Infrastructure for Optimal Wellbeing by Lori Calabrese, MD | The Ketamine Blog
Optimal Wellbeing. Something we all strive for, right?Something we wish for. But it’s so hard to achieve. Even so, we keep trying…and trying.But here’s what we’re talking about… We’re not trying to portray a utopia but rather ways to improve your thinking to help sustain the good sense of wellbeing you may have gained after your ketamine treatment. We want to help you build infrastructure for optimal wellbeing.
Look at it this way. Sometimes when you’re depressed for a prolonged period of time as in …maybe …years…? It colors the way you see everything.And it’s human nature to try to fit your philosophies of life to the way you feel. The result is a mindset that may pull you back into depression.
So it’s extremely important to your recovery and remission to learn to think about things differently in a way that supports a brighter outlook on life.
Because, while most psychiatric disorders have genetic links, the symptoms can be worsened by counterproductive, if not destructive, thinking patterns. To live well, with hope and continued initiative, just may require that you change your mind.
So the basis upon which you base your approach and reactions to life can undermine your progress …or spur it forward.
In these articles about optimal wellbeing you’ll read about facing the truth about your own motives and intents. You’ll also read about nurturing an attitude of gratitude to cultivate your own wellbeing.
There’s information for applying the science of happiness and the science of joy in your life, and for developing and using persistence. Things like this constitute your personal infrastructure that will support you with resilience in the face of challenges going forward.
And this infrastructure for optimal wellbeing can help your remission stand strong. Which makes life better all the way around.
A new study shows that weekly ketamine infusions are associated with continued and maintained reductions in depressive symptoms among patients with treatment-resistant depression.
The findings, which are considered novel among studies assessing ketamine administration for patients with treatment-resistant depression, evidence the promising role the controversial drug could play in psychiatric care.
A team of investigators, led by Jennifer L. Phillips, PhD, an associate scientist in the Mood Disorders Research Unit at The Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research, conducted a randomized, double-blind crossover comparison of single ketamine infusion versus active placebo control midazolam. The assessment, held with 41 participants with treatment-resistant depression at single treatment center, observed patients receive 6 open-label ketamine infusions 3 times per week over 2 once patients had a relapse of depressive symptoms.
Patients who reported a decrease of at least 50% in the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) received another 4 additional infusions once weekly in a maintenance phase.
Those administered a single ketamine infusion reported significantly reduced depressive symptoms at the primary efficacy endpoint of 24 hours post-care versus those treated with midazolam. The therapy showed cumulative antidepressant effects over repeated infusions, as well a doubling of antidepressant response rate in patients, according to linear mixed models.
Investigators found that 59% of patients met the response criteria following repeated infusions, with 3 infusions serving as the median dosage required to reach achieved response. In patients receiving weekly maintenance infusions, no further improvement in MADRS scores were reported.
The first-of-its-kind findings come just 1 month following the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of esketamine nasal spray (Spravato) for the treatment of patients with treatment-resistant depression. At the time, the therapy made history as the first novel treatment indicated for depression in 30 years—and headlines as one of the first hallucinogenic drugs to reach indication for a common condition.
Dennis Charney, MD, Dean of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a member of the Yale University team that led pioneering antidepressant ketamine trials in the 1990s, told MD Magazine®that microdosing or implementing controversial therapies for psychiatric care require what any other trial requires: control, safety, and a carefully-assessed standard for efficacy.
“No matter what treatment is being assessed, you have to follow those scientific approaches,” Charney said. “For conditions that don’t have effective treatments available, there should be an open mind.”
Adversely, Dan Iosifescu, MD, associate professor of Psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine, director of Clinical Research at Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, and prominent ketamine investigator, told MD Mag that—among other reasons—ketamine will never reach at-home therapy use due to its prominent abuse as street drug Special-K. He anticipated the marketed therapy will be costly, and prescribed as long-term therapy for only a small depression patient population.
“For the majority of individuals that benefit from it, it will be essentially buying them time for other treatments—be them pharmacotherapies or device-based treatment, or psychotherapies, because those are beginning to work much more slower than ketamine does,” he said.
Whatever its marketed use entails, Phillips and colleagues concluded positively that ketamine showed both initial and repeated benefits for antidepressant effects as a once-weekly infusion.
“These findings provide novel data on efficacious administration strategies for ketamine in patients with treatment-resistant depression,” they wrote. “Future studies should further expand on optimizing administration to better translate the use of ketamine into clinical settings.”
Too much screen time? Let yourself have 2 more minutes of it right now: because if you’ve been tooling around reading anything related to mood disorders or anxiety disorders, IV ketamine, and other advanced treatments, you’ve probably noticed that there’s buzz about resilience.
Because of the world that has opened up since IV ketamine began treating depressed patients with its ability to create new branches and connections, the expectations of these patients have soared.
No longer are patients satisfied to have a little relief from their depression. They’ve learned they can feel good. Feel “normal.” Enjoy participating in life the way others do.
So now the question you hear on the internet isn’t this: “Will any medicine help me feel at least a little bit better…?” No.. now it’s this: “Will this medicine help me feel resilient again?” Or “What can I do during this treatment to help it work… improve my chances of remission… develop more resilience?”
Now before we go on, I want to clarify that no doctor can promise or guarantee remission of symptoms from disorders like depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, addiction,social anxiety, or to promise or guarantee that suicidal thinking will go away. There just isn’t any medicine in psychiatry that helps 100% of people get well.
But, even so, there are many people who’ve suffered for years, even decades, with these disorders who are now living lives they never dreamed possible. They’re painting, excelling at work, meeting the loves of their lives, enjoying their families, and contributing to their important relationships. They’re investing in hobbies, socializing with friends and family, and feeling good about themselves and their accomplishments.
This doesn’t happen overnight, but resilience has freed them to invest in their lives, and provides the energy for things they could never do before.
Resilience Protects You From Falling in the Ditch
And when hard times come along, they have the resilience to grieve a bit, then brush themselves off and keep moving forward. This may be the most remarkable change of all.
Resilience is the ability to adapt when a crisis comes along… to adapt to whatever the situation may be. To bounce back, recover, and move forward after an onslaught of difficulty.
Since psychiatric mood and anxiety disorders often develop as a response to some degree, to something environmental or an upsetting/traumatic event, if you can adapt to that event or force in your environment, you can remove that response from your psyche.
Adaptation is the way organisms throughout your world survive. When there’s a strong wind, if trees don’t bend under the wind they’ll be splintered and destroyed. But their ability to bend is their means of survival and the way they develop resilience.
The same is true of you.
If you have a continuous source of stress in your world, one that assaults your senses, emotions, or body, you can eventually be beaten down and weakened or destroyed by those assaults.
But if you can find a way to bend like a tree does, to adjust yourself to accommodate those assaults, hurts, and winds of fury without being damaged, it will help you avoid being traumatized. And that’s how you’ll develop resilience.
This brings up the story of a friend of mine.
Jillian grew up in a small town in the midwest, and was a faithful member of a tiny congregation there. The pastor had served in her church for 40 years, and unwittingly preached a serious sermon every Sunday that reflected the smallness of his own tiny world in that tiny town.
Jillian, like the rest of the church members, worked hard to live up to the expectations her pastor laid out in his sermons. Her town was small, her world was small, and those expectations left her view of life small, too.
Culture Shock – From Small Town to Big City
As she approached her thirtieth birthday, her husband broke the news to her. He’d been transferred to Chicago.
So they packed up their belongings, and moved into a pretty little apartment in that big, new city. Her birthday was anything but a celebration. The traffic overwhelmed her … the variety of people she saw at the grocery store, the post office, and everywhere else were just so different than any she’d ever seen before.
Hairstyles, clothing styles, and the way people just talked made her feel more like she was on another planet than just in a different city. She felt afraid to meet people or make friends. She was afraid she looked like a fool and she couldn’t imagine how you could trust anyone.
The more time she spent alone, the more isolated she felt. And the sadder she became. She was lonely. She missed the comfort of her home town.
Her husband asked her often if she was making any friends. But she just told him that the people she ran into on the street weren’t “her kind of people” — and she felt safer alone.
One day he arrived home from work and announced they’d been invited to dinner by one of his co-workers. She was excited to meet this co-worker and his wife. Surely they’d be a good match socially, too.
The following Friday, Jillian and her husband drove to the address her husband pulled from his pocket. The front yard was alive with a variety of blooms that reminded her of English gardens she’d seen in books at the library. It was just beautiful.
Jillian Adapts and Learns Resilience
They knocked on the door — and it was opened by the strangest-lookingpeople she’d ever seen. She immediately wanted to go home, but her husband held her hand firmly as he warmly greeted the couple.
Her husband’s co-worker had jet black hair that was shaved on the sides with a narrow path of hair from his forehead to his crown, pulled into a ponytail. His wife had bright pink hair with spikes on top enhanced by a shag that softly fell on the left side of her head; the right side was shaved from her temple to her ear.
Jillian’s alarm choked her. Then Cass, the pink-haired woman, spoke up and told her how glad she was to meet her. That most of her co-workers were middle- aged or nearing retirement, and she ached for friends her own age.
When she spoke, Jillian began to relax. What a warm and genuine person, she thought.
“May I help you in the kitchen?”
“Yes, I’d love the help!”
So the two of them disappeared into the kitchen to finish up with dinner, and their husbands settled in to talk shop and about their hobbies outside of work.
Jillian and Cass had so much more in common than she could have dreamed — and by the time they called the guys to sit down and eat, she had forgotten about the “strange” hairstyles. She realized that her perspective of the world in her small town had apparently been pretty sheltered. And she was thankful she had found someone who could be a true friend.
Resilience is Adapting to Your Situation, Which Helps You Bounce Back After Surprises, Disappointments, and Hardships
The point is, that Jillian adapted. She was experiencing a stressful situation, and it was affecting her emotionally. Sadness was growing as well as isolation and loneliness. If she’d remained unwilling to bend, she might have eventually plunged into depression.
