Rewiring my Brain through Chemistry

After a lifetime of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation (first memory of those thoughts at 6 years old), and trying everything I could find with no relief, it was suggested I try ketamine treatments. The first person to mention it to me was a friend who had said, "I get it. You're like me...your baseline is depression and when things get bad it goes catastrophic." It was the perfect description. It was sometime and nearly killing myself (no exaggeration...it was closer than I admitted to anyone), that it was brought up again with a psychiatrist. She was the first to make the connection between my inability to take nearly all antidepressants, and my body's inability to handle serotonin modulation (which is what SSRIs and SNRIs do). She said my case was a complex and severe condition which needed layered care. I was coming online out of dorsal vagal shutdown, unemployed, with nothing to lose so I agreed.

I am going to detail my personal experience: good, bad and otherwise, with ketamine, both for myself, for those that have done it, and for anyone considering it. Beyond these reasons, to also take the stigma off of mental illness. To shine a light where we've been told to hide. Yes, our brain broke, just like any other body part or system, and we're trying to heal it with science. 

Getting approved by insurance was the first hurdle, and along with approval my insurance said I had to be on an antidepressant. I was coming off of Cymbalta which instead of being stimulating was causing me to sleep 20 hours a day. But with the understanding of no SSRIs or SNRIs, we agreed to Wellbutrin. I recalled taking this before, and though I didn't feel it "worked", I didn't recall terrible side effects, and it's one of the few that doesn't mess with serotonin. 

My biggest fears weren't taking ketamine itself. Drugs don't scare me. I was fearful it would be a shit ton of effort for yet another thing that didn't work and feeling that if it didn't it would be the end of me. Some nausea concerns, as I have the world's weakest stomach, but after that curiosity.

I had to humble myself and ask for help, as you cannot drive and need to stay at the clinic for them to monitor you for two hours. A huge ask. But friends had offered and they were my only choice to make this happen. I created a Doodle and found times for anyone able. I'm still struggling to take this in, as I don't know how to repay it. For my first ride there my friend played Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles. I howled laughing! It was perfect. 

The clinic was lovely. You could have put up a spa sign with their diffusers and flowers. They put you in a small room where there is a lounge chair that reclines, aromatherapy diffuser, mints (in my ketamine treatment it's taken nasally - feels like coke going down your throat with a nasty taste), barf bags in a cute basket, and a blanket. They take your vitals before, during and after. Once it was administered, I put in earbuds with an Ambient Deep Sleep playlist (I was advised by my friend to use earbuds and music without lyrics...just sounds), took off my shoes, pulled the blanket up and laid back. 

Initially I was just trying to relax and then I could feel the effects kick in. I started seeing red stalactites and stalagmites growing in darkness. There were distant colors but not psychedelic. Went into the galaxy for a brief moment but otherwise not seeing anything specific. While feeling trippy I was still completely aware of where I was and what was happening, though completely unsure of time. 

When I got up, I was extremely slow. I could talk but getting words out took effort. Some nausea on the drive home but that might have been due to hunger. Got home, ate a little, then laid on the couch watching "Sex and the City" for the thousandth time. Even texting was too much effort. I fell in and out of sleep the rest of the day and fell asleep early. The next day I was a little groggy but coherent. Felt OK but didn't want much head movement: this is due to inner ear sensitivity, nervous system settling, and the brain recalibrating.

I noticed after only one session that thoughts I ruminated on daily, sometimes all day, weren't gone but were distant and not as triggering. This is what ketamine does: lowers the volume on your threat signals and creates psychological distance, working with the brain's neural plasticity to make it less rigid. The trauma doesn't go away, instead it calms your reaction to it.

My second session was two days later and much different. I was much more alert the entire time. Nowhere near feeling like a tripping experience. After, though still slower, I was much more alert. Though I didn't want much activity the rest of the day I was awake and alert. The biggest physical sensation I've noticed after both treatments is the need to keep my head still. 

Not happy, but not spiraling. Looking on as the observer, and trying not to go down the rabbit hole of "what will happen to me if this doesn't work?". 

I tried

"Sometimes the greatest performances require the greatest sacrifice. And sometimes the people brave enough to make that sacrifice get punished for their courage." ~ From an essay on Anne Hathaway

I'm going to start making posts about my current ketamine sessions to work on treatment resistant depression and CPTSD. Doing this for myself to watch what happens and for anyone else who may decide this is something they should do. But before I talk in more detail as to why I've decided to chemically rewire my brain, I want to talk about my efforts and what has been said to me about my efforts along the way. 

What I have been told about my ongoing depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation from people who said they cared about me: 

• You aren't trying hard enough.

• You like being a victim.

