Fiddling with my breakfast at a wellness resort this past spring, I couldn’t shake off the pervasive dread of being alive—and more specifically, being me. I’d been looking forward to this getaway for weeks, envisioning it’d facilitate a mind-body reset I desperately and so often find myself needing. But the saying rings true: Wherever you go, there you are. Despite being on vacation (at a freaking wellness resort, no less), I couldn’t escape immense pangs of hopelessness, to which I was no stranger given my lifelong battles with depression and anxiety.
The next night, a guy I was seeing who often waxed poetic about his LSD trips asked if I’d ever done ketamine. My sole experience with the recreational drug was during a debauched birthday weekend a few years back, though in recent years I’ve seen legal ketamine treatments gain traction in the wellness world, particularly for depression. To my surprise, my mom called a few days later saying she’d started ketamine infusion therapy herself, and that it was already providing discernible relief for her mood and chronic pain.
I took this timing and coincidence as signs that I might as well start ketamine infusion therapy for myself… and so I did.