But, after exposure to a stressor that felt threatening to her, she was instead willing to look beyond her distaste, and read the heart of a person who was ready and able to offer her real friendship. And many great adventures lay ahead as a result.
Resilience! It’s the new buzzword for a reason. Beyond reduced depression symptoms, resilience protects your life from being interrupted by a trauma or disappointment.
While this is an oversimplified example, it shows you how important it is to bend, rather than break. To change the way you think in a stressful situation so you can bounce back from disillusionment, disappointment, or betrayal.
Resilience! It’s the New Buzzword for Adapting and Growing Stronger
But, here’s the thing. Sometimes you face stressors that feel threatening to you when you don’t feel equipped to respond with resilience. In fact, sometimes you may not feel resilient at all.
Sound familiar?
Times when you’re drowning in depression or terrorized with PTSD. When you don’t have the energy to get out of bed, much less “bend with the wind.” What do you do then?
Ketamine Treatment Enhances Resilience
Well, that’s when you may needtreatment. You need to get the help of your psychiatrist to get those symptoms under control. To empower resilience. And if the medications that have been prescribed for you haven’t helped, then you may need something more targeted, more potent.
One medicine we use at Innovative Psychiatry for exactly this is IV ketamine treatment. We’re experts in ketamine treatment and we’ve offered it for years–way before most doctors–and most people–ever even heard about it.
You may need something like that to help you enjoy resilience and to make it stronger. Because from its vantage point, ketamine has a list of actions that can help you develop the resilience that will see you through stressors and losses that may come along in the future.
Neuroplasticity Helps You Build Resilience
Ketamine stimulates neuroplasticity, which is the ability of the cells in the brain to change and adapt. That neuroplasticity can enhance your psychotherapy, especially when your therapy is 24 hours after your infusion.
It can also help you change your perspective of life and people. In doing that, it can help you learn how to “bend with the wind,” or whatever crosses your path. You can create and build up a level of resilience that empowers you to roll with the punches in life.
Numerous studies have shown that the more often you adapt to small stressors in your life, the stronger you’ll be at adapting to big calamities. And the more you change your thinking to adapt to difficulty, the stronger your resilience can be.
So, you can do things to strengthen your resilience…by choosing adaptive behaviors in smaller crises day by day.
For example, you don’t have to succumb to the same old habits when something frustrates you, or makes you angry. With the help of ketamine stimulating your neuroplasticity, you can choose to think a different thought. Then practice it.
I’m never going to get out of this job or this company. I’m doomed to a future of misery and mediocrity…
You have the choice to accept that thought…or to grab the wheel and change its direction, like so:
I’m not going to succumb to that thinking. I WILL excel at this job because I’m working hard to perform well. And I will be rewarded with promotions that will give me the resume that will promote me when I apply to new jobs. Bottom line, I’m not giving up..!
You have choices when thoughts come to you, and when your choice is empowered by the neuroplasticity of IV ketamine treatment, you CAN overcome.
Resilience helps you build a stronger remission of your symptoms... In fact, resilience is the reason so many people can undergo tremendous stressors, and bounce back.
People like you, and those you love. Because resilience isn’t something you’re born with or NOT born with. Resilience is something you can develop with practice, determination, and persistence.
That’s so important that I want to say it again: resilience is something that can be developed. You can develop it. And we can help you.
We want you to live as the best YOU, you can be. And you can with the ability to adapt, and to apply resilience.
A cause and affect relationship that’s a recipe for profound misery…is there hope?
Jarrod turned over. The room was dark except for the light of the clock. 3:45AM glowed brightly in the darkness. Jarrod sighed heavily. It had been 5 hours since he turned off the light. Exhaustion weighed him down like lead.
He hadn’t slept more than an hour all week. Why does it have to be so hard to just get some rest?? Rage was growing in a slow boil in his chest… He was afraid of what he might do if something didn’t break this maddening cycle. Sometimes he wanted to explode from the frustration. Sometimes he wanted to give up and die.
Much of the time, just after he dropped off, an alarm of sorts sounded inside his head and woke him wide awake again…
What is life if it has to be spent like this?
Months. Years. A lifetime.
None of his medicines worked. None. He felt defeated just thinking about it.
He tried to count sheep. His mind wandered fretfully slamming him with accusations, fears, uncertainty…hopelessness. Despair.
Buuuuzzzzzzz !!!
5:30AM. His alarm. He only slept maybe an hour and a half.
There was no choice but to drag himself out of bed and force himself to face another day… he knew he just couldn’t go on like this much longer… in fact, he wouldn’t.
Life-Threatening Misery
It’s not hard to connect the dots between insomnia and suicide. If you’ve suffered from chronic insomnia, you know the wretchedness of staring at the ceiling and watching the hours tick by.
And the longer it goes on, the more you worry about how you’ll get through the next day on 4 hours of sleep…or three hours… then 2 hours. Well, an hour and a half.
Have you ever experienced unrelenting insomnia for several nights in a row? If you have, you know that just as you’re getting sleepy, hoping you’ll drop off, suddenly you wake with a start and realize you had fallen asleep and woke up only 3 minutes later! It makes you want to chew nails.
In fact, it’s so terrible that prisoners of war are forcibly prevented from sleep as a torture to break down their resolve.
It’s not hard to see that prolonged insomnia can lead someone to want to die. Nor is it far-fetched to consider that having a desire to stop living could keep you from sleeping.
So which comes first? Well, it’s hard to know.
Sleep Disturbance is Treatable
Researchers have found that insomnia is an independent risk factor for suicidal thoughts, but a factor that’s not etched in stone. Because this is something that can be changed. And when it is, it relieves its influence on suicidal behaviors.
Genetics can’t be changed. Environment is hard to change. But insomnia..? It can usually be treated.
In addition, research has shown that insomnia is a risk factor and predictor for depression.
And among both adolescents and adults, those who seek treatment for problems with sleep experience more severe forms of depression than those who are depressed without sleep disturbance.
Insomnia Is An Independent Culprit
Traditionally, there has been an assumption that insomnia was a symptom of depression, but further research shows that sleep disturbance symptoms are experienced most often before the onset of depression, and continue longer after depression symptoms are relieved.
So is it the first symptom of depression that shows up long before other symptoms..? And the last to go after depression is resolved? Or is it a separate disorder that commonly accompanies other disorders?
You and I both know that when you go without sleep, or without enough sleep, 2-3 days in a row, it’s natural to find you’re more irritable and less able to control your mood.
When someone goes without sleep 5 days…or 8 days… their mental state becomes impaired, as well as coordination, cognition, and judgment. Often, at some point, they’ll finally sleep. Maybe for a few hours, maybe longer. And once they’re able to fall asleep once and remain asleep a few hours, they may have more success for the next few nights with more restful sleep.
Then the cycle begins again.
The Link Between Insomnia and Suicide Can Lead to Death
One recent study found that dysfunctional neuroplasticity may be to blame for insomnia. And that dysfunction can drive not only insomnia but other severe symptoms that are truly unbearable for you.
The theory is that neuroplasticity is a major mechanism in the cause of depression.
Neuroplasticity is the way the brain adapts to changes in the environment and to various stimuli.
Since sleep promotes synaptic neuroplasticity and a healthy ability to adapt and change, the lack of sleep reduces your ability to do that. Synaptic plasticity is also reduced in major depressive disorder.
Now think about this:
As many as 50% of people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders are never helped by medicines or therapies. Because of this, there’s been a need for a novel and advanced treatment to bring relief to their symptoms, as well as to their suicidal thoughts.
So it stands to reason that ketamine treatment can relieve both depressionandinsomnia. In fact, in a separate action, it can also erase suicidal thoughts in an hour or so.
Insomnia and Suicide
Stubborn long-term insomnia that doesn’t respond to medicines or therapy is not uncommon at all. But it contributes to your illness in ways that are so dangerous, it’s important to find effective treatment.
Suicidal thoughts are also life-threatening, and the longer they continue, the greater the risk to your survival.
If medicines and therapies haven’t relieved these symptoms, you may be a candidate for ketamine treatment. Ketamine treatment can restore your neuroplasticity and erase suicidal thoughts within 4 hours or less. Then, after that, you may find you can finally sleep.
At Innovative Psychiatry, patients walk out restored every week. They find they can do things they couldn’t do before, work through inner turmoil that they were unable to before, build relationships they lacked the energy and resilience to build before.
They can build rewarding lives and relationships.
And you can enjoy these breakthroughs, too.
Call us. You owe it to yourself to give your life and yourself the best advantage.
Your child. Devastating diagnosis. Potentially fatal.
The very thought runs chills down your spine. Takes your breath away. You’re paralyzed.
We’ve talked in the past about PTSD, and how there are varied events that can cause it. The best known cause is active combat. But many different kinds of traumatic events can lead to post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD). And PTSD in parents can have an enormous impact on every family member.
No way! She’s fine! She just has a cold!! She was running and playing just last week! There must be some mistake. A mixup in the lab? Are these people wrong? This can’t be real.
PTSD. Because of things like domestic abuse, fire, or assault, to name a few. But something we haven’t discussed is the trauma parents experience when their child is suddenly diagnosed with a catastrophic or life-threatening illness.
In fact, parents who endure this traumatic and often long-term struggle are often all but ignored in lieu of the more pressing issues. And their suffering, though hidden, may lead to a larger and wider disorder of their own.
In the case of an auto collision, both the parents and the children involved have been subjected to trauma. If a child is critically injured, the parent’s trauma doubles . And as victims themselves, the parents are likely to be recognized as people who are in need of special support as they heal and cope with their child’s injuries and prognosis.
But in the case of the sudden diagnosis of a life-threatening illness, the focus is on the ill child. And the parent is left to try to cope with shock, fear, anxiety… maybe depression…and probably denial, too.
PTSD in parents can be crippling.
Studies conducted about this type of situation have shown that the parents have certain needs above all others.
