Radio Station Perpetuates Mental Illness Stigma

There is something bothering me. I frequently flip around to different radio stations while I am driving. One of the radio stations I listen to used treatments for depression as a joke. I find this offensive. They would not make jokes about a heart medication or chemotherapy. Why is it okay to joke about mental illness treatments? This radio station seems to think that ketamine and psilocybin are humorous. As someone who is treated with ketamine in the form of esketamine, I did not find their jokes funny. I need this treatment to battle depression. It is not a joke to me or to the many people who receive these treatments. It is not a joke to the mental health professionals who treat people with ketamine and psilocybin. 

I understand that this radio station pokes fun at a lot. Its computer-generated voice is intended to be funny. Sometimes it is funny. I even laugh at some of their jokes, but that is when the humor is not at someone’s expense. Unfortunately, making jokes about mental health treatments is not funny and it does hurt people. It perpetuates the stigma surrounding mental health. These jokes might stop a person who is suffering from mental illness from trying a treatment that could bring healing.

Living with mental illness is difficult enough without jokes being made at our expense. We need access to treatments that can provide healing. I guess the jokes may have seemed harmless to many. Just a little radio humor. Maybe there was no ill-intent, and it was a product of not understanding the harm that it caused. That does not excuse the airing of the jokes. A media company has a certain obligation to be aware of what they are airing. A simple internet search about ketamine and psilocybin would have provided information on how these treatments help people and are not a laughing matter.

I was not going to call out the radio station, but I have not received a response to the email I sent. First, I sent an email to the parent company. I received a response from them saying they did not have control over what the local stations say on the air. The message stated that my email would be forwarded to the Los Angeles station. I have not heard anything from the local station. So, I feel I am justified in saying which station made these jokes.  It is Jack FM, 93.1 in Southern California. 

We need more education about how mental illness impacts people. An effort needs to be made to learn more about treatments and to understand that these treatments are just as important as the treatments for physical illnesses. I have this platform. So, today’s post is my attempt to draw attention to the need for radio stations and other media outlets to be aware of how their words impact people.

I have written about esketamine on this blog before. If you are interested in learning more about this treatment, check out these posts, Gardening the Mind (Esketamine Treatment), which was a guest post written by psychiatric nurse practitioner, Stephanie Debnath, PMHNP, who treats patients with esketamine, and Fertilization and Purple Lights (Esketamine Treatment), which I wrote to share my experience with esketamine as a treatment for my depression. 

I do not know enough about psilocybin to write a post right now, but I will make an effort to learn and write a post in the near future.

I still hope to hear from the radio station. It is also my hope that the radio station will try to avoid these types of jokes. 

I hope this post makes people aware that mental illness is not a joke. I also hope it provides an appreciation for the fact that people with mental illness deserve understanding and empathy, not ridicule. 

 

Signs Depression Is Resurfacing

            I have lived with depression long enough to know it has cycles.  There are times when I am doing better, like when I am receiving esketamine treatment or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).  During these times I must be alert for signs that the depression is resurfacing.  It is best to act early when it does.  Even during my better times, I continue with therapy and employing my coping skills.   These allow me to stay on top of my mental health and continue to heal. 

            One way I know the depression is starting to resurface is I feel myself dragging to do things.  I feel a heaviness weigh down upon me.  The thoughts in my head turn negative and become louder.  The running dialogue in my head is negative.  I tire easily but can’t sleep.  I become easily frustrated.  Another thing I tend to do is disengage.  I back out of plans with friends.  I feel a need to be alone.  

            Often, I can tell my mental health team when I realize that depression is coming back.  When I do this, treatment gets underway quickly.  However, there are times when I go into denial.  I try to push myself through the resurfacing depression until it is too late.  I hate that I do this.  I’ve gotten better about not doing it.  Depression has taught me that it is an aggressive foe.  Sometimes it comes on too quickly for me to see the warning signs.  When that happens, I am in for a difficult episode.  I know I must rely on my mental health team when the depression gets like this.  I must remember, though, that I am a member of that team.  The treatment works best when we fight as a team.  

