Ketamine assisted psychodrama therapy

I’m willing to work on anything,
but if you need me to talk to him,
then we need to find a way around it.

That’s what I tell my therapist, the string of therapists over the past decade. In hindsight, anytime someone is unwilling to work on something, you know it’s that something that needs it the most.

This arc takes me to Fairbanks, Alaska, a flight from Seattle up through the mountains. I look outside the window, down to the infinite landscape. Mountains go on forever, farther than my eye can see, 35k feet above the ground.

A tear rolls down, maybe in this space of nothingness, I don’t have to contain myself, that there’s more space for me than I could ever need.

This will be my 5th psychodrama with my friend Linda Thai, my fourth where I am the protagonist. Her page describes what it is and even has a video of her doing her own work, and so does Chapter 18 of The Body Keeps the Score.

Low Dose Ketamine

We start the first day with a low dose of Ketamine. It’s my first experience, and I’m a little nervous. The group is friendly, everyone seems open, yet somewhat guarded.

The nurses calculate my body weight, and estimate a good starting dose. This is to get a sense on how the medicine will go through my body. They divide up the doses into three, each one will be administered 15 minutes apart, but only with my consent.

We’re all laying in a circle, with our eye masks on. I look over to the person next to me, and said I’m honored to be your trip partner.

See you on the other side.

The first injection happens on my right arm, ouch. The needle feels huge, and a slight burning sensation. I lay there breathing, trying to stay relaxed.

Then a part of my face feels like it’s melting into the cushion. I see the formation of geometric imagery, almost like a stylized graphic novel. It’s nice, pleasant, not too aggressive. I fade slightly into the feeling and then parts of the space comes back. I hear the nurses talking to the other participants. I make out foot steps.

Daniel, would you like a second dose.

Yes please.

This time I go even deeper. I feel like I’m falling into nothingness, the images are unclear, like a graphical formation of the real world.

In reflection, I think I’m in the womb.
I haven’t actually seen the world yet.

I say yes to a third dose.

The music gets more aggressive. There’s drumming. The images flash, almost like gunfire and bombs. I feel myself moving my arms up to shield myself (but I can’t really, my body is limp).

One of the sitters comes and holds my hand. They’re trying to find the countershape to what my body needs, just sensing into my positioning but without seeing what I see.

Then, instinctually, I grab her hand and place it on my chest. She puts pressure there, and I start crying uncontrollably. The cycle completes, then I curl into fetus position, and all feels complete.

Daniel, are you ready?

The next day, I’m going first. Linda asked if I were be willing to do mine first since I have the most experience. Normally I just become an anxious mess, waiting till the end.

Ok.

Everyone sits down in the couch, on the floor, all around me.

I sit on the couch that’s on the Eastside of the house.

N, will you be my time travel support person, and a witness to my journey?

I enroll as your time travel support person and witness;
where would you like me?

I ask her to sit next to me, close to me. She holds my hand. Tears start rolling down. I’m always alone. I’m always doing this alone. There’s no one there for me.

I sit with that, and take in what it feels like to have someone there with me.

Directly across from me, I place another person on the couch, to play my dad in re-education camp, the prison after the Vietnam War ended. I’ve done this work before, so this is just a temporal marker.

And yet again, even looking at that, makes me cry. He was alone back then, as I am here. The man that I pushed away is me. We sit here, for what feels like an awkward forever. We sit here, until my body catches up, and the grief moves through.

So I move to the middle of the room, and place another person on the couch.

D, will you be my dad, when he was traveling for work?
He would go to many countries, including Israel,
to setup new plants for the company.

I enroll as your dad who traveled to foreign countries, alone.

A flood of tears come out. N is holding my hand, sitting close to me. Those were hard times. He was traveling to remote parts of the world, setting up chemical plants. He’s an outsider, an Asian man, in countries with no Asian people, speaking a language that isn’t his, after spending all of his childhood and early adulthood in a war.

I was too young back then to understand.

But now, I know him because he is me. I worked nonstop because if I stopped, I would feel this emptiness, this loneliness, the impossible weight of carrying it all.

The power of psychodrama comes in placing people in 3D space. You see them, in your field of view. In my case, I was placing my dad, in space and time. When I turn my head over, I see the man that was in prison, and I could see the thread that ties him to the man that’s traveling for work.

Daniel, what would’ve helped your dad back there, back then?

I don’t know?
Maybe an ideal companion,
like that N is offering me right now?

We enroll another person to be my dad’s support companion, someone that would be there for him, to support him.

Another cry rolls out. Seeing him supported back then, meant that I could receive support now. I look at N, and I look at my dad’s support person, and the mirror that is this space and time.

Then I turn around, and on the fourth couch, I place my dad, when he received the news that his sister and brother had died on the boat escape. I don’t remember exactly how old I was back then, but I was little. I heard the wail, and then it stopped.

We break inside when we cannot protect those that we love, that we’re powerless against the world.

Then I see the string, the thread that ties them all together into me. The man in the prison, who later got onto a riverboat with my pregnant mom, and was there when I was born in the refugee camp. The many that almost a decade later, received news that his siblings died on that same trip. The man that worked far away, alone. That all this lived within me.

We gave each dad in each timepoint an ideal support person, so that when I look at each of their faces, that they were supported, just like I’m supported now.

A rebirth

That would’ve all been enough, but I knew, and Linda knew, what I really needed, and that all the steps above, was the build the solid footing for what came next.

I sit there, shaking. N is supporting me, but I can’t stop shaking. I’m scared.

We asked K to enroll as my ideal dad, someone that would’ve been supported, that had the nervous system that I needed.

K is physically big, like almost two times my size. He sits behind me, and he holds my arms and chest in. I’m gripping his arms like a roller coaster ride.

Then we shift it, so that his arms wrap around mine, and I was enveloped in his being.

It moved, from the pit of my stomach, up into my chest, and I screamed out an infant like cry. It was the trapped, frozen terror that move through my body. I lose the ability to verbalize, I’m just crying out.

The cry completes.

The cycle ends.

Little shakes trickle out.

Linda repositions me in the middle of the room. K is still holding me, and I lay down, my back to his chest, his arms over me.

The nurse comes by and injects me with another dose of Ketamine. We had agreed prior that she’d have a dose ready, if the moment were to arise, to give me the opportunity to let the resolution land, deep into my nervous system.

I’m already cracked wide open. My system is charged with all that energy that just flowed out. The Ketamine kicks in quickly, and I feel myself melting into K. I lose my sense of self, and float into a geometric wonderland.

I feel N’s hand rubbing my cheeks. It’s the only part of reality that stays with me the whole journey, like a touch that stays through time.

I melt deeper, losing myself completely.

It all goes always.

It’s just the comfort of being held.

All my being, is held by the group with hands all touching me.

As I start coming back, I feel N’s hand still there on my cheek. I make out glimpses of people’s faces, but I don’t know them. They’re smiling at me.

Someone boops my nose.

My inner voice comes back.

I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s really annoying.
And I can’t do anything about it.

The group laughs.

I cry out to L, hey L, are you here? She says yes, I’m holding your foot. I feel her hands holding my right foot. I ask her how long it’s been, and is it awkward that you’re all just sitting here with me?

She assures me that I’m fine, that it was beautiful to be here with me.

I close my eyes, and fall back asleep.

Little by little I come back, and I see the faces of the loving faces of the village I never hand. The group that would’ve been there to see me enter the veil, and to hold me lovingly in peace.

I am complete.

Part 2 will conclude with my high-dose Ketamine experience, but save that for another day.

If you haven’t already 👇