The Great Eye

I am writing this pre-treatment in the hour of solitude I have granted myself to be able to reset, meditate and ruminate on healing.  It is crucial that I learn to allow myself this time of reflection and contemplation to center and calibrate my mind to endure the treatment. My mind needs to be able to take in the drug and allow it to heal the broken edges.  I am resistant to it in those hours when I sit in that chair.  I can feel it.  I wall it off. I have never been someone who has allowed healing fully and wholly. I don’t know why.

Today during my half hour meditation I tried to imagine myself in a bubble shutting out all around me, the noises and sounds.  I froze everything outside the bubble so there was no distraction.  This is what I need to do in that treatment room.  Put myself in that bubble and quiet the noise outside of it, both the physical noise of the clinic and the mental noise of the chaos of life.

Today is going to be particularly difficult for me.  Tomorrow Jym will undergo surgery.  We are both extremely worried for his outcome and it has been a weight on me the last few weeks.  Both of our cars are also in repair and we are juggling that at the same time. It is a lot all coming down at once. I am at least grateful that I made it to this day without Jym being rushed into surgery while I was away the last 3 weeks with work.  We can now do it in a controlled way and I am HERE with him and I will be able to be with him at the hospital which was not possible when we went thru this similar situation during the pandemic when I had to leave him at the door and drive away.  So I have that small amount of peace.

Last night Jym said he had a terrible nightmare about being shot to death.  He was in a crowd of people and people were shooting and he couldn’t avoid it.  I told him that like with my ketamine, the mind does tricky and creative things but that what is at the core of that nightmare is his feelings.  I told him to focus on what emotions that is calling up for him.  Does he feel helpless, without control over what is happening to him? Because if I was about to undergo a very uncertain surgical procedure I might have those same feelings.  I would also be worried about death and dying and it being out of my control.  His mind is manifesting the fears he has inside and is unwilling to admit. 

That is where I am with the ketamine.  Unwilling to allow myself all of the healing and places my mind needs to go.  Even if those are hard paths through the core of what has created me and the person I am right now in this time and place. During my meditation I remembered the “trip” where I was digging down in the dirt and it was emulsifying easily and churning up. Digging deeper and deeper with my hands, allowing the bubbles of dust and dirt to be stirred up and released.  I need that image and also the bubble of protection blocking out all of the chaos to be the thoughts I take with me today into my treatment as I enter that room and allow my brain to do its mystical work and heal itself.  I need to be more than capable of that.  I need to be committed to it and to an outcome of healing.  I don’t know wht it is so difficult for me. 

Here I go.  It is time…

10 hours later…

Woooo.  Session 11.  That is what every session should be like.  Despite all of the stress in my day today I was able to successfully conquer the 2 hour treatment and be in a good place from start to finish. I remember feeling as I was coming out of it, that it was the best I have felt to date.  I was shocked at how calm I felt.

I was able to get both my anti-nausea meds today and they used the wrist BP cuff.  I was also in the perfect chair (my favorite.  The one by the bathroom. LOL) and the playlist was the usual one which makes me feel very comforted.  There was also no sneezing with this one. I felt like I was really turning a corner. 

I did feel like I tried my new bubble technique where I imagined a bubble around me but alas it did not block out the noise around me.  Turning up my volume in the headset, however, did help with that. I just find that I have to build up to it.  When I put the headset on the volume always seems loud and I turn it down but as long as I gradually increase it, it seems to help with the distracting outside noises like the people talking or the monitors beeping.  It is still there but not as noticeable. 

I feel like I remember a lot of this one as well which is so helpful.  I remember 3 distinct things from this “trip”.  Again with the purple and green colors which seem to be my colors.  But this time I had an experience with blue and purple swirling light and in the center a very white pure light. I have never to date had any experience with light in any of my trips so this was a surprise but a beautiful one. 

The next odd thing I remember was a yellow submarine for lack of a better way to describe it.  But not like a titanic implosion sub.  This one was solid. I felt very safe with it.  It moved down into the depths illuminating the water around it. It was like I was outside of it but close to it examining its surface from the outside.  As I got very up close to the very clear exterior it almost looked like a landscape.  Like a community as seen from high above.  It was very yellow and very solid and I felt it was exploring.  I later told Jym maybe it was representative of the ketamine which is burrowing deep down into the depths of my vast ocean, safely exploring and seeking out what is down there, hidden from my view. 

The last thing I remember very vividly occurred at the 45 minute mark after you are fully dosed.  I know this because it happened right before my monitor went off signifying the 45 minute BP check which happens exactly 45 minutes after your starting point from the doses.  I saw an eye.  A great eye.  Like enormous. I was very close to it.  It was like the eye of a dragon maybe.  A large creature.  Like an alligator eye but much larger.  I could see the wrinkles and lines around it and it was very vivid for me.  Even more vivid than the alligator eyes I have captured in my photography.  It was old.  It felt old.  Like not “elderly” old but “wise” old.  Like an ancient powerful eye of a creature not outlined but one I could sense.  It was not a scary. It felt powerful.  It actually made me cry.  But not in a bad way.  More like when you gaze upon a sight so majestic, amazing, that it brings you to tears.  I actually felt like the tears were a waterfall over my eye lashes.  They soaked my eye mask.  This great eye opened briefly to me. Like awakening from a great slumber after many years, slowly. But not in the way that you awaken after sleep uncertain of your surroundings.  This eye was focused and fixed as if it was always seeing even when closed. It did not look about in confusion but instead remained fixed.  I was not afraid of it.  I welcomed its awakening. Then my monitor went off with its insane beeping.  As I heard the monitor this giant eye closed itself gently again and returned to its slumber.  I felt the nurse’s hand on my arm gently wrapping my wrist in the blood pressure cuff. 

I spent the next hour contemplating my visions and also wobbling my way to the bathroom to pee. LOL. I felt content. At peace.  It was strange to feel that way in the midst of the uncertainty that faces me in my life.  But in that moment, within that 2 hours I felt a wash with a tranquility of spirit that I have not had for a very long time. 

I expected this to fade as the natural chaos and ridiculousness of my day moved in.  I had many moments of anger and frustration over the car situation and other absurdities but as I sit here now I still feel a great sense of peace which is especially odd with Jym’s surgery first thing in the morning.  I hope it lasts and carries me gently through the trials of tomorrow.   I hope it is also a sign of what I can hope for in the sessions to come.  Maybe session 11 is the sweet spot and its saving its best for last as I approach session 12, my last official session within the bounds of the protocol.  Also coincidentally my favorite number.  12.  Bring it.