Under the Waves

 Tuesday was session #26.  I will likely have one more session before the end of the year.  When I began this journey I had no idea how long it would last and I guess I did not imagine it lasting this long.  I thought I would know one way or the other by now if it was working.  But there has been a lot of unexpected on this path for me and well let’s just say the last few months of my life have required the Spravato to do a lot of heavy lifting.  Maybe more than should be expected of a drug.  Any drug.  A friend of mine said that if he had to endure half of what I have been thru the last few months he would have had a breakdown by now so maybe that is an indicator that the drug is actually working.  Maybe not as grand as I hoped for, but it is keeping me at least upright and putting one foot in front of the other.  Maybe that is all I can ask for.  That and the little gifts of wisdom along the way.

Today I woke up to my usual doom scroll (which is an addiction I really need to stop) and the first thing that popped up in my feed was a post from a woman in my Spravato group thanking the person (ME) who suggested the Revitalizing playlist as it resulted in her having an amazing experience!  I felt very good that I was able to use my knowledge and experience with this to help someone and give THEM some hope so at least that is a win.  And in that spirit, I continue this blog in the hopes that something along my journey will help someone else on theirs.  Both the good and the bad.  I mean why go thru the bad if it can’t prove useful to someone else along the way?

So my last session on Tuesday was a good one.  I took all 4 of the Magensium L-threonate.  I did 2 of them 2 hours before and the other 2 at 1 hr before.  I might have to try taking them all together but I was just uncertain how I would do.  I will say I did feel extra “high” even after the 2^nd dose.  I almost thought I might be sick after the 3^rd but I was ok.  Glad I took the anti-nausea meds for sure.  I just reclined the chair and relaxed and tried to keep my head still. 

This is probably the 10^th session where I have seen some version of this experience and up until now, I had no clue what it meant to me or how to process it.  Imagine a giant Aztec carving with deep ridges and symbols.  Like something you would find deep in a jungle untouched for thousands of years.  Ancient wisdom.  It is covered with green.  Like a moss not a grass.  I can still see all the ridges but they are green and fertile.  They are growth, growing from the roots of the wisdom beneath it.  But all of this is as if it is submerged under water.  Purple waves rush over it.  It is like being on a canoe on a crystal clear lake.  You can see to the bottom and there is clarity in those spaces between the waves.  But as the waves ripple over top it blurs what is under the surface and makes it impossible to see.  I am above it all.  Looking down through the haze and when the waves are calm, I can see clearly.  But there are a lot of waves and they come over and over.  What is down there under that misty purple haze?  It is frustrating.  I see it all over and over in every session and I can’t get beyond it. 

The green carvings feel positive. I have a reverence for them somehow.  I feel like they are almost alive, as if the roots of the moss settle into their groves and feed from their fertile base.

In the moment I really felt like there was wisdom for me, knowledge that I need and it was there but just out of my reach.  I could not see it clearly for any period of time and when I do have those moments of clarity when the waves pause ever so temporarily, I just don’t understand what I am looking at.  Like a sypher that I can’t read. I try to allow myself to drift over it and focus with the hope that if I am calm it will reveal itself to me and I will somehow understand it. 

This the first session where I was able to analyze this green carving under the waves afterward.  I find Jym as my therapist after my sessions.  Sometimes I just talk and say whatever my brain pushes out of my mouth.  This is why I encourage anyone who has these treatments to really talk about them afterward even if you think what you are saying makes no sense.  There is something in there that your brain wants you to process.  Allow that, what I call, “bonus healing”. 

I sorted thru it all and its random pieces and described what I saw.  Sometimes my hands are in front of me like trying to reconnect and touch the memory.  I describe what I saw and I allow my still groggy brain to process and analyze.  It is important to not wait to do this because the drug has an amnesiac affect and the more time that passes, the less you will remember.  I am lucky to have Jym but they do also offer therapy after your session as well so look into that if you don’t have a driver you can speak openly to. It also helps me to have Jym’s level head to also sort it out with me.  He is like a tether to the solid shoreline as I wade out into the abyss to collect any breadcrumbs I can find. 

Jym suggested I dive in. I remember feeling the need to dive in under the waves where I could get more clarity but I just couldn’t do it.  You can’t really will your brain to do things in these sessions.  It just does what it wants.  You just have to take what it gives you and try to sort it out.  And honestly, sometimes it gives you nothing useable.  But when it does, you need to just take it and do with it what you can. Maybe my brain is not yet ready for me to dive in.  I don’t know.

What I do know is that there is an enormous tablet of knowledge below my surface.  Wisdom older than time and it is the fertile ground for my own growth if I can learn to access it.  If I can find enough calm on the surface to allow me a glimpse of all of that.  Or I need to learn how to dive down below the waves in that layer of serenity where the water is still.  I have no clue how to do that.  I have been to date unable to will it into reality.  Maybe it will take a much stronger drug to access that level.  I have no idea.  Maybe this is just another puzzle piece in the canvas I am cobbling together over time. I just do not know.

So I am continuing this journey for better or worse right now and with the hope that I can gather as much healing as possible.  I know that with the new year things will be a challenge to have my sessions but I will do what I can when I can. That is the grace I have and can offer myself in this moment.  Nothing more.