Accounts from a college student

Before Ember

I’m a singer and songwriter and just signed on to an agency as an actor. I’m a very artistic person.

I’m also someone who has a history of suicidal thinking and have had multiple suicide attempts. I’ve overdosed and had seizures and have been afraid of the potential to damage my body long-term due to a failed attempt that could leave me paralyzed.

I have been hospitalized a lot, put on high doses of meds, and I knew something drastic needed to change. I was considering ECT, though I was afraid of the potential for short term memory loss, especially since I’m in college. When I brought this up to my psychiatrist, she did some research and suggested ketamine. I found my way to Ember because I wanted to find a place that did IV treatment and not the nasal spray which she didn’t think would be as effective.

My Experience

The experiences of the sessions themselves were pretty helpful, for me. Whatever movie or TV show I most recently watched before the treatment would somehow make its way into my consciousness. I saw the movie Stardust before one treatment, and at one point in my session, I was a star in the sky staring down at the earth and seeing myself as a human. Each time, I had this profound realization about my humanity, and the music was helpful as well.

I go to school for music. The ketamine made me feel like I was in the middle of sound, hearing it from all directions. The last time I felt like that was being in chorus. I hadn’t been in chorus for so long due to COVID. When I was younger, I had gone to a youth chorus and I would feel so much better after singing. Despite my love of music, somewhere along the way, I realized that no amount of singing or music could make me better, and the only way forward was to die.

The music in my sessions reminded me that music was what I needed to hold on to and it could make me feel better.

The Impact I’ve Felt

I was just amazed after the first session, I didn’t feel suicidal at all afterwards. Over the first two weeks, I only felt remotely suicidal three times, without the actual urge to do anything. It was more of a passive “maybe I kind of want to sleep forever,” but not the way it had been before, where I would feel that maybe I should go to the hospital. 

Now I’m so much better, and I’m going back to school in the fall. I had my fifth treatment two weeks ago, and I’m still feeling really great. I’ve started waking up earlier, I spend more time outdoors now. I’ve been writing a lot of music, hanging out a lot more with friends, being super active. I think it’s sustained pretty well.

I’m someone who keeps my emotions in, so my friends wouldn't have known when I’m in a really bad spot. But now, I feel like how I’m behaving around them is more authentic and I have to pretend less, it’s how I actually feel.

I think the big thing was that my narrative shifted, because that lasted longer than the effects of the ketamine. While the treatment itself did make me feel very happy that day, my inner narrator was really what shifted. I went suddenly from feeling so anxious and sad, to really enjoying life and seeing it as something really beautiful. Being able to remember that feeling is what has helped me feel less suicidal - knowing there is a way out of that feeling that isn’t dying.