My First Ketamine Session: What is it Like to Experience Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy?
When I started ketamine therapy two years ago, it was my last ditch effort at healing. My life had been a chaotic mess for as long as I could remember, and everything I tried to "fix" myself with seemed to fall flat until I took a chance on a mushroom. I had plenty of opportunities before trying them at 42 years old. However, I had let my fear get in the way. I grew up in the 80s and 90s when the "war on drugs" was heavy in our society, and psychedelics became labeled as harmful with no potential for anything good. In reality, it was the government's way of cracking down on free spirits and free thought. Psychedelics change your perspectives about the world; there is a sense of connection to all living things, and in turn, this connection brings positivity, light, and love to those who use them. At the same time, the so-called "bad" trips bring trauma and chaos to the surface, which allows us to change our perspectives and reactions to our trauma and live healthier and happier lives. This is what happened to me.
My first mushroom trip was a beautiful experience, an introduction to a drug I knew nothing about. While rainbows danced across my eyelids, my brain was processing in the background, changing little bits of itself, allowing for flexibility and neuroplasticity to return to my world, which had been rigid and broken. The euphoria and change lasted for a year. When I attempted to rekindle those responses with another mushroom experience, I found a wall of trauma I knew I had but could never access before. My second, third, and fourth experiences with mushrooms were all duds. The protection my brain had surrounded my trauma in was so strong that it took an epic dose of nearly 8 grams before I had another psychedelic experience, and it was one filled with trauma. This mushroom experience would change my entire life and its trajectory. I would spend the entirety of the trip, which lasted for 6 hours, screaming, "Why doesn't she love me?" questioning why my sister Glenda hated me so much. The answer I would receive would be devastating, but it would be the answer that would ultimately set me free from 42 years of a trauma bond with two of my siblings.
It would be this experience that would drive me to seek out psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, seeing it as a door to inner work with experiences and trauma I had no memory of. I had already spent years working through DBT, CBT, ACT, and EMDR and had been on Prozac for nearly 24 years at this point and had lost almost all hope of ever being "normal" wearing a false diagnosis of Borderline personality disorder, with Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder) PTSD, and Panic disorder I felt like my world in the realm of mental health was broken. I had lost the only therapist I had ever had progress with when Eliza had retired, and now I had children, children who at every turn triggered every part of my trauma in significant ways.
After losing myself, I would discover that while psilocybin wasn't exactly an option for therapy, ketamine was. I began to research what that meant, what exactly ketamine was, and how it was used for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Eventually, I reluctantly started a search for a ketamine therapist. I did not want a man-made material or drug after having the experiences I had had on SSRIs and anti-anxiety medications. They made me feel groggy and aloof at times and even affected memory and brain function, and It felt gross to me. I had spent years trying to get off Prozac only to continually be put on the drug again and again by mental health professionals who refused to reevaluate me and look past the Borderline diagnosis. I didn't fit the borderline diagnosis, and even if I had, I demanded treatment and compassion from care professionals who only saw a dangerous, erratic individual.
These experiences would leave me with anger and a feeling of hopelessness that seemed to dissipate when using psychedelics. Eventually, I would have a complete breakdown after losing my entire reality with the knowledge that Glenda exhibited some deeply ingrained narcissistic traits and that her sole reason for living was to eradicate my life and my existence from my family. I began to doubt myself, my abilities, and who I was at a core level, leaving me confused and more broken than before.
Gauge would change that. He would allow healing to happen in even the most difficult times and within the immense chaotic world that was my mind. He would provide safety for the first time and allow me to fully experience the deep sorrow and grief of my childhood, starting with the moment my sister tried to suffocate me at six months old. While this wasn't a snapshot memory I had, it was one of many instances my mother had told me about. She had heard me crying, but when I had suddenly stopped, she came into the room I shared with my sister to find her sitting on my face with a pillow, complaining that I was hurting her ears and wouldn't stop, so she was going to make me stop. The story horrified me, yet my sister's response was laughter, as if it had simply been a joke.
What that event did to my body stayed with me for my entire life, affecting me in ways I never imagined. Yet, when I experienced my first ketamine session, I expelled a demon inside that memory.
This memory was not a door I had intended to open during that experience, but it was one my brain and body were ready for, so I went with it. What I remember from the experience and what touches the deepest parts of my trauma was the feeling of drowning. Water has always been incredibly grounding for my system, so I am not surprised that my brain chose to use water as my outlet for what would become a two-year eviction process of a trauma bond that I had not been aware of or had even understood until the psilocybin experience revealed it. Here, with ketamine, I could reexperience my trauma without the punch in the face that mushrooms had been. It was a gentle reminder of who I was and that evicting my sister from my system was where I needed to start healing.
What I remember from this experience will forever be in my memory as one of freedom. It started with seeing monsters, their faces floating before my eyes, screaming at me. Still, I was entirely at peace, unafraid of them. I felt free in the dark when before I had always been afraid. I remember following those monsters, watching as they faded, when suddenly I couldn't breathe. It felt like the air was being crushed out of me until I was suddenly in a lake, sinking to the bottom. I opened my eyes at this point, watching little bubbles float upwards, and as I followed them, my surroundings became lucid, and I knew I was drowning. I admit I was terrified at this point, but I also knew I wasn't dying. I had safety and security with me in Gauge, and I trusted in him and knew that he wouldn't let me fall to the depths of my trauma. I let the memories and the scene unfold.
Seaweed grew wild all around me, and when I looked upwards, I could see the sun on the water's surface. I could see that I wasn't meant to drown in the depths of darkness but to live instead in the light above. I had been thrown into whatever depths of this lake or pond to die, and that had been where my light, my soul, and my being had been buried for the last 42 years. I felt breath leaving my body and gasped for air, yet I couldn't move from the bottom of that pond.
My body refused to sit still in the waking world; the trauma began to process through somatic release, and I felt my head fling upwards while still sitting at the bottom of the pond. I saw a demon expel from my mouth. I know it sounds strange, impossible, and almost religious. However, I felt and saw a black cloud with my monster's face expressed from my mouth and into the water around me. I felt my lungs burn and my body protest from under the extreme stress of this feeling. Until I felt relief, peace, and breath return and the water drain. That was the day I began to heal from my sister Glenda's influence, from the idea that I was unwanted and unworthy of life.
While it would take two more years of intensive therapy to overcome what my sister did to me, what would be revealed would not only heal me but would begin a journey towards finding myself, finding my voice, and would teach me not only how to create boundaries around my well-being but I would learn that I could face the trauma hidden deep within me and that I could heal, and that I could finally find peace. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has been an incredible experience that has lifted me into who I was always meant to be. I am forever grateful for this treatment and the fantastic work done to bring this healing process to light.
