#ketamine infusion fun times

[chambergambit]

Me: The numbers 8 and 9 are a gay couple. They’re frog and toad.

My Ketamine Infusion Doctor: *googling on his phone* Holy shit, you’re right.

[transmutationisms]

what do you think about ketamine treatment for treatment resistant depression? Not to be the guy on tumblr that goes like WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY!!! And stuff but I was just thinking about how wild it is as a drug user that suddenly it’s fine to be dependent on a drug if it’s in a hospital. Like suddenly you’re not a drug addict. You could say this about antidepressants in general as well or for adhd medication and it’s just crazy to me

ketamine tx doesn't work like that you usually have to go to a special clinic for an infusion for it like 2x a week at most. like even in people who experience long term effects of it, that's not because the drug is bioactive for that entire time. i think it peaks at like 10 hours or 24 or something. so we're not talking 'dependence' chemically in the same way that you can see with drugs that are taken daily or more frequently.

mostly what i find funny with stuff like "ketamine has an antidepressant effect" is like, depression (like every psych dx) is identified by how the person feels; there is no biomarker or brain scan or whatever. so really all we are saying is "ketamine makes people feel good" and then expressing that with terminology considered sufficiently 'scientific' to justify the observation. it's just another manifestation of the way medical and legal authorities are so squeamish about experiencing pleasure, and professionally dependent on regulating it, that they have to pathologise either the pleasure itself ('cheap dopamine' -> behavioural addictions) or the lack of it ('chemical imbalance' myths, getting diagnosed as aberrantly sad so that doing a drug that feels good is not self indulgent but medically necessary).

anyway personally i would deeply and genuinely rather kill myself in public than do any kind of dissociative in front of a) doctors or b) mba degree holders, so these ketamine clinics are not for me, but i hope everyone using them is having fun or whatever

[drberkes]

f*ck

Ok hi so I (12/2/22) am going to force myself to write now because the amount of anxiety is unacceptable and I have tentatively identified not enough writing as a possible source. So here we go: if you’re expecting a nice eggplant dish, please manage your expectations. I am going to do my best. I may just hand you a f*cken eggplant and tell you, “Best of luck, I’ve done all I can.”

Ok so how did I get here? I tried writing about it a bit for my Technology Awareness paper I wrote for Natalie, but that paper was just for fun and I’m not proud of it (there were swear words in it). Hmm…let me tell you about Anacortes, like I told one of my nurses when I was in the hospital for ten days back in May. My Aunt Barb and a friend she had liked for a long time decided to go on a road trip together. My Aunt was agreeable with everything her friend wanted - no audiobook, weird climate control requests, fancy bathroom requests, everything - even agreeing to go to Anacortes against her own judgment. She wanted to go to Port Townsend where they would have had no shortage of restaurants by the water to enjoy. They got to Anacortes and discovered that unless there is a festival, Anacortes is a sleepy little port town with not much going on. My Aunt spent her time there in the quilt shop, making the best of it, while her friend went off to get a tshirt. So they wound up in Anacortes with nothing to do and only a t-shirt to show for it. This journal entry, written in December (December!) is the same t-shirt from Anacortes. And the agreeableness I’ve described here is just the tip of the iceberg for her trip. Boy, let me f*cken tell you… …like I told everyone at the ketamine clinic. I was supposed to be tripping balls during my extremely expensive infusion and getting an abundance of insights from my subconscious but I spent the last half of it babbling to my doctor about everything that I haven’t written about yet - all the people I tried to help and how it almost killed me. I’m seeing four paragraphs now so I’ll take that as a sign that I am probably going to survive. BUT *********@#$%^, WTF. People people people are just people, people, people (Brown). And chronic stress prevents our writing/reading/learning brains from getting online. Less writing, more stress. It’s enough to make you crazy if you let it. Anyway, I have no idea where to begin inspiring you with the extremely horrific dumpster fire that is my mental health and how I got here. So I’ll start with you. If you’re reading this, you are probably a person. What does it mean to be a person? I wish I could bust out one of my papers and tell you what I think, but hellfire in the form of a dozen pieces of garbage masquerading as people rained down on my f*cken house. I’ve had windows broken, death threats, graffiti across the street (“f*ck you” written on the curb). All because when people get pushed in the wrong direction, they make bad decisions. They decide they want to go to Anacortes. For the record, I want to go to Port Townsend. But I’ve already been there. Thanks Aunt Barb! 🙂 What was Port Townsend supposed to look like for me? Let’s circle back to the beginning of the pandemic. Kameron was out. So I’ve just spent a couple years at a community college and got sent home like Isaac Newton. What am I gonna do? Study Calculus? Write 100 papers? No, I’m gonna try to help Kameron. And Clay and Cameron and his girlfriend Missy and Brynn and Robert all at the same time. This where we’ll lose some definition...there were so many encounters there where I tried using my AS to push as hard as I could in the right direction. The outcomes were mixed: Kameron went back to prison, Clay moved to NY with Jeff, Cameron and Missy had to move also, and I worry about Brynn. Robert is doing better and has a job now. Why did this f*cken happen? Because they needed more help than I could give them. Lesson learned: you have to identify if someone is doing well enough for you to help them otherwise they will just pull you down too. It is not their fault. I suppose you get to be a certain age and you’ll get weird looks if you still act like a child, but I digress. These folks are good people who wound up in bad situations because of forces beyond their control. That reminds me of what my Uber driver told me when I came back from Portland right before (AM)^2 started: “...they’ll eat you alive.” But if someone is heading down a path where they’re gonna end up in a bad position when they’re older and I can do something about it, how can I choose not to act? How can I sit there and protect myself when there is work to be done? Now we’re getting into Tara Brabazon.  Anyway, this all sort of came to a head when I lost my job, checked myself into the hospital, got out and promptly had a tiny, tiny relapse which actually improved my PHQ-9 score considerably. But ah, now Tara Brabazon is reading this I’ll just head off to watch some of her videos. I feel better already having written something. Yay. Why did I lose my job? Because if I try to show up I’ll get probably get arrested. Why did this happen? ...and reason 546 is because I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t take care of myself well enough. And I wasn’t careful enough. I built a gun that shoots live piranhas and aimed at my fucken self.

[brckensocietyarch]

so, sigh, my body isn't having fun rn, i'm flaring all over (in part to my doctor forcibly lowering one of my pain meds and also thanks to stress and end-of-year shit), this is also affecting me mentally so i'm rough af. i was gonna try and come on tonight but my body is saying no. i'll try and get on tomorrow to at least try and do some replies, we'll see how it goes. i appreciate everyone's patience with me during this time, also, please understand if i focus on specific threads over others. this isn't anything to do with your thread, my muse is just hella picky when my body gets like this. on a plus, next month i'm seeing my pain specialist again and hopefully booking in for a ketamine/lidocaine infusion which will take the edge off for a bit.

[2busy4life]

Today I want to share my experience with ketamine infusion against my depression. The day before yesterday I got my first infusion after years again. And I swear don't try this at home. I had 2 nurses and a doc with me and really I don't know what would've happened if I didn't had them. The doc told me I had extreme mood swinging between kill me and maniac laughing 2 times in a minute.

It felt like I felt out of the universe sometimes, and even if I would die because I had to cough 2 times in those 40 minutes. It is definitely not a great experience! But I need the ketamine, because I have tried every class of antidepressants in the past 10 years. I had over 50 different psyopharma. Nothing worked. And now I get ketamine 2 times a week. And I have to say I'm afraid of them, but today (1 day after 1st infusion), I feel so much better. I mean, I don't have the urge to smash cups and cut my neck or even selfharm. Today, it was acactable to sad/crying. A huge step forwards. I really get my hope back that I already lost as a kid. On Monday I get my next infusion and maybe I record it. Because the switches are insane but my memories on that last one are rare. I want to see me going through this from a normal kind of view. Sometimes I felt like I'm part of exorcism. The time sounds short but of it once kicks in after seconds there is no return. Just crazy and I don't understand why people use ketamine "just for fun" or alone. It's so dangerous. Not even the overdose, the downs are heavily that you really could hurt/kill yourself in those phases.

See you on Monday, have a nice weekend and stay safe.

[burntotears]

I’ve had an interesting week or so because my usual hyper-fixation on one activity has not been happening. I have split my time between playing God of War: Ragnarök, writing fic, beta-ing fics, and making gifs all while being high as fuck every other day. 