If Your Child is Diagnosed with a Life-Threatening Illness
First, you need to have clear and accurate information about your child’s condition and prognosis. You may or may not be ready to grasp what the doctor tells you the first time you hear it. For this reason you need to have the opportunity to see the doctor at least once a day if your child is in the hospital (or at least very frequently if he or she is not). If the prognosis is poor, you probably need several visits each day. There is just so much to take in.
Second, you need to have privacy to hear this information, to discuss decisions, ask questions, and to grieve.
Third, you need emotional support. You need your child’s doctor to be compassionate, to listen for a few minutes. You also probably need a specific staff member — a doctor, nurse, social worker, or someone else who really knows — help you consider options, and show they care.
Fourth, and this is specific to situations where the child dies, you need to be able to hold and comfort your child in the final hours of his or her life. There comes a point when heroics need to be set aside to make way for grief, comfort, and goodbyes.
By reading articles like this one, you can gain a clearer idea of parents’ needs if you or a loved one ever faces such a situation like this. And by becoming familiar with what those needs are, you can help another parent — or you will understand better what you need to ask for yourself.
A number of studies have followed parents at the bedside of a critically-ill child to learn more about their needs, as well as their psychological reactions to their child facing this scenario.
And it turns out that these parents are so deeply affected by this threat to their child’s life that they often suffer symptoms that are in line with the symptoms of PTSD.
So let’s say your child nearly drowned, or was badly burned, or developed meningitis, or was in ICU with the new diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, your reactions would be similar in all these scenarios… intense and difficult to relieve.
Faced with the heartbreaking gravity of your child’s condition, you may be plunged into shock. Numbness. Dread.
It may be difficult for hospital staff or family to effectively communicate with you because of your state of mind. You may have to ask several times for your child’s doctor to reiterate the current status of your child’s condition…until you “get it.”
Because it’s not uncommon for a doctor to explain a poor prognosis for a child, and the parent to respond by saying, “So you’re saying she’ll be OK when she goes home?”
Why does this happen?
Because you’re in shock, and with it, denial. You’re human and “reality” as you know it has taken a sudden left turn. It may even have come to a crashing halt. You need time, support, privacy, and patience to catch up with what’s going on.
At the same time, while you’re going through all this, your child is also suffering. Your instincts are telling you that she needs you. That she needs your comfort. And you want to provide that with everything in your being.
But the accumulation of the astounding turn of events, the devastating prognosis, the enormous amount of information you’re trying to sort through and grasp…well all of it together can be tremendously overwhelming.
You may find the doctors will repeat the same things to you each time they see you — to be sure you grasp it all and can move forward with decisions.
Many parents in this situation may begin to show symptoms of post-traumatic-stress-disorder weeks or months after their child has recovered and is discharged from the hospital…or …after their child has died.
These may include things like numbness, as we mentioned before, as well as denial. You might find yourself going over and over in your mind the string of events that led to this.
They may also find they avoid being near places that remind them of their child’s traumatic illness, or speaking of anything that might remind them of the pain their child suffered.
And the nightmares. Reliving the experience in your sleep, trying to do something to prevent it. Or reliving it to the worst possible outcome.
The misery, the trembling, the weeping…the headaches, stomach upset, even ulcers. And anxiety that escalates to panic, with such a pounding, fast heart rate, you wonder if you’re going to die.
The initial shock of the diagnosis, and the intrusive medical treatments that follow — all may serve to drive you into a state of real PTSD.
How You Can Increase Your Resilience
Can you prepare for a crisis like this? As a parent, you probably would like to so you can be sure to function at your best in such a difficult time.
But, as we’ve talked about before, the impact all these stressors have on you is more determined by your own personal resilience, and less about your educational preparation for crisis in general.
So how do you develop resilience?
By adapting.
How do you look at crises? Do you feel the very fact that you’re faced with a crisis is traumatic? Do you perceive yourself as a victim who’s been singled out to suffer? Are you overwhelmed with the unfairness of it all?
This is important: There’s no wrong answer to these questions…only your answer. And what you learn from it.
When you look at life as a series of mountains to be climbed, and you’re ready for the challenge, you’re less likely to be overwhelmed by crises when they come. When a crisis brings out your toolbox of problem-solving methods, you’re most likely to adapt and resolve the crisis.
On the other hand…if you face each crisis you encounter in life as another problem to be resolved… Then you go into each crisis with a little extra strength, a bit more armor against the attack.
But if you view yourself as an innocent victim who didn’t deserve this difficulty, you’re more likely to be crushed by the situation. The key is in the way you think about yourself and the situation around you.
So while you can’t prepare yourself for every inevitability, you cantrain yourself to adapt and seek solutions to every obstacle in life. You can train yourself to recognize that life is full of challenges for everyone, and obstacles can be taken in stride.
Doing so over time may not make you immune to trauma during a life-threatening illness in your child, because a crisis of that magnitude can be overwhelming to anyone.
But it can help you feel more equipped to navigate those waters until the seas calm again.
We have patients at Innovative Psychiatry who fall into this category. And sometimes, the PTSD is stubborn, and difficult to relieve. PTSD in parents magnifies a family’s calamity.
In fact, some patients who’ve been un-helped by medication and therapy for PTSD, consider ketamine treatment and enjoy remarkable relief.
So understand that PTSD is not a failure to be resilient…or a failure of attitude. That’s just not the case. But sometimes those who work to remove the “victim” mentality from their outlook are less affected by a terrible life crisis than someone who has not done the same work in their thinking through therapy.
Our hope is that you’ll be as healthy and resilient as you can be, and that your life will be an ongoing opportunity to learn about yourself, and the world around you. Seek out the lessons in each experience. This will help you become adaptable and strong.
Because adaptability gives rise to the strength of resilience.
Live your life in a way that creates inspiration – and leave a legacy of restoration in your wake.
We’ve been talking about how ketamine treatment can help you reach remission, and how your frame of mind, attitude, and the way you react to frustration and hurt can either support your new-found remission, or sabotage it. Remission gives you the opportunity to build change in yourself, to build stronger relationships, and to reduce strain. As you build upon the principles we’ve already talked about, you might consider adding this key secret to your edifice of peaceful strength: When you’re building your infrastructure, love heals and kindness matters.
Some of these changes in attitude and reactions are ways to lower your own inner stress and make your own peace.
We’re talking about your recovery after you’ve received your ketamine treatment. And… We’re talking about building the infrastructure in your mind and life that will enhance your peace and support your new remission.
Which brings up another point. If you have not had ketamine treatment, or if you’re deep in the throes of depression, fatigue, despair, and anxiety, please don’t think that our statements about love and its healing dismiss your suffering. We know suffering. And we don’t judge.
Illness is illness. And you need effective treatment. We’ve said this before … that no matter how much treatment you’ve received, if you don’t feel better it’s the same as if you were untreated. And you need to keep seeking solutions.
So, if you’re not receiving effective treatment, getting it is the first step. That’s where improvement begins and how remission gets a jump-start.
There are novel and advanced options that can help you really begin to recover from this illness. Ketamine treatment, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and other treatments here and in the pipeline. Don’t expect so much from yourself that an article like this one seems insurmountable and overwhelming to you.
Give yourself a break…ok? And focus on getting well with one of the advanced treatments available like a ketamine infusion series.
We want to help you get better. Until then, your wellbeing remains the goal.
But after you’ve received effective treatment, and you’re experiencing joy and motivation…even hope (I know, right?)… for the first time in years, then your next step is to intentionally work to build your personal infrastructure. That underpinning that helps your life move forward smoothly and with peace.
And if you’ve achieved remission, and want to do the work to build that framework of peace and calm, love and kindness… then follow the advice in the last four of our most recent blog articles to get you started. We’re on a roll to help you.
Because you likely were not building warmth and love while you were ill. It takes a lot of energy to do that, and you may not have had the energy to give to others while you were suffering yourself. In fact, you may have been withdrawn and a bit irritable. Why? Because you felt so crummy.
Depression and anxiety can lead to a short temper, impatience, intolerance, and harshness. However, when you use the neuroplasticity ketamine gives to work with your therapist… and look at yourself to make the changes you want to make, you can generate a serene outlook and reverse the tension we all tend to create by hiding conflicts from ourselves and others.
Everybody needs a group of trusted friends.
Everyone needs a hearth, a home, some sort of sanctuary where you can trust the people there to love you as you are and inspire you to live as your best self. Where you know you’re loved, and where your love is received and appreciated. Where you can trust the truthful feedback and use it to grow. Home is supposed to be like this… but too often, it’s not.
Don’t worry if you don’t have family and friends like this now. You may be amazed how your world changes as you change. Be a friend to those who are in your life, and you may be amazed at the deeply caring, valuable friends who are drawn to you. The kind you can trust with your deepest secret who will listen and support you no matter what onslaughts may come your way.
Building Infrastructure? Love Heals… and Kindness Matters, too
For you, it might be one or two friends who know you well. And love you. And know your fallibility as well as their own. People who are exquisitely grateful for the friendship the three of you share, and treat it with reverence and respect.
Friends like these can help you heal, help you let go, lovingly hold you accountable to persistence in your walk of better living… spirit, soul, and body.
And you’ll help them heal, hold them accountable, and keep them wrapped in love, too.
The fact is it’s hard to heal without love. Whether the love you receive is face-to-face with family or friend, on a commuter train, at the checkout when you buy groceries… at church, or with co-workers… even on facebook….
But here’s what’s important. Not only do you need to be wrapped in an atmosphere of love, so does everyone else. And especially those who’ve been shattered, abused, wounded, and damaged. Those who feel lost and broken.
As you experience the relief ketamine treatment provides, you’ll have the opportunity to find ways to give back. Just as you’ve been loved, supported, and helped, you can offer love, support, and help to others who are not as whole as you are yet.
You can be the one to listen, to embrace, to help find solutions; to work to get the solutions to more of those who need them.
And when you do, don’t be surprised when love for those who are suffering swells in you. Because love is not only the most powerful force in the universe, it’s a communicable force. You can catch it, and others can catch it from you. Every time you give it away, more of it explodes inside you. And around you.