            If you notice any signs of depression in your life, I urge you to act quickly.  Don’t be afraid to seek help.  If you have never experienced depression before, you may want to start with your primary care provider.  He or she can screen for depression and provide you with a referral to a therapist or psychiatrist depending on your situation.  Be aware that some primary care providers are not good with mental illness.  I am lucky. Mine is great.  However, I have seen others who just do not care.  If you run into one who is not taking your needs seriously, be assertive.  Request to see someone else or demand a referral.  Depression is an illness and everyone who suffers from it deserves treatment.  

            You may not fit with the first mental health provider you see.  Do not be afraid to “shop around”.  It is important to find a therapist or psychiatrist who is a good fit for you.  Be honest with him or her about your symptoms.  I would recommend writing your symptoms and what you are feeling down so that you don’t forget anything.  

            Depression affects everyone differently.  I have shared my warning signs, but these may be different for you.  Even though we have different symptoms, it is still depression and needs to be treated. If you feel overwhelmed and can’t explain your symptoms to the provider, try giving him or her your list.  That way they know what you are experiencing and are better able to ask questions to evaluate your illness.

            Sadly, depression is an illness that often requires us to advocate for ourselves. As I have said before there is a stigma surrounding depression.  Know that depression is an illness, and you deserve treatment. There are organizations out there to help you.  One that I support and believe in is the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). They have chapters throughout the United States and offer great support and programs. I encourage you to check out NAMI. 

            Be aware of your mental health.  If something doesn’t seem right, trust your instincts, and ask a doctor.  Depression is an illness, but with the right help, it can be battled.

 

 

 

 

Moving Forward

                 I am sitting here wondering what I will write about today. Coffee sits on the table next to my computer. My thoughts are slow today, likely a result of the esketamine treatment I just had. The slower thoughts are indication treatment is working. The anxious thoughts that often fill my mind are at peace right now. Depression is being held at bay. I do not feel the darkness. Colors, mostly purples and greens, filled my awareness as the esketamine did its work. I emerged from the dissociation calm and feeling lighter. The weight of my mental illness lifted. 

                  Over the last few decades depression and anxiety have ruled my life, but treatments like esketamine and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), bring relief. It took so long to reach this point. For too long I took medications that did not help. Sometimes the medications would mask things, but they never brought me healing. Medications were ineffective at best. At times they likely did more harm than good, especially when I became over-reliant on a benzo. I should not say “over-reliant”. I should call it what it was, an addiction. It was an addiction that tore me down and left me unable to function properly. Now, I have emerged from the failures of medication. I have a mental health team that understands my illness and more importantly, my needs. 

                  Today I am different than I was a few years ago. The gratitude goes to my mental health team. They pulled me out of the darkness by thinking outside the box. No more ineffective medications. Therapy and alternative treatments lead me into healing. I am able to live with my mental illness. Depression and anxiety are a part of my life, but they no longer rule it. At moments like right now, I can think clearly. I can acknowledge the positives that are a part of my life even though there are still challenges I must face. 

                  While I do not fully understand the science behind it, somehow esketamine enables my brain to function without the darkness of depression. Before treatment I set an intention. It is an intention I have been using during most treatments recently. That intention is simply three words: “Let it go”. As I am waiting to start treatment I write these words in my journal. I add some particular things I want to let go. Then I read the words a few times before the esketamine allows me to drift into a pleasant dissociation. By doing this I have given my mind the intention it needs to process during this time. My mind can work and prepare me to me to let things go. When I begin to emerge from the dissociation the words are still there, reminding me that I need to let go of all that hinders my ability to live fully. 

                  Finding the right mental health treatment is a gift. I know that I have two treatments I can rely on, esketamine and TMS, which also works for me. Treatment allows me to function. It allows me to embrace life in a new way. I recognize that I have my challenges. Mental illness will always be around. Cancer is there, lurking in the recesses of my life. Despite the presence of these illnesses, I am living. Sure, I struggle at times. That is part of life. I am moving forward. I expect some changes as I heal. Some changes will be challenging. Others will be just what I need. Being open to new treatments has allowed me to grow. I hope others read this, and if these treatments are right for them, I hope they take a chance on them. 

