Ketamine? Isn’t That A Horse Tranquilizer? 

Before 2023, I thought Ketamine was a horse tranquilizer that people snorted at parties.  It turned out to be a crucial part of my journey towards accessing feelings that trauma, depression, and antidepressants took away from me.

A Short History of Ketamine

Per the NIH, Ketamine was created by researchers in 1962 as a better anesthetic, with no intentions for it to help with depression.  First introduced in the 50’s, by the 70’s antidepressants were the gold standard.  Unfortunately, they don’t work for everyone and for many people, they lose efficacy and require a change in dose or prescription for long term maintenance.

Almost 40 years later in 2000, John Krystal and Dennis Charney completed a controlled trial of intravenous ketamine in people with depression. They found that while an antidepressant could take a month or more to begin working, IV ketamine worked within hours.  By the late 2000’s, doctors all over the country were prescribing it “off-label” to help with depression.

Why Are You Talking About Ketamine?  

Ketamine was an essential part of my long term plan to get my feelings back.  

Here’s what I DON’T want to do: convince someone to come off of their antidepressants for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. Here’s what I DO want to do: show people that may be struggling with depression and/or antidepressants that there are way more options out there today than ever before.

This isn’t medical advice. It’s just my experience of trying to heal safely and deliberately. I had been on antidepressants for about 15 years and had developed what is often referred to as emotional blunting or reduced affect display.  When I asked my doctor if I could get off them one day, he said that I should consider them my “brain vitamins” and then changed the subject.

I hadn’t cried in a decade and often felt like I was watching life go by from behind an observation glass.  I knew that I wanted to get my feelings back, but I wanted to go about it in a safe way. 

Around the same time, I watched a documentary called, “How To Change Your Mind”, where Michael Pollan talks about people using psychedelics to heal their trauma and depression.  I decided to explore this route and shortly thereafter, was introduced to a therapist who specialized in trauma work.  She said that we could start with EMDR, and go from there.  

After 6 months of EMDR, I began to taper off my antidepressant over an 8 month period.  I thought I was doing well but about a month after my last dose, I became extremely depressed and had to go back on my meds.  

We decided it was time to give Ketamine a go.

My First Ketamine Sit

My first ketamine sit was on November 14th, 2024.  I remember taking an uber to the therapists office, walking in, and seeing the couch I usually sit on converted into a fold out bed.  It’s hard to put into words how weird it feels to get into bed at a therapist’s office.  I shared my intention for the sit, put on the noise cancelling headphones, started the playlist, and put the ketamine tablets under my tongue.  I began to vigorously swish the saliva that kept building up in my mouth and after 10 minutes (that’s a lot of spit, btw), I spit it out.  I laid down and put my blindfold on as the music began to take on a different life.  

For the majority of my first sit, I found myself in a dark room and in the same way that it’s difficult to recall a fever dream, I struggle to explain the significance of this room.  While I also saw several interesting visuals, what I was left with was that this room came to represent the loneliness I had been feeling for decades but couldn’t put words to.  

After the session, I felt groggy, exhausted, and was ushered home by another uber.  

The following few months, the promises of ketamine rang true – I started to feel better, but I still had this inability to access sadness.  

Three months later I took my second ketamine sit.  I started in the same dark room, but this time I was more comfortable with where it was taking me and I went further into my mind.  At one point, I realized that I hadn’t yet grieved that my best friend was moving away and I cried like a baby.  This felt significant after the decade-long dry spell.  

Something more significant occurred when I spoke to my friend about it the next week.  I apologized for having become more distant, essentially writing him off since I felt that he was deserting me and while I spoke, I teared up.  And then he teared up.  And we connected in a way that we hadn’t in a long time.  This was what I was looking for.  I knew that my inability to access my feelings was preventing me from really connecting with myself and others.  And finally I had proof that this wild idea might be working.

With some momentum, I began to taper off my antidepressants again.  We started slow, and each month I did another ketamine sit.  Finally, on May 26th, 2025, I took my last lexapro pill.  There’s actually a really funny podcast episode that we recorded two weeks later where you can clearly tell that I’m struggling with Lexapro withdraws, but it was all within what I considered safe bounds. 