Becca Stevens was a child who was forced into sexual abuse at the age of 5, after the death of her father. With her family in crisis over his death, her mom desperately lonely, an unseemly man came into Becca’s young life. He continued using her, abusing her, for four years. She hated it, but didn’t know what to say or who to talk to. She was overwhelmed. And she endured. She was a young child.
After she grew up, she studied for the Episcopal priesthood at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Once she became a priest, she sought to help other women who have been used, abused, and damaged by others. This ministry came to be known as Thistle Farms.
Fast forward twenty years to now, and there are Thistle Farms outposts in five countries and across the US. It consists of women who have been damaged, abused, mistreated, and addicted, who need a safe place to heal, grow, and rebuild their lives.
Since many have been convicted of felonies, Thistle Farms also markets handmade bath and body products, as well as candles, that they sell through 500 stores. These products help these women to get on their feet, pay off debt, buy a car or a home, and find purpose in their lives.
There are no authority figures in these homes. Only the women themselves who recover and grow, then mentor those who come behind them.
Becca’s story is an example of healing, recovering, then finding purpose in giving back.
And you can, too.
In partnership with the loving and healing is the kindness that automatically takes root in your life. As you feel more whole, and experience the almost miraculousremission and recovery that follows, plus the hope and energy to live again, you will have experience and love to give to others who need it like you once did.
Kindness Matters
Letting go of the sick and broken self, and embracing your more whole self, will likely give you the energy to be patient. To love and help restore the next person you meet. And as you do that…putting their need over and above your convenience… a seed of love sprouts inside you. Each time you give, it grows bigger and fuller. As you fill with love, you have more love to give, and the more you give the more patient and kind you can be.
And in generously giving away patience, kindness, support, and help, you find you like who you’re becoming. That impatient hurting person who snapped heads off before is now kinder, warmer, and more understanding.
Does this nurture your remission? Absolutely! Will it positively prevent relapse? Nothing can do that at this point. But your chances of maintaining your remission go much higher when you let go of stress and replace it with love and kindness.
And guess what? Other things that are driven by stress like high blood pressure, asthma, heart disease… well, reducing your stress radically may reduce your symptoms of these other conditions, too.
So ask yourself… when you go to the grocery store, does the clerk’s kindness matter to you ? If you’re anything like me, it matters a lot. So would you guess that your kindness matters to her, too? Of course it does.
Love Heals and Kindness Matters… So Don’t Give Up
Apply both in your life and to the lives of those you care about – as well as those who cross your path. Just as others may have been harsh with you when you were so ill for so long, so now those you meet may be ill, too. You have the power to make their day a bit better now.
A friend of mine used to say that she dumped darkness on anyone in her path during her 8 year depression. Since her ketamine treatment she now says it’s her turn to spread light on everyone she meets. And she can smile from ear to ear! How dazzling to see her face light up!
You never know what someone has been through right before you make contact with them. So treat everyone with kindness to make their day easier, and to make you stronger.
And like Becca Stevens, the day just may come when you find yourself the leader in bringing joy and love into the lives of others in your world. And you may help them change their world, too.
Maybe You Haven’t Received Ketamine Treatment Yet…
If you’re thinking you might be interested in ketamine treatment, and that you’d like the chance to experience remission and recovery… it probably means you’ve endured many trials with medicines that didn’t help.
We know how hard that is… to keep swallowing pills day after day for weeks or months without getting any benefits at all. In doing so you’ve certainly shown your determination. You need your hope to be rewarded.
We’d like to help with that.
We see people walk out of our office every week after ketamine treatment. We see them rejuvenated, hopeful, and relieved. Read the other blog articles linked here to help you understand more about how this treatment works, then call us.
Ketamine doesn’t make everyone well, but it’s extraordinary in its effects in most cases. Find out how you can enjoy life in wonderful ways you may have forgotten about.
With perseverance, you can build the life you want to live.
You’ve probably seen the photo of an old stone lighthouse in the storm, with overwhelming waves crashing against it and around it. It looks like it will surely be knocked down…but it’s not. Those waves go on year in and year out, decades upon decades, but it stands strong. It stands to give light to ships in the storm. Steadfast, it shines its light, no matter what.
This is persistence. Holding steadfast to the hope for better days, believing in the peace that will follow the storm, no matter how great the pressure… it endures.
Storms are a part of every life, and the risk of collapse is real. If there was no fear, no risk, the endurance would be unremarkable.
However, because the risk is real, there is great reward when you see the calm that follows the storm. And each storm that you survive prepares you to be stronger to withstand the next one.
Holding Steady in Chronic Illness and Abuse
Marti withstood storms. Life-threatening illness that came in waves and threatened to destroy her. An abusive partner who shifted from violent to repentant and back again, bringing her within an inch of her life. Repeatedly.
But each time, she nursed her wounds, and determined to try again.
Marty had contemplated or attempted suicide quite a few times in the 25 years she’d been depressed. Through those times Marty’s depression worsened and she wanted to die, but she kept holding on for a day when life might get better.
After her ketamine treatment, she discovered that she still had some of the perseverance she’d developed through those years of constant crisis. And, she learned about the importance of practicing endurance, self-control,letting go, and honesty with herself.
As the ketamine treatment continued to improve her outlook long after the infusions were over, she thought often about how to work on her “infrastructure” that she’d heard so much about.
How to increase her own determination to stand steady when some symptom returned, by knowing it would pass again like they’d come to do.
Or to keep putting one foot in front of the other when she lost her job and wanted to give up. …Or when she had 2 twelve-day hospitalizations the same month and she couldn’t see a time when she would be well.
Persistence – The Road to Resilience – May Be Enhanced by Ketamine
While she was undergoing ketamine treatment, she arranged with her therapist to have a session 24 hours after each infusion. It was clear she needed therapy to heal from the scars of that abusive relationship.
And she’d understood that there was something special about the 24 mark after the infusion that really helped the therapy to be more effective.
Marti found the neuroplasticity ketamine treatment had initiated allowed her to see through her faulty thinking in that relationship, so she could heal, and move forward in her life.
It encouraged her when she realized that each time she held steady through a period of emotionally swinging out of control, she felt stronger to do that the next time.
After awhile, she also worked at being kind to others in the wake of her symptoms subsiding post- infusion. The more times she stopped herself from over reacting toward someone, the easier it was the next time.
Each of these steps helped her peace to grow. She felt more serene, more confident in her ability to function in life. And in her healthier state, she found someone new who brought out the best in her, and supported her healing and restoration.
She’s now in full remission and kindness has again become the backdrop of her nature, though her assertive personality is still fully hers. She couldn’t have gained this ground without ketamine, but once she had its help, she made great strides that paid off in the reward of a fulfilling life.
Holding Steady Between Bipolar Episodes
Bernie withstood storms. Like Marty, he came close to succumbing to them. The frequent storms of bipolar depression made survival appear like an ugly life sentence, with no escape.
But, then his parents heard about ketamine treatment. They gave him articles to read …and the more he learned, the more he wanted it.
After the treatment, he felt relieved… but there were still symptoms some of the time. When symptoms did come up, he knew he needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and keep moving forward, because he could finally see hope.
He found that the reduced symptoms and his better frame of mind in between was making his life more “endurable” when the symptoms did rise up.
Persistence is believing in good days ahead when a storm is pounding down on you and your ship is breaking apart beneath your feet.
Persistence knows that no matter how overwhelming this moment…or this decade…seems to be, there will be a better day – a happier ending.
When you’re persistent, your mind is focused on the positiveoutcomeof the crushing circumstances you’re enduring, and you know that you don’t want obstacles like complaining or an attitude of defeat to prevent you from reaching that reward. So you look at the promise you see of what lies ahead, rather than focusing on or magnifying the circumstances you’re in.
And like Marty, each time you hold onto that promise and plod forward with determination, you gain more strength to do it again in an even worse storm. You get stronger.
The seeming foreverness of each bout with illness that never seemed to stop for years, and the seeming inevitability that the abuse would finally end her life, only bowed and gave way to her hope as she worked with the ketamine treatment to change her outlook.
And hope, as well as the ability to be resilient during storms, finally took root and stayed.
So persistence is a component of strength you can develop,nurture, and establish within yourself. Like a well-dug foundation it will hold you on course during the most threatening times of life.
Persistence is akin to perseverance.
Keep on keeping on…no matter how shrill the wind whistles. And no matter how long you pull your cap down over your head and bow into the freezing rain, you will endure. Because that persevering will hold firm in your mind the view on the other side of what’s going on, and it gives you the durability to emerge from the whole horror unscathed.
A bit wiser, a bit stronger, yes. But with a new confidence that drives away fear.
In time, you can arm yourself with that new confidence and the hard-earned wisdom that reminds you what it takes to survive, and build the future you find in the pot o’ gold on the other side.
One step at a time. With determination, and a new instinctive sense that it’s persistence that will keep you on the scene so you can enjoy the rewards that await you.
Because it’s persistence that helps you try again and again and again. Perseverance tells you to get back up after falling down, brush yourself off, figure out why you fell, and incorporate that new knowledge into your next try.
Stubborn Persistence is Required for Marriage to Survive
Do you notice older couples who are white haired, and take evening walks holding hands with their dog on a leash? Ever wonder how they stayed in love that long?
It wasn’t magic.
There is no 40-, 50-, 60-year marriage or more that lasted that long without persistence. No one knows how to make a marriage work on the wedding day.
Some may have a little more insight than others about getting along, or putting someone else’s interests ahead of their own.
In this generation of self-assertion and self-absorption, that’s all but a lost art. Still, it wasn’t an accident that two people with stooped posture and white hair feel like holding hands and enjoying each other’s company after so many decades of living together.
To enjoy their autumn years, they had to learn early about getting back up and trying again. They’ve most likely had times when they couldn’t stand each other and didn’t want to stay together even another day. But one of them, one time or another, probably stepped up with persistence and determined to build a bridge, forgive the other one, and ask for forgiveness, too.
