DIVING DEEP: My experience with ketamine-assisted trauma therapy
by Oliver Inderwildi
The year 2021 was a rough one for me; among many things, the health of two people very close to me declined, hospitals became a second home and by November they sadly had passed, both after a few days of palliative care just seven weeks apart from each other. The proximity of their death — at least to me — signifies the unyielding bond humans (can) form during a marriage spanning almost seven decades.
All this had left me physically and emotionally exhausted, and exhaustion might be an understatement here. I tried to rest, but that was in vain as too many thoughts, too many horrific emotional memories clogged my brain. To my great disappointment, standard medical interventions did not provide relief either. It became apparent that childhood trauma — and its reemergence due to recent events — is actually the root cause of my indisposition. Now trauma is indeed a b!tch as nasty memories of events from days of yore, buried deep within your subconscious mind, are affecting the precious now. As a thoroughbred researcher and explorer, I decided to embark on a quest for alternative treatments to not only improve the NOW but also to weed the ugly remnants of the past out of my unconscious mind.
From Michael Pollan’s book “How to Change Your Mind” I learned about psychedelics as well as their renaissance in psychological care. It appears that these substances are not recreational drugs per se but can — in controlled settings — be very effective for hard-to-treat issues such as severe trauma, treatment-resistant depression, or the terror of an end-of-life situation. These out-of-the-ordinary findings raised my eyebrows and I discussed it with a hypnotherapist I had consulted regarding my complaints. He pointed me to another interesting option — ketamine. This drug, a dissociative anesthetic with psychedelic properties, became the focus of trauma therapy as it appeared that injured soldiers who were treated with ketamine rarely developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Scientific studies then substantiated that ketamine indeed can prevent PTSD and even aid the dissolution of past trauma. This evidence compelled me to give this treatment a shot.
After swings and roundabouts, I found the right therapist in Bavaria and during a few sessions I was prepped for what was to come: a deep dive into my subconscious mind. Before my first session, I was indeed a bit nervous even though I was not on my own — next to the therapist, an anesthetist and a therapist-in-training were present. While they were there to ensure my physical and emotional well-being, they weren’t going where I was going — into the alternate world of psychedelic experience.
The drug was administered intravenously via a perfusion pump and the effects were not long in coming. At first, I felt light and relaxed while later, I felt like being suspended in a floatation tank until I finally merged with the mattress I was lying on. Music from a notebook speaker surrounded me in the most amazing 3D effect, while the drug wrapped me in a blanket of comfort, safety, and well-being.
In my hyper-relaxed state, shreds of thought, fragments of memories passed through my mind. Some of these fragments were meaningless everyday memories, however, some older memories with lots of meaning came to mind as well. And this is the key aspect, I could zoom in on the traumatic events! Essentially, I relived traumatic experiences, though this time as totally relaxed bystander, a neutral observer really. Apparently, this is the power of the dissociative drug: it allows to revisit these experiences in a state of total relaxation and — most importantly — make peace with them. Events that my conscious mind had long regarded as laughable and ridiculous, had still upset my emotional subconscious. To me it seems that the chemical helper allowed the subconscious to accept the insights of the conscious mind, to integrate traumatic events. In the end, harmony between the two parts of my psyche was restored.
Later sessions, the sessions with higher doses, were more psychedelic, that is more consciousness-altering. I visited numerous faraway places in under an hour: from icy mountains to lavender fields and from orange canyons to pink jungles (see AI generated images). I have no idea whether this helped with my trauma and the associated issues, still, it was one magnificent experience that I wouldn’t want to miss! What also happened was that during those sessions, crooked events came to mind which I could now disregard as long gone and ticked off! If lasting, this would be a huge success and would take a colossal burden off my shoulders. The initial sessions came to a close and I can see clear improvements in my wellbeing, alas I am still a far cry from being back to normal again. The game’s not over yet as I am complementing the ketamine infusions with trauma therapy, hypnosis, neurofeedback, retreats to a floatation tank, and some good ol’ fashioned time off. The road to recovery is likely to be a long one and only time will tell whether I can make it.
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