Therapy — Home is Where My Cat is

It certainly has been a while since I’ve updated. I wish I had anything better to say than, “I was going through some stuff.”

I’ve wanted to make a point of writing about this not because I believe my experience had immediate value, but that I should really listen to myself and allow myself the opportunity to process this in a productive and meaningful way. If you’re reading, thank you for being the hypothetical person I’m explaining my story to.

If you’ve listened to the podcast, you might have noticed that my empathy was on overdrive. It was certainly the centerpiece to a breakdown that I fell into. I hurt myself one day, while carrying too much weight. The way I felt was new to me; the pain was continuous, unending after more than 3 days, seemingly compounding as time went on. I was willing to see a doctor. I recall Jakki legitimately recoiling in sympathy. Empathy, perhaps. She knew what it would take for me to go to the doctor.

I’ll save you 6 months of appointments, tests, and results. We would find tiny abnormalities and I’d immediately assign them to my situation. Something had to be causing my suffering, I was certain. Jakki became more than my partner, standing up to the role of care team leader and crushing it. Her parents helped us generously and lovingly. The doctors I saw took my condition seriously, thanks in part to the Portfolio of Chronic Pain, a document detailing everything I’ve ever said about the pain I was feeling and every doctor we saw and every action we’d tried up to that point. It would eventually detail a deluge of tests and x-rays and MRIs and injections to see if it would make a difference. I opened my mind to acupuncture twice a week. Not Chiropractors, though, I wasn’t ready for snake oil. Meanwhile, my days dwindle down to waiting for pain attacks.

Ah yes, the pain attacks. What was that like, you ask? Quite a bit like hell.

My back would be seized in spasm for as long as two hours. I would sit in my chair or lay in my bed or writhe on the couch, completely unable to move myself while my left arm would curl in to protect my chest, fist clenched. Sometimes my right would join it. I’d weep and struggle through the pain to describe how I was feeling, believing that holding a conversation would help diagnostically. The pain is categorically a 10, though I’d still find new 10s from day to day. Jakki took a video once. I can’t watch it. Thinking about watching it puts tears in my eyes. Simply talking about it used to make me well up until recently.

I’d regale my therapist of tales of my quest to find a cure to whatever it was that I was experiencing or how I was stuck in a monument to my failure to keep up my end of the bargain while we’d continue this amazing life of travel. I began using marijuana to fill in the gaps in pain so that I could at least be awake for my day, opting to avoid opioids. Jakki would do all of the research for my next steps, partially because I feared the answers that I wouldn’t find, but mostly because I’m deeply afraid that I’ll begin emulating whatever symptoms I think apply to my situation.

My pain events began occurring 3 to 4 times a day, lasting between 1 and 2 hours at a time. Between 3 and 8 of my waking hours were spent at a 10 (or 12), but most of my day was coasted at a 7. I’d get good at spotting the feeling of an attack coming on about an hour or so before. My symptoms would onset with such regularity that I could have a general estimation of how long I’d have before I was busy for a while.

At some point, my spasms made it nearly impossible for me to walk more than 10 or 12 steps before collapsing in pain. We would acquire a wheelchair, and were lovingly gifted a car, and Jakki was there every step of the way. Meanwhile, my general practitioner in Portland is gently pushing me to try anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications.

At this point, we’d run out of ideas and tests. I began speaking to a second therapist, one who specializes in Pain Reprocessing, and I am endlessly grateful for the opportunity to work with her. Speaking to a second therapist felt like a privilege that I didn’t deserve; a fear I’d see soon realized when my first therapist said she could no longer see me because I was stuck in another state and the Covid relaxation of rules was ending.

The guilt of how much this is costs us weighed heavily on my heart and I began to wonder if this is just my life now, managing debilitating pain without any institutional help or acknowledgement. Jakki never gave up, even though it was pretty clear that I had. A few times before, she’d brought something up. “Just something to think about,” She’d say. Again, she presented me with that same curious question: What about Ketamine?

And so that’s where my story begins.

Thank you for indulging my theatrics; I needed to introduce the background. I’m still putting the finishing touches on gathering my thoughts together on this part of my private therapy exercise. This short story ends the prelude to The Ketamine Chronicles: Microcosms and Macrocosms.

Narratively, I think it’s easier to break the story up, so I’ll be presenting it in 7 Parts. I’ll come back and update these links as I post the parts.

1) Introduction and Misconceptions
2) Lost and Found - Emotional Unawareness and Avoidance
3) Inner Comms
4) Learning to Love (Myself) Again
5) Learning How to Cry - Emotional Release is not Feeling
6) Trudy - Darkness and Unconditional Love
7) The Complete Soul - Friendship and Spirituality

Is this a bit much? Isn’t this all a bit heady and pretentious? Of course it is, but I’ll allow it. Case dismissed.