help

February 4 2017

why?

susangayhart Poetry alone, anxiety, clinical depression, depressed, depression, depression signals, emotions, help, lonely, longing, Major Depressive Disorder, meditation, mental health, mental illness, observing, questioning mental illness, suicidal depression, symptoms, treatment resistant depression

The sun it shines for me
but rain will surely
enter it’s way
for my life is not a picture
in some local magazine

No beautiful mountains to climb
because my pain has washed
them all away
no tall green trees to see this year
because my heart has burned them all down
can’t you see the flames?

Inside, in my mind, to me I
resemble a house made out of glass
my mental illness has taken over
and has began throwing stones
the pieces cut me up as it shatters

The illness, is like lightening or a razor
first it strikes me hard and deep
then cuts my face, my body and my soul
it’s bitter hate I ate
and it’s rotting me away
apart from everything, I simply ask why?
SEG

*I have spent almost my entire life trying to understand mental illness. I figured that once I understood I could then be the puppeteer instead of the puppet. It doesn’t seem to work that way. I wrote this poem in my mid to late twenties. If I got it, I could stop it. Nope.

February 3 2017

the battle

susangayhart Poetry anxiety, battle, clinical depression, demons, depressed, depression, depression signals, emotional battle, fearful, grief, help, hopeful, Major Depressive Disorder, mental health, mental illness, physical battle, running, suicidal depression, suicide prevention, treatment resistant depression, winning

The clouds are dark
but I don’t care
I find myself dancing, dancing around
in the rain and smelling the fresh air

I close my blue eyes
with so much to fear
the fear of all those ugly demons
that are living so near

I discover I’m at battle
in a war I can’t possibly win
I am fighting with all that I’ve got
but realize that my weapons just aren’t enough

I’m running, running so fast
I run and I never look back
I promise myself to struggle to the end
I must not turn back, until I finally win
SEG

*When I wasn’t writing about depression and death I was struggling to find words to keep me here. A written language I could manipulate to fill all the empty spaces inside. A beautiful picture can emerge through ugliness. I used words and still do to motivate and express myself when I am overwhelmed. The feelings easily expressed themselves on paper. If I didn’t feel heard or couldn’t find my voice I always knew I could find something to write on. I have written on some pretty strange items over the years. I believe I wrote this after being told I had clinical depression and anxiety disorder. I would have been 18.

January 26 2017

little box

susangayhart Poetry alone, crying, depressed, desire, emotions, help, hope, insomnia, lonely, longing, self aware

My life is like being in a box
that’s to small, way too small
I want to get out desperately
but I can’t find an opening
and I can only hold my breath for so long

No!
there seems to be no one around for me
I can see, I can touch inside my little box
but I can’t communicate with anyone
I’m all alone even though people are nearby me

Isolated!
the way it’s always been for me
and feel like it will always be
I can scream all I want
but no one will hear or ever be there for me

So I just let myself cry and curl up tight
no one will care or ask why
the tears will hurt as they run down my face
I can see someone’s hands reaching for mine
but my arms are too short to grasp hold

I want help yet I find that everyone has disappeared
also love, love I’ll never discover inside this box
within this little box I have put myself in
maybe some day a person will come along to aid
who will free me from this little box, maybe someday
SEG

*This poem was written in Rumford, Maine. I was 17 years old. I believe it was these writings that allowed me to receive a small scholarship during awards night the year I graduated.

January 22 2017

searching for balance

susangayhart Home antidepressants, anxiety, clinical depression, effects without ketamine, emotions, grief, help, hope, hospitalizations, insight, ketamine, ketamine shots, Major Depressive Disorder, mental health, mental illness, treatment resistant depression, treatments