This coming week will be more of the same as it’s my second week of ketamine infusions. Also we will have people staying with us for a couple of days, but my high ass will not really notice much about that lol 

I had fun being a beta, though. I haven’t done it a lot, but it was nice! I always feel a little weird about telling people how to restructure things or saying something doesn’t make sense or whatever, but I know that’s the whole point. I just feel like I’m being mean. Hopefully my feedback is helpful.

Now I just need to finish one of my WIPs. 

[power-chords]

I don't know why it took me this long to buckle down and commit to developing a more Comprehensive Film Literacy (no pandemic until now, I guess?), but it's been great fun. There's nothing better than a great movie. (Nothing better except a great rock 'n' roll show, that is.) All-consuming sensory fantasy with its own self-contained logic and symbolic language? The ability to transplant one's subjectivity and perception into another character, into another universe? That shit is my kryptonite. I mean really! Really really.

No reblogging please, I'm not usually this gory details about it on main anymore and for that reason it probably doesn't need to be said. Just covering my bases. I'm sure I will panic and delete this in a few hours.

Now that that's out of the way: I LOVE it, I love being healthy and well-adjusted enough now that I can effectively and safely sublimate the exact same impulse that once landed me in a very nice Connecticut hospital. You know, doing things the normal way like everybody else does.

By impulse I mean the underlying desire, not the mechanism itself, which was incidental. Could have been weed killer and paint fumes for all I cared. Back in 2008 I was still the oddball at SHH, everybody was an alcoholic or it was cocaine or opiates (often a combination thereof), but I'm telling you, I was ahead of the curve. I bet they see Ketamine junkies all the time now. Now it's a Thing beyond a specific flavor of nose candy at dance clubs. It's a legit, sanctioned depression treatment! Ain't that something.

I'm sure the infusion process is a little different from my preferred methodology, which at the time was Oops! All K-Holes. But I figured out that if you injected enough horse tranquilizer you could experience a kind of waking dream where everything was vivid and strange and cathartic and breathtakingly significant; you could exit your own body and watch yourself as if on a screen, hovering from up above; time would push and pull and reverberate like a Slinky; the boundaries of your own selfhood might simply disintegrate entirely and wow, isn't that SUPER, you're at one with every atom in the universe! Enveloped in its primordial embrace! Stealing a brief glimpse of the Mind of God! I sound like Gendo Ikari.

And unlike an actual dream, you do retain some measure of narrative control and physical mobility. Up to a point. Overshoot it by a certain error margin and you're kinda stuck wherever you're at until it wears off. Strapped inside the theater chair until the projector dies.

So that was awesome, and I loved it, and I would have done it forever. Constantly, at every opportunity. For that reason I can never go near it again. But all the things you get from therapeutic treatment you can also get from recreational use and abuse. As with any hallucinogenic substance, you can explore new ways of processing grief and trauma. I imagined so many conversations with people who weren't there, who were dead or otherwise gone from my life, and they weren't any less profound just because they weren't real. I was able to experience my Intolerably Intense Young Adult Emotions with the dial turned down, almost literally at a remove. No more irrational psychic agony, no more shame and self-loathing. Just creation, exploration, sensory expansion. And I benefited from the same enduring, basement-level "afterglow" that is described by some people who get clinically administered Ketamine infusions for PTSD and depression (my best friend among them).

Anyway, mid-December of 2008 I get out of rehab. It's been a little over a month. One week of detox + 30 days of transitional living. Prior to that, almost two straight years of being fucked up to varying degrees and on various substances, some worse than others. I start trying to piece my life back together.

I figure it out eventually (hello from 2021), but at the time I have no idea what the FUCK I am doing. It's slow going. My relationships (friends, family) are either in limbo or in tatters. I'm self-indulgently heartbroken because my ex-boyfriend, Adam, hasn't spoken a word to me in months. My first and only true love, and I'm convinced I've lost him forever!

Shockingly, I am sober. Doing my 90 in 90, but still finding ways to make the absolute worst decisions imaginable. (Case in point: corporate lawyer 2.5x my age who comes up to me after my very first meeting at the 79th Street Workshop, introducing himself with the caveat that he's not trying to be untoward about it. 20-year-old me lights up like a Christmas tree. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. Wasn't much of a challenge, duh; it's fun, it's a distraction, it's delightful, it's dark, it's extraordinarily messed up, it's scary, and it ends surprisingly well for both parties working the ol' 13th Step. Dodged a bullet there, wow.)

So all of this is going on, and over the next few years a couple of incredibly timely, big budget movies come out about love, guilt, grief, family, duty, and the intoxicating allure of wanting to live in a dream, finding escape and hope and absolution in dreams. One of them was Shutter Island. Probably don't need to tell you what the other one was.

I would love some more of those. I would love some more movies that just consummately excel at the Art of Dreamcraft, so much so that they become a meta-commentary on filmmaking itself. You know....... like what Michael Mann does.

[whatzappening]

The Zappadydoodah

Hello! I’m Jenny – I am 38, married to a beautiful (in all the ways) lady for five years. We have a son who is nearly two and another baby on the way. I’m writing this down because I’m in a transformative time of life, with deliberate hope for change occurring around some treatment for my Stuff. I’m feeling super overwhelmed, massively restless and thought it might be a) handy to channel it all into a writing area, and b) useful for anyone else in a similar sitch.

The Stuff

So here’s my stuff. Fibromyalgia since 2005, Chronic Fatigue diagnosed since 2011, Depression and Anxiety diagnosed since 2012 but probably always. Definitely always.

Here is a list of some of the things I have done to try to manage/fix/deal with my stuff:

SSRI’s

Meditation

Herbal supplements

Naturopathy

CBT

Psychotherapy

Protein shakes

Exercise Therapy

Counseling

Hydrotherapy

Acupuncture

Pilates

Yoga

All of the Elimination Diets

Gym

Walking

Alexander Technique

Kinesiology

Psychics

Hypnosis

A thousand doctors

Graded Exercise Therapy

Narrative Therapy

Rheumatologist

Physiotherapy

Massage

Reiki

All the other stuff I can’t remember

Short of fish slapping that’s all I can remember right now (I did not try fish slapping). I want to be clear that a lot of these things have been extremely helpful in managing my life and keeping me as upright and mobile as possible. The ones who promised me that they could fix me, did the opposite and caused catastrophic setbacks, in every single case. I don’t feel like me listing which ones are which is helpful because every human reacts differently to different options depending on who they are and what their experiences have been.

I will say, however, that my current team members around my health are counselor, physiotherapist, massage therapist, acupuncturist/TCM practitioner.

So that is my stuff. Read on if you fancy!

What’s happening now, and how and why?

So a couple of months ago we were taking our kid for an outing on a Sunday morning. We thought we’d head to a local market about half an hour’s drive and visit our friends who were selling food there to raise money for the local wildlife shelter. Cute! Fun Sunday outing! He fell asleep five minutes from our destination so we kept going, because sleep is golden and we had no place we had to be, and ended up driving past my sister’s place.

We hadn’t seen them for a little while (she lives there with her daughters who are 19 and 20, both at uni this year so sometimes not there) and pulled up in the driveway, waking them up because they don’t live with a toddler and get to sleep in. I have no bitterness about this, it’s just something worth mentioning.

Her youngest daughter, my niece has had severe fibromyalgia for several years now. The list of things she’s tried are varied and include things like hospital stays, ketamine infusions, morphine – and they didn’t help. Morphine didn’t touch the sides of her pain. I won’t go into too much detail but her quality of life was non existent and she was cut down at her best and brightest. It’s horrific and unfair and all the other things. I have not seen colour in that kid’s face other than green for a number of years.

When we rocked up, she was pink cheeked and was about to go out for brunch with a friend.

Let me pause there – every part of that sentence was not possible for years. So after mouthing OMG at my sister when my niece wasn’t looking, we sat down at my sister’s dining table after her she went out with her friend and my sister took my hand. She teared up and said will you please, please think about trying this thing. It works. Look at her.

And then my heart skipped a beat. It had literally not occurred to me that anything could work. That was certainly not my lived experience. I knew they were trying a thing, and I was ready to support them as much as I could (and knowing that sometimes I need to keep a stronger boundary, to protect my sense of self and eschew self pity) when it inevitably didn’t work and their desperation in scrambling for something, some relief, would continue.

