1 Year In: The Bad Trip

 #38.  I have not had treatment in over a month due to work commitments both on my part and Jym’s and the holiday (when the clinic is closed). I have had an extremely difficult last 2 months being away from home with work and some added work stresses and I was probably not in a place to physically test my mental fortitude in my already fragile remission but here we are. 

Although I felt the slipping early on, I hoped it was possibly due to my nervousness about the whole month with no treatment thing combined with a very stressful work situation and that I would level out emotionally but the last 2 weeks in particular have been a struggle and one that was far deeper than I imagined. 

To add to my constant battle to keep my head above water, one of the PGA TOUR players at the tournament I was doing, took his own life.  (the last entry) It was a sobering reminder of how quickly and easily one can slip into the darkness.  I have to be constantly vigilant.  Constantly on my toes to stay aware of my mental state and where it is and where it is headed.  It is exhausting. 

Then this last week, when I felt I was finally on the last run before the hopeful reset of my next treatment, I had some medical issues.  Started with some abdominal issues and post nasal drip (which I always have due to allergies but it was amped up) which resulted in a sore throat.  My room reeked of mold and I am allergic so I assumed it was that.  By the weekend my nose had stuffed up and was running and I felt like I had a bladder infection.  I did a virtual with the online dr who was absolutely useless and refused to treat me unless I came in for a urine test but I had already taken Azo (and gas X and tylenol and pepto) which nullifies that result anyway so my suffering was prolonged. 

Jym was uncertain if I should go to my treatment but I had to.  And not just because I didn’t want to get hit with the cancelation fee.  I NEEDED this.  I needed it so badly and I had to get back on track with my twice a month sessions before I slipped into the abyss again.  I do not have the luxury to begin protocol again or even to go weekly at this point.  So I had to mitigate the damage.  And in the past when I have gone with a stuffy nose I have actually had a more intense experience ripe with breakthroughs so I hoped for something good to come out of something crappy. 

So today I got up and was not feeling great.  Very dehydrated.  I tend to not drink in the trucks because I have to pee too much and that is not good for my health at all.  I woke up at 2am and drank some drip drops electrolytes and tried to hydrate as I can’t drink before a session.  I realized Jym has an early shift Tuesday morning so he can’t do my usual cupping then so I decided to do it this morning.  I read it can increase my immunity and also help with congestion.  I almost threw up in the middle of it for some reason. So nauseous.  I just can’t get my digestion under control.  I decided that to avoid puking in my treatment I would take some CBD oil sublingually which did get the nausea under control before we left but I was unsure how it would affect the actual Spravato. My CBD is an isolate (THC is stripped out) so I thought it would be fine but was unsure. What I was definitely sure of was that I did not want to puke so in typical fashion like the rest of my life, I needed to focus on the shark that was going to eat me first. 

On the way to the clinic, Jym asked if I noticed the grit on my car.  I was parked at the hotel all week and something sprayed all over my car.  I noticed it when I got in to drive home but was unaware how extensive the coverage was and just used my wipers assuming it was the usual sprinklers.  Well he said it was all over the car and even in the grooves and he isn’t sure it will wash off.  This is an example of things NOT to be discussed before a session.  I tend to dwell on them and the amount they upset me before treatment is only exacerbated IN treatment.  Everything you are feeling is heightened and way more intense.  So of course this ended up following me through the doors. In addition, I have been struggling this past week in particular with some other issues I don't really feel like discussing here or anywhere.  Either way there was a heavy load I carried with me into that clinic and I knew it.  It is a lot of pressure to hope a tiny little nasal spray will wash all of that shit away. 

Once I got to the clinic it was kind of a bit of chaos.  Just a series of things not necessarily in my control that were a bit chaotic.  They switched up my meds again to ones you swallow (anti-nausea) which is not a big deal but I wasn’t sure what to do with them and by the time I came back from my bathroom trip they were ready to do my BP and set me up for monitoring and I did not have my socks or my mask or lozenge etc ready.  I tried to just breathe and do one thing at a time.  The last thing was the headset.  The nurse walked away after my first spray and I realized it didn’t work (this is always something I check BEFORE I spray but alas I was running behind and I didn’t want to hold up the nurses) so I tried to fix it myself.  No luck.  Finally the nurse returned for dose 2 and by now I can feel it kicking in so I knew it was going to be an intense session.  She tried to fix the ipad and again walked away but it kept shutting off.  So my eye mask was off and I was getting dizzy (which is why the eye mask goes on before you spray and STAYS ON ALWAYS...except apparently today) but you can't diagnose the iPad with a blindfold on.  It would start and then jump ahead and jump ahead etc and keep restarting so I try to flag her down and she finally ended up replacing it with another one.  Right after that was dose 3 and I felt extremely bad from the start. 

