Survivor of a family suicide and so I see how that can really tear a family apart and so I knew I could never do that to my to my family and so I actually called my mom a couple times asking for it's it's in the book but I'll share because I think it's important that people know that I'm not just someone that has a surface kind of experience with mental health issues and depression I asked my mother if I could just take some pills and just go to sleep because I just didn't want to do it anymore and of course she said no and you have that support? My mom is always right I think that um so I said I was thinking about electro shock therapy um that's how desperate I was and um she said give me some time I want to look into some other options and she came back to me about an article that she saw in science mag about ketamine infusions that were helping with treatment resistant depression and um there's an interesting story behind that but I had actually heard about it and dismissed hallucinogens as an option for me because I thought I'm a normal person and that wasn't gonna work for me but at that point in my life this was two years ago I just couldn't I couldn't go on the way that I was and so yeah there are lots of options and um some of them are more extreme than other so with the ketamine infusion can you describe exactly what happens in this treatment? No, okay I tried in my book okay um you know it's interesting because I did have some substance of use issues when I was in my 20s and it had a lot to do with trying to suppress this um pain that I had from abandonment from suicide losing my home to a fire um I just was really in a bad place and so I had tried ketamine um I did cocaine I um I had a you know I drink a lot of alcohol and so as I you know entered into my late 20s and 30s I was very against any kind of substance abuse and so when I heard about the ketamine infusions I thought a special K like core strincalizers I don't think so um but as I did the research um they said that it's not what happens in the chair it's what happens after over the course of a few weeks and it repairs the receptors in your brain and that helps you get out of those looping thoughts so if I'm always going to be alone which was mine and that everyone will always leave me um luckily I don't have those thoughts anymore um it's amazing yeah um but the treatment itself it's it's pretty nerve-wracking um the first time I went and of course I was cleared through my psychiatrist um I they asked me a series of health questions and um they knew that I was desperate so they got me in the next day um it's an hour-long ivian fusion they put heart monitors on to make sure that I was healthy they observed me through a window which that's interesting um I don't think it you know it's like when you think if you've ever done any kind of drugs you're like I don't particularly want someone like watching you through a mirror for an hour um and so there's some really interesting things that I um wrote about in my book that embarrassing but like you know um so the first time I will say was everything that you would dream about it was yeah it was the most euphoric experience I've ever had in my life um everything was pink and beautiful and I thought oh my gosh like I even felt better instantly after wow um which was incredible and so I thought well everybody's gonna want to get this so I went home and felt hope for the first time and it's like I have videos of myself it makes me like I wanted to document it because I was like wow like I never had hope that I could be a normal person and that's what I always wanted to be just a normal person and um the next day I was excited to go to my treatment because it was three days in a row um they want you to do consecutively six treatments um within a two week period okay but because I was traveling home for the holidays I chose to do a different protocol that I had researched I do a lot of research um and I did three days back to back okay and um the second day like I said I was very optimistic and I had such a great experience I didn't really I had only tried recreationally ketamine one time and it was actually a bad experience um someone just that a party decided to skintalk me just on their own so I didn't have a good relationship with this and was pretty naive to what most experiences were so being that my first one that I could remember was very you know beautiful and euphoric you know I went to the second one with the same idea and it was not it was the most black dark haunting experience I actually thought that I was in a limbo state and I thought that I was eventual and sitting in the chair and that they were going to like pull the plug on me that I was gone and I'm like in myself like no I'm here like so I left there I'd come to crying wanting my boyfriend at the time which we were on a break which was what was causing the severe um you know kind of suicidal thoughts um and I did not want to have the infusion the next day um they said of course it's not what happens in the chair it's what happens after and so they said you you really need to do it and these treatments are not cheap by the way they are not covered by insurance and not covered um cost I've spent thousands and thousands of dollars but I would do it again yeah I would it's one of the so each one is around $900 a piece um and so I ended up doing the third one I was crying they had to give me out of hand to like as a sedative to call me down um that one wasn't memorable it was just sort of bearable I got through it and I just said okay I just want to be done with this and so um about a week later I still wasn't in contact with my boyfriend ex whatever he was and um I started having hope for the first time like that I was like wait a second if we're not meant to be I'll be fine and that voice started to go away and um so that was when I knew that that treatment was going to work for me um so to answer your question it's I mean it's complicated you're it's an IV it's an hour long process you can't control what's going to happen um but for me that treatment was a life saver