“things don’t work for people like me”

That was the sentence that was ringing in my head, loud and clear as a bell. I had believed one too many times when someone had promised me they could make it all better, and then as time went on the prices would increase and the narrowing field of ways I could be pressed in on me and the possibilities vanished when things that weren’t actually physically possible for me to do (and no, I couldn’t push through or engage in mind over matter, get fucked if you think that’s a thing that can happen in this situation, frankly) and I was a bad, naughty client who wasn’t complying so their promise no longer applied. By then they had all of the money and my sense of self was at rock bottom. Snake oil merchants for the win.

Four or so years ago I had a massive breakthrough with a fabulous narrative therapist I was working on my health management with. One day she asked me how it would be if I could just accept my limitations and not place pressure on myself to be capable of anything more than I could do. That I have a serious illness that impacts every single area of my life, and the more I ignore it the louder it gets. How would it feel to accept that?

Because I was ready to hear it, and because I trusted her, and because I knew everything I knew by that stage, I took it in and really imagined how it would feel. And my shoulders dropped about fifty metres and I felt relaxed and calm.

That year I had my first winter since my diagnosis where I didn’t have a severe depressive episode. I rested more, I kept myself warm, I didn’t push myself to not be such a big whiny baby. I cared for myself. I didn’t pretend I wasn’t unwell. I acknowledged it and acted accordingly. Bloody hell – it was absolutely life altering. I will always be grateful to that therapist for that revelation. Then she went and decided to help the refugees on Manus Island with their myriad of psychological issues resulting from trauma and abuse, which I understood but felt a bit miffed about in a selfish way.

So that huge shift had informed the way I went about caring for myself. What a relief to not feel the pressure of turning every stone over just in case. Wearing myself out going to All The Appointments. Never stopping because if I did that meant giving up.

Stopping is brilliant and should be compulsory for all people in all situations.

So now I have my team around me. Every member is crucial and I’m pretty happy most of the time. I’m a great parent and wife and friend and relative, I think.

The thought of messing with that? Oof. SO risky. Terrifying. But my sister held my hand and asked me to think about it. So I did.

I don’t mean to vaguebook atcha. The thing is called TMS and is usually provided to people who have severe depression. The kind where no medication works and everything is hopeless. It’s non invasive, and uses magnetic thingamebobs to retrain the pathways in your brain that have died off due to illness. So for people with fibro, the pathways of normal sensation are often replaced with pain pathways. Recently when I was extremely distressed about a work situation and I could not deal with what was happening, my brain told me that whenever I took a step I was at risk of my ankle shattering. My ankle was not at risk of shattering, but the pain felt extremely real and terrifying. And so on and so forth. So the TMS thingo (and to be honest it’s a little bit tinfoil hat to avoid the government reading your thoughts) is a metal cap that goes over your hair on the place where the specific neural pathways are, then magnetic waves are sent through the thing which stimulate your brains. It’s habit forming, so doing it once a week isn’t going to do squat. But 3-5 zaps a week (each zap is 30-60 mins) will be highly likely to have an impact. 5 will work faster, 3 will still work the same amount but will take a little longer.

They recommend about 30 sessions and then you can taper off and see how you respond. Here’s the kick. I live 90 mins from Melbourne CBD and it’s the closest place I can go for treatment. A three hour round trip a day isn’t possible for me (both in terms of fatigue and available free time).

My work is quite seasonal so I had planned to close off my books from May for a few months, and we were all going to go as a family to rent a house for a few months and just smash it. But then we both realised my wife’s pregnancy wasn’t getting easier and sooner would be better than later. So the compromise is as follows:

Kicking off this month with a week together as a family for calibration and a couple of treatments, and then I’ll head to Melbourne Tuesday morning til Thursday middle of the day allowing me three zaps (Tues – Wed – Thurs) and on the way home I get acupuncture so I can decompress a bit before arriving for family time at home and don’t just dump all my emotions all over them. I’ll have had time to process and chat a bit. Fridays the kidlet is in daycare, Saturdays and Sundays as per usual, Monday with the wee fella. Tuesdays drop him off at daycare late on my way in to town. We’re getting some help with kid wrangling on Wednesdays from daycare pickup to bedtime so my beautiful pregnant wife won’t have to be too exhausted after working all day. There’s a lot going on. Did I mention we’re married but not legally so we’re going to do that in a few weeks as well? It’s a big time.

I turned it all over and over and over in my head, spoke with some key people and most helpfully talked with my love. You don’t owe us anything, she said, and meant it. You try it, you don’t try it, we love you. Your body and health changes, or doesn’t, we love you. If you try it and it doesn’t work and it creates massive turmoil for you then we cross that bridge. You’ve dealt with worse.

So forward we go. 

[onehandshort]

The only time in the last 10 years that I've not had any pain was while getting ketamine infusions for my ocd and god I just can't imagine a life without constant physical pain but that little glimpse was awe inspiring. How many things would I find that I love to do if I didn't have pain!? Would I enjoy running!? Maybe I could take up fencing I loved fencing as a kid. Oooh I could get into horseback riding that was so much fun I'd love to get into jumping! But yeah as things stand none of that is remotely possible and the only way I can be independent is with an ecv or if I only need to be up for a little while then I can manage with a cane but I just want to exist. I WANT a part time job! I want to get out and be "healthy"!

[perambulatelove]

Mood 2018

I just turned 24 (yes Boss Lady, thank you perfect timing with this Leo moon; we Aquarius’ are on fire), and I must say being 24 and having:

I have traveled to: -All 50 states.  -Every 10 motherland provinces (Canada, eh!) -Multiple cities around Mexico  -Cuba -Jamaca -Bahamas -Bermuda Just in the Western Hemisphere.  I spent some time in Malaysia studying under the best pastry chefs in all of Asia doing some of the most advanced chocolate and sugar showpieces, intricate desserts and such well prepared dishes that infuse the taste buds with the most beautiful melody of dancing that you've ever witnessed in your life.  During this time I saved some of my money up and spent 3 months backpacking around Korea, Japan and China. I finally lived a dream I had made a pact with my high school friends that we would hike Jeju, and it was MORE than the glorious experience that I ever imagined.  And if you even for a second get me stared on watching cherry blossoms fall as the snow comes down from inside a ramen shop with the warms and love of my neighbors and community around me, though strangers, you would know why I love anime so much and why I could write poetry - and why the Japanese and Korean DO write poetry - about SUCH beautiful sights and experiences. 

But that could not compare to seeing Cambodia. Or how Agent Orange is STILL affecting the Vietnamese.

But seeing a week old elephant born on Thai soil whose mother had been rescued from the Myanmar ivory trade playing around with his keeper, looking for bananas, knowing full well that elephants think humans are cute in the way we think puppies or kitties are cute just always could draw me to find a smile while experiencing these third world countries.

Theres also Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Lombok Indonesia where I was kidnapped with my family and chased by the police at gunpoint

And I could not even begin to explain to you how that is still just even a portion of this world. Theres still this beautiful, completely vast and unexplored underwater world we have yet to barely experience as humans. I’ve been blessed to see turtles and swim with a shark once. The clownfish are always fun but mostly I like to sit just right on the very bottom of the sand and just look up for a little bit of time. Ive been diving in 3 different countries so far and the water is the most beautiful blue that could ever be described to a human being. Its purity over there. Untouched. Unexplained. It just so beautiful when it shines, its unlike anything i had seen in Hawaii, Jamaica, Bahamas, anywhere over on the Western side. 

And thats just being shallow, I know. Ive worked my fucking ASS off to get where I am. Working as a chef in a kitchen is hard profession that few can endure. I have not just one degree, but two degrees in that shit, because I’m that talented;  And yet that still wasn't ENOUGH for me. I needed more. And years of reading about different religions and cultures and histories of countries eventually developed into this thirst for something beyond most human’s capable understanding. Physics. 

But not just Physics. As Keating once said, “We are not just simply laying brick here”.  We are talking about quantum mechanics. And anti-mater the most beautiful cosmic experience of this life.  Now I know some of you might ask how I became the intellectual giant you see before you, well that comes from years of depression, anxiety, doing MDMA, coke, meth, Ketamine, Bars, LSD, having an abortion, losing my best friend, loosing so many others who took their lives. I took myself around this world. I survived so much bullshit from my past and I have already seen so much and accomplished so much while doing so. 

I am 24, I am a goddess, and you're going to be so empty without me in your life. Watch what I’m STILL going to do with this life. 

[artificialqueens]

Rupaul's Bake Off ~ Hobnob

A/N: The great British bake off is so close i can taste it. People don’t know this about me, but i go into a hibernation like state whilst waiting between seasons of bake off. I then emerge from my cocoon as a sweaty moth, ready to watch some fuckin cooking and pound a few brews.

