ketamine, and then a little more. I want to truly experience it and I do. This time I am unafraid and as I clink up to the arc of the roller coaster, and when I take off. I take off to a place I have never been before, a new world. So vast. I see intricate layered maze-like landscapes, I see other worlds and other alphabets. I raise my hands and start conducting. The first journey I had the sense of being stuck unable to move, But now my arms are up.. I felt like whatever I was doing with my arms was surely the most beautiful thing ever done with arms ever, I was a dancer, a ballerina leading an orchestra. As I moved my arms I made trees grow and lands develop, I affected time and life, my hands created everything and all at once I thought , omg, look what I can do, I make and create everything, omg, am I God, wait, am I THE God, do I make everything that happens in life, OMG NO….We are ALL gods orchestrating our own lives, I am ecstatic waving my hands to turn day into night, to build temples and grow grasses, to see and experience everything. I suddenly see the whole universe and more universes and like a camera pulling out farther and farther and I realize that all of our universes are just one little bump on the nose of a dragon, and that there are millions of bumps and millions of dragons and that the universes inside of us are equally vast… It is so beautiful and intricate and then it slows down, and I am just a person laying on hard ground waiting for time to pass. For my third journey I tell myself I need more pillows. 

  

Having had one positive beautiful ketamine experience, I was ready for the next one, to maybe harness my intentions, cure the depression, unearth the eating disorder. I have extra pillows. I am ready. “ have a good journey” they tuck me in. I am listening to the music, going up up up and just as I reach the precipice. Just as I am about to go flying I hear a scream. 

“Nooo, Oh god NOOO what have you given me, You have killed me I am dead, OMG WHat have you given me.Make its stop” He is Screaming so loud make it stop” I hear flailing around the room, someone is throwing something. It is my Buddy..my partner, the guy…..I lay there calculating. Ok there are ten of us, there are three guides in here now, there is the chef, how will they restrain him, how long will it take for an ambulance, omg what if there is something wrong with this ketamine,  what if we all start freaking out. He is going crazy, I do not feel safe, I am scared. I raise my hand off my body somehow “ I am scared I say” “is he ok” One of the facilitators is at my side now. she is soo calm, holding my hand so lovingly “he is just releasing what he needs to release” she says… I beg her not to leave me. I can’t believe I am under the influence of this crazy drug, I feel blind and terrified. I hear rumblings around the room. Time to grow ED. I ask if she needs to attend to other people. I ask her to turn up my music as loud as it can go, and I hug the earphones to my head. I press them hard to my ears until I can not hear the screaming. I realize that My journey has now become his journey. I am experiencing what he is screaming, and I am soo angry. I press the earphones to my head and I think to myself “ I AM NOT GOING TO LET ANOTHER FUCKING MAN STEAL ANOTHER FUCKING THING FROM ME” I press the earphones tighter and try to find my own journey again. 

I have never driven drunk, or been pulled over by the cops while driving drunk, but I imagine that it feels like how this ketamine Journey felt. I was instantly sobered and as much as I wanted to go back to orchestrating the beautiful worlds and seeing all the dragons and the inside worlds and outside worlds…I was wondering what I meant when I said…I AM NOT GOING TO LET ANOTHER FUCKING MAN STEAL FROM ME.  I think I am angry about something. I lay there stewing about it until I felt people start to move about. I was glad for my buddy. Who triggered so much in me.

I didn’t read anything about what to expect on this retreat. I just knew I had to go. SO it was a big surprise when they turned down the lights and introduced poison eye drops to the mix. ( I forget the name for this medicine , but it’s a plant maybe from the Amazon?)

I assume everyone's eyes are important to them, but as an artist…the idea of putting poison in my eyes…it didn’t appeal. However There is my Shaman. The minute I saw my shaman, I thought “wait, am I you? Are you me” In her eyes I saw something so familiar I can not put it to words, but I just wanted to be near her, breathe her air, know her. She is kindness and love to everyone. I heard her tell all of us that she loved us. But to me, Ii felt special. I felt a bond she is my medicine, and I would walk anywhere she said to walk. Like a guide who shows you where to step for the best footing. The eyedrops we were told would be very painful, and you will be blind for a few moments . Breath thru it Moan, scream, release. OOOhh AGGGG EEEEHH AYYYE UUUUUU. There we were all writhing on the floor chanting our lamaze, I can not believe how much it hurt and how much screaming and breathing and enunciating help. I learned something in that exercise. When the screaming stopped and vision returned, I could see that there were buckets placed around the room. 

Its spelled Rape with an accent over the e but its pronounced like Ha Pey.  After some sage and a little prayer and some tweeting like a bird my Shaman who I would follow anywhere. Took a long pipe filled with the ash of burnt tobacco and bark from amazonian trees and plants. She put it in my nostril and blew until it came out my mouth, and then when I recovered from the pain she did the other nostril. 

