It has been eight months of absolute torture that has included what they like to call “mixed states”. This is when the mind is screeching and grinding like metal on metal and suicide usually seems like the best option but you can’t even get your shit together to follow through on it. There may be a few hours of reprieve here and there but the overall sense of misery consumes you.
Like everyone else, I have been on every mood stabilizer and antipsychotic typically prescribed. I have a mood disorder that is not just unipolar depression but doesn’t meet the criteria for Bipolar I. I have even been on just about every antidepressant too but since the SSRIs can and do induce mixed states, they are avoided and Wellbutrin has been the drug of choice. Until recently.
Yes, this last year has brought with it a whole other kind of hell. So–again like everyone else–I find myself referred for TMS and ECT. As ECT will take a while to sort out and I have no one to drive me to the sessions three times a week, I have opted to try out TMS. When I arrive for my consult, the psychiatrist recommends a Ketamine treatment to get me through the weekend and I readily accept despite the $400 price tag because I have nothing to lose and any little savings I have are useless to a dead person.
The session is a huge relief while it is happening. It allows me to escape myself for a brief period. Or maybe I am one with the Universe during that time. Hard to say. Unfortunately, as soon as the Ketamine stops flowing, the world I live in comes creeping back in and within a couple of hours I am right where I was before the treatment.
However, I am able to actually get eight hours of sleep with the help of some Xanax and Seroquel and when I wake up, I feel much better. Sleep is the best remedy for these mixed episodes and I cherish it.
If you’re interested, follow me as I get calibrated for TMS next week. Like most in my position, I have exhausted talk-therapy and medications. I have even tried homeopathy and Eckhart Tolle. As an atheist and lover of peer-reviewed journal articles written on double blind randomized trails, these are the gestures of last resort.
None of the Fun 