Without that? They wouldn’t have made it to their next anniversary. And you can ask them…but I’d guess with confidence that they both have done that many times…and more times than they can count… they’ve each taken turns at playing that role, until they managed to get really good at it.
Over time they learned that persistence, road to resilience, has kept their marriage strong.
…And, eventually realized they were glad they were still together…to watch their children graduate from high school; to give away their daughters in marriage; and to welcome and play with their grandchildren and great grandchildren.
You’re Human, After All
Everyone falls down in their endeavors. But the persistent ones brush off and get back up and try again…and again… As many times as it takes as long as they live.
That kind of persistence leads to success, and resilience, and countless rewards.
Does a three-year-old play the violin like a maestro the first time he picks it up?
No.
He makes mistakes and gets frustrated. He wants to throw it away and forget it. But his mom, whose name is Persistence, sees that he picks it back up and tries again. And practices. Again and again… and over the years, the 3-year-old eventually lands 1st chair in high school… and later gets to decide if he’d like to accept that invitation to play in the Philadelphia Philharmonic.
What do you want to bet he’s now become so good at persistence, he knows how to apply it in countless areas of his life? As with the hare and the tortoise: slow and steady – consistently – wins the race.
Persistence.
Honestly? Without perseverance and persistence there’s not much you can accomplish in life. Because everyone falls down. Everyone gets discouraged at some point. Everyone fails at something. Abandoning the vision strikes the death blow to that endeavor.
However, with persistence there’s nothing you cannot do. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. Until persisting is part of who you are, and a tool you put to use in every project. And persistence gives way to resilience.
The character of a psychiatric disorder – the actual activity of it in the brain – wears down resilience, and flattens out persistence. If you’ve suffered from depression, social anxiety, PTSD, bipolar depression, or addiction, or suicidal thinking, you probably can’t imagine the resilience and persistence required to stand up after you’ve been down so long.
But that’s where ketamine comes in. Since at least a third of all people afflicted with these disorders experience no relief from prescribed medications,something more novel and advanced is required to bring relief. Ketamine treatment is the first treatment that has made an extraordinary difference for these patients.
And it’s such an advantage that another benefit of ketamine is its neuroplasticity that makes it easier for you to make changes in your mind that allow you adapt to your circumstances, reduce your stress, apply persistence, and build resilience.
If you’re even considering treatment with IV ketamine, or have recently received it, you know you have persistence and a good measure of grit.
You know what it’s been like…how you’ve been able to withstand the disappointment of one treatment after another — or one effort after another — not working. You already have some persistence working for you.
Ketamine delivers a one – two punch. First restoring connections in the signaling systems in the brain, and then providing neuroplasticity to help you make the changes in your outlook you want to put in place.
Because if you’ve been depressed, and now you feel better after ketamine treatment, you want to keep feeling better, right?
You want to do the work that will help you maintain a remission frame of mind. So you can continue growing, and press on with developing the life you want to live. The best way to do that is to remove the stressors in your life.
We do the work, too. We’re up at night, reading, refining, persisting in trying to identify the best treatment options that can get you back to your best self. We offer treatment when your symptoms persist, when your doctors have done all they can, when you’ve just gotten tired.
We’re here to help you win your battles… and in that process, persistence is priceless.
Be sure it’s your real self you’re showing. Because it is your real self that needs to be loved. Daphne Rose Kingma
It’s the most healing thing you can accomplish as you work through the changes in your thinking, your responses, your outlook and attitude about people and your world after ketamine treatment. As you build an infrastructure of peace and generosity…fix your inner life and learn to embrace the truth about yourself.
Self-doubt, self-defensiveness, and pretense eat away at your self-respect and love of yourself…and can lead to depression. But you want to reduce the stress in your life to help your wellbeing thrive.
How do you reduce the stress? By facing the truth that eats at you or that you hide from yourself.
What sort of truth..? Well, that you’re human, for starters. That you’re not always perfect in your responses to life’s stressors. And that there are plenty of things you can learn to make your life work better for you.
Things like humility, admitting your shortcomings, and asking for forgiveness, to name a few. To accept yourself as a learner in this life and not to expect yourself to know everything out of the gate.
Using Pride as a Shield of Protection
Pride drives many of us to present ourselves as infallible, until we realize that pride also shackles us from the fulfillment of intimacy in relationships.
Replacing pride with love can be scary. It can make you feel exposed and vulnerable until you get used to it. But doing so can transform your life and drive loneliness away.
Something we do as humans is to construct personas that we tell ourselves others will find more likable or respectable than who we really are. But a persona that you construct is always stilted. Unnatural.
Have you ever been around someone who’s utterly at home in his own skin? Isn’t he or she absolutely enjoyable and relaxing to be around? The reason they’re enjoyable and relaxing to be around is because they’ve found a certain degree of peace with who they are.
They accept themselves as they are so there’s no need for pretense. When someone is trying to prove themselves, it can make you uncomfortable. But when you sense they have nothing to prove, you subconsciously feel like you can relax.
At the same time, you get the sense that their mental health is pretty good.
It’s the exception to meet someone like that, rather than the rule. Most of us aren’t free of pretense, until we learn what we need to learn so we can bewho we are.
This shouldn’t be so hard. You know?
But we live in a world that feels dangerous and makes us think we have to protect ourselves. So we do. We build walls around ourselves. Thick, impenetrable armor to keep ourselves safe.
And we guard that armor, those walls, to stay safe. Then, if anything threatens to expose us under the armor, we get anxious and defend it. Don’t we?
So, after all that work, we’re reluctant to knock down those walls. We don’t feel safe without the armor.
And that’s why we have to learn to see what the walls and the armor are costing us. We have to see that they’re interrupting our social development and our opportunities for close, fulfilling relationships.
They also require that we remain vigilant, prepared to defend any attack on our security in the armor. So we can’t relax. We can’t let our guard down.
Fix Your Inner Life
You have to change the way you think. The way you respond to things.
You may need to get really honest with yourself. You may find you have to learn how to embrace the truth, and learn to accept yourself as human, fallible, and forgivable. When you do that, you may also feel more lovable.
And when you feel lovable…and LOVED… you’ll tend to find it much easier to generously love others.
Ok. I know it’s certainly easier said than done. It’s an uncomfortable process to look head-on at things in yourself you haven’t before. But, it leads to a very comfortable, confident, joyful way of living.
But, if you’ve had ketamine treatment, and feel much, much better, you sure want to stay better, right?
Well, one important aspect of staying better is to unravel the conflict you carry inside you that you may not even realize is there.
But…it IS there. And it interferes with the peace within you. So what can you do?
Embrace the truth about yourself.
Just like letting go of what you NEED to let go of, when you embrace truth about yourself it helps you relax with who you really are.
Accepting your shortcomings, and dropping that guard that says you’re flawless, admirable, or beyond reproach, helps you embrace the truth that you’re a real living fallible human worthy of giving and receiving love.
And there’s another plus: doing so will increase your self respect.
Sound pretty far out? What if you don’t know what you have inner conflict about? Or how to tell if your guard is up?
What if you’ve been presenting yourself the way you think people expect you to for so long you don’t remember what it was like to be yourself?
Scrutinizing Your Inner Self
Start with looking closely at that experience or event that scratches at your conscious memories. What are you telling yourself about it? What about it might be seen differently?
Pay attention to your inner voice…do you find yourself defending yourself over what happened? What could you be “hiding” from yourself?
It might be related to some sort of blame you place on another person… or something you’re hiding from yourself. Look deeper. Could you have caused the situation, even though you didn’t intend to? Is it possible you share responsibility for what happened?
And what happens when you look at the other person’s role with a heart of forgiveness and understanding? Can you see how the outcome might not have been his/her intent?
Then. Just say it. “It’s my responsibility that so-and-so happened. ” Or…share the responsibility… ” I share in the responsibility that so-and-so happened. I didn’t intend for it to go down the way it did. He/she probably didn’t intend it either. I’m human, and I was wrong. I handled the situation badly. I’m truly sorry, and I’ll really try to not do it again.” Then move on with the resolve to make good decisions and to treat others well going forward.
I Was Wrong
It’s very difficult sometimes to reach this point. But giving up the fight and accepting that you’re fallible can be so liberating. You THOUGHT it could destroy you, hence the long arduous combat in your mind.
But when you really see that you were wrong…you can accept that it happened. And the fight inside you…the defensive arguments in your head…begin to disappear and become quiet.
And that quiet is a deposit of peace into your inner self. Enjoy the reward of harmony you feel.
Then take what you’ve learned and apply it to the next situation that comes to mind…because another situation will. You’re human and fallible. And so is everyone you know.
Going forward, you may find you’re a little less judgmental, a bit less inhibited…and more and more relaxed. In that relaxed and peaceful state, it’s much easier to feel better.
With these things at work within you, you can accept yourself as human, and realize that through forgiveness of yourself you are more able to love and receive love. And that brings joy.
Remember, this discussion is NOT to say that if your remission fades away, it’s your fault.
At Innovative Psychiatry, we want to be a part of your recovery as you use your ketamine treatment to help you bring change in your thinking, your outlook on life, and your attitudes.
If you’re not in the habit, but have experienced joy from ketamine treatment, changes like we’ve talked about can help you continue to enjoy that joy, increasing love…and freedom from emotional pain.
In past posts, we’ve talked about remission by ketamine, the 50-year-old anesthesia medicine that stepped up to the plate in the last ten years or so… to bridge the gap in the treatment of an array of psychiatric disorders.
And once you’ve achieved remission, you want to help ketamine remission last. You don’t want to return to your same old ways of reacting. Or to the same old stress and risk losing the ground you’ve gained.
So let’s continue. We’ve talked about the growing body of evidence that demonstrates the extraordinary antidepressant effects of this medicine in numerous psychiatric disorders. Illnesses like severe treatment-resistant depression and bipolar depression. as well as its unparalleled impact on PTSD to arrest symptoms and restore peace to the traumatized individual.
In our own practice, Innovative Psychiatry, we’ve seen ketamine treatment make a dramatic difference with social anxiety, that cruel disorder that creates obstacles between you and financial success, self respect, meaningful relationships, and general fulfillment in life.