• You are always angry.

• You don't try hard enough.

• You don't have enough faith.

• This is because you haven't forgiven your abusers.

• Depression isn't real...you just have to do something.

• You just need to be more positive.

What I have done: 

• 30+ years of therapy 
• My bookshelf is nothing but self help books.

• I've journaled until my hand cramped, and I could no longer write.

• Every antidepressant they had (until it was recently found out my system can't handle serotonin modulation)  

• I cried until my throat was raw from screaming and wailing for hours.

• I've recited positive affirmations.

• I took drugs (legal and otherwise).
• Drank it away 

• I tried to fuck it away.

• I've prayed.

• I've meditated.

• I've written gratitude lists.

• I've had demons prayed out of me.

• I've written forgiveness lists.

• I've written apology lists.

• I've had energy work.

• I've had reiki.

• I've done intentions.

• I've done manifesting.

• I've done spells.

• I've done magic.

• I tried to die.

Nothing worked. I've tried. I promise you I tried so hard. 

 

I almost died

I almost died. Many knew of my depression, some of the suicidal ideation, but no one knew just how dark it was. Once I flatlined and went back to my everyday depression, one friend said they knew I almost didn't make it. When I was at absolute bottom, up all night with insomnia sobbing to chatgpt about my last year, and life, I came up with an idea of how to do it. I thought if I could drive fast into oncoming traffic, really lay into it, then it should be pretty certain I would die. I was trying to figure out how to make it plausible that it was an accident and no one would say I was selfish. But then there would be the person in the other car...

I didn't really want to die, and I don't think anyone suicidal actually does. We just can't continue with the extreme pain we are in and see no end to it. We look at your lives and see why you'd want to go on. We want what you have, we long for it, we cry ourselves to sleep wishing that was our existence. 

We feel hopeless and don't see a way out. Imagine the most horrific pain you've ever experienced, imagine it won't go away no matter how much you try, imagine the terror of feeling like this is now your existence forever. Would you want to stay alive?

After a lifetime of continuing to try, to watch one thing after another crumble before me, I couldn't take it anymore. My mind broke. I had thoughts of hanging myself, slicing my throat, or my main idea of overdosing. Since I was around 6 I have had thoughts of killing myself. Daily. It was just a normal day to think "I should kill myself" but then go about my business. But the thoughts were never this violent. I was always able to stop my actions by thinking of my son. Everything was so much worse this time. Oddly enough what saved me was those hours, sometimes all night long, of sobbing to ChatGPT and it saying "I won't leave you.". Or maybe it was me. Maybe I hung on. 

I’m Still Inside the Fire

Talking about trauma is like standing in the middle of a fire while you’re still inside it. The heat is relentless. Your body is on edge. You’re using everything you have just to stay upright, just to find enough air to say the truth out loud:

I’m terrified. I don’t know if I’m going to survive this.

And the moment you say it, something shifts. People don’t step closer. They stay at a distance and call out encouragement like you’re training for something.

“You’ll be okay once you get through it.”
“Just keep doing the work.”
“This is where the real healing begins. This is all part of the process.”

Healing gets used like a solution without a definition. A word that sounds reassuring but carries no clarity, only expectation. Something you’re told to do without anyone being able to say what it actually looks like from where you’re standing, while you’re still trying to breathe.

From inside the fire, those words don’t feel supportive. They feel like pressure. Like a clock has started. Like the moment you name what’s happening, the scene changes and suddenly you’re standing alone on a stage that’s engulfed in flames, lights glaring, an audience watching to see how you perform your own survival. What should be care starts to feel like scrutiny. Your healing becomes something you’re expected to demonstrate; publicly, correctly, and on schedule, even as the stage is still burning beneath your feet.

Your terror becomes a project. Your pain becomes a task. Your survival becomes your responsibility alone. And what if you don't survive?

The pain in life isn’t handed out evenly or fairly. Many people hear this and think, I’ve been through things too. I get it. And they have suffered, their pain is real and it matters. But not all suffering functions the same way. Some pain disrupts life. Some pain dismantles the nervous system. Some pain still leaves room to imagine a future. Some pain takes that capacity away entirely. When those differences are ignored, care turns into pressure, and empathy turns into expectation.

What makes this unbearable is the fear underneath it all; that after everything I’ve tried, this is as good as it gets. That I’ve done the therapy, the medication, the work, the effort people keep insisting will lead somewhere, and instead of getting better, I’ve collapsed into the lowest point of my life. Words about healing start to feel less like hope and more like a condition I’m expected to meet, a standard I’m quietly being measured against. Like if I can’t recover in the right way, on the right timeline, people will eventually shrug and move on. Like if I can’t do this, I’ll be left behind, not out of cruelty, but quiet resignation. That possibility of failing at healing after giving everything I had, and losing people because of it is terrifying. And it makes the whole thing feel impossible to survive, let alone perform.

