3 Days to My Ketamine Infusion Therapy...
A Health Update
This week I’ve had the song “Pale Horse” from one of my favorite Smashing Pumpkins albums on my mind. Here are some of the lyrics from the song which I’ve embedded above:
If I was to listen I'd turn back
Give up on my reasons
Forgive up the past
You think I'd swallow that?
Bearing weight in ceilings
Just to stop and ask of Thorazine
Thora Zine, Thora Zine, Thorazine
They give you this
They take away that
ThorazineThere'll be no others
There'll be no long lost friends
Empty on the insides
Empty of a last pretense
To stand by on feeling of the endSo many lives
A runaway life
So many lies
I had a session with my psychiatrist this week and he prescribed me Thorazine to use over the next few days until my series of Ketamine Infusion treatments start on Monday. Given some errors by multiple pharmacies, I was delayed in getting it until yesterday evening. And right now I’m still recovering from the first dosage which did what the doc said it would: really make me exhausted. My eyes feel like I’m wearing goggles and even though I’ve been up for almost six hours - puppy Jasmine woke me up to her starting to throw up - I’m still dead tired.
Why the need for such strong medication? To simply get me through to Monday. This week of waiting for my treatments to start has been hell. Why? The previous medication I received from my psychiatrist two weeks ago didn’t improve me either but - as I feared it could - made me worse.
What did that look like? One of the medications had the possibility of provoking manic episodes and I was prescribed a secondary medication in case that happened. Well, it happened. And I was running back and forth in the hallway of the little RV we’re renting out here in the desert, doing whatever I could to hold back from plunging a knife into my heart with the newfound burst of raw energy and rage that had overcome me.
I had known this was a possibility from these drugs but I was so desperate for help that I tried them anyway. I tried drugs which could have caused me to kill myself. That’s how bad the PTSD has been.
OK, back now - sorry for the delay in finishing and publishing this post. I had another panic attack - it lasted over an hour - and am now drenched in sweat. Oh man, was that ever awful. And I couldn’t just take another Thorazine to knock me out because I didn’t want to fall asleep when I still have work that needs to be done today. What a nightmare this PTSD is. During the panic attack it was just like a vomiting up of all the feelings of rage and disappointment at the former friends who have lied about me and abandoned me, the business colleagues who have betrayed me and stolen money from me, and the violent abuse I experienced during my childhood and adolescence.
And further there was another theme in my panic attack rantings: my frustration that by and large most people just don’t care about what happened to me that has now made me so sick and obliterated my will to live. So many people are so dedicated to their ideological and cultural beliefs about police officers that they simply cannot acknowledge what happened to me. I’m not the “kind of person” who is supposed to be assaulted and tortured by police officers when he’s an innocent man.
The Ketamine clinic just called to confirm my appointment on Monday, letting me know that I didn’t need to show up early and that I shouldn’t eat or drink anything for three hours before it starts. It can’t come soon enough at this point. Thank you everyone for your patience with the publishing company relaunch while I strive to recover from the violent trauma I endured almost a year ago.
Now - after I shower off all this sweat - let’s see if Sally and I might finish that film we started last night before the Thorazine knocked me out…
See the previous articles and podcasts about my battle with PTSD and struggles to get better:
Sending love and Light!