Hello again. I am painfully discovering that having treatment resistant depression for decades kept me from experiencing life fully. I was drowning under an dark vast ocean invisible to everyone but me. My world has always been plagued by this undeniable feeling that I was different. I believe that I didn’t see the world the ways others did but couldn’t understand why. I have always felt like an alien walking among a huge population. It wasn’t until I had Ketamine in my life that the distinctions were obvious to me. I am floating on the waters I used to live in. I feel so uplifted and positive. I am enjoying the possibilities. However, it is beginning to feel impossible to stay optimistic because the real world is incredibly negative. I can breathe. I want to live. I look for good. I easily see it now. The problem I am encountering is that nagging feeling that most of society wants to break me. There are so many negative people. I understand how my cheerful approach could rub people the wrong way. I am sure it could be annoying. I fight to stay above others misery but I am struggling to find a balance. I get so discouraged. I mean I get it, sort of. The general population haven’t lived in the crushing life sucking pit those of us with Major Depressive Disorder have. My universe shifted with Ketamine. I don’t want to view the world the way I once did and mainly that reason is due to the fact I don’t have the depression filters on. I am in the light. When you’ve lived in pitch black all your life and someone or something, such as Ketamine, switches on a light the effects are profound. Now you can see colors and feel the breeze touching your skin where once the air was stale and world gray. You can truly appreciate the simple things. For me, the blinders of depression are open and I really like what I am seeing and experiencing. I smile more. I openly greet people. I try hard to learn about this new world I am in. I am learning the world is an entertaining place to be alive in. I feel alive. I am alive and ironically everyone else appears to be zombies. Why is everyone so miserable? I want to know, can’t they let go of the pettiness and hating? I am shocked. The place I was existing seems so dull in comparison to life as it is today. I am trying unsuccessfully to grasp the fact that I have had a profound change occur with Ketamine. It lifts the weight and I raise to the top of those petrifying depths of despair. I know and feel the difference. I want to tone down my enthusiasm to be more accepted, but I also refuse to die inside because the people around me are spiritually dead. I am searching for a balance. I was so far away from the living world, and many were, and are unaware. I don’t need others to know my past but I think they would understand my approach if they did. I haven’t figured out why it is so important to me to be understood. I am still exploring. It is disappointing that more people don’t embrace what an amazing life we have been given. I want to live in the now. I am training myself to be present. I won’t lie. It is excruciating. I am trying to discover myself in this new world that has opened up to me and it is quizzical. I am enjoying most of my discoveries even through my confusion. I just don’t want this new world full of half living individuals to destroy me. I am discouraged today. I am working again. It is a challenge. I am grateful that I am able. I feel I have so much to offer. I am running into closed doors and tall unbreakable walls. This is all still so fresh to me. I am processing. I want to be a better person. A whole one. I am having emotions I don’t necessarily have experience with because the depression numbed me. I think, I didn’t know all the emotions I could feel. I have had to redefine my emotional language. What I mean by that is my knowledge of the definitions of feelings was strong. I believed I was in touch and self aware. However, my first hand experience was damaged by my mental illness. I feel with Ketamine I am distinguishing the differences. I will give you an example. As I have stated I have lost many things because of my depression. Friends have passed away. Disappointments, massive ones, have occurred and my depression deepened. I did not grieve. I thought the depression was evidence that I was going through the stages of loss. I have recently realized I was crying when I thought I saw a friend that passed away almost three years ago. It startled me. What was going on? What were the tears about? It had only been a few days since my Ketamine shot. I was perplexed and afraid. Was the depression resurfacing during the period between treatments? I think feeling any sadness at all has been my deepest concern. I question with fear. It was only after months of treatment that I realized everyone gets sad. Grief isn’t clinical depression. Having a day of tears doesn’t equate to a lifetime of spiraling depression or hospitalizations. I have to constantly remind myself. I try every day to use the correct terms to express myself. I feel this is an valuable asset for my recovery. It is definitely a frustrating component. It is also the way in which I have grown most over the past year. I am still a work in progress just like this website…

January 15 2017

discover a new treatment

susangayhart Articles, Ketamine Facts agoraphobia, antidepressants, anxiety, depression, ECT, help, hope, ketamine, ketamine infusions, ketamine shots, mental health, myketaminestory, panic attacks, suicide, suicide prevention, suidical depression, treatment resistant depression