So that after ketamine treatment, you can effectively interview for the job you want. You can initiate and develop loving relationships. In fact, you can basically BE who you are and at your best. While you contribute to your team at work and your family and community, as well. So you want to help ketamine remission last.
But it doesn’t stop there. We’ve also seen ketamine treatment relieve OCDsymptoms, providing the neuroplasticity for needed changes through therapy.
And then there’s alcohol use disorder as well as crack and other addictions, which ketamine (as demonstrated through the work of Dakwar and others) helps you conquer by weakening or erasing cravings.
We’ve seen similar positive results in our own practice, though there have not yet been enough studies to validate this benefit across the board… yet.
Then, possibly the most amazing of all is suicidal thinking…no matter what the cause that led to it… can be eradicated, often within an hour, and usually in less than four. We’ve seen extensive positive outcomes of this life-saving benefit in our office.
Your Personal Infrastructure Seems to Play Some Role in Making or Breaking Your Remission
Interestingly, because stress is such an important cause of the pruning of brain cell connections (synapses) it appears that sometimes when patients receive ketamine treatment while under severe stress, it seems to not work for them.
Then, sometimes it happens that the patient finally begins to enjoy ketamine’s benefits after the stress is significantly reduced. This is something we’ve observed multiple times but lack the extensive research to back up… yet.
So it’s important that we distinguish those benefits we see every week at Innovative Psychiatry from those that have already been validated by peer-reviewed research.
It takes time for research to catch up with the widespread use of ketamine treatment. And it requires multiplied studies upon more studies to establish the reliability of any benefit.
So let’s be clear that the benefits of ketamine treatment we’ve seen at Innovative Psychiatry have already been reported in research studies. But, not with the overwhelming stacked-up body of evidence that stands behind ketamine for depression. Not enough to proclaim them from the housetops without an explanation.
Even so, it’s important that you know these things are happening, and we’re playing a waiting game for the research to catch up and explain what we’re seeing in practice.
Meanwhile, while we wait, we want to let you know that we’re discussing what we’ve found works for our patients. And although we make the disclaimer that this is not individualized medical advice for you personally, we want to share the best of what we’re reading and actually doing. In the name of transparency. And in the name of hope.
Now to recap…we were talking about how stress seems to undermine the benefits of ketamine…or at least it appears to. And there’s more to stress than meets the eye. Right?
Sometimes the stress is inside our heads…like things aren’t going the way we wish they would, or something we hoped would last doesn’t, or maybe people aren’t doing what we think they should.
Or we like the job but hate the commute and arrive at work ready to rip someone’s head off…or we hate the job and every day is miserable.
…or we have friends who drive us crazy, use and abuse us, but we keep spending time with them.
And that’s where “infrastructure’ comes in. You want to help ketamine remission last. And the rebuilding of your environment, your decision-making, your thinking patterns, and your responses to the challenging moments in life, is part of your personal infrastructure. All of that tries to return you to your former state before treatment…or can establish you in your new peaceful life of joy and productivity.
It’s impossible to cover all those elements in one post, but we’ll attempt to show ways you can tackle certain elements that make up your inner and outer environment over time… here and in some posts to come.
A Full Overhaul Of Your Life, Step by Step, Can Be the BEST Medicine
And a good place to start is by taking a look at learning to let go. It’s completely normal and natural to assume that any depression or anxiety you have is the result of the behavior of others. That you just got worn down from it all.
And there may be some truth in that.
But in exploring the causes, it may surprise you to learn that their behavior may not actually be the cause, as much as your reaction to their behavior that is.
Now understand this.We’re not implying here in any sense that your lack of response to ketamine, or the loss of remission, is in any way your fault, or even within your control.
But it’s important to understand that the best prescription for maintaining stability with remission includes maintaining health in those things in your life and environment that you can control.
Things like your respect for yourself and for other people. Your persistence in pursuing peace in your life and relationships. The development of a kindness-centered approach to yourself and those in the world around you.
…And the evaluation of your life and simplification of the burdens and demands it presents. Ensuring you have the power to enjoy life’s simplest pleasures…which may include letting go of things that pull you down or hold you back.
These are things that can help ketamine remission last.
So let’s talk about a fundamental skill that can change your life…for the better.
Letting Go
When we talk about letting go, it’s not reserved to only one thing…such as letting go of a relationship. Since relationships can be so important in our lives, and the ending of them can be so painful, letting go of relationships that have died is high on the list.
But there are other issues in our lives that may present themselves as we consider letting go to reduce stress.
Such as letting go of being right in our discussions at work with our boss or co-workers, and in our discussions at home with those we love most, such as our spouse and kids.
And what about letting go of fighting to get our way, when obstacles are thrown in our path? This may be akin to letting go of being right, but it has a personality all its own.
Possessions Can Shift from Useful Tools to… Jailer
How about letting go of your pride in your possessions…? For instance, let’s imagine a teenager sets his icy soft drink can on your dining room table…allowing condensation to mar its flawless finish?
What goes through your mind when you see it? Rage that a kid with no manners has caused your beloved heirloom table some damage…? Fear that your spouse will hit the ceiling? Compassion for a young man who didn’t know better… so you pick up the can and set it on a coaster for him?
It’s ok to enjoy having nice things, but when the “thing” is higher on your priority list than the development and well-being of a person…well that “thing” is controlling you.
Which do you value more: A 19th century mahogany table with a flawless finish that was handed down through your family over a hundred years….? Or a tall and lanky boy who needs a haircut and a clean t-shirt ?
If you’re honest with yourself, it really might be the table. But if that’s the case, maybe it will help you see the kinds of things you can work on, possibly with a therapist, to improve the infrastructure in your head.
Because anger causes stress. And anger toward that kid is stress you don’t need. Compassion on the other hand doesn’t, and actually supports your remission frame of mind.
Remember…you’re learning to nurture peace… in your head. And to do it means developing a response of gratitude, humility, and kindness.
What If You Lost It All?
On the other hand, picture your belongings lost in a fire. No one’s fault, really. But it cost you every material thing you own. How do you feel about that? Sad? Sure… all those memories and photos…but the house and belongings?
This is a loss you’ll never fully recover from materially, but does it reach the core of who you are?
Now. Picture the phone call that makes the world STOP. Your spouse, your three children, and your only grandchild have been in a terrible car accident. No one survived.
What do you feel? What does the furniture or sports car mean to you now?
My point here is that we have a way of putting people and things on a priority list… and that list can get all mixed up. But this scenario helps to show how those things we think are important lose their glow instantly when those at the core of our hearts are lost.
And that being the case, putting ourselves through unnecessary stress to preserve things that pale in comparison to those we love… well, it’s a waste of valuable moments and energy when we think about what really matters to us.
And therein lies the secret. Rather than wasting our lives by hurting people to preserve things, we find our life is best spent preserving the moments with those we love the most.
And the things…the houses, cars, antiques, reputation, recognition…none of these things can compete with the peoplewe love the most.
The Greedy Monkey
You’ve heard the story of the monkey who is shown a jar of cookies. A jar that has a small mouth. He sticks his hand in and grabs a cookie…but can’t pull his hand out unless he lets go of the cookie. The opening just won’t accommodate anything larger than his open hand.
Because he won’t let the cookie go, he panics. Swinging the jar around in the air in a temper because it won’t give him the cookie, he finally smacks himself on the head with the jar and it hurts so much, he immediately lets go of the cookie to hold his head.
Sound familiar… at all? Is there anything in your life that’s pleasurable to you that you don’t want to let go? And if circumstances prevent you from having it or keeping it…does it make you mad?
If you have any marred tables or unyielding jars in your life, take a moment and breathe… Think about what trying to protect and preserve that “thing” costs you. Are your feelings on your cuff? Do do you snap at people when its security is threatened? Do you feel panic at the idea of it being removed from your life…?
The Surprise Benefits of Letting Go
The unexpected surprise you can discover by disengaging from “it” is that the angst of control that you’re powerless to perfect is replaced by a growing peace and relief. And when you have succeeded in reaching that point, that same peace and relief is a signal that you’ve now added a brick to the foundation in your personal infrastructure.
That thing, whether it’s your marriage, your shiny sports car, your child who’s supposed to fulfill your dreams….your house, the money you make in your job that prevents you from spending time with those who yearn for your attention…no matter what it is, has been holding you back and isn’t deserving of what it takes from you.
Picture serenity in your life. Peace. What has been removed from the picture when you think of it?
An alcoholic wife, an abusive screaming boyfriend, a job that you bring home and work on till you go to bed…? Maybe it’s more house than you can afford, so you’re driven to work three jobs to pay the bills. If it is, that house controls you.
Life is short. We get the most out of it when we can cherish every moment. In your daydreams, when you wish for reprieve…what do you erase from your life in your mind’s eye to make room for hope? Peace? Love? Enjoyment?
Commit to Finding Ways to Let It Go
First of all, in your mind and heart.
This is one facet of the infrastructure in your life that you may need to confront and adjust to make room for remission.
It will be easier to explore these things after you’ve had ketamine treatments because of the neuroplasticity that results. The ability to think in new ways. To change, and make productive decisions for your life.
So…to get there… you may want to consider ketamine treatment for severe and suffocating depression, your wracking and immobilizing bipolar depression, PTSD that injects traumatic reactions into your days…and your nights.
OCD that stands in the way of your achievements, and that social anxiety that has plagued and isolated you since you were a child. And for suicidal thinking that threatens to snuff your life before you even have a chance to recover.
Wanna Help Ketamine Remission Last? You Can If You Strengthen Your Infrastructure
Strengthening your infrastructure involves ferreting out burdens you can lift off yourself, like excess belongings, excess weight, whatever it is that requires your service and obligation…and prevents you from freely enjoying opportunities with those relationships that matter.
Let it go. Help Ketamine Remission Last
By giving your brain…your inner self…the most optimal environment for healing and growing possible.