Mushrooms Have Entered The Chat

During this taper, still inspired by Michael Pollan, we decided that after I was off my meds, we would give psilocybin a shot at helping me really heal some trauma and get in touch with my feelings.  

We prepared for the sit, set out my intentions, took 5g of dried mushrooms, and put on a blindfold and a playlist music.  I spent about 6 hours wrapped up in my blankets with the blindfold on, only coming up a few times to pee.  

Here’s what stood out from the experience.

I spent what felt like a few weeks in a cocoon where some sort of insect-like creature sort of picked at my brain, trying to clean it.  It was comforting and I knew that I was being healed. 

After that, I was in my carport, looking up at a windchime that had my late fathers name on it, watching it blow in the wind and I was overcome with the idea that my wife and child were the home I had always been looking for.  The closest scene I can think of as a parallel is when Russell Crowe is walking in the field towards his home, signifying that he’s returning home to Heaven.  

And the entire time, my back was arched and flexed, and somehow I knew that my back which had been hurting for a few years despite LOTS of exercise and PT evaluations, was finally going to be healed.  

At the end of the trip, my facilitator left and I was filled with intense loneliness to the point that I couldn’t even take a shower without putting Seinfeld on my phone and placing it in the soap dish.  Even worse, my back still hurt.

Integration & Neuroplasticity – The Part Most People Are Missing

I’ve had a lot of friends do mushrooms recreationally, and they don’t seem to be healed.  So why would this be any different?  Did I just get high?

The next day, I went to my therapist’s office for an integration session.  My head was swimming with recollections of the trip and I was questioning how to interact with everything; Am I healed?  Should I be a more calm driver?  Should I be thinking more deeply and clearly?  Why am I still afraid?  Was this all bullshit?

And that’s why you have an integration – over my two hours of discussion with my therapist, a bunch of pieces started to come together in a way that I doubt I would have put together myself.  She assured me that I didn’t need to make any drastic changes right now and that over the next few weeks and months, insights would come.  

There’s a lot of theories about being more “neuroplastic” after a psychedelic experience.  What I can tell you is that my therapist has been telling me things like, “You’re deserving of love”, “You can ask for help,” “People want to help you,” and “You’re not a burden” for years.  But it always bounced off of me with excuses like, “she’s paid to say this,” and the darkest one of all, “If you really knew me, you’d think I’m a piece of shit of a human.”

In my integration session, she brought up several of these statements, and for the first time, my gut reaction wasn’t to reject them.  I actually believed that maybe they could be true for me.  This was different.  

Almost a year has passed since my sit and I now believe that integration happens forever and that every experience, every day, can be just as enlightening as a psychedelic.  I also believe that a properly facilitated psychedelic experience, along with integration and the right intention, can accelerate insight in a way that feels like compressing a lot of therapeutic work into a short period.  

And it gets weirder – over the last year, I’ve gone from a somewhat resentful parent, to experiencing more joy watching my daughter play in the sprinkler in our carport than I ever did doing whatever the hell I used to do on the weekends.  My back is almost completely healed since I decided that I needed to trust my intuition and stay consistent in the gym.  My depression is nowhere to be seen.  I cry when I watch Moana.  Hell, I cried the other day when my daughter burst into the shower to tell me that I was her best friend.  

Alternative Medicines Should Be Less Alternative

While this path isn’t for everyone, I’m now off anti-depressants, have a deepening spiritual practice, a great relationship with my wife and child, and more joy than I’ve ever had before.  I also now completely believe in the power of plant medicine. 

In fact, I’ve watched my co-founder at Chill Country go through Ayahuasca three times, and I’ve seen a complete change in how he relates to life and to the people in it.  More love, more compassion, more patience.  I’m actually going to participate in an Ayahuasca Ceremony in a few months now too.

My belief in plant medicine is part of what makes me so passionate about growing Chill Country.  Whenever people feel the calling to try cannabis instead of alcohol or more harsh drugs to get their ease and comfort, I know that they’re now a part of the plant medicine funnel, hopefully leading to more thoughtful introspection and more healing.  

• Category: Healing, Indigenous Medicine, Nature Is Medicine