Alas, bake off moved to channel 4 and i can’t stand channel 4 it can suck my flaccid wang. Too many adds, I’m not about that life, you know? When i found out i looked my mum straight in the eyes and cried. She told me i was loved and held me tight. Thats the only intimacy i ever got from mum :(

I was craving some classic bake off, that really kept with the feel of the show. Bless mary berry that sweet old thing. She was faithful and stayed with the BBC! I burnt my paul holywood cookbook when i found out he was moving to channel 4. Liar!!! Dickhead!!!

Enjoy~ Hobnob

Ru: So then i said if those are your rates ill kill the child myself.

Ru: Shit we on?

Ru: Hello hello hello! Four weeks in, 12 bakers down to eight. They’re on a roll!

Ru: Welcome, to Rupaul’s Bake Off!

~

Ru: Alright ladies, how are we feeling today?

Laganja: Well actually i-

Ru: Hahahahaha thats wonderful!

Ru: For todays challenge you’ll all be making shortbread, and since our ratings went up by 4, we can actually afford real flour.

Trixie: We used washing powder. Magnolia Crawford died.

Ru: I hear your complaints. Magnolia’s family will be notified.

Trixie: Her body is still on the floor. We used her left leg for pie week.

Ru: Her death drop was sickening!

Ru: Are you ladies bready to make some shortbread?

*general mumbling*

Ru: Well on that note lets- WAKE UP PEARL.

Pearl: Im a dude that loves to snooze.

Ru: Gentlemen, start your ovens, and may the best woman, bake!

Pearl: where am i.

~

Ru: Alright Michelle what we looking for in a good piece of shortbread?

*Michelle grabs a tesco’s own brand tray of shortbread and cuts a piece in half*

Michelle: No soggy bottoms.

Ru: But Michelle i heard you love a soggy bottom!

*cackling from Michelle and Santino*

Ru: Now Santino, what are you looking for in a piece of shortbread.

Santino: I want to have a have a childhood flashback like in ratatouille.

Ru: Santino your fired.

Michelle: Its literally impossible to fuck up shortbread, I’m exited to see what these girls can turn out.

Santino: I think one of the contestants died last week.

Ru: You know michelle i completely agree. Ill be keeping my rye on them!

*more cackling*

Ru: Alright we only booked this room for half an hour get out.

~

Ru: lets see how some of these biological women are doin.

Ru: Sharon Needles, how it do?

Sharon: Hoh hoh its going great Ru!

Ru: Now I’m…seeing alot of plastic rings on the counter…whats that all about?

Sharon: See Ru, at greggs they serve their shortbread with fun plastic rings on top!

Sharon: I love greggs this is really a homage to that.

Ru: I uh…ok

Ru: So how about the Shortbread itself, how’s that coming along?

Sharon: I wanted it to have a spook-tastic theme!

*Ru nods*

Sharon: So i put live spiders in the mix.

Ru: Christ…

Ru: Alright ill let you get back to work thanks Sharon.

Sharon: Hoh hoh!

~

Ru: Katya, hows everything cooking?

Katya: Im making ravioli Ru.

Ru: But the challenge is to make shortbread.

*Katya leans in and whispers*

Katya: Ru ima level with you here, i ate all the flour.

*Ru sighs*

Ru: Alright can we get Katya another bag of flour?

Pit crew: We can’t she snorted it all.

Katya: Im so happy to be here!!!

Ru: For fucks sake. there were 20 bags of flour.

*Katya takes another drag of her cigarette*

Katya: Party.

Ru: Right Im going over there.

~

Ru: Leganjy estrangy, it smells great over here!

Laganja: Actually mawma its pronounced la-

Ru: Wonderful!

Ru: How are you approaching the classic shortbread recipie?

Laganja: Well mwahmah i baked my shortbread with pot cuz if it aint green i aint interested you best believe!

Ru: You smuggled marijuana on set??

Adore: Rupaul that was my weed she stole it!!!

Laganja: You fucking dickpig son of a spazzy cunt i didn’t take nothing.

Adore: You also stole my copious amounts of ketamine gurl, most unsportsmanlike…

*Laganja whips out her gun*

Laganja: You willing to die over this? Take it easy okuur?

*She aims the gun at adore’s temple and speaks in a soft voice*

Laganja: I feel very…attacked.

Ru: Oof i doughnut want to be caught up in this pickle. Take it easy…bake oven.

*Roaring laughter from Michelle*

- Ru: Sasha Velour!

Ru: Make this quick I’m running out of food related puns.

Sasha: Want me to give you a quick run-through of what I’m making?

Ru: Sasha you bread my mind!

Ru: Oh i do got more.

Sahsa: I really wanted to get an in depth look at the inner workings of shortbread.

Shasha: So my piece will be a deconstruction of shortbread at its essence.

Ru: Its… just the raw ingredients and you’ve painted 3 of the eggs.

Sasha: plus i infused the oats with the tears of a crying dove.

Sasha: Its the future of baking man. Don’t even trip.

Ru: I have only just met you.

Ru: But i love you.

Sasha: Right on.

*Ru checks her casio sports watch*

Ru: ALRIGHT LADIES STOP BAKING WE’S DONE TIME’s UUupP.

Ru: Time to judge this shitshow.

~

*Ru Michelle and Santino look at all the trays. Santino begins to cry*

Michelle: Uh- lets start with Trixie mattel’s!!

Santino: So first off its fucking pink. And there’s bits of glitter sticking out of it.

Trixie: Yeah that glitter isn’t edible.

*Santino, Michelle and Ru take a bite* Michelle: Why does it taste like regret and plastic?

Trixie: I melted 3 barbie dolls into the mix. I was feeling the fantasy.

*Santino begins to choke and collapses on the floor*

Ru: Sickening!

Michelle: Movin on.

Michelle: Bianca Del Rio, lets see what you made henny.

*Michelle picks up a tray of paper slips*

Ru: Tf is this.

Bianca: THEY’RE ALL INSULTS FOR LAGANJA ESTRANJA.

Bianca: I WANT TO SLASH HER FUCKING FACE.

Michelle: That went to a very dark place.

Bianca: I WILL ABSORB HER LIFE ENERGY AND RETURN TO THE SHADOW RELM.

*Michelle puts down the tray and looks at the rest of the trays*

Michelle: The rest of these aren’t even shortbread. Ru did you have to cast a group of twats, how do you fuck up shortbread.

Ru: Now seems like the perfect time to plug my new product.

Ru: It’s a literal piece of shit. Just a big chunk of shit.

Ru: Think of the…possibilities.

Adore: Did Santino die?

Ru: Now available on ebay. Bidding starts at ten quid.

Adore: He isn’t breathing.

Ru: While you think about the series of events that led you to this gig, the judges and i will deliberate.

*Ru looks over to Santino’s dead body*

Ru: Michelle and i will deliberate. ~

Ru: Alright so what do we think?

Michelle: Katya snorted all the flour then spat in a tray, Pearl is asleep inside the oven, Bianca keeps coming at queens with carving knives, I think i saw Trixie sample Katya’s tray of spit, Laganja has a loaded gun, Adore doesn’t belong here, Sasha is immaculate and i love her god bless and Sharon started coughing up blood.

Ru: The ‘steaks’ are higher than ever!

Michelle: And Santino Rice died.

Ru: Ive heard enough…Bring back my goirls.

*Michelle cackles*

~

Ru: Alright ladies…ive made my decision…

*Trixie raises her hand and Ru sighs*

Ru: Yes Trixie?

Trixie: Where’s Manila?

Ru: i-uh…oh shit yeah Manila was sposed to be here.

Ru: Manila?

*Manila pops her head out of a fruit bowl. She’d been disguised as a pineapple the whole time!*

Ru: Why you hiding gurl?

*Manila speaks through broken sobs*

Manila: Someone…someone left the cake out in the rain.

*shady rattlesnake noise*

Manila: I-I just don’t think that I can take it, coz it took so long to bake it.

*A single tear rolls down her pineapple cheek*

Manila: And I’ll never have that recipe again.

*Everyone hugs Manila and cries*

Ru: Mmm thats some good telly.

Ru: Alright I’ve made my decision…

Ru: Stacy layne Mathews, you are the star baker of this weeks challenge.

*Everyone applauds, and nods in agreement*

Stacy: Thanks. As they say back in the swamp, “i am in a swamp, but why?”

Ru: Preach sister.

Ru: Unfortunately…this is the hardest part of the competition…who will be eliminated.

Ru: So Im going to let Michelle Visage decide.