It means simplifying the grandness of your life… For you, it might mean living beneath your means so you can travel, write, or volunteer. Or shedding those friendships that demand your time but don’t contribute. It’s shedding the less meaningful to free up time and space for what’s ultimately important.
For this person it may mean letting go of the bitterness he carries toward his ex-spouse for leaving him. For another, it may mean selling the house to travel the country in an RV and stop and paint when the view is spectacular.
And for someone else, it can mean retiring from the corporate job to teach underprivileged children, or to cook meals in a soup kitchen for the homeless.
For you? Maybe it’s saying no to all those obligations that crowd your life so you have time to spend with those who adore you.
Basically, it’s about pulling weeds in your life to help ketamine remission last, and to preserve your joy. To put the life ketamine helps you find to the very best use.
You know what your strengths are…if you take time to think about it. Those special gifts you have ached to get out.
No one can tell you what it is for you. But that’s the fun of exploring your own infrastructure to find your path for cherishing the moments of life, and enjoying your new found joy. It’s a painful process that gives birth to fulfillment. And along that path, you’ll find joy.
Even though we don’t see everyone achieve remission with ketamine treatment, we do get to see that most do. And more and more physicians are learning better and better methods for administering ketamine for the best possible outcomes.
The result is that more physicians are reporting higher numbers and better outcomes. The field of ketamine for psychiatric disorders is growing as physicians and researchers collaborate and learn from each other.
Meanwhile, researchers and physicians alike continue to discover more with hopes of bringing relief and remission to those who aren’t experiencing it now.
If you suffer from symptoms that no medicine has helped, call us.
We’re here to help you experience life the way you’ve longed to live it.
Ketamine and you are beacons of hope for someone you love
The holiday season is upon us…once again. The anticipation of gifts and family gatherings, great food and fun times runs rampant among the younger set, and is deeply appreciated by the older generation, as well.
But if your family includes one or more members who suffer from mood or anxiety disorders… or eating disorders or substance misuse, the holidays at your house may be somewhat unpredictable.
You may have the awkward disjoint of some family members who just want to have fun, and others who are mowed down by unexpected “land mines” that cut them off at the knees, and instead of fun, they grieve, brood, or become explosive.
This time last year we talked about some of the things that can happen in such a family during the holiday season, along with thoughts about how to help each other cope.
But today, let’s go a little deeper. Let’s think about more than the inconvenience of your loved one’s suffering, and explore some dynamics that help a family member and his or her family interact, support each other, and learn together how to create a reassuring and loving, informed and prepared, unit.
Step 1. If you or another family member are repelled by the thought of a psychiatric disorder in your family…
Maybe you should challenge yourself. Face the reality there’s a serious need in someone you love…
…and choose love – as in compassion – rather than flaunting that you don’t have the same struggles. It’s tempting…to compare yourself that way. But that comparison is apples to oranges.
You may not have a disorder, but he or she does. And he/she needs some help from you in living with it.
Consider, maybe, choosing empathy over your fear of “family shame.” Rather than embracing prejudices about symptoms you don’t understand, accept the responsibility you bear as a family to educate yourself and your family members about the science behind the disorder.
Sure…it’s not fair…not to you, nor your family…but especially not to the one whose life has been pervaded by this illness.
And yes, outbursts and other behaviors that may happen when he’s stressed can be embarrassing. But… who cares?
Family first, right?
Neuroscience has come too far for family and friends to find comfort in – or hide behind – stigma. The most powerful way to fight stigma is with information.
I know…I know…! A couple decades ago we thought these disorders were about a “chemical imbalance.” It was our best information at the time. And stigma surrounded anyone who suffered with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder.
In fact, it still does.
So…No, he’s not lazy. It’s the depression that saps his strength.
No, she’s not weak. Maybe battle weary, but not weak. A malfunction in her brain circuitry drives the symptoms you see. Whether it’s social anxiety, PTSD, or bipolar disorder… or even addiction.
Let go of old superstitions…viewpoints passed down through generations from a time when the brain was a complete mystery. Old wives told tales about a man acting like a man, or a woman performing “as she should” that were geared towards driving improved behaviors using shame.
Leave your judgment at the door, and exchange it for love. And acceptance.
Live. And let live.
Take the risk to love and support your family member.
It’s ok to admit you don’t understand their behavior, but loving them and accepting them as they are, and daring yourself to learn the science behind their behaviors can give them a place to heal… and even save their lives.
Too many suicides result from too many wounds inflicted by judgmental family members.
There’s no place for judgment in a family. The family works best when it’s a refuge for its members, a place of safety. Be a force for safety in your loved one’s life.
Step 2. Learn the science about your loved one’s illness…
If you’ve gotten past Step 1, roll up your sleeves and start googling all the information you can find to deepen your appreciation and grasp of your family member’s distress and anguish.
Learn what happens in the lateral habenula that intensifies depression. And what happens to BDNF and signaling structures that carry signals around the brain and help you think, create, hope, and initiate.
When BDNF and signaling structures are reduced, your loved one has a much harder time thinking, creating, hoping, or initiating anything. Motivation and initiative die… and a sense of worthlessness overwhelms her.
So when you see her lying on the couch for days, you can remind yourself that she’s not lazy…she’s in pain. She may not be able to identify it herself, but her thoughts are sluggish, it’s hard to express herself, and she may ache all the time like you do when you have the flu.
Just between you and me… that one who annoys you during the holidays doesn’t struggle with poor character, so quell the temptation to show disapproval. These are symptoms of an illness you can be sure she wishes would lift…and go away.
So learn why she seems so listless and so shut down.
And gear your response to fit someone who’s making their best effort. You may not like what you see … but be assured that the struggle you can’t see is gargantuan.
Step 3. Once you’ve learned enough science so you can lend some understanding… take some time.
Help yourself “see” that your sister, or mother, or brother, or son is suffering from a disorder that makes his emotions and his body feel really terrible.
Or he’s suffering with a disorder that drives his behavior to show his pain in ways that make you uncomfortable… take a breath. Then take the time to sit with him often. And listen.
Show him you want to learn.
Ask him what it’s like for him, ask him if he can think of what you might do to help. Show him, (in spite of the awkwardness you may feel in acknowledging this condition is real), that you have his back.
Show her you want to know what she feels. Ask if it’s sometimes better and sometimes worse or the same all the time.
And if she doesn’t want to talk about it, respect that and just sit quietly for awhile because you accept that this is something you really don’t know much about.
Don’t preach. Just don’t do it. Not about what you believe she needs to do. She’s heard it a thousand times before. She would do ANYTHING that would truly help, but she’s also an expert at following the advice of others then discovering it didn’t help at all. Don’t lecture. Just don’t.
Your family member is an expert on her condition. This is an excellent time for humility from you. And a commitment to pitch in wherever you can.
Because Real Love Means Helping
These are ways you can give a priceless gift to your loved one. The gifts of validation… and understanding.
Think about this: You’d do this in a heartbeat for a family member with cancer. Or kidney disease. Or an amputated leg.
Your loved one’s illness may cause more suffering, and could be more deadly, than any of these other diseases.
Step 4. Make yourself available as a partner in hope.
After trying steps 1-3 as many times as it takes, you may be ready for Step 4.
Avoid saying things that criticize or judge.
Speak words of hope.
Develop a demeanor of acceptance and appreciation.
Pitch in and help if he or she will trust you enough to do that as an act of support.
This is all about earning trust. And you can do that with humility, acceptance, an eagerness to learn, and a strong desire to help.
Medication
For many of those with serious disorders, remembering medication on schedule can be very challenging. REMEMBER: prescribed medication doesn’t necessarily mean your loved one is effectively treated.
If he says the medicine isn’t helping, it isn’t helping. As soon as he feels improvement, he’ll eagerly let you know. But he can’t find out if a medicine works unless he takes it like he’s supposed to.
You can offer to help him remember his medicine on schedule. If four months go by without improvement, it’s time to see his psychiatrist again.
But you know what? Medicines do help about 50-66% of people who take them. Sometimes a second try on a second medicine or combination of medicines can provide the needed help.
Your non-judgmental helpfulness can prove to be just the ticket to give him the chance to see if the medicine will help.
If you had all the things going on in your mind that he has going on in his…you might forget to take your meds too. She could use a helping hand, if she trusts you to care… and not judge.
Psychotherapy
Another way to help might be to help him remember his therapy appointments, and to help him get to them, if necessary. Again, when he forgets or can’t find a ride, or has a flat tire…or a panic attack… this is not irresponsibility, like it may appear.
The distractions, emotional plunges, panic attacks, or reactions to what goes on all make it easy to forget in the moment about important things like medications and therapist appointments.
But they’re important.
So try to cut him some slack, and do what you can to help him make those appointments.
Good Food
Ok call it a balanced diet, if you like. But unless you live with him, you may not realize how hit and miss his schedule can be…and if he lives alone he may find it difficult to get his disordered brain to be organized about eating properly.
But by partnering with him for his nutrition, you might be able to help him eat a nutritious meal by helping him plan or by bringing him a meal. High protein, low carbohydrates, plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, can do wonders to help him stabilize.
And it’s even more helpful for him to avoid certain preservatives, dyes, and artificial flavorings. Fresh and healthy is the best, but sometimes you have to do the best you can, just so he eats.
A Good Night’s Sleep
In some disorders, like bipolar disorder for example, there’s a triad of components that influence stability.
Those are medication, nutrition, and adequate rest. In bipolar disorder, if any of the three shift out of balance, it can throw your loved one’s mental/emotional balance out of whack, too.
Different people need varied amounts of sleep to be rested…but with a mental health disorder he may need more…and he may only be able to actually sleep a lot less.
Insomnia is a symptom of many disorders. But if he’s not sleeping much, then he needs to seek better prescriptions that help him sleep.
You might offer to accompany him to the doctor to help him describe his insomnia and to add to his credibility with his doctor. Showing that you’ve witnessed the severity of his insomnia can be helpful to the doctor in prescribing the best treatment.
If he’s sleeping too much, say 12-16 hours a day, then that’s a symptom too, so suggest he talk to his doctor for help.