Hello. This is Susan from myketaminestory.com. This blog is a work in progress. My desire is to educate both the general public as well as physicians on the use of Ketamine for treating chronic clinical depression. I was diagnosed with clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder at the age of 18. I spent nearly 30 years after that searching for treatment to pull me from the depths of suicidal depression, daily panic attacks, insomnia and agoraphobia. I have spent countless times in psych hospitals, often for long periods. I have been prescribed practically every antidepressant on the market at one time in my life. The side effects alone have horror stories that could easily fill an entire 700 page novel. I have felt so desperate to escape the hell I was constantly living in that I tried ECT (electroconvulsive therapy, otherwise known as shock therapy). I believe that after a couple decades of seeking out treatments and several different varieties of therapy to no avail I truly began to believe that maybe it was “all in my head”. However, I could never wrap my mind around that because I was sincerely convinced that I would never willingly choose the world I was suffocating in daily.

Fast forward to 2015, I am once again deep in the pit of depression. I see no hope. I am done fighting. I have attempted to take my life so many times that I can’t recall a number; suicidal depression is always calling your name. January 2015, my light went out. I honestly had no fight left in me. Those of you that suffer know exactly what I mean. Trust me when I say treatment resistant depression is exhausting. I felt like I was fighting an evil so big, dark and all encompassing I couldn’t breathe. I was done. It was my most serious attempt. I left a note that no action should be taken. I apologized, but I could only pray that one day they would know and understand that I loved them and stuck around so, so long for them. The pain, hopelessness and the lack of successful treatment drove me to actions, that unfortunately many understand while others will never get it; to those individuals please be grateful you are so blatantly unaware of the world we were unknowingly and unwillingly sucked into. My last attempt was a serious one. I was so frustrated and angry when I was unsuccessful. My therapist and husband went into research mode and both were equally excited about this new treatment they found for treatment resistant depression: Ketamine infusions. The only problem was that it was a new treatment and insurance won’t cover the cost. I know for many, including myself, the cost of mental health puts a financial burden on the family. We didn’t have extra money to invest in an unknown expensive treatment. I was so angry. Why do we have to put a monetary value on what we are worth? I was at the end. I knew with everything in me I would keep trying to take my life until I was successful because the life I was living was no life at all. My husband and therapist realized I was unreachable. They kept pushing me to give it a try. We used our entire income tax return and traveled to New Jersey (we live in Virginia and at the time there were no clinics or facilities providing Ketamine infusions there) to the Ketamine Treatment Center of Princeton.

It took everything in me to stay alive until we received our tax refund and could travel to the treatment center. It was the longest five weeks of my life. It was filled with doubt that Ketamine infusions could even help me and that driving desire to end my life. In the end, I had 6 infusion treatments over a two week period. And I am thrilled to admit it changed the direction of my life. I was fortunate enough to learn that a doctor in Charlottesville, Va was willing to start trying intramuscular Ketamine shots. When I returned home to Virginia I was feeling rather strange, but in a hopeful positive manner. When I was asked what it was like I could only compare it to an individual that has been deaf all their life and they undergo cochlear implants. I imagine once they wake from surgery everything in their world is shifted, new, scary and a little shocking. I felt like I was experiencing life from the shoreline instead of under the vast powerful ocean waters. My life, it has not been the same. I have discovered me. It is still a lot of personal growth work and I struggle, but Ketamine has allowed me to see clearly. It gives me the ability to do the work because it pulls me up and out of the debilitating depression. I get Ketamine shots every two weeks now. I want to share my experiences, educate, possibly change a flawed belief system, as well as force insurance companies to pay for the cost of treatment. And trust me, the cost is a fraction of the cost of hospitalizations and traditional methods of treatment. In my blog I plan to document my Ketamine treatments, the effects, how it is changing my life, educate others suffering with treatment resistant depression, discuss changing insurance policies to include Ketamine treatments and if I am effective in my writings I am really hoping to open the eyes of psychiatrist and physicians alike.