Michelle: Trixie you killed Santino Rice.

Michelle:…

Michelle: thank you. You are safe + immunity for next weeks challenge.

Trixie: Bitchin!

Michelle: You know what, ill cut to the chase. Hermione granger the stranger you can go home.

Laganja: mwwuuaaumahch, it’s pronouncéd lega-

Ru: Get out.

*Even louder applause as everyone else throws rotten tomatoes at a sobbing Laganja*

Ru: Thats not all…every guests here tonight…leaves with a piece of shit!

Ru: See you next week!

Ru: LET THE MUSIC PLAEEH!!

*Everyone shuffles about to the sound of ambient rainforest noises.*

A/N: It was me, tammie brown all along.

If you managed to stick with the entirety of this script you get a shank in the back plus free PPI congration!!!?!?!?!?!!!!!!

[nezlifestudios]

Ketamine Infusion Update 👉🏽 So yesterday I tried this for the first time! I was very nervous but HOPEFUL! If you’re not familiar with my pain journey, please read last post. But I’ve been living with pain since November 7th 2012. And it hasn’t been fun. Art has definitely helped and it’s one of the reasons I’m so dedicated to helping others find their inner artist. My husband came with me and took this picture (swipe👉🏽). He said I was smiling the whole time lol. I don’t remember anything because of the meds but this definitely speaks volumes for this treatment modality. I was literally pain free and I had forgotten what that felt like. I still have some treatments left to do but now I’m more hopeful than ever! If you’re living with pain and haven’t found anything that helps, look into this. I personally know how difficult it is to accept this new normal and no one knows what your going through but YOU. I’m happy to answer any questions. Just comment or dm me💛 #pain #painmanagement #heal #healing #healingtrauma #ivketamine #mindsetiseverything #art #alcoholinkpainting #alcoholinkart #alcoholink #yupopaper #breareese #virginiabeach #virginiabeachart #virginiabeachartist #nezlifestudios (at Nezlife Studios) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_aGR-mnjwE/?igshid=1lbr4rns1ncwr

[scriptmedic]

Can you explain any additional side effects/effects of ketamine?

kicks down the door, dual-wielding syringes

Did somebody say KETAMINE?L!!?!?#$$@@!!!!!!?

…Shut it, Stethy.

Okay. Ketamine. My #1 all-time favorite pharmacological agent. (I have a feeling someone sent me this ask to cheer me up, which I’ve really needed this week, but I’m not sure so I’m going to answer it.)

There’s a phenomenal article about the “Ketamine Brain Continuum” from an amazing ER doc, which I’m going to summarize here,  but if you’re as fascinated as I am, is worth reading in its entirety.

In low doses, ketamine can relieve pain. It can also make people feel very “stoned”.

In  medium doses, it can cause hallucinations. This is what the drug using community refers to as “falling down the K-hole,” and ketamine is indeed known for its illicit uses. For example:

Then I entered an orange-brown-black space occupied by a giant inflated kiwi-bird with ruffled, long tassel-like feathers and a long curved slim black beak, and the beak curved off into infinity. The space was like a corridor, with undulating grasses at the top and bottom, and the kiwi somehow inside it, but the sides were open and the corridor stretched off into infinity and I moved toward the kiwi and it felt beautiful, amazing, with loud buzzing, ringing sounds accompanying the journey....

There are some fascinating first-hand accounts here: https://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Ketamine.shtml  

Note: I am in no way encouraging illicit uses of pharmacological agents. Any agent can be dangerous. But if you want to know what ketamine feels like, don’t ask the medical providers, ask the people who use it for fun, right? 

This is actually where medical people want patients not to be. The hallucinations can be distressful. To quote Dr. Reuben Strayer (above article):

If the patient develops distress shortly after an initial dose, the patient is not fully dissociated and the best maneuver is usually to give more ketamine.

Personally I think that’s the best maneuver for almost any situation.

In high doses, ketamine works as an anesthetic, specifically a dissociative anesthetic. It shuts the brain off from outside stimulus completely. Basically what ketamine does is it shuts the brain off from outside stimuli. That means that even though someone’s eyes are open (and possibly twitching, medically referred to as nystagmus) their brain isn’t processing information from them. As a doc whose lectures I love likes to say, “Think of a beach. Or think of a mountaintop. Or think of a beach on a mountaintop. Anything is possible with ketamine.”

Think of it like this: with most anesthetics, the brain is temporarily turned off. With ketamine, the brain isn’t turned off -- it’s just disconnected from the outside world.

However, if someone is unprepared for it, those hallucinations can seem like a nightmare. And there is a portion of patients who get ketamine and, as it starts to wear off, they start screaming uncontrollably. This is called an “emergence reaction,” as they emerge from anesthesia and slip into the K-hole.

Someone who has been sedated/anosthetized with ketamine, especially if it’s against their will (used as a “knockout drug”), will likely have very negative hallucinations. To an outsider they’ll be lying on the floor, eyes open and blinking, unable to move or react to anything. It’s a great moment for a horror scene, or a horrific element to an action plot, especially if they have an emergence reaction and come back to reality screaming.

(Ketamine is also routinely used during veterinary euthanasia, at least where I live, and eyes stay open even after death, and that’s something a good vet warns their clients about. Ketamine isn’t the lethal agent, that’s a barbiturate, I think usually just a massive overdose of phenobarbital.)

Other uses:

ketamine helps open up constricted airways (acts as a broncholytic or bronchodilator). This means that it’s the optimal anesthetic for intubating -- putting a breathing tube in -- severe asthmatics who need to go on ventilators.

Ketamine, in high doses, can be used to subdue patient who are physically violent and psychotic.

Because ketamine acts on different receptors than typical sedatives, it can be used to stop seizures when benzodiazepines (Valium, Ativan, Versed...) have failed.

Low-dose, slow infusions of ketamine have seen great promise in depression that’s not responding to other approaches. There are ketamine clinics around for exactly this purpose.

Low-dose / analgesic ketamine is often used by EMS personnel during rescue scenarios where someone is trapped or pinned in a vehicle because ketamine, unlike most pain medications, doesn’t reduce blood pressure.

Ketamine is typically not used as an anesthetic in head injury patients because there is some (conflicting) data on whether or not it can increase intracranial pressure.

So that’s ketamine. Thanks for the ask and thanks for listening to my madness!

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

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[pubtheatres1]

THE HALF MOON SHANIA presented by Burnt Lemon Theatre Company VAULTS Festival 6-10th February 2019 ‘Irresistible storytelling that plunges us G-strings first into the world of an all-female punk band’ ★★★★★ The Vaults Festival is a cacophony of theatre makers looking for a test ground for the most experimental work about; either before or after Edinburgh Fringe Festival, showing their work in pub theatres, or at Camden Fringe. The Vaults is a kind of stepping stone in-between for artists. In The Pit this year, Burnt Lemon Theatre Company bring their punk production ‘The Half Moon Shania’ to London after a successful run at Edinburgh Fringe in 2018 and at Bread and Roses Theatre (Clapham Fringe). In a way, The Pit fits with the story of a punk rock girl band more so than any Edinburgh venue – dusty, open brick, haze and subterranean in every way. Their band, The G Stringz, formed by Ketamine-fuelled Kerry on drums (Cara Baldwin), savvy guitarist Jill (Catherine Davies) and insecure bassist Lola (Freya Parks), bring us into a dirty, sweaty, unapologetic world; of women. All three are contagiously riotous in their charisma on stage and as a three-piece band, offer the audience a group of women who hold more chemistry together than well, some all-male bands in real life. As a result, director Hannah Benson and actor/writer Cara Baldwin navigate us through a gig-theatre production that doesn’t just roar, but howls against a world where young women are intimidated by studying Science as much as they are going to the loo at a club. Alone. As the band begins a make or break set at the The Half Moon Club, believing there is a representative from the prestigious Diamond Records, it’s a journey into what it’s really like to be in a band, female companionship and loyalty. But of course, things don’t run so smoothly – Kerry (Baldwin) gets in over her head dealing drugs to the door-man in between songs and Lola (Parks) drops the bombshell that she’s been offered a place at university to study astronomy. Whilst Jill is just trying to keep it all together – a refreshing take in fact, on the ‘stoic’ band member, who is usually the cowering bassist stereotypically. Spoken word is moulded with classic punk rock chords by Musical Director Tomas Wolstenholme and deserves recognition for his contribution to the compositions and riffs in the show. Baldwin’s epic odysseys of Ketamine-infused spoken word are performed to the audience with ferocious spit in a blaze of tartan, ripping across the stage, and finely supported by Parks and Davies. That said, there are some wonderfully intricate harmonies thread through and Davies on guitar performs a stunner of a lead vocal. In particular, ‘Fem-i-nin-ity- is a wonderful combination of lyrical wit and rumbling rock chords. This is a powerhouse of ensemble-led theatre from a company that does not mask how they feel. And yet, there is tender, much darker storyline that rears its ugly head through Lola. The night descends further and further from what they expected, and our astronomy student bassist Lola is thrown into dangerous territory. You can use your imagination. It’s a significant and poignant moment of stillness and silence that packs an emotive punch. Parks brings a real tenderness and weights her performance in raw truth that cut this audience member to the core. Whether you are a young woman in the music industry or the Science Department of a university, in the end, what’s the difference? As Jill (Davies) smirks, legs wide over the stage, ‘Look around, Lola.’ Indeed, let’s look around. Dark turns entrench ‘The Half Moon Shania’ by its end, and it’s this decision by director Hannah Benson that sets the piece apart from other gig-theatre. After so much noise, so much kicking, fighting, screaming, spitting frustration as female artists, it’s the company’s use of silence that transcends and eternalises its themes of female companionship, artistic conflict and frustration at a male-dominated world. Irresistible storytelling that plunges us G-strings first into the world of an all-female punk band. Burnt Lemon Theatre bring to the Vaults ‘The Half Moon Shania’ that rumbles from underneath Waterloo Station. A perspicacious production whilst at the same time, has the prerogative to have a little fun. And why ever not? Box Office: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/the-half-moon-shania/ Reviewer Emma Zadow is an actor and theatre maker from South London. @EmmaZadow

