Entry 34. Ownership.
Watching the Wheels: A Journal of Depression Treatment
I take notes. I type these into my phone, look at them later when I need to remember something that piqued my interest. When I was younger and writing, ideas came quickly but it felt as if I lost an idea, it didn’t matter there were so many following them. Waiting their turn. I suppose if you know me personally and understand my humor it appears that nothing has changed. But it has. And hasn’t. When I am in the midst of a ketamine treatment, I may think of something and then write it down but I prefer not to do this. The sessions are intense; personal and any interruption may dislodge the experience. I wear a weighted eye mask, a distinct posture (laying down with legs crossed and hands closed together on my torso) and I have a certain type of music I listen to, always classical, usually the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara who wrote some of the most emotional music I have ever heard, his work touches on the interaction between spirituality and nature, it has brought me to tears. I keep my phone away from me, turning it to silence.
Sometimes I may be driving, and a thought comes to me, other times it may be a book I am reading, or a conversation and I feel the need to take a note. Trying to string it all together. I realize my brain works differently at age 57 than it did when I first started writing in earnest at the age of twenty-one or so. Although I hold a master’s degree (in social work), I am an uneducated writer, even though English was always my favorite subject I only took one writing course and this was when I was 18, and about to drop out of college at the age of…..18. My mother and father instilled a love of books in me, for my father it was usually historical fiction, he seemed to have stacks of $2 paperbacks of war stories all around his room while my mother’s love of books and knowledge stretched across almost every genre. Classic literature, feminist thought, history, Nordic noir, biographies, hers was a mind that teemed with an urge to learn more. A humble mind. Some of the things I wrote in my teens and early twenties was a weird sort of poetry that I think most young people attempt to do, capturing new and intense feelings that grapple with the physical, who will win? We scribble it down, sometimes they sound good, oftentimes they don’t. My old friend/first love would crib some of these writings I had created in my thin lined notebooks and apply them to a stream of never-ending melodies that flowed from her over-active mind until the day she died. I had always thought that so many of those things I wrote, at least early on were about her and how she must have felt singing songs of love and loss that were really about her and not me. One time I had written something for a current girlfriend and Jenny had turned it into a very dark love song that she called “Blazing Saddles” and as she came to the chorus the woman whom I had written it for burst into tears, feeling betrayed she cried, “you wrote that for me, now it is ruined!” and stormed out of the bar. As if sharing such deep emotions with the world had somehow minimized our relationship. I was perplexed.
We all want to be noticed. Accepted. To be connected. Of this I am certain, and as I have lived with depression on and off most of my adult life, this certainty becomes more apparent. Not just from personal experiences but also as my professional life as a social worker and therapist. I don’t feel disconnected any longer, this is not where my depression lies, at this point in my life I understand that it is something I have carried with me since childhood where so much of my emotional framework was created amidst a great deal of personal upheaval in my parents’ life, that feeling unsure if I was indeed worthy of deep connection became an unconscious default that flowed through my life as much as the alcohol I used to help me feel not just a part as a sense of community but also because it was fun. More fun than anything I had experienced before. Free. Rushed. Manic.
When I saw the second psychiatrist of my life at the age of thirty-three, he told me that he thought I may be bipolar, but I definitely had a drinking problem. In my stubborn ears I heard the opposite, this was how entrenched the drinking lifestyle had held me in some disjointed smothering bear hug of normalcy, getting smothered in the fur of this giant Grizzly Bear of a beat that is alcohol, it seemed impossible to give up, as if I would have to walk the rest of my life without shoes or worse without any clothes on. Naked till death. Raw. I have written about this experience before; I am not bipolar but have depression and I am a recovered alcoholic. I believe the former is more difficult to admit publicly than the second, although I have my own thoughts of the term recovery, which feels like my life before sobriety was somehow less of a life lived than the one I have now. How can a person be in “recovery” from oneself? Perhaps a better way to view this is that I have accepted that I am a person in ongoing transformation, always evolving but at his core wanting to stay solid, to be unmovable. A fantasy I have learned but one I very much believed in, and in my most vulnerable moments, when I feel my most broken, I want to be solid, unmovable. The process of being in a recovery community offered me the idea that very much blended with the DIY ethos I have always lived by, believed in, and that it is quite ok, healthy even to admit the obvious: I am broken in places, I feel broken in places and I can feel confident in this brokenness. I am a mess, a beautiful mess at times. Prone to losing keys, yelling my dog when she waders by the trash containers too long, to rumination about people that are most likely not thinking about me as if the act of rumination can send its sparks to them in some metaphysical way. I have a difficult time putting my laundry away, finishing books, and being nonjudgemental. But at the same time, I care deeply for others, my spiritual practice involves me asking myself the question, “how much is the person before me suffering?” before I get too involved in my own disgust.