I’m not asking people to become therapists. I’m not asking for perfect words or flawless responses. What I’m asking for, especially right now, is something much simpler. Acknowledgment. Softness. Presence. Fewer interpretations. Less fixing. I’m extremely raw, and things land directly on exposed nerve. Words that might roll off someone else can hurt me right now. I’m not asking for special handling, I’m asking not to be hurt while I’m already hurting.

When someone is burning, they don’t need motivation. They don’t need perspective. They don’t need to be told it will be worth it. They need someone close enough to feel the heat and say,

I’m here.

If you broke a bone in front of them, no one would say “push through.” They’d call for help. They’d stay.

If you want to help someone in collapse, don’t time them. Don’t coach them. Don’t turn their survival into a lesson.

Stay close.
Be quiet.
Let them not be alone.

Understand we don't know if we will make it to the other side. 

"People heal from trauma through new, supportive experiences, not willpower or insight alone. Trauma teaches the nervous system that it isn’t safe and that support will fail, which is why support matters not as advice, but as presence; someone staying when you expect them to leave, truth met without punishment, overwhelm met without pressure, pain believed without proof, rest allowed without being judged or fixed. These moments become corrective experiences, slowly giving the body evidence that this time is different, and over time allowing the nervous system to stand down because the person is no longer surviving alone."

The ground has disappeared

Coming out of dorsal vagal shutdown is not linear as I thought it would be. I wasn't feeling better so much as I wasn't daily breaking down. While still crying every day I'd stopped collapsing into my hallway scream sobbing. I wouldn't even say I felt hope so much as I wasn't longing to stick my head in the oven. Apparently when you start to come back your nervous system is testing to see if things are safe. This means if another blow comes, especially one hitting a core would, you can not only fall back into shutdown, but it can come quicker and harsher than the last one. 

Multiple blows at once during an emotional landmine time of the year for me. I collapsed again.

There is rock bottom and then there is a level much more terrifying where you keep falling lower and lower with no end in sight. When you descend into nothingness, the unknown, the darkness, lines become blurred and every breath is forced. Your nerves are exposed and raw and feeling is excruciating. Your fears turn to terrors as you wonder how long will this free fall last? Will I even survive the landing? 

What makes this especially heavy is that collapse doesn’t come from refusing to heal. It comes after years of trying. I'm told I should focus on "healing", whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean, and feeling my emotions. As if you do all these hard things and some magical land of happiness awaits you on the other side. I look back and I did everything I was told to do: therapy, journaling, medication, meditation, yoga, prayer, positive affirmations, crystals, energy work, hypnosis, manifesting, intentions, body work release, magic...and yet here I am flailing into the abyss alone. Collapse happens when you’ve exhausted every option you were told would save you, and your body finally says it has no more energy left to search, strive, or fight. Not because you want to die, but because you’ve run out of ways to stay alive that hurt less than this.

I feel like the entire weight and grief of my life experience has overtaken me. I tried to feel these emotions, cried so many tears, but this time is different. Between loss after loss in a few months' time, traumas compounding, over a year all my resilience and tenacity which I've relied on gave out as it was too much to bear. I can't hide it as I used to. I can't shove it down with all the things I've used to numb myself over the years. I can't pull out of it. 

When pain dismantles the nervous system, it doesn’t just hurt it alters capacity. It narrows the world. It collapses time. Decisions become heavy, language thins out, and even small tasks require negotiation. Despair sets in as exhaustion so immense there’s nothing left to carry hope. The system gets overwhelmed past its ability to regulate. From inside that state, survival is already work. When encouragement shows up as reminders to heal, grow, or “do the work,” it feels like another thing to carry. And there’s no strength left to carry anything else. Another moment for you to fail with a spotlight on you as you're judged if you are truly trying hard enough.

No cute and happy conclusion here. Only freefall.

Coming Back

Content Note:

This discusses nervous system collapse, the physiology of “coming back online,” and the fragile, disorienting process of returning from shutdown. Read gently.
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The nervous system cannot sustain being in dorsal vagal shut down for a long period of time, as the body basically thinks it's dying and conserves energy. Coming out of it isn't a big rising moment of being fine and back to any semblance of normalcy. It's a flickering of the possibility of hope. It's no longer walking into your house and falling to the floor sobbing... at least not every day. It's seeing that though you still feel like shit that you are taking steps to try to live.