Finding Color in a World of Black and White

“I saw the world in black and white instead of the vibrant colours and shades I knew existed.”  

    ― Katie McGarry, “Pushing the Limits”

                  The quote above really strikes a chord with me. Much of my life has been in darkness, a black and white world, because of depression. Shadows have surrounded everything. Despite this darkness I have managed to reach middle-age. If you had told me I would be in my 50s someday when I was younger, I wouldn’t have believed you. Hope was something that I struggled with daily. And the future seemed bleak.

                  In the past few years, I’ve learned that hope does exist. There are colors in my world despite the darkness. My mental health team has taught me to see the colors. They have led me in the direction of treatments that provided those colors. That was an important part of healing because traditional depression treatment with medication doesn’t work for me. It started with TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation). I didn’t see colors with TMS, but the darkness lifted, and I saw the world around me. I saw that there was a meaningful life in front of me. For more on TMS read these posts: "Renewed and Recharged: TMS Treatment"and "TMS: A Firsthand Account".  

                  TMS gave me a new lease on life. It gave me hope. I learned that I could heal, and that depression didn’t have to rule my life. There were still struggles. Depression is an illness.  Illnesses don’t just disappear. They can ease and we can learn to cope with them. I have received TMS treatment multiple times. Each time it has given me more light and allowed me to experience hope.

                  TMS alone is not enough. Therapy sustains me. It helps me maintain focus on the positive and reminds me to have hope. There are colors in hope because with hope the world is not dark. Engaging in regular therapy provides me with the tools to maintain hope. In that hope lies the colors of healing.

                  A couple years ago my mental health team and I decided I needed to try esketamine treatment. The darkness had re-emerged, and I was struggling. I was a little scared because I didn’t know how esketamine worked. I was afraid I would have frightening “trips” like I had read about hippies having in the late 1960s. My team helped me understand that I would not experience anything like that. So, we tried it. 

                  My experience was unlike anything I had experienced before. While under the effects of the esketamine I felt a floating sensation. I felt at peace. I saw beautiful colors with lights behind them. I floated through the colors. Purple and green were the most frequent colors I saw, but there were other colors, too. I began to associate the colors with healing. I felt safe. A change was occurring in me. The depression was lifting. The colors replaced the darkness.

                  Recently, my depression and anxiety have been creeping up. My team and I made the decision to try esketamine again. Much to my relief, the colors are still there. Purple is present every time. I think it is my healing color. I feel healing in the color purple so much so that I have written poems about it and painted with purple. 

                  For more on esketamine, read the following posts: "Gardening the Mind: Esketamine Treatment"and "Fertilization and Purple Lights: Esketamine Treatment"

                  I can’t explain why I see colors or why they are associated with healing for me. It is my experience.  I hope others can experience it, too. Maybe color is healing because colors represent an absence of the darkness. I don’t know. I just know that when I see the colors, I am healing. Hope returns to life, and I believe that I can heal. 

 

 

                  

                  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fertilization and Purple Lights (Esketamine Treatment)

                  Stephanie Debnath, PMHNP, discussed esketamine in Monday’s post.  Today, I will share my perspective as a patient.

I have lived with treatment resistant depression most of my life.  Not long ago I was in a very dark place. It felt as if I was buried underground. I couldn’t work. I could barely function. Suicidal thoughts haunted me. I needed some type of “fertilizer” to grow out of the darkness. 

                  With the help of my mental health team, I made the decision to try esketamine.  I was nervous. I had a false image in my mind. As someone who has always enjoyed listening to music from the late 1960s like Jefferson Airplane and The Doors, I envisioned esketamine causing something similar to the acid trips those musicians described.  I would find out that my vision was incorrect. Yes, I would experience what could be called “trips”, but it was really a healing dissociation.

