Kizzie's Journal

[Blueberry]

Yikes Kizzie, I'm glad you're safe!

Fires this year in all sorts of places they never were before or at least not for decades, e.g. in that traditionally rather water-logged country called Scotland. Also where I live - a traditionally also rather damp and not totally hot area of continental Europe. I was flabbergasted sometime in July when the local train got stuck due to a wildfire that got too close to the tracks. We're used to storms dropping trees on the tracks and snow issues, but wildfire??

I'm sorry Kizzie I hadn't realised before just how badly you've been doing with medication. I just hope that they can sort something out that works! Sorry my mind is a bit dozy on this topic - not one I know much about. 

[Papa Coco]

Kizzie,

I agree with Armee, our erratically changing global climate is anxiety producing and I believe it's a formidable contributor to why there's so much insanity in the news now. People are scared. In Seattle this year, we're not having our traditional fire season like we've been having over the past 5 years. But fire season is serious anxiety. It's claustrophobic inducing, because the smoke is so thick and there's nowhere to hide from it. Last year I bought a bunch of Hepa filter air purifiers for my wife and I and for our son's family in case it happens again, but this year, so far so good.

I hope to hear that your reduction in SSRIs is going well. I hope you and your doctor are achieving the results you need to start the Ketamine Treatments. I have scheduled my next K Infusion for a week from this coming Wednesday. It's been more than 3 months since my last infusion and I'm starting to struggle with depression and shame again. After the infusions, I spend a good, long time, not feeling so ashamed of myself for using the oxygen other people need to live their worthy lives. I'm starting to feel that again. I'm glad that the last infusion worked for over 3 months. Perhaps the more I do them, the longer they'll last.  Then, when Micro dosing becomes legal, I can move to that cure, which I'm told works more permanently than Ketamine.

One thing, however, that Ketamine has done for me, which is so far proving to be permanent, is it's removed my fear of death. When I'm in the infusion, my body is still and my spirit is awake, and I feel like I'm in eternity, and that absolutely nothing that happens in this life on earth matters at all. I wonder if it's the same thing Near Death Experiencers learn when they say they didn't want to come back, but a voice told them it wasn't their time yet, so they were sent back into their bodies, and then they spend the rest of their lives completely unafraid of death. I'm feeling like that. So, the global climate changes, and all the threats of war and all the other icky stuff in the news doesn't scare me as much as it used to. I've not been suicidal since I started Ketamine, and I'm still not suicidal, but at the same time, I've updated my will to make me feel like I've done what I can to help my family if I die, but I've lost my fear of dying. I want to live better while I'm alive but being unafraid of death is helping me reduce daily anxiety.

[sanmagic7]

personally, i think mother nature is simply pissed!   she's had so much to put up with for so long, she's fighting back.  her trauma-infused brain has had enough abuse at the hands of too many humans.  and i can fully relate to eco-anxiety.  we had the experience of that blood-red sun 2 yrs. ago, and it was scary as all get out.  plus, this summer of heat has been the longest summer i can recall.  it's awful, plain awful.  glad nothing of yours was injured in the fire you saw.

and field fires seem to be on the upswing as well, to my mind.  there is such a feeling of being trapped when these fires surround us.  i'm living in a relatively safe space now as far as fires, but the lengthy heat has caused my anxiety to go thru the roof.  totally unexpected where i live.  ugh! 

[Kizzie]

Wow, we sure know how to mix in a variety of topics lol. 

I don't know if anyone watched the show "The Affair" but at the end of the series the town where most of the story took place which was on the east coast was mostly underwater and/or destroyed by wild Atlantic storms.  No-one went there anymore and it just broke my heart because it was such a lovely area as are so many of our coastal towns and cities.  It was a glance into the near future and it was hard to contemplate.  Mother Nature has indeed had enough but we humans don't really get that.  That show drove the point home for me that's for sure.

I find it really interesting what you have to say about your experience with Ketamine Papa.  I am hoping for a more "transcendental" experience of life, a lifting up of my spirit if you will from the pain and small world of trauma.  Like you my plan is to keep up with Ketamine (if it works for me) and then switch to psilocybin assisted therapy when it becomes legal.  The clinic I'll be with is working with Health Canada on psilocybin clinical trials for PTSD so will be putting my name on the waiting list for Complex PTSD that's for sure.

My reduction of the SSRI became a little less smooth this past week or so, partly because I think we're now going a bit too fast with the taper and also because a whole situation arose with our son that triggered me big time.  Can't even talk/write  about it yet but it sure came at a bad time. 

I will be talking with my GP again tomorrow and the head of the Ketamine clinic comes back so should have some news about the way forward.  I hope so, I am so tired and I want life to calm the YKW down for me.        

[sanmagic7]

 

[Kizzie]

So I have actual appts with the Ketamine clinic for the prep sessions and psychiatric evaluation finally.  The psych eval isn't until Oct 4th but they have me on the cancellation list so fingers crossed it will be earlier.  I don't have any concerns about it so after that it's on to the trial dose and if I'm not allergic, it's on to the actual infusions.

It sure took a while to get to this stage. I had to go on a blood pressure medication (thankfully this process caught that I needed to), record the readings for a few weeks, then get labs done and have a physical. 

I am excited and scared at the same time.  I just so want life to be better. lighter, less trauma focused....