[theconservativebrief]

I am going to die in this dentist’s chair.

My eyes are closed, but I can still see skulls outlined with white against a black background. I have an epiphany: God is death. I’m in the midst of a real-life version of the hallucinogenic ride in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, all in my own mind.

A monitor emits a steady beep, and for a second, I think I’m flatlining. But no: I’ve just completed my first infusion of ketamine, a veterinary anesthetic (often used on cats and horses) sometimes used illegally as a club drug called Special K.

I am here because I cannot stop thinking about suicide. I’ve been in therapy on and off for more than 30 years, since I was 5, and on depression medication for more than a decade. Nothing seemed to work. I couldn’t stop imagining killing myself in increasingly vivid daydreams.

As a journalist who covers health and medicine, I had read about the success of experimental trials that used ketamine to treat depression. My therapists had recommended extreme treatments like electroshock therapy, a procedure that frightened me due to reports of memory loss from those who had undergone it, but had never mentioned this. But I was getting desperate for a serious intervention.

After some research, I concluded that ketamine was not only more affordable but just as effective as sending electrical pulses through my brain. (About 70 to 85 percent of patients with severe depression who try ketamine treatment say it’s effective, compared with 58 to 70 percent of ECT patients.) I told my doctor I wanted to try it.

It wasn’t my goal to be on the vanguard, just to get better, but I am an early adopter of a treatment that could one day help millions of people with chronic depression. After a full treatment cycle, my suicidal thoughts went away. And depression isn’t the only psychiatric illness the drug may combat. Studies are being conducted on ketamine’s efficacy on anxiety, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and even obsessive-compulsive disorder.

That’s how I wound up glued to that dentist-style chair at a clinic in Houston envisioning skulls, as an IV drip steadily infused me with a drug I’d thought was reserved for rave-goers.

Most people familiar with ketamine know it as either a veterinary medicine or an illegal street drug. But it’s been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for anesthetic use for humans since 1970. Its rise as a treatment for depression, a legal but off-label usage not yet approved by the FDA, is even more recent.

Ketamine’s antidepressant effects were revealed in a Yale study in 2000. Over the next decade, researchers continued to explore its potential as a treatment for major depressive disorder. Asim Shah, a professor and executive vice chair at Baylor College of Medicine who co-led several of these studies, told me that doctors have long been curious about the euphoric effects of ketamine. A lot of people given ketamine as an anesthetic “would start smiling or laughing,” he says. “That’s the reason that many people before have said, ‘Oh, maybe it can be used for depression.’”

As of now, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and multiple-receptor antidepressants such as trazodone are among the most commonly prescribed drugs to treat depression. Yet studies show that only around 37 percent of people who use these drugs experience full remission. The number drops past the first year of use.

Ketamine is an NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor antagonist, which means that it targets glutamate absorption in the nerve cells, unlike traditional antidepressants, which raise serotonin levels by blocking the reabsorption of the neurotransmitter. Glutamate is associated with excitability — among many other brain functions such as memory. Researchers like Shah believe that as the brain metabolizes the ketamine, new neural pathways are created that help restore function obliterated by depression. It’s this effect, not the experience of hallucinations or dissociation, that can help treat depression.

Despite its association with the platform sneakers and vinyl pants of the 1990s club scene, ketamine abuse began in the ’80s. People who take ketamine recreationally do so for its fast-acting high, which is typically a floating or out-of-body experience coupled with euphoria. But it’s not the kind of party drug that will bump up your social skills. After all, it is an anesthetic: Users retreat into their minds and experience hallucinations, sometimes reporting religious experiences or even a feeling some compare to rebirth. Drawbacks of recreational use of the drug include risk of overdose, dependence, and high blood pressure.

But for someone experiencing intense depression, that “rebirthing” can be therapeutic.

What people who have never battled depression don’t understand is that it has little to do with “feeling sad.” Sadness is a flesh wound, a knife cut that might sting but eventually heals. Chronic depression is blunt force trauma to the head, locking you into a pattern of negative thought and throwing away the key.

On my quest to find a fix for my depression, I was shuffled from practitioner to practitioner like a poorly behaved foster kid. By the beginning of 2018, my psychiatrist said I had tried (and failed) nearly every class of drug aimed at treating depression. I was fresh out of options and desperate enough to try something more experimental.

When I decided I wanted to try ketamine, I went to the Menninger Clinic in Houston, a respected psychiatric clinic I had written about, to figure out next steps. I was an obvious candidate, as I had been on antidepressants for more than a decade and had shown little improvement; I just needed to be approved for the treatment after a consultation.

I met with Justin Coffey, the medical director of Menninger’s Center for Brain Stimulation Services, to discuss my history and we reached an agreement: I’d try two infusions of the drug, and if it had a positive effect, I’d do four more. At Menninger, this cost $600 for each session, and it’s not covered by insurance. If not, electroshock therapy would be my next step.

I arrived and got a basic work-up in the pre-treatment room. In addition to weighing me and taking my blood pressure, a nurse tested my reading ability, memory, and basic awareness (the date, where I was). Dr. Coffey came in to discuss what to expect over the course of my six treatments. That number is typical for this treatment, but because it’s still experimental, so is the number of doses necessary to work. Coffey was open to the idea of me needing more if six didn’t provide lasting results.

His frightening warning: Since ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic, I might feel like I’m leaving my body and experience a “bad trip,” as opposed to a more euphoric hallucinatory state. But if I were to go into this state, I could tell my nurse, who would stop the infusion or add a counteractive drug, the anesthetic midazolam, to lessen that effect.

The nurse inserted an IV and flushed it with saline to make sure it was flowing correctly; then we moved into the treatment room with its dentist-style chair for my infusion to begin. I would receive half a milligram of the drug for every kilogram of my weight, a very low dose compared to what recreational users inhale or inject. About 10 minutes into the treatment, the tree I was watching through the window separated into two. Soon, it was difficult to keep my eyelids open at all.

And then I was gone, down the rabbit hole of hallucination. My mind skipped through grid-style maps of city parks. I occasionally took a deep breath or wiggled my fingers just to remind myself I still could. I later learned that what I was experiencing is known as a “K-hole,” which is rare at the low dose I took.

Each infusion lasted 45 minutes. After my first one, I had a nurse play the cast album of my favorite musical as the drip began. Instead of running wild, my mind became immersed in the music, albeit in a deeply dreamlike state. Each time, it took about 15 to 20 minutes after the effects of the treatment wore off for me to be able to open my eyes and start walking. Afterward, I was exhausted. The half-hour Uber ride home felt like hours as I longed for the warm embrace of a nap.