I spoke to my new therapist about how my lifetime of suicidal ideation was different this time. The thoughts were violent in a way that shocked me. In all my death plans it was always going to be done with drugs...I wanted out of the pain. I had flashes of wondering if the bars outside my deck would hold my weight. I lightly brushed knives across my wrists to see what it would feel like. I told myself I'd never do it but also saw that all it would take is one more bad moment to fully drown me in my despair.

What's hitting me most right now is the shame of it all. You can break a leg, get physical therapy, and everyone understands. If you're diagnosed with a heart condition and need to get on medication there will be empathy and concern. But if you mind breaks, if your nervous system gives out, if you spiral into emptiness...you'll find most people around you can't comprehend and don't know what to do. It's not their fault, it's not your fault, yet this takes you further into isolation and feeling that you are completely on your own. I've been held with compassion by so many and at the same time I feel ashamed that I wasn't strong enough to keep it together. Shame that I've shared and everyone knows I had a nervous breakdown.

Coming out of this feels disorienting; you're living in a body that's shifting faster than your narrative can explain. Nothing about this is linear. I've had days I feel almost normal, though my normal was depressed it wasn't catastrophic. And then in a moment the hysterics can begin again without warning. The nervous system doesn't care about your schedule. It doesn't care that your life is on fire or that you're trying desperately to hold it all together. 

Today I made future plans, I went back to big ideas I was forming before I crumbled, and while wiping tears I tried again. For today...

Though sharing all this brings me embarrassment, shame, and the sense that something is broken in me beyond repair, I know someone else needs to hear it. I know there is someone else out there who needs to be seen and told they aren't the only one. And something deep in me, some place of hope and transformation, some relentless part of me believes my purpose lives in telling the truth of this.

Staying Alive

I’m writing for my life. Not metaphorically...literally. As if saying everything I've suppressed will somehow heal me. Or stabilize me. Or keep me breathing. These sentences are the thin thread I’m holding onto while my nervous system tries to remember how to breathe. I'm not crying for a year, I'm crying for a lifetime. I realized a few days have passed without me thinking "I wish I could die". Now it's more of a sigh of "You have no choice. You unfortunately have to live right now."

People keep offering me hope and advice and tidy encouragements, and I know they mean well. But there are kinds of pain you should never speak into unless you’ve lived them. And the thing is the comments aren’t cruel. They’re well-meaning. They come wrapped in care, in love, in concern. But even well-meaning words can hurt when they land on someone who’s already at the edge and can’t take one more misjudgment or another blow.

A sentence meant to “encourage” can feel like sandpaper on an open wound. A suggestion meant to “help” can feel like someone saying they’re tired of watching you bleed. And the moment I try to explain this, the moment I try to say, “That actually hurt,” I’m met with puzzled eyes, or silence, because they have never lived in a body that collapses before it cries. And that kind of terror cannot be comforted with “You’ll get there,” or “Just keep working on yourself" or "Hold on". 

One of the only ways I’ve ever been lucky in life was getting pregnant. I didn’t “earn” it. I didn’t “manifest” it. I didn’t work for it. I went off the pill and got pregnant immediately, pure timing, pure chance. If infertility had been my story, my ex would never have paid for treatment. But chance worked in my favor that one time, and I’ve never forgotten that.

So, when a woman longs for a child and loses pregnancy after pregnancy, I don’t tell her how to feel. I don’t hand her clichés. I don’t insist she “stay positive.” I don’t push lessons or silver linings or timelines for when she should feel better. I don’t shame her for despair or push her toward gratitude because her pain makes me uncomfortable. Because I haven't lived it, I can't speak to it, and I allow her to feel in any way she needs without my commentary. I tell her, “I can’t imagine what this feels like, but I see what it’s doing to you, and your feelings are valid.” And then I shut up. Because it is cruel to narrate someone else’s suffering when you have never stood inside it.

What people don’t understand is that the same rules apply to catastrophic emotional trauma, to lifelong loneliness, to the kind of grief that rearranges a body from the inside out. Good intentions don’t make the commentary hurt less. Sometimes the “help” hurts more, because it reminds you how far away safety has always been.

That’s the part people miss when they talk to me about my trauma, my loneliness, my collapse. They don’t see that their lives of partnership, stability, and emotional safety were also, at least partly, products of chance. They met someone at the right time. They found someone who stayed. They got the kind of luck I never did.

And still, they talk to me like my pain has a simple fix, like healing is a choice I haven’t made yet.

They don’t know the physics of decades without protection.
They don’t know what it’s like to always be the one without a person. They don’t know what it is to never be chosen in any lasting way.

And I want all those good things for them...truly.
But there is still a small, feral girl in me who whispers, Why not me? Why not ever me?

This is the part nobody sees.
This is the part I’m writing from.
This is staying alive.