After Ketamine: Sitting With the Sadness I Used to Run From

An old song starts playing and I reflexively reach to change it. Maybe it’s the rain I’m driving through, or the distant pang of nostalgia, but for some reason I hesitate. I haven’t heard this song in months and my anxiety kicks in.

I’ve been sitting with a feeling of dread that I can’t seem to shake. Like something terrible is looming in the distance but I can’t quite put a finger on it. Somehow I instinctively know that this dread isn’t focused on anything external but something that is quietly festering within me. Or, that’s the fear, anyway.

I lived with debilitating, dangerous Major Depressive Disorder all my life. It was a constant companion and my most committed abusive relationship. I was resigned to the knowledge that it would one day kill me, and, to be honest, it always felt like the most fitting end to my story. Until last year.

My mental health reached a low I’d never experienced and I was genuinely concerned for my safety. I hadn’t slept in four days and had to schedule an emergency appointment with my psychiatrist. In that session I reluctantly agreed to finally give ketamine therapy a shot. 

The process was harrowing, terrifying, and the single most profound experience of my life. Despite how much I didn’t believe it would work, my Major Depressive Disorder was in full remission and I could feel happiness for the first time ever. And I was overcome with it. I was moved to tears by beauty and overwhelmed with love for my friends and family.

But, everything in life has a counterpart, and the song currently playing is a representation of that darkness.

It, and others like it, was all I listened to for decades. There’s this sick comfort in sadness and music like this allowed me to fully immerse myself in it. And, I hate to even admit this, but there’s this longing for the sadness, a pull toward it that I can feel in silent mornings or night drives. Because maybe, just maybe, that version of me was the real me. The authentic me. And now I’m living a life without the depth I’ve always loved.

The feeling eating away at me most, though, is fear. It is an abject terror because I know from experience, that the sadness always comes back. It is always lurking in the shadows waiting for a moment of weakness. And, I guess it never actually leaves. No matter how much I may romanticize that darkness, I don’t ever want to be prey to it again.

The realization that I can’t feel sadness like a “normal” person is sobering. It’s always been this zero to a hundred, full-tilt, all consuming misery and never just feeling down because I’ve had a hard day. Or sad because someone hurt my feelings. Or…unhappy because I’ve been made a target in a political campaign based on hate? How are we ever supposed to process these things without sinking back into the depression we fought so violently to claw our way out of? 

We have to know, not think, that it will pass. I do, anyway. Because, for ‘normal’ people, emotions pass. 

There’s something beautiful about sitting intentionally in sadness. A lot of the beauty, though, comes in the knowledge that it is fleeting. In the surrender to that knowledge. 

I decided to finish the song. But only because I know that this time things are different. This time I can find comfort in happiness knowing there’s no monster waiting for me under my bed. Living in the fear of it one day coming back is paralyzing, and I’m too busy crying over beauty.