Immediately after each treatment, I felt down. But by the time I woke up the next day, I was in less psychic pain and had more purpose. I would start the day on my long-neglected spin bike, feeling motivation that I’d lacked for months. Lunches with friends no longer felt like they existed just to show them I was still alive and making an effort to get out of the house. I was beginning to connect with the world outside my head again. I noticed myself smiling more. According to Shah, feeling the effects of ketamine within 24 hours of treatment is typical. “It is the most rapid-acting treatment for depression,” he said.

After the final infusion, I had the initiative to start writing again. The following week quickly filled up with activities, both work and fun. I was living for the first time in months. It’s been three months since my last treatment, and I’ve even started to feel excited about my future. Shah says I am unlikely to need another dose — I was in the roughly 70 percent who achieve remission after one series of ketamine infusions.

In technical terms, as I’ve said, taking ketamine had caused my brain to release glutamate, the neurotransmitter responsible for “excitatory” responses. But despite all his years of research into the drug’s chemistry, Shah admits, “No one knows the exact mechanism of any medicine.”

If I do need additional doses of ketamine, it probably won’t be an infusion. Thanks in part to Shah’s work, an intranasal version of the drug is expected to receive FDA approval as soon as next year. The side effects of the nasal inhaler, known as esketamine, are practically nonexistent next to the K-hole I experienced; patients would even be able to take the treatment at home. I’m a testament that it can work. And soon, ketamine will be accessible to people (who can afford it, since it likely will be expensive and not necessarily covered by insurance) who have all but given up on fixing their depression.

I had come to believe that my depression was a terminal illness. But the so-called party drug may have saved my life.

Alice Levitt is a writer and editor specializing in food and medicine. She is lucky to live in Houston, Texas, home of the world’s largest medical center.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

Original Source -> “I tried ketamine to treat my depression. Within a day, I felt relief.”

via The Conservative Brief

[stuprosu]

august 17th, 2017 10:38 PM

this is my first post of 2017. how fucking wild. so much has happened. i can do it by month, i am guessing? but i need to create a record. i need to write down my thoughts. lately, it has become too much, to think. i am angry all the time. 

so, the last post was in november? i guess we’ll start in december, then, dear diary. it’s gonna be a long one.

[december] nothing too wild happened this month. final grades, wild snowstorms driving home. decent grades, no cuts, but they were still healing, noticeable. christmas, coming home for the holidays, almost a month off of school. got a new jacket. things between mom and i were /good/. i splurged on her for christmas. i genuinely loved her then. 

[january] school started back up again. these were genuinely good months. classes were fine. only stresses were grades and finding a job. little luck with applications. hung out with renee and cade all the time, every day. new friends, more board game club. things were genuinely good. came home most weekends to see family. didn’t really notice anything deteriorate. i wasn’t around, though. cuts are healing fine. 

[february] things are still grand. still don’t have a job but it helped me balance what money i had. went without groceries but you don’t need those. i guess the first descent into madness was cade dropping out of school. i love her so much and she left to be with her mom. i understood. but i cried a lot. i missed her so much. i still miss her. but i still had renee. nothing else major went on. nothing on jobs. no new cuts

[march] then, the only thing wrong with march was cade’s absence and the lack of a job. but i wasn’t home to see what was going on. dad got poison ivy really bad. mom’s highly allergic so he slept on the couch. mom started working out heavily. thing about my mom is she’s “disabled”. blames her handicapped on a car wreck 20 years ago that fucked up her nerves and gave her RSD. maybe that part’s true. but we’ve spent the last 10 years taking care of her. well, my brothers, garryck (17) and toby (13) and my dad have taken care of her. fixing all her meals, picking up shit she drops, bringing her her blanket, paying for all of her medicine. waiting on her hand and foot. after her ketamine infusions and her peak of addiction to pain killers, my mom had a commode set up in her room. my father would wipe her ass for her. change tampons. horrendous, awful shit that you only do for the ones you love without hesitation. my father is so in love with my mother. it breaks my heart. but yeah, enough history. march, dad starts sleeping on the couch for poison ivy. march, i apply for a job at a local library. i get an interview. i get the job. i start in april.

[april] i work now alongside my classes. only two weeks of class anyways. work is good, keeps me busy. still clinging to renee. dad is still sleeping on couch, though the poison ivy is gone. they dodge my questions of why. the love i have for my mother is dissipating. that love is such a fragile thing, between my mother and i. my family always took care of her, but i never did. i never did anything for her. she was a burden, a nuisance, and inconvenience and a waste of my time and would eventually die. she manipulated my family into doing things she could do herself. she was enabled. enabled over and over again. but never by me. which is why our relationship plummeted, never was positive. 

i suffered the verbal abuse, the attacks after her highs on pain meds, or lack of, or a combination of those and the bipolar and just our ticking bomb of a fight that we woke with every morning. my dad would defend me. middle school was worst. 2013 was bad. even my sister was dragged in, asking me if i had my headphones on so i couldn’t hear the horrible, awful things my mother said about me. i lied. there was no music playing. i heard it all. i can’t remember what now, but perhaps i’ve suppressed it. perhaps it’s killing tiny parts of me still today. maybe i’m being melodramatic. maybe i’m not being dramatic enough. 

but. this love i accumulated for my mother during those first six months of college. peaking in december. every mistreatment towards my father chips away. chips away, now that i look back, on everything. everything. april, i think, danielle had her mom, mary, ask my mom for danielle’s tablet back, that i had. i never properly paid her. we’re poor and forgetful, and it’s been since 2014 that i’ve had this tablet. danielle is just being petty. i told my mom to tell mary i don’t know where the tablet is. my mom knows i still use this tablet. i don’t ask her what she tells mary. this information is relevant. 

[may] here comes the hell month. the height of my horror. the height of destruction. dear reader, you probably have a guess what is about to happen. everyone is in a tizzy. my dear brother is graduating highschool. he is awarded the alumni scholarship. posts of love and adoration on facebook from not one, but both parents. something i could have never achieved. i think i got a card, a hug. some permission for an ear piercing. regardless, i know the difference. but i love my brother and my father too much to cause a stir. 

my brother has always been my mother’s favorite, but i don’t really care about her opinion. i’ve never held it in high regard. this is why i tell her important things. her thoughts do not scare me; her reactions, her feelings. they don’t affect me as my father or my aunt’s might. anyways. little brother graduates. all the proper family comes and gifts exchanged. all is well. i believe it was may seventeenth. my aunt came up to watch one of toby’s baseball games. my sister was there. it got rained out. we came home with pizza and my brothers, my sister, my aunt and my parents all killed each other. my aunt knew weeks prior. had stayed the night the day before. the night before i told her my worries. my dad had lost his job. we had lost our insurance. my knee hurt to walk on and i didn’t want to go to the doctor because we were so poor and had no money for trivial things like doctors. my aunt, as she always does, always has, reassured me. told me i would always be taken care of, no matter what. she told me she’d always love me, always. 

she loved my brothers and i like her own children. when my mother was at her sickest, my aunt stepped in after she checked out. my aunt was phenomenal despite all the horrible shit she has been through. she has the most amazing and loving and accepting heart. i have never known anybody else in my entire love to love me as openly and as fiercely as she does. as zusak said. she steps on my heart. she makes me cry. but in the best ways. but what did my aunt know, you ask? she knew about my mother’s intentions. she knew why my mother was exercising and losing weight, her newest diets and protein shakes, her sudden purchase of a car. well, my father’s sudden purchase of a car. we didn’t need another car. my mother got her driver’s license. and then my father lost his job. and her sudden revamp on life came to a halt. but, after my brother graduated, she started right up again. and now it is the seventeenth. i wouldn’t get full marks for chronological placement if this were a paper, i’ll tell you that. i don’t care. you get the point. but here’s the bombshell. we are sitting in the living room, us all. my father tells us, “there’s no other way to put this. *good minute of silence* your mother and i are getting a divorce.”

that’s your big reveal? your secret, lex? yeah yeah, shut up. tons of kids have parents that get divorced. my own sister has divorced parents. ashlee, 25 now. half sister, share the same mom. she understands more than the boys. my mom never treated her well, either. blamed my sister, at 15, for wanting to live with her dad. practically abused her. partied during her infancy and dumped ashlee on her ex-husband. things i never knew, things my sister told me. things that watered the gnarly old tree that embodied that feeling of hatred towards my mother. but. we talked about the divorce, us all. my youngest brother and i cried. my mom cried at seeing us cry. i was angry about stupid shit then, and not the actual cause. i was going to miss the nuclear family, the complete celebrated holidays and birthdays and not having to shuttle around on thanksgiving or how to make one parent happy without hurting the other. i knew what came with a divorce and i didn’t want it. i wanted one thing of stability. college wasn’t stable, relationships aren’t stable, few things were. my family, my car, my cat. 

