Digging In The Dirt

This morning I was feeling the weight of some issues in my life and knew I needed to shut that down before my session.  I stick with my 1 hour before I leave plan of meditation and today I tried a new one I had on my ipod.  I found that the guided meditation was too specific for me and so I went with one that was simply healing music that is intended to heal with the tone. I felt that was more relaxing and allowed me to take my mind where I needed it to go.

I thought about how the ketamine is maybe forcing the negative stuff to the surface and imagined it digging down into the blackness and felt it was like a volcano but pushing the bad stuff up and that is maybe why I feel so bad right now.  I am extra super depressed this last week and very aware of my social anxiety.  I don’t want to go out with anyone and even had to force myself to have dinner Wednesday with my friend at work.  I have been reclusive for some time now but it feels exacerbated for sure now.  I am considering that maybe the medicine is pushing it all up to the surface so it can be pushed out but I have to go through this sort of detox period to get there.

I also considered that every other thing I have tried for my depression has always taken time to work.  Even the acupuncture took many treatments over months to get me to a point where I was out in the light and honestly that first month was the hardest month for me because I was detoxing from the pharmaceuticals I was on at the time.  I definitely remember feeling much worse before I felt better at all so I am hoping that is what is happening here.  Maybe the ketamine is detoxing the deep sadness and crap and it is just taking time to wade through that.  Maybe it is just welling it all up and that is why I feel so bad. 

I honestly felt so much better just meditating on it all and felt very calm and at ease when we got in the car.  I decided to let Jym drive today and try to carry on my tranquility and hopefulness to my treatment session.

We were on a back road to avoid traffic and too many humans.  About halfway there we were at a red light behind a tow truck with a flat bed which had a wrecked car on it.  I think we took notice to it because the sunlight was piercing the glass on the car and shining into our faces.  Our full attention was on that car.  It had a sticker in the back windshield which said “Visualize. Dream. Build. Escape.” It was kind of funny because the car was seriously wrecked.  It was missing the trunk and had carboard stuffed in it and the side door was hanging slightly open. I was not sure if that was because of the accident it was in and maybe did not close or was being held that way for some reason.  Either way I took the moment to comment on the sticker to Jym and said that car was like the embodiment of my life right now.  A total wreck with these hopeful words on its glass. 

As the light changed the tow truck stepped on the gas and went forward into the intersection but the car decided to stay behind and literally careened off the back of the tow bed onto the street.  If Jym would have been closer to the truck when it happened the car would have landed on our hood!!  Jym swerved to the right and the car behind us to the left and we both avoided getting hit by the car now rolling backward down the road.  The tow truck did notice he lost his load and stopped in the intersection.  I am guessing this is what my therapist meant by “don’t do anything that freaks you out before your session”. LOL.  This “final destination” nightmare could have literally killed us due to the obvious negligence of the tow truck driver to strap the car down properly.  But I think the meditation and Jym’s fast reaction to save us from being hit really allowed me to eventually re-center myself. 

When we pulled into the parking garage he just put the car in park and we hugged each other tightly having survived that ordeal and it reset my brain.  I highly recommend hugs and kisses.  It seemed to help me last time too. 

I went back almost immediately and they asked me if I wanted the anti-nausea meds.  I decided that since I did so well last time when I forgot to take them so I felt I would be ok without them.  This would be a mistake but you never know I guess.  Had to try and last time I did ok without so I assumed I would be ok this time too. 

The session itself went really well and was probably the best one I have had yet.  I studied the sprayer so I could hold it correctly even with the sleep mask on.  The vial has a place for your fingers and there is a nose guard that runs perpendicular to the finger placement so if you can feel for the finger placement you will be able to align the nose guards up to your nostril better and that did work.  I also did not rush it and focused on inhaling the drug and then holding my nose closed which kept me from sneezing it out which seemed to be a think for the last few sessions. 

