From suicidal to waking up smiling, in 5 weeks.
5 weeks may not seem like a short time, but when you’ve twice bought products to end your life in the last 11 months, it’s a miracle. Before beginning the Spravato protocol 5 weeks ago I had not felt any hope for even the rest of a day, let alone the future as an open time for anything less than pain.
I am 67 y/o female. I suffer from chronic situational depression, with acute Rejection and Betrayal Trauma. Since my late twenties, I would drop into depression about every 6-7 years. Always triggered by rejection trauma. Each time, a particular antidepressant would pull me out in a few weeks. I never felt suicidal ideation until this current dramatic, life losing trauma that I’d been living with, taking my tried and true med through the last 3 years of increasing desperation. And, doing 5 day a week sessions with tradition counseling, hypnotherapy (excellent help), EDMR, and recently beginning Esketamine (Spravato) treatment 5 weeks ago through CORE in COS. Through the decades, I tried every antidepressant available, none really relieving my depression except the original RX of Desipramine. About a year ago my situation reached a crescendo after I lost my husband, two adult (30/‘s) children, had a business I started and made successful embezzled from me, and my birth family lost too. I am honest when I say, I didn’t deserve these things. They were traumatic betrayals. I am literally alone. This punch to the gut pushed me over the BIG line from cyclical treatable depression to completely desperate, hysterical, suicidal depression. I worked so hard to rein it all in, but at age 67, to lose a 46 year marriage and your 2 children, who knew I was suicidal, and basically left me for dead, this was losing my entire adulthood. Ages 23-67 were obliterated. I checked myself into a short term mental health center only to be dismissed just hours later. Then checked myself (alone every time) to a full medical hospital with spiking heart rhythms and suicidal thoughts, AGAIN, being released in a few hours (ALONE) with a medical wrist band that read Suicide Risk. My 33 y/o daughter said I had probably crafted it myself! This is worse than no care. No follow up directions from hospital! . A week later I checked myself into a 30 day residential treatment program, that turned out to be an addiction based focus and a complete waste of $40,000 CASH for me. I was tricked into filling one of their beds and received a grand total of 3 one-on-one counseling sessions, but plenty of group sessions where we played games like Shark Tank! I did not hide my plans for suicide to them. I begged for help, crying everyday all day. I don’t believe they didn’t know about Esketamine (covered by insurance, too). But didn’t bother. They didn’t care as long as their beds filled. The $ was what they wanted. I read every book. Posted every affirmation on my fridge, AND bought my own EMDR system to give myself a session daily. I also listen to my hypnotherapist’s recorded sessions, and ran several hours daily, religiously to try to create and squeeze some dopamine out. I want to not want to die, and I work hard, but the compulsion of trauma is inpenateable until I tried Esketamine.
After learning about Ketamine and Eskatamine on YouTube I read everything I could and watched every testimonial. Still I wanted to die, but the idea of even having relief in the 2 hour treatment was something. I would and did try anything.
I began the Spravato protocol at CORE, Colorado Recovery Solutions on Kelly Johnson Blvd in COS, and it was literally like having a 1,000 lb suit of armor/pain lifted off of me within minutes of the beginning of the treatment. I continued to make progress most weeks, but the depth of my betrayal and trauma is so deep I think I may need a longer or more strategized protocol. But the basic protocol is fantastic if you go into it with your mind open to possibilities. That’s tough when your deeply traumatized, but it is a better way to prepare/engage your brain. Dr. Ashley Johnson (Physciatrist) and the entire team there have saved my live and given me hope that I will, with continued care, continue to improve.
Please give this treatment a full protocol opportunity. Do not be put off by the sometimes experienced dissociative effects. It is not traumatic. It gentle and comforting. When you’ve been in deep depression, 2 hours of RELIEF is so valued. Pain lifts off you!
Further, this group of professionals genuinely pull me through the black hole every treatment. I wish someone could tell you the total lack of hope I was/still somewhat in, but I said the word “hope” out loud yesterday, did not cry once, and woke up smiling this morning for the first time since last March 2022. A year!
I must recognize the highly trained, experienced, kind and gentle professionals who along with Dr Johnson, treat every encounter with me as if I really do matter to them. Rhonda, David, Keegan, Crystal, Alyssa, and both the newish front office staff, Gretchen and Olivia.
Thank you CORE, and each of you as individuals.
If you have any degree of on-going trauma, PTSD, depression, mental health concerns you’re living with, please try this. Go right to them. Don’t waste time, money, and years suffering. The beginning of your relief really can begin in your first treatment. FDA approved and insurance covered!
E R. | Mar 10, 2023
(...)