                  As Stephanie described in her post, esketamine is self-administered through a nasal spray in an office setting under the observation of a psychiatric practitioner.  The first thing I felt was a floating sensation. It was very peaceful. In my first session, I drifted and felt a heaviness being lifted off me. I knew was safe but was not really aware of the room around me or the nurse observing me. 

                  Starting with my second session I began to see purple lights while I was under the effects of the esketamine.  These purple lights had an inviting warmth to them. It was as if I was floating through these lights.  There were different shades of purple, each inviting me to float further into them.  I soon came to associate these purple lights with healing. At times other colors would join the purple. There were greens, blues, and pinks. Each of these colors drew me further into the purple lights. Not everyone sees colors. The colors were my experience. Everyone has their own experience.

                  Before each treatment I would meet with Stephanie.  We discussed an intention for the session. We decided what needed to be “fertilized”.  I would focus on the intention as I was waiting for the esketamine to take effect.  My mind would follow these thoughts as I dissociated and floated into the purple lights.  In this state I could process thoughts as if I was an observer. There were times when revelations struck me. These were always accompanied by the purple lights. My mind was able to work without the depression tearing me down. 

                  As I came out of the esketamine, I would retain the thoughts and revelations. I kept a journal by my side.  When I regained awareness of the room and my presence in it, I would write in my journal. Whatever came to me while under the esketamine became clearer and more concrete in my journal.  

                  I was being “fertilized”. My roots grew stronger and emerged from the darkness of depression’s soil like tender shoots of a plant reaching for the sunlight.  I was growing. It took time. You don’t just spread the fertilizer and have a garden overnight. Still, my mental health improved. The suicidal thoughts diminished. Esketamine was allowing me to process the thoughts depression fills my mind with. It allowed me to go within my mind and make observations. I saw my thoughts as what they were, just thoughts, not reality.

                  I am grateful that I have treatment options. For years I have struggled with treatment resistant depression. I needed something different than the traditional medication approaches. My mental health team provided me with options that led to healing. I will likely need esketamine treatment again at some point, but I understand that is normal. Gardeners periodically fertilize their gardens. I need to do the same for my mind.

                  I’d like to share a poem I wrote after one of my esketamine treatments. 

 

Esketamine Treatment

 

Iridescent purples,

Translucent greens.

The colors fill my mind.

Replace the darkness even if only briefly.

I float through the colorful display.

Watch in awe as shades of green and purple drift through my awareness.

Bright pinks and vibrant blues appear,

Summon me. 

Lights behind the colors remind me that healing is possible.

I ride the waves of color as my mind is illuminated.

The dark thoughts that so often consume my mind are paused.

I feel a sense of peace. 

It is a sense I am unaccustomed to.

I am safe in this space filled with bright colors.

My fears suspended,

My pain soothed.

Only the colors exist.

I float as if on clouds.

Aware only of the colors.

I name them, reach out to them.

I feel the colors comfort me. 

In these moments I have been set free,

A part of a different reality.

Time passes and I am returned to my usual existence,

But pieces of the colors remain with me,

Healing me.

Battling with the darkness for my awareness.

 

 

 

For more information on esketamine or TMS treatment:

 

SoCal TMS: https://socaltms.com/

SoCal TMS on Social Media: 

                  Instagram: @socaltms

                  Facebook: Southern California TMS Center

 

 

Gardening the Mind (Esketamine Treatment)

  

Today’s post was written by Stephanie Debnath, PMHNP.  She is a psychiatric nurse practitioner who works with esketamine (Spravato) and TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) at SoCal TMS.  Full disclosure: Stephanie has treated me with both TMS and esketamine. There is a link at the end of this post to the SoCal TMS website and their social media for more information on esketamine.  To read Stephanie’s post on this blog about TMS scroll back to October 20, 2023, Renewed and Recharged. Check back on Thursday for my perspective on esketamine treatment.

 

Gardening the Mind 

 

 

As many of us try to balance out our busy lives, stress, worries, and interests, we gravitate towards a vice. For some it’s reading, others it’s exercise, and for a lot of people it is something less healthy—regardless, we all have a thing. I garden. I like to plant something in the ground