[sanmagic7]

yeah, kizzie, i hear you about life being so trauma-focused and how nice it will be when it's otherwise.  very glad to hear you've got your appt. too bad it's still nearly a month away.  hang tough, ok?  light at the end of the tunnel?  and hoping they have a cancellation and you can get in sooner.  thank you so for sharing this process.  love and hugs, my dear

[Armee]

Warm hugs to carry you along till the treatment can fully get started. I wish people who want us to get past it could see how much you and we truly want to do that...are desperate to.

Also hugs for the triggers with what's happening that you aren't able to write about yet. 

[Kizzie]

You know, I want life to be lighter and more joyful for all of us.   I am hoping against hope that the promise of these psychedelic medications to assist therapy and promote real and lasting healing are the way for all of us to a much better quality of life.  I feel like right now we slog along in therapy, some of us on psychiatric medications for years or like me decades, and we do make some progress but it's not fully living (IMO), it's just a step or two above survival level a lot of the time.

I know a lot of that has to do with the fact that Complex PTSD was not on the books until recently and even now too few know about it sadly. We're the "behind the closed doors" gang, no medals of honour for us for battlefield service PTSD even though we had to fight to survive on a different kind of battlefield, most of us as children.

Rambling and ranting again lol, good for the soul.  On a positive note, I have seen a lot of research into the power and promise of psychedelics to heal so I guess that means clinicians and researchers do understand the pain of PTSD at least and hopefully by extension at some point Complex PTSD.     

[Armee]

Word to that! My T really wants me to try the psychedelics for cptsd but I am terrified of messing up my brain more and trusting myself less, lol. I'm grateful for those willing to test it out for us.

[Papa Coco]

I'm with you Kizzie,

I'm so frustrated that C-PTSD gets a little better every year, (due to me spending thousands on therapy and medications), but it never goes away. Harmless psychedelics, which often grow wild in our lawns, are promising to do miraculous things which will help millions of people find joy and peace in our lives.

I'm excited to get my next Ketamine infusion next Wednesday. I keep hoping that as I do these treatments, they'll work for longer. I did two the first week, two the second, then one the third, one the fourth, and went back for a refresher only 30 days later, but now I've gone over 3 months for the 8th infusion. I hope I can go 4 months, then 6 months after that.  I hope.  For me, The US doesn't require I combine Ketamine with Therapy, and I wish it did. My therapist has never experienced Ketamine Infusions, so he relies on me to describe them to him. Fortunately, he's good at helping me interpret my emotions and feelings after the infusion, but it's really not his specialty since he's never done it. And usually, I debrief with him up to two weeks after the infusions. I wonder if immediate debriefings would help bring about more substantial healing.

I hope that your system there in Canada brings even better results by having debriefings with a qualified counsellor immediately after your treatments. Most articles I've read about all the psychedelics used in this treatment is that it really works best if given in a clinical setting with a qualified counsellor to help interpret all that you saw or experienced during the treatment. For anyone trying to go cheap and do it themselves at home, the results are not as powerful. Never-the-less, if I can one day find that I can purchase some legally, I'll start doing it at home just to get whatever I can get. For now I'm just waiting on the laws to improve. Heavy sigh.

And so I wait for the laws to change so that one day, I will have a good, quality experience with true psychedelics.  Ketamine is the most helpful thing I've ever done, but it's a tranquilizer, not a psychedelic. It works great. But I'm told psychedelics work even better.

[Kizzie]

I didn't realize your T was suggesting you try psychedelics Armee.  I guess that's one reason why I am writing as much as I can about my experience and am grateful to Papa for writing about his - so others can see what our treatment was/is like. I don't know if it's right for everyone but at least members here will have some insider perspectives to read and consider. 

I too have spent a ton on therapy over the years Papa (fortunately my medications are covered). If these treatments work to promote actual healing as the research is suggesting, in the end it will cost us and our insurers far less than years of talk therapy and psychiatric meds where we inch forward year after year.  If I wasn't so old and my SSRI hadn't stopped working I'd probably still be doing the same thing and not trying Ketamine.  But here I am and I hope to heaven it works.

I did read an article somewhere - I may have post it I can't remember -- where there is a bit of a debate about whether or not Ketamine is a psychedelic.  Some say yes, others no.  I'll see if I can find it. Found them, there's two - see https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=14841.msg123407#msg123407.

[Kizzie]

One thing I wanted to bring up in my journal today is to why I don't often post in other members journals. It's because I was raised by an N and I get very caught up in other peoples lives and let my own slide. I made a promise to myself the day I realized this to stay out of the journals so I wouldn't let my focus on my recovery slip - too easy when you've been trained to give but not receive, listen, but not speak.   If you're a survivor of N abuse you likely get what I'm saying.

I am hoping with the Ketamine therapy I will be better able to write about both my life but also to respond to journal posts by others without ending up leaving myself out if that makes sense.     

[sanmagic7]

it makes total sense, kizzie.  as always, do what's best for you.  i think it's wonderful how you and PC are writing about your experiences w/ alternates to traditional meds.  i don't know if it would be right for me, either, but i appreciate the knowledge and info you're adding to my skill set. thanks for sharing all this.  and i agree, kizzie - this type of treatment could save so much money, pain, and suffering for those to whom it's helpful.  i sincerely hope you find relief w/ it.  love and hugs

[Kizzie]

I was breaking down at the thought of waiting for another whole week for treatment to start so phoned the clinic Fri and asked for my session earlier and they complied!  I now go this coming Tues instead of Fri and that has done so much to calm me down.  I felt like I was absolutely falling apart waiting and I guess they got that. It has been a really long go, nine months of 24/7 anxiety that then fueled  depression.   

Huzzah and please oh great universe, let this work for me!