The buckets. They are for vomit. They are for sitting in a circle with my new friends and hacking and gagging and retching. Blow your nose, spit, purge, run to the bathroom, puke. I am in disbelief at myself. My fear of vomit has ruled my life and here I am willingly waiting for it. In a group. I listen to the puking around me. Everyone is gagging, but not me, no, I feel an instant peace. I am nauseas a large part of every day, but the minute the tree bark hit my throat I felt clear and balanced. I swayed to the drumming. I felt very focused and alive. 

“Did I do it wrong?” I ask my shaman when its over? I explain the sensation of calm but how I feel like if anyone needs to purge it is me. I am holding onto some shit,.  “Well it sounds like this is your medicine ED, maybe it just wants to be in you. We can do another session in the morning if you want.”   I go to sleep thinking how weird it is that I just willingly signed up to have tree bark ash blown up my nose and to puke in a bucket in the morning. 

I force myself to do yoga in the morning and I trust my Shaman as she pushes up my giant belly and manipulates my psoa opening my hips. I trust her as she prepares the pipe and sings to me.  The yoga room is bathed in light, we are alone sitting on the floor. I am uncomfortable in my body, there is no way to sit. But I lean in and take the tree bark up my nose, this time there is more, I will purge, I cough as the ash comes out my mouth, but again, a rush of calm washes over me. I begin swaying and my Shaman is singing, she wants me to repeat what she sings. I have no embarrassment and i am aware how rare that is. I have always been embarrassed of my voice, my lack of rhythm. I feel nervous just clapping to a beat, singing happy birthday I feel like I'm off key and ruining it for everyone, even the OM I release in yoga, feels wrong. SO when I open my mouth and I sing, Aye aye aye Trust myself. I sing I love myself, I trust myself, I am alive I am breathing, I am moving I am singing, I trust myself. I sing my ancient sounds and I feel transported in time I am dancing around a fire, My tribe is asleep, I am singing our songs. Ayayayeee trust myself.  People peek in to see the commotion, they tell me later it was beautiful. I know it to be true, as I was singing something in my throat opened up like a bloom. It has never been opened before. It was amazing. I heard sounds come out of me I have never heard and when it was over and the song came to a close My shaman was crying oh how I love her so. 

   My throat is tight again. But just knowing that it has the ability to be different and open and free. It has somehow changed me. 

There are lightly fried squash blossoms for breakfast and other deliciousness. I feel so lucky. Everyone walks to the waterfall, but I stay back and journal and reflect. 

I have gotten so much out of this retreat. I don’t want to leave.

Am I depressed still? I can not tell? I don’t feel the same, but I don't know what is different. . 

In the morning one of my amazing yurt mates drives me back to the new paltz bus station and to my cousin Allison who lives across the street. 

As we are driving I have the realization that the voice in my head that is constantly telling me how awful I am… it was gone. Obliterated. The space in my head that says terrible things was empty. Replaced only with compassion, and love, for myself and everyone on the planet.  I have never felt such love or ease with myself. 

I am the same person in the same body I arrived in a few days ago, but I do not have a single bad thing to say about it. I couldn’t even invent one? It was like my body forgot all the words to put itself down, like it was a language it didn't understand. I could not say a bad or unhelpful thing about myself. Wowowow This is what people who don’t have depression must feel like? OMG I don’t have depression. What on earth!  this is amazing. That day I cook two soups while standing up to cut the vegetables. I go on walks despite my pain and actually want to walk farther. I feel content, eating is easy, effortless. I trust myself. I trust my body to make the best decisions. Ayyeee Trust myself. 

  

I return home to my life with new energy, I start making plans, I look up plane tickets to see people that I long to see, I have so many ideas of things to do and create and build. I feel excited for my future. I see a future! And that is so huge.

I tell several people this long story and apologize for the rambling on and on and every person says it's such a positive story and they needed to hear it. I feel like I bring good news and good fortune.

I arrive home and feel wonderful for a total of six days.

Six days completely free of depression, depression obliterated and replaced with compassion and love. And then all at once.

The depression comes back. 

So here I am, exhausted. 

Back in bed. Unable at times to even hold my head up. I spew hate towards myself. I try to stop it, but streams of terrible worlds spill all over me. It has all gone dark, I am feeling around for hope, resting and praying for the energy to get up again.

i have drawn the conclusion : That I don’t think anyone really knows what the “Effexor” is going on here. I really don’t, I don’t think there experts know what the path should be and I don’t think society as a whole has a plan for treating the masses of depressed and unwell people. I think That we are at the very beginning of understanding how the brain experiences depression . We are in the infancy of depression treatment . 

Prior to having the major depression I have now, I would have said that you can heal completely with sunshine, exercises, yoga , meditation, breath work, nutrient dense foods, removal of certain elements from the diet. Having a pet, building a community… getting out side of yourself. Doing good for others. Writing a gratitude journal. Hydrating! Keeping a routine and getting enough sleep….. but there is a species of depression that does not allow you to do those things. It is a mind prison. So if you are like me and have been doubling down on self loathing for not doing the things you know will help you feel better. Ease up. No one really knows what’s going on , and you have to be a little bit ok in order to get a little bit more okayer. You have to have the energy to roll over in bed before you can even roll out of it. Just Don’t give up. Keep going no matter what. The cure may be in tomorrow.