i needed these things. but one of these things i couldn’t rely on. i could no long rely on that whole family unit, the unification of my parents in the hardships of life. instead, i got to ask my father while my mother stepped out to smoke if he wanted the marriage, if this was all mutual. i watched my father choke back his tears and tell me it wouldn’t be fair if he explained. he later told my sister he did not want the divorce and that he was still in love with my mother. he didn’t need to tell me. his tears confirmed it. my aunt held me. but everything was unraveling. everything. and i told them something i haven’t even recorded here in these entries. 

i need to be more honest. college was fun, but i struggled. i struggled a lot. i don’t know why i decided to carve into my thighs with that rusted boxcutter. it wasn’t sharp enough for one solid, smooth cut. i had to drag that point over a cut and over a cut and over a cut and over a cut until it was finally deep enough that it bleed and i could make that trench longer in my own skin. cuts in the shower and in the bathroom and i never allowed them to heal. no, the long scabs came peeling off and i pulled them off despite the pain. but after a while i didn’t notice. i don’t know why i began. it baffles me still. it’s not a coping mechanism. i still haven’t cut myself since december. but. i told my family. and they didn’t know how to deal. my mom suggested therapy. my dad remained silent. he has never spoken about it. never. my sister has a few times. but. i couldn’t remain in that house. i had days off work. 

i went back with my aunt and we talked for a good, long while. about everything. the divorce, the cutting, my depression and religion and past marriages and the future and our lives and how much we fucking loved each other so much that i cried at her words, at being loved so fervently and without hesitation. i love her so much. i don’t know how i’d make it through all of this without her. but i come back home. my aunt has reassured me once more that the divorce will make my parents better people, happier people. i believe her. my mom looks for a place to move. i go to work. dad finds a job. garryck works. mom doesn’t. mom exercises. mom is moody. the 24th of may i get curious. i want to know what happened between my mom and mary, danielle’s mother, and the conversation had about the tablet. my mom left her laptop open and unlocked. i open facebook. i look for the conversation with mary bailey. i cannot find it. all the conversations are only two or so months old. my mom has had her facebook since 2007 and i know she’s kept inboxes. 

i’ve been a filthy snoop before, but never more than 2 or 3 minutes. this is different. the top two most recent conversations are both from men i do not know. one of the conversations mentions my siblings and i. i click on it. they are from a brad letts. he is asking how the kids took the divorce. my mom replied with “my boys are shaken but fine but my girls aren’t talking to me, which is expected.” who is this man and why is he asking about my siblings and i and the divorce? who the fuck? i scroll up to see previous conversations. i see sexts. i see explicit sexts. my mother and this man have been sexting each other for weeks, maybe more. there’s only so much i can allow myself to read. my mother is a filthy cheating whore. my parents have not divorced yet. the vows are still active. i go back to the inbox and click on the other man who i don’t recognize. less tame. but my mother sends him sexual pictures, flirtatious, clearly wanting to go and see him. he lives in california. i kept their names in a memo on my phone. i know these two men’s names and the date i found out. i am enraged. i exit out of facebook. i clear the history. i put the correct window back up. i move the mouse back to its position. 

i let this knowledge fester within me. i am beyond angry. my mother hurt the man i love the most in this world for some shitty fucking guys on facebook. men who know that she is married and has children. my mother is a filthy, cheating, lying bitch who broke the heart of the man who would walk the ends of the earth for her and back and there and back again and again. my mother can fucking die in a hole. as far as i am concerned, she is not my mother. 

[june] i wreck my car on the 12th. some asshole put gravel on asphalt and i spun out and hit a tree. i sell it for 250 bucks. i buy another for 425. it’s dirty and smells but it does the trick for now. this is getting to become a chore to type this all out. but i have to finish. i need to express. i don’t know when memorial day was. i think it was may. oh well, we’ll list it under june. we went down to kansas city, my brothers and dad and i, to visit my grandparents. they asked us how we were handling the divorce. my grandmother is angry with my mom. i am angry with my mom. it is a good combination. we both rant about my mother. i don’t tell her anything major, just what my grandmother already knows. we come back that night. my dad has a vet friend down there that gave us food for our dogs, cats, and ferrets, and even flea treatments. we’re still pretty poor so we accept it. the vet friend is an old friend of dad’s, back in highschool. my dad goes into see my mom. he closes the door. they begin yelling. my mom accuses my dad of cheating with this vet friend. my dad tells her that amy, the vet friend, has never been his girlfriend and never will be. my mom accuses my dad of breaking his vows. my mom knows that romances now are breaking the vows. she is a filthy filthy hypocrite. she can fuck off. i hate her projecting. it was after the 12th that i told my sister about my mom. it was over the phone, casual mention. and i elaborate. and we’re both raging. we’re both angry. we need to tell my aunt. my aunt is the only person on this earth that knows my mom and knows my dad. my aunt is my mother’s sister. her name is shanna, the one that loves me so much. the closest thing i’ve had to a mother. june and july blur together. 

[july] the 12th of july i take my brother’s car (i did not purchase my new one yet) and go to leavenworth. the night previously i had told toby that i was going to leavenworth. i didn’t think he would tell my mom, but he did. the next day, my mom asks what i’m going to do in leavenworth. an easy lie. just going to hang out with ashlee, go to dinner, you know. we didn’t go to dinner. we went to my cousin’s breawna’s house, my aunt shanna’s daughter. my sister tells bre what my mom has done. i am going to tell my aunt. we sit down and i tell her. i tell her everything. my aunt is enraged. she knows one of the men. she, my mom, and him have been friends since highschool, apparently. my aunt is angry at herself, for thinking that her sister was genuinely getting better for her own sake, but in all actuality it was just a guy. my aunt has to go outside. she can’t go outside. everytime she tries, she comes back in and says something else about how angry she is. finally she gets outside to smoke. she comes back in and we talk for a while about everything. they tell me how my dad cared for my mom when she was sick, how my aunt cared for her, how everybody was manipulated by her. i cry because it hearts my heart so much, how after everything my dad did, it is just thrown back in his face like it was nothing. seventeen years, down the drain. 

but i have to keep a smile. i have to save face. the plan is for me to confront my mom. to tell her what i know. my aunt will be there to make sure my mom does not verbally or physically attack me. then, i will give my mother an ultimatum. tell my dad about the cheating or i will tell him in my words. we haven’t done that yet, but i need to. christ, i need to. i cannot deal with my mother sharing pictures on facebook, how she’s become a better woman by cutting off the poison, how she’s been horribly heartbroken but now she’s risen from the ashes. all the negativity most definitely directed towards my father. everyone can see it. my aunt and my sister know, even my 13 year old brother has confided this to me. my mother moved out of our house july 28th. a few days before, we drove to atchison together to look at her new house. god, i smile looking back on this. she asks me how i am handling the divorce. i say fine, just dealing with it. she begins to cry. she says she doesn’t know what comes next. she has only been a wife and mother for 25 years, half of her life. she doesn’t know what to be now. she is crying in the seat next to me. she looks at me. she tells me she is afraid that her moving and the divorce will have an affect on our relationship, that she will never get to see me and that what we had will be gone. i assure her that won’t happen and that i’ll always be around. 

i am a good liar.

it brings me solace, knowing how i can completely and utterly destroy my mother’s life after she ruined my father’s and mine. i will make her known. i will stop my father from sending her money. i will keep anybody from giving a shit about her. they’ll know you, liar. i used to regret my actions. but know this now. 

i am relieved.

i have an excuse to cut you away, you're poisonous and wretched. you were nothing but a burden and a blight and you can rot with that dog i bought in that house the government bought. you are the definition of a parasite and a leech. keep your prayers. and you want a relationship with me?

[august] my sister goes to my cousin’s baby shower. my mother is there. the two exchange pleasantries. my mother informs my sister that she believes i am smoking pot. she tells my sister that i am spreading rumors that she is cheating. she heard this from the mailwoman. who the fuck is the mailwoman? i have told nobody besides my sister, my cousin, my aunt, and my two friends, who would not tell anybody. i don’t think you realize how big a secret can eat away at you, at your mentality, on your outlook on life. this burden is going to bury me. but, my mother is already on the defense. i need to hurry it up. i need to get in contact with my aunt. we need to burn this bridge.

my next entry will hopefully have that encounter recorded. no, it will. i won’t make one until i have.

things are changing, dear diary. let’s see how this all pans out.