Marshmallow Clouds

Tuesday was a blur. I slept most of the day away in the hotel room. Wednesday morning, I woke up early and showered and straightened my hair. It’s the first time I’ve felt like “getting ready” in a long time. Mom brought back a waffle from the continental breakfast and I devoured it before we headed to the clinic for my second ketamine infusion treatment. I was still feeling listless and didn’t have much hope that this treatment would be any different than the first one—which I felt had no effect at all.

At the treatment clinic, I went into the room with the recliner and mentally braced myself for a terrible experience with the IV placement. April, the wizard nurse, came in and before I could say, “ouch!” I was hooked up and receiving my infusion. This woman deserves a medal…or maybe a dipped cone from Dairy Queen. Either way, she’s golden in my book.

During this infusion, I had made a playlist of some classical music without lyrics and I played it when the treatment started. The room was dark, but not too dark. I leaned back in the recliner and allowed myself to be carried by the music.

The experience is a bit hard to describe. I felt like I was lying flat on my back and surrounded by a marshmallow cloud. I felt warmth throughout my body and my breathing was easy and relaxed. I don’t remember a time in my life when I felt more relaxed. My soul was at peace. I had a million thoughts going through my head, but they were all pleasant and curious. I repeated the word “marshmallow” in my head over and over—each time the word became more bizarre.

Marsh…mallow…mellow? Mallow…marsh…mallow…marsh—why marsh? Marsh…mallow.

I thought that the loss of control I was feeling would create anxiety for me, but it was just the opposite. I just leaned into the dissociation and allowed myself to be carried through the waves by the music, which was perfect.

At one point, I heard a loud scratching noise and was pulled out of my dream-like state. I heard a sloppy slurping sound and said to my mom, “What are you doing???” She was writing thank you notes and sealing them by licking the envelope.

Every one of my senses was incredibly heightened—including, or especially, my hearing. I leaned back into the chair and allowed myself to float away on the marshmallow clouds. Marsh…mallow…mallow…

After about 50 minutes of blissfully floating around in my brain, I began to “come down”. I would describe this feeling as a reality check. I opened my eyes and began to allow my vision to focus on things around the room. They still moved as if they were alive, but I could make out specific things around me. The curtains, the window, my mom in the chair across the room…

As soon as the treatment ended, it took me about 10 minutes to become less dizzy and fully present.

Immediately, I missed the feeling from the treatment.

I hopped out of the chair and was ready to go. My mom had promised me a pedicure in exchange for doing her a favor last week. This was my second “treatment” of the day.

The overwhelming feeling I felt for the rest of the day was exhaustion. I still didn’t feel like the treatment did much for my depression, but I was so exhausted, it was hard to tell.

That night, I resigned myself to the fact that I must fall within the 25-30% of people that ketamine is not effective for. I was extremely disappointed, but not devastated. I spent a lot of time in therapy and alone, preparing myself to set realistic and reasonable expectations. Although, there was a part of me that wanted to indulge the feelings of hopelessness and despair—I pushed through and tried to accept the fact that I’m just a weirdo and this wasn’t the right treatment for me.

Around 3 o’clock in the morning, I woke up. I was startled because I had woken myself up cackling. To this moment—I have NO idea what was so funny, but I was laugh-snorting in my sleep so hard that I woke myself up. This may seem insignificant enough, but let me explain why this was such a gift. I have terrible nightmares called night terrors. I wake up crying, screaming, or panicking (or some combination of the three) a majority of the time that I sleep. To wake up laughing was a welcome, hilarious surprise.

Maybe there was something to this…maybe this meant that the medicine was doing something in my brain that I couldn’t feel or process yet…maybe this meant that there was hope.