Mental Health Matters

This is a post that I was not sure I would ever share. I know a lot of people don't actually read much here on Hive, but for those that do, this may get a bit long and it won't be anything like my traditional posts where I just share pictures I take. I think I am writing this post more for me to be able to keep a journal of my therapy.

Over the past year, I have had family members do ketamine treatments for depression and anxiety and every one of them that has done it has had some really good success from it. I have been interested in doing it myself, but it is pretty expensive, so I had put it off. As many of you here on Hive know, I was in the military and law enforcement for a large part of my life. During that time, I was exposed to some pretty horrific things.

I spent nearly three years at war, and since I got back, I have had a war going on inside my head. With everything going on around the world with Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Palestine, Iran and so many other countries, it has all started to bring back a lot of memories for me. I also have a lot of guilt around the war I was involved in and how the members of the military and the US have been lied to about pretty much everything by our government. I hate how normal citizens are used as pawns for their government and are treated as disposable just so they can further their own agenda and line their pockets.

So what does this all have to do with Ketamine? And what is Ketamine? Well, Ketamine is an anesthetic that has been found to have some pretty remarkable healing properties for the brain. It has been shown to be very beneficial in treating severe depression and anxiety. I was on so many different medications in the past to treat this stuff, but those meds ended up almost killing me, so I started to look for a more natural way to deal with my depression and anxiety.

I found that cannabis helps a lot with reducing stress and pain. I also started using psychedelics mushrooms to treat my depression. The combination of cannabis and mushrooms changed the direction of my life. I began meditating, doing yoga and started to get my health back. After nearly a year from hearing about Ketamine Therapy and its benefits, I decided it was time for me to see what it can do for me and how it will shape my new life.

There are several ways you can use Ketamine for therapy. They have pills, lozenge type things that you suck on or they administer it intravenously. Doing it through an IV is the best way to do it and most beneficial.

IV Ketamine Therapy is done in a series of six treatments over a three week period. It is done like that so that the ketamine gets built up in your system and stays with you over an extended period.

I was pretty nervous about what to expect during my first treatment. Ketamine is a dissociative drug, meaning that it can make you feel outside of your body. It can be pretty overwhelming for some people. It can also make you hallucinate while you are under and I wasn't sure what would come up. I've seen a lot of death and destruction in my life and didn't want to just haven an hour of horror.

So as they were hooking up my IV, I was pretty scared because I knew that this was a journey I was about to go on and I had no control over it. Music is an important part of the therapy and it can help guide the session. I had put together a playlist of meditative type music that has a lot of Japanese flutes and flowing water. So I put my headphones and waited for the medicine to kick in.

The first five minutes or so, I felt pretty normal and was just listening to my music. Then I began to feel my body slowly fade away. I was reclined in a comfy chair and had an eye mask on. It started to feel like I was being pulled down under water, but everything was black under my eye mask. It is hard to explain the feeling, but if you have ever seen the movie Get Out, it is a lot like how when he was being pulled into the sunken place.

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It wasn't scary like on Get Out. It was actually pretty peaceful. Having an intention for the session is also important. My intention was "Release". I wanted to release all of the guilt associated with what I had gone through and been a part of. So I just kept reminding myself that I was fine and that this was all part of the process.

The session lasts about an hour and it is hard to keep track of everything that happens during that time. Time gets really weird and all my music started to blend together. My wife has done this treatment before and she gets really strong visuals, but I didn't really have any visuals. Instead of seeing things, I "felt" them. It is hard to describe. For a while, I felt like I was just a gas floating through the cosmos. I guess you could say that I was feeling my soul flying around because my body was totally gone.

I began to feel like I was the different elements. I was floating around as air, I was a river and I was the earth. I felt connected to everything. I remember thinking how weird it was that I didn't feel like fire, but I wonder if it was because fire is a destructive force and I was releasing the feelings of destruction, but who knows, brains are weird.

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I started to feel like I was a seedling in the dirt. It was weird because I couldn't "see" it, but I felt it. I grew roots and began to spread up out of the dirt and sprouted up. I was the sunrise and the clouds. I think that my brain was telling me that I was becoming new.

I slowly started to feel my body coming back. It was such a great experience. The entire time, I just remember feeling connected and at peace. I remember thinking to myself, "What was I so worried about? This isn't scary at all".

Overall, it was a pretty positive experience and I can't wait to continue the series and see what this treatment can do for my quality of life. Ketamine therapy has changed so many people's lives for the good. It will be interesting to see where this journey takes me.