I laid in bed next to her, it was one of those nights where sleep should have been in order, but difficult questions needed to be discussed. I was at a point in my life where my therapist was pushing me to be more present in my relationships than I ever was, to not hide or disappear into myself, or my humor. Even when I was disgusted by some of the things my partner would say that her judgements towards others bothered me and did not comport with who I felt I was very much in love with, I also realized some of these judgements from a deep hurt, a sense of betrayal. We worked hard. She talked to me while staring straight at the ceiling, hand close to mine and as she spoke her fingers curled in mine and as she felt vulnerable, I felt safe in my own emotional nakedness. She talked about her deep wounds and how my past behavior, not towards her but about my other relationships; selfishness, promiscuity, secrets, sat upon her wounds like a perfect shadow pressing down. This is what my therapist was telling me about, being present, as well as what AA had taught me, taking ownership and in my Buddhist practice this was a form of karma, that I had to own how my past behavior had impacted a relationship I care deeply about. I had infused my life with so much distrust prior to that it hung upon me, stapled to my essence like a faded prison tattoo.
Reassurance grows through action more than words but it one is not exposed to consistent reassurance growing up, the sense of abandonment, being skeptical of stability grows and grows like a slow-moving moss upon the trunk of a tree, so softly it becomes a comforting cloak that protects against the pain of vulnerability. This was my wound. The abandonment, the belief in stability. I told her these things, based upon a childhood where my mother would disappear, oftentimes into the arms of men, other times into her own silence, and my father left and would spend most of his life blaming everybody but himself for being an absent father. Here is the thing about this though, the absent father is not just absent physically but also a violent, breathing hole in the lives of his children that while is invisible is very much a ghastly presence. This was my wound. To be left behind. This I trusted to her, to allow myself this nakedness and how she helped comfort this wound, I gave her this knowledge with a risk. I leaned in while she would later lean out to the point, I have appeared to have been nothing, a flicker and whirl.
Connection. From smiles upon walking through double doors towards a table full of friends, eating, drinking, hands raising glasses to the spectacle of musicians making music while a crowd of people bounce their heads, raise their fists, move their legs. A playground where a mother watches a child brave the slide for the first time by themselves. Sing along-songs that unti us all, bringing us together. These are the things I remind myself to reach for both in my past, present and future. Not the things that offer little except fleeting impulses through phones and computers. What I am sure of in this age of clicks, pushes, likes, scrolls, comments, pithy piths, postings, twitterings, reels, and all the other trite things our phones offer us, and that is we can’t curate our emotions. We are who we are, and this also includes both the yukness and the unbridled joy that life can bring. I have never found as much joy from a social media post as I have listening to live music, watching children laugh, holding hands, tasting food, watching a dog run. Not once and I think our world would be a much better place without all the things that Zuckerberg, Musk, Jobs, Gates and all those other men have brought us. Easy? Yes, beneficial as a whole? These tiny dopamine toys are destructive forces, and I do realize the irony of this as I type away on my MacPro, listening to streaming music from my Iphone. Several things can be true at once.
Ghost Shirt at Ace of Cups 2026
Silkworm @ Spacebar 2026
I had a hesitation of undergoing ketamine treatment, when introduced to the concept that psychedelics (although I want to note that ketamine is not a traditional/classic psychedelic drug like psilocybin or LSD) could be useful in helping treat PTSD and major depressive disorder I was encouraged because I was working for the US Department of Veteran Affairs with veterans who almost all had severe PTSD and multiple hospitalizations. That anything that could help these men and women that would not contribute to the suffering I was open to, also, in all my years to of working with substance users I had never worked with one person who had a severe hallucinogen problem. Comparatively with other substances such as alcohol, benzos, opioids and even cannabis, hallucinogens do not seem to have the same addictive qualities as these other substances. Of course there is abuse, and there is certainly there is abuse and street value with ketamine especially. I do not want to downplay this point but again, the key word is comparatively. I was encouraged that the VA and other entities were studying the efficacy of these drugs and substances on folks who very much needed alternative therapy. For myself I had never thought of it as an option, that I managed my depression, and my own severity was kept in check by the things that seem to be most effective in treating major depressive disorder and PTSD which is: exercise, healthy relationships that help people feel connected, meditation, not using drugs or alcohol, therapy, medication, pets, and some sort of spiritual practice. I had all of these in spades and had been utilizing them for many years before my depression came back like a blast furnace that will not shut off. Sometimes to the point where I felt like Youngstown, Ohio circa 1966.
A few things happened over a period of years to chip away at this. The first was the health and experiences of my son who was a victim of abuse as a private school we sent him to, sadly because of a cover up by the head of the school, we did not learn about it until a few years later when he underwent counseling. For years we struggled with his mental health , behavior and schooling until he was finally diagnosed with autism at the age of 14. My marriage had ended a few years before he was diagnosed. Just prior to this my mother died after a long illness, then my stepfather died, and this was all during COVID. And then my relationship ended, which left me bereft, sudden and unexpected it has reopened some deep wounds that I had thought had healed years ago. Lucky me. The instability of the foundation of my life had already been experiencing cracks for years prior. As
I mention these things and want to point out that they are not anything different that what so many people in the world encounter and most will encounter many of these, maybe even mulitiple times. The ups and downs of life do not play favorites, but how we handle changes and stress plays a large role in what happens next in our lives.