I wish I had a little video montage of my trip but lets just say I should not have watched all those video clips from Game of Thrones and then yesterday's breaktime LOTR marathon.  It was extremely bad.  Normally when I see monsters or horrible things I remind myself I am safe in a chair and that they are trying to tell me something.  I just let it happen.  But this time it was actually slightly scary and no amount of walking myself back from it helped.  At one point when I was still slightly lucid and trying to manage the visions, my brain saw fit to show me some RuPaul Drag Race divas and that was nice. LOL.  It was like a little fancy intermission before the horror movie finale.  Like “Hey drag queens!  So pretty!” then BAM, I slid back into my nightmare. 

I say nightmare because honestly that is what it was like.  You don’t control it.  You don’t navigate through it.  You are just in it for the ride and can’t get off or wake up.  I planned for the intensity of this but not the content.  And that was the real problem.  I know that I am not in a good place right now and so I know the brain brings up things we are unwilling or unable to address or cope with in our waking moments.  When I left the clinic I was crying and Jym reminded me that it is not reality, only a manifestation of my fears and thoughts.  But somehow it feels like my fears and thoughts ARE reality. Because I am seriously and honestly afraid that they actually ARE. 

Jym always asks me to describe what I saw.  All I kept saying was “everything is dying”.  It was apocalyptic, like Thunderdome level.  Everything, everyone, was covered in a dust, a tannish orange dust.  We were all filthy with it.  Even the strands of our hair were caked with it, it was heavy and thick, like the aftermath of a volcano's pyroclastic flow.  I tried to wipe it away and underneath it I could see the green knowledge (the Aztec green knowledge I referenced in previous blog entries) but it was also covered up.  I would try to uncover it but it would disappear again.

Then there was the connection.  I felt connected to all these other orange-dusted people.  I felt tethered to them.  All of them.  Like a web with invisible threads.  I saw them dying and felt them dying.  Like I, myself, was dying with them.  I could not stop whatever was happening. I was powerless against it. Then I felt it.  It was as if I was connected to the entire globe.  Like simultaneously I felt all the pain and anguish of the world. I felt it to the core of my soul. I was breathless. 

Then the darkness came.  Like a blanket of cloud-covered sunlight being pulled away as everything slid down into the darkness of the abyss. Everything that was green and alive was withering in front of my eyes and I couldn’t stop it.   As the sunlight slipped away it got darker and darker.  It was like being underwater and going deeper and deeper and everything was dead around me, withered and gnarled, twisted and suffering.  Green turned to brown and black, like scorched by some invisible flame. 

My psychiatrist always tells me to not focus on exactly what I am seeing (although I don’t really feel like it takes a master dream analyst to figure out where this all comes from in my psyche) but to focus on the feelings.  It felt heavy.  Weighted.  Like an anvil on my chest.  I actually wondered if I was having a heart attack at one point because the pressure was so heavy.  It felt hopeless and empty and terrible.  I have had bad trips before.  Don’t get me wrong.  I understand that they are part of the journey and part of the sorting process for my brain to heal.  I know all of that on the surface.  I also know it felt terrible.  I was crying on the outside and harder on the inside. 

Thankfully at that point the monitor went off and it was time for my mid-way BP check.  I had to pee so badly but I was seriously out of it.  I was dizzy and nauseous as I tried to stand and by the time I got to the bathroom I thought I was certainly going to puke but I made my way back to my chair and was able to get into the reclined position again with the mask on and spent the next hour coming down or leveling off or whatever you want to call it.  But by the time they did my final check I was still feeling so bad that I sat in the chair a bit after they gave me the ok to leave.  I was not well. Mentally or physically and damn sure not emotionally.  I don't even think I said goodbye to the desk ladies.  I barely acknowledged the Dr I love on the way to the second trip to the bathroom. I just pressed the big green button to open the door and walked out into the street.  

I think I cried all the way home and just kept repeating “everything was dying.  Its all dying”. I couldn’t even describe it.  What sucks about this more so than it was a bad trip was that I needed this trip so badly to NOT be a bad one.  I needed the healing.  I needed it desperately.  I know the healing is working in my brain despite the bad trip and I did tell myself that several times today but it does not feel that way right now.  I feel worse.  Also to add insult to injury, this was my 1 year mark on Spravato.  It should have been a different experience.  I mean I know I don’t get to choose when the growth occurs and I also know that growth can occur in the bad times as much as the good so I need to take what I am given but it was a lot of letdown for me.  I will need to see how this all plays out down the line I guess and how I do in the days to come but right now I feel awful. 

I came home and slept a few hours.  Jym was very supportive and loving and even cooked me dinner.  I am lucky to have him and his unwavering support.  When I was sobbing on the drive home he said that Neil Gaiman would say that things are not dying, they are in a state of renewal.  I sat in that thought for a while but I honestly do not feel that way.  I don’t know how anything ever thrives again in this world we are in.  I don’t know how we find peace and harmony as people when we are all so weighed down by the “orange filth” we are all covered in.  I can’t say that weight was not there before my session but I can say I did not find the light in that chair.  I am not sure I ever will again.