My own Ketamine journey, Part 2: Integration

As important, or potentially more important, than the Ketamine experience itself is the post-session integration.  While therapeutic Ketamine treatments build in a talk therapy session immediately after the effects wear off, moments of integration can happen for a significant time period after treatment.  You are especially receptive and heart-open in the 48 hours following a session.  

After my Ketamine sessions I had the almost immediate responsibilities of parenting and running a center.  For my clients, I will recommend building in some physical and temporal space from your regular life after treatment.  In particular, it can be welcoming to return back to your home but if you are immediately doing dishes and checking homework, then you are likely going to miss out on some of the benefits of having traveled that day to a psychedelic space.  In my case, I felt like the mundane routine was grounding back into reality and felt oddly calming, but at the same time, I experienced some sorrow at the Ketamine journey feeling so far away, so quickly.  

However, despite this busyness, at least twice a day, I have found opportunities for a reflective and integration process.  The outdoors has been particularly powerful after my ketamine experience, as I have been more connected to the sensory pleasures of the crisp air and the crunching of leaves than ever before. While I probably still seem hyperactive to those around me, I have noticed a subtle new mental stillness. I find that I can just mentally “be” for a few beats rather than think ahead.  

Integrating my experience is difficult because I am of the minority that has very poor memory of the experience.  While others in my cohort were able to recount their psychedelic experiences in vivid clarity, mine feels ephemeral.  I have no tangible visuals in my mind to bring me back to the experience.  All I can recall from the Ketamine is a collective consciousness, which I can only explain as “we are all the same person.”  

This universal connection was a deep knowing that hit me like a wave in the initial moments of the medicine entering my bloodstream.  A vague sense of the collective experience of humanity still sits with me in a way that is both comforting and intimidating.  

We were encouraged to look up the playlist (usually one of the fantastic Ketamine mixes developed on Spotify) and relisten to the music that was playing during our psychedelic journey.  I struggle to pay attention to music in general, as my ADHD tends to tune it out.  However, as your brain is deprived of outside visual and tactile reference points during Ketamine, music becomes an important anchor to the experience.  I remember coasting with the music in a way that I never have and when I relisten to the track, I feel myself riveted in a way that is foreign to me.  I also feel a strong craving to smell Palo Santo, the wood burned during my session.  

I am experiencing fear differently following the psychedelic journey.  I still feel anxiety at the prospect of my death or that of my loved ones (which is a central feature of my OCD), but there is a noticeable edge taken off of the fear.  I am doing far fewer compulsions around safety and health. Radical acceptance of the inevitability of death is one of my mental health goals.  I have certainly inched in that direction after my first two treatments.  

A feature of my Ketamine was the mid-journey vocalization of many reassurance-seeking compulsions around abandonment.  

Despite the tremendous uptick in these OCD behaviors during the end of my treatment and shortly thereafter, I have found that they have overall receded to low levels for me.  

On a day to day level, I am able to emotionally let go of my loved ones in a more peaceful manner, and have not experienced separation anxiety since the treatment.  I am not sure how long-lasting this effect will be, but I find it to be a tremendous relief not to be churning about the well-being of everyone I love as a backdrop to my regular mental processes.  I find I have far more analytical space in my mind without these complicated overthinking patterns.

I feel lucky to work at a center where my colleagues are supportive, interested, and intuitive. Most professional interactions at Kairos feel uplifting and while still processing and integrating my Ketamine journey, I am deeply grateful to be surrounded by our little mental health community.  

Please contact us at Kairos Wellness Collective to find out more about Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy and to begin your own journey towards more ease and mental clarity! We would be honored to assist you!