All these variables are pieces in my own abandonment puzzle.
Ketamine had an immediate impact on me, dislodging some of the darker thoughts that were working as some fucked kind of poxy in my consciousness, a repetitive pattern that would not relent. While the experiences have lessened a year into treatment, I find myself happier and much less prone to swimming in a circle, as if I was cast into a well filled with black water, long slippery walls that seem impassable. A thought occurred to me while reading this, “sometimes a rope isn’t just good for hanging! One can be pulled from the well with it!” The therapy has provided me with an opportunity to touch some things have fit neatly into much of the spiritual beliefs and investigations I have been embarking on for much of my life, and most specifically since took my Buddhist vows 23 years ago. I grew up in a household constructed of three main materials: love, violence and emptiness. There is nothing too different from so many other people in the world who grew up the same, lives lived in unpredictability, a lifelong search for stability, of acceptance that even when it arrives is not always fully embraced or trusted. Responsibility is something that is taught, to be mirrored, of showing up, of being truthful no matter how scary it may feel and that in running there can be the makings of lies, of creating doubt. I ask myself daily, do I want to sow doubt today? Learning by omission is not always the most effective way of creating a healthy, well-grounded adult, and growing up, growing old is not a black and white endeavor. Yes, there was violence in my house but also deep love and laughter, these three things can all exist at once. Yes, there were periods where life seemed so very safe and joyous, but this was always, I do mean always tempered with the feeling that it was all very temporary. Recently a very dear friend said to me that I was “the most joyous depressed person I have ever met.” She meant this both as a compliment and as a sign of encouragement, that I have an appreciation for laughter, for learning and helping people feel connected. But I’m also a bit sad at times. Haha. Hahaha, (continued to infinite maniacal laughter echoing from the bottom of that well.)
As a writer who strives to write accurately and honestly about my life I try to take great care in owning my things, and my goal in all my writing is to try to connect people. When hurting the most normal thing to do is to rid oneself of the pain, emotional pain can be more difficult to treat than a migraine, or a stomachache or even a stab wound, with those we can find the source of it, apply treatment, medication, physical therapy, diet. With emotional pain it can be more difficult, as there are layers and layers of experiences, some of which make no logical sense. How can he not call me for twenty years after taking me fishing that one time? How can she erase me from her life after showing up for four years? How can she pretend that she used to write my name in her notebooks, with small hearts circling them like some type of young lover’s ring-around-the-posey on a three ringed notebook cover? Another deeper question is how could I omit a part of my night from her? A part of my past? How could I have lost my temper and put a hole in the wall both physically and emotionally? How can we face disappointment without bitterness and with acceptance and humility. I find all of it complicated, tiring, as if I am trying to put together a thousand-piece puzzle with a blindfold on.
Nobody wants to sing a song of bitterness, but everybody loves to sing a song of sadness. The dirges of our lives can help connect us, to move us to a more meaningful life when we can acknowledge our hurt, allowing the freedom of vulnerability to open and expose our inner core. In this I am striving to guide myself to thread this needle of sadness, to recognize the anger that lays above it, trying to be mindful of not pissing in that well water I sometimes am swimming circles in because in the end it is somewhat that I need to sometimes swim in, to drink from. Recently I read something that hurt me deeply, it was an erasure of my existence, at least it felt that way and it has made me consider some of my life choices. About how we sometimes sacrifice ourselves for something or someone that we may not truly believe in, that the fear of loss can keep us from moving forward and in this stuckness we lose more. I am also learning to say I deserve better that what I allow myself to have, to have had. I make a commitment to try to acknowledge those in my life who I care for, even if I disagree with them, I say small prayers to animals I eat, to the people I read about in the news how have been killed, who have killed, to work on siding with compassion over judgement. Although there are nights when I put myself to bed and still feel like I am a ghost, an apparition that only gets to be seen briefly before dissipating into the background. I also have to realize that some people who we love deeply just are not very nice people. As I reread this, I also must acknowledge that I am not always kind as well, that there are times I can forget that my own thoughtfulness (especially when I was younger) can and has cause great emotional harm to those I may have loved the most.
Parliament @ Nelsonville Music Fest 2018
Recently two people whom I don’t know asked me if I have ever done stand-up, I never have but maybe I should try? Thoughts?
Book and music recommendations: “How a Little Becomes a Lot” by my good friend Eric Zimmer, “Living in Compassion” by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche (this is a go to book of mine when I need to feel grounded) and “The Recovering” by Leslie Jamison. Storey Littleton “At a Diner” is my favorite record so far this year and I have also been listening to the Dearie Blossom who was a jazz singer/pianist who I overlooked for many years. Simply lovely
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