Ketamine Session 6 - Astonishing
K:6
It took forever to recover from K-5. I still felt Ketamine in my teeth when I sat down for K-6. In the week since K-5 I backslid. I felt like a bad mom again. I felt guilty for not doing enough for my son, for not being present enough. Old thought patterns emerged through the funk of guilt and started to solidify. Don’t you fucking dare. I got scared. I didn’t want to go back there.
Before my first session, I was told it could get worse before it got better. And it’s been so ridiculously good—the clouds parted with almost no effort of my own—that I thought I was cured. Then a couple bad days and I felt myself sinking again. How could I go from so bad to SO GOOD to bad again? All week I beat myself up, had no energy, and cursed through too much head pain.
Things started clearing six days after K-5. When faced with stressors and triggers that would’ve normally sunk me deeper into the pit of depression, I needed an alternative outlet. I couldn’t turn to food anymore, or the TV, or shopping (I did all those things, and they didn’t help). If you create a void where a bad habit or pattern—or a whole lifetime of bad habits and patterns—used to be, you have to fill it with something good or at the first sign of trouble, the first rumble of thunder, you slip right back into the familiar—the old crap that got you buried in the depressive muck in the first place. I haven’t exactly figured out what to do yet, but I’m recognizing the feeling of sliding down that slippery slope and know that now is the time to create something remarkable in that void.
By the time I sat in the chair for K-6, I was smiling again, and able to talk about my “bad week” with a jovial spirit, rather than terror at the edge of despair.
I try talking myself out of these blog posts from inside the ketamine trip because I can’t describe this beauty.
I can’t explain the levels of mind I feel. The awareness that the mind is a layered and revolving tapestry and from inside I flit between levels, hearing all, seeing all, understanding all…the mind unfiltered. I wish—this time and every time—that the freedom I feel here—the freedom to love everyone—including myself—that much, to live peacefully, to smile, to enjoy life, to exist without pain or fear or worry, to see the silliness that is all prejudice, racist, sexist, and dark—stays with me.
I never think about my weight here. Or addictions. Or the possibility of ever actually being depressed. I’m light as a feather. I feel someone touching my hand. A ghost? Then I’m moving. I’m conscious, briefly, of the needle in my right wrist and I hope it doesn’t come unplugged as I float about the room. I’m rocking now. It’s like being in a hammock with someone gently swinging me back and forth. Back. Forth. I see symbols from the hammock that I can’t recall. It reminds me of the suits of playing cards—but that’s just me trying to conceptualize the unfamiliar with something I’ve seen before. I’m suddenly extremely grateful for being there, for that vision in particular, that I could never adequately describe but—in that moment—was a shining example of the strange places I found myself while I was inside.
I traveled far during K-6. Places I can’t even talk about. I felt the presence of a higher power. I called it God. But God isn’t a man in the heavens throwing lightning bolts, judging his sinful prodigy. It’s a feeling. Pure peace, love, and acceptance.
I set an intention this time, and it was simply to allow my walls to come down and let the love in, even when I’m back in the outside world. I feel good again.
Near the end, a single word comes to mind. Astonishing.
As I waited to get unhooked at the end, I find some 80’s hair band music on my phone—a stark departure from the water and bells music I listen to during the trip—and relax knowing it’s back. Every ounce of goodness. I’m above water, and I can breathe. And I fucking love it here.