It’s important to get at least 8 hours of sleep every night to be at your best… but some need 10 or 11.
Let’s add to the triad, exercise. It also plays a role in bringing balance in some disorders.
…and offering to take a walk with him can often make it easier for him.
All in all, investing your love and effort in trying to understand and support your family member who seems difficult at this time of year, can make the difference for him in managing his illness. Love and support are priceless to him. Judgment and rejection can make it seem impossible to him to cope at all.
Or to even keep trying.
Remember, it’s probably not that he’s selfish, or lazy, or a brat. He just may be doing the very best that he can.
What If These Steps Don’t Help?
The fact is, that these are guidelines for partnering for hope with your loved one’s wellbeing. But in some cases, medications don’t bring balance or relief, you may see he continues to have no appetite or wants to eat way too much, and he goes days without sleep or sleeps around the clock.
If the treatment is not relieving the symptoms, he may be like a full 1/3 of people with disorders for whom medication just doesn’t help.
If he’s tried two – or more – treatments or medications that fail to help him feel better, sleep better, enjoy better behavior and the freedom to live the life he wants to live, he may need a novel, more advanced, treatment. And you help him with that.
IV Ketamine Treatment
As we’ve talked about, real love means helping, and that could be helping him find the treatment he needs.
Until the last several years, there was no hope beyond those medicines. But neuroscience research has turned a corner. And IV ketamine treatment is available now.
As one of the most effective medical treatments for the highest percentage of depressed patients unhelped by other medicines, IV ketamine treatment can do more than just help.
Ketamine’s Unique
It can restructure the signaling circuits in your brain as well as other areas like the hippocampus, the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex, and the lateral habenula so that you can feel just as great as you did when you were the very best version of yourself.
And the result can be lots of consistent joy, restored hope, increased motivation, heightened creativity, the ability to enjoy what you used to enjoy, and the energy to invest in yourself and your relationships, as well as the stability to excel at your job.
For the first time in history, the untreated can get their lives back and be restored for a fulfilling and rewarding life. And that means you.While it’s not effective for everyone, it IS effective and transforming for most… so chances are ketamine treatment is just what you need.
If you feel you fit these criteria, call us. We want to help you enjoy the life you’ve yearned for… if you’ve been un-helped through severe depression, unrelenting bipolar disorder, PTSD, OCD, addiction, panic disorder, and social anxiety… or if you’ve been thinking about dying… let’s talk about what ketamine treatment can do for you.
Surprising Results Can Follow Counterintuitive Choices
Thank you.
Such sweet words.
Here in the US, we’re just ending a four-day celebration we call Thanksgiving weekend. True, the official day for Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November each year — but it’s also true that most families spend the entire four day weekend continuing to celebrate, spend time together, and enjoy this holiday set aside for gratefulness.
Plus, you probably know that “the holidays,” starting with Thanksgiving and lasting through New Year’s Day, is a difficult time for some people. Yet many others actually enjoy all the festivities, sharing, eating, and laughing that goes with good times together.
Whether you’re a celebrator or an abstainer from these gatherings, there are some things we can talk about to improve these days for the grievers, and improve sensitivity for the revelers.
Thanksgiving was first conceived by the Pilgrims after their original successful harvest in the New World.
That doesn’t mean it was their first harvest, but rather the first time it was successful and there was food to eat. There’s nothing like starvation to inspire gratitude for food.
They called it their harvest festival.
George Washington made a proclamation that Thanksgiving should be celebrated in 1789, and it was sporadically celebrated. However, Thomas Jefferson chose not to celebrate the observance, so the day of gratefulness tended to be hit and miss until 1863.
In the midst of the Civil war, Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving be observed as a federal holiday on the fourth Thursday of November … and that has continued to this day.
It might strike you as odd that President Lincoln started a federal holiday observation when the country was at war with itself, when families were torn apart by sons, fathers, and grandfathers marching off to to battle…
Homes and farms were burned. Families were seeing more funerals than birthdays.
Does that sound like a time to be thankful…?
Can you imagine the uproar?
“Have you heard what he’s done now??? He’s declared thankfulness as a national holiday, of all things!!”
“I’m not surprised…after all, seeing as how we do have SO MUCH to be thankful for right now… I’m so sick of this war and this administration! I’ve lost my farm! How will I feed my family?!!
…and on and on it might have gone.
Doesn’t sound all that different from what we hear today, does it?
Counterintuitive Declaration in the Middle of the Chaos
Is it possible he had a higher purpose than just creating confusion in the midst of the terrible war?
We do know that he had an abiding faith. He seemed to understand that choosing thankfulness can inspire better decisions and better outcomes. Thinking of others inspires generosity…and his nation needed generous hearts from top to bottom if it were to heal.
Some of the most liberating principles of life have been around for hundreds of years and dozens of generations. And sometimes they’re hard to grasp because they’re locked in counterintuitive thinking.
Oprah Winfrey put it this way:
“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” — Oprah Winfrey
And therein lies the secret. The secret of justice and unity that President Lincoln reached for, the secret of poverty vs. abundance that Oprah warned about, the benefit that we all receive when we take the time to focus on everything and everyone in our life that’s good.
The Secret of Gratefulness.
“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” –Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer may not be a familiar name to anyone under the age of 50. But, he won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 for his extensive work in Africa in an area now known as Gabon, near the Republic of the Congo.
He had studied extensively in theology and medicine, and as a newlywed set out with his bride to live in this place where sickness and suffering were crushing the people. Over the course of his life he built an enormous hospital complex to treat the thousands who came to him for help.
He wasn’t perfect — and even embraced perspectives that would offend us now in our modern culture — but he gave what he had from who he was and helped make life better for thousands.
It’s no mystery why he might have felt his “light go out” from time to time. His work was demanding and unrelenting in a place where hardships abounded.
But he understood gratitude.
Do you ever feel as though your light is going out…and you need it rekindled? Me, too. In fact, most of us can say that words of encouragement spoken at the right time can help to turn us around.
Beloved 20th Century Actress Doris Day has seen it all. She knows the value in that counterintuitive assertion of gratefulness. In her own words:
“Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.”
On her way to becoming a dance star, her car collided with a train. Her injuries took a serious toll that permanently ended her dancing career. But, rather than give up, she turned to singing under the training of a voice coach. She soon made movies that were wildly popular in the mid 1900’s … and her fans assumed her life was perfect.
But behind the sweetheart-girl-next-door image she presented to the public… was a victim of domestic abuse, a history of 4 marriages, the widow of the only man she loved, loss of her fortune, and complete exhaustion.
But she, too, understands gratitude in the face of adversity.
As humans we may envy what another has that we don’t. Wealth, charm, health, fame…but focusing on what we don’t have does nothing to improve our situation.
Turning a laser beam of attention on our envy of another person only fuels a raging fire of jealousy inside us. And we grow more bitter and focused inward. It isolates us and doesn’t improve anything.
On the other hand, being grateful for the gifts, the benefits, the talents we do have, empowers us to make those gift, talents, and benefits bigger, brighter, and more abundant.
Helen Keller said that she cried that she had no shoes, until she met a man who had no feet.
Helen Keller, if you’re not familiar with her, was blind, deaf, and mute… so you can see her metaphor about the lack of shoes…
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” they say. So her gratitude for having feet led her to find ways to serve mankind, and especially others who were blind, deaf, or mute… or all three.
Miss Keller knew there was no place in her life for self pity.
She came to understand gratitude at a young age.
During World War II, as able-bodied men went to war, and women and children were left behind, women who’d never considered such a thing went to work for wages. It was a time of hardship. But, rather than complain, these women put on their work shoes and headed for the factories.
Many of us had grandmothers and great grandmothers who worked in the factories to make bombs, aircraft, trucks, and other tools needed to fight the war.
Is it any wonder that gratefulness and the can-do attitude that was required to rise above those difficulties led to a song in the last year of the war that strengthened that frame of mind? :
You have to accentuate the positive,
Eliminate the negative,
And latch on to the affirmative,
But don’t mess with Mr. In-Between.
Comical? Maybe so…but you get the message.
Like we saw with the man with no shoes, there is always something to be grateful for. And gratitude has a way of propelling you above the circumstances you wish would change, so you can see the bigger picture.
Gratefulness transforms your perspective.
And when that happens, you’re no longer a victim, but rather on top of your circumstances. The circumstance may not change the way you want it to, but your improved outlook can give you power over it.
No one is without flaws, and no one’s life is perfect. But each of us can contribute to the lives of others in some way, and in the process gain the freedom to overcome our own struggles on some level.
Psychiatric disorders can render you emotionally paralyzed… trapped inside inertia, fatigue, and despair. And as you know, there are other types of paralysis. If you’ve experienced this, you may be able to relate to Jon Morrow.
Jon Morrow is a wildly successful blogger whose body is paralyzed by Spinal Muscular Dystrophy. He can move nothing except his eyes and lips. Helpless? Well, he was for awhile. But he has pushed through from a point of inertia and despair to doing what he could do…until he learned to drive traffic to his blogs and has achieved the status of the most widely read blogger in the world.
He has generated more than 200 million views of his blogs and earned $50 million as a result.
A spoiled rich kid? Not in the least. This guy was facing the end of his life because of his need for healthcare, and no money to pay for it. His story is hugely inspiring. If he can accomplish his dreams…anyone can.
And Jon understands gratefulness.
Look for his blog Unstoppable.me. It will give you a shot in the arm to choose and express gratefulness and overcome adversity.
Gratefulness is liberating, empowering, and humbling… all at the same time.
So now that the Thanksgiving 2018 holiday weekend is behind us…let’s not lose sight of the lessons we’ve learned together as we venture through the rest of the winter holiday season and into the new fledgling year 2019.
With gratefulness you can turn on the light in someone in your world, and illuminate your own heart at the same time.
Still, if you’re suffering under the weight of a psychiatric disorder that hasn’t yielded to any medicine you and your doctor have tried, there is something more you can do as you focus on gratitude in your life.