I would like to comment on the blackness.  Close your eyes.  It is dark.  It is black.  But when you undergo this treatment I will say that I experience a black more like when you go to the movies and they show you the screen in “black” and then they enhance half of it in BLACK.  It is almost the black of the universe.  It is an ultimate black. When I close my eyes and put on my sleep mask there is black.  But then when the drug kicks in and I open my eyes behind my mask there is a black that is indescribable.  It is as if I am enveloped by it but not in a bad way. It is like entering the vastness of space. It is the blackest black you can imagine and then add more black. Eventually in the heart of the black I get some purple.  A “purple rain” if you will but more like a rain of clouds.  A wisp of purple falling gently like snow. It is like a soft place to fall from into the rest of the experience.

This was probably my most enlightening “trip” to date.  I felt a digging in a sense.  Like the ketamine’s invisible hands were stirring up, cultivating this rough hard compacted soil and almost emulsifying it, making it loose and malleable.  It bubbled up but it was not around me.  It was in me.  I realized that everything that has happened to me my whole life has been mashed down and become hardened.  I have spent most of my life simply covering it up, not breaking it up.  When I was writing I was breaking it up.  In the years I was successful with my treatment through acupuncture and Eastern medicine, I was using my writing to expel what the acupuncture and herbs were stirring up. But all of that stopped 7 years ago and I have been frozen and everything, all of that pain and muck I was digging up fell like sediment back to the bottom and it hardened, untouched, unexamined. The longer the years wore on and the tragedies of my life piled up on top of that I became even more unable to stir that sediment up and almost worked to make sure I didn’t because I could not handle what would come out of that.  This drug is allowing me to at least stir that up and hopefully heal it. 

I know it is a lot to break through and ambitious to expect that of this drug. But I have to believe that is what is happening and the ketamine is breaking down the hard layers and not just covering them up like so many drugs do.  This drug, unlike the others, is intended to heal and not just mask. It is getting down in the cracks and breaking that surface layer of pain and dredging up what needs to rise to the surface so it can be expelled.  I did see monsters this time too and there were many but today they started to dissolve away to dust as they would appear.  I remembered to “focus on the feeling” and not the vision my mind created as I was told to do by the therapist.  For me the feelings I was having were not any kind of terror or fear but relief.  Like this might finally be working and doing what I need it to do.  I am feeling cautiously optimistic. 

This week I spent a lot of my alone time finishing a book I wrote but can never publish.  I did it to banish the monsters.  I did it because I deserve to finish it.  Jym said I need to finish it and be done with it.  All of it.  All of that pain and anguish.  Until I finish it I won’t be able to move on.  I feel like, for some reason, that the monsters I saw dissolving away to dust today were a few of the monsters in my book.  I just felt that. I hope that I am right and this is not a false façade right now. 

I had to pee again but I have accepted that as long as it is at least halfway thru and I am clear of the “trip” I can get up and go.  Today I did it alone.  I didn’t even press the call button for a nurse.  I just got up and as I told Jym, “hula”ed my way to the bathroom.  Like I was riding the waves of the air with my hands to move me along.  Afterward I felt so at peace for once that I was easily able to rest.  After my last BP check she cleared me to go and when I got up I did not feel well.  By the time I made it to the lobby to text Jym (who was out sampling the fine foods of Kissimmee again. LOL), I was about to vomit and told the receptionist who went to get me a puke bag and Caitlin.  She brought me the anti-nausea drugs and an alcohol wipe which apparently helps when you smell it to alleviate the nausea.  I am not sure what happened since I had such a great experience today but then to get sick afterward was a bit disconcerting, but I was finally able to get up again and leave and at least I was fasting since last night so I knew I was not at least going to hurl up a pile in the parking garage.  This is why they tell you to fast.  Some people ignore that obviously. 

I guess from now on I should just take the anti-nausea precautions and be safe so this does not happen again.  I wanted to savor my positive session and instead spent it trying to not dry heave in my car. 

I have a lot of hope for the next few treatments now and that is giving me some positive momentum.  I hope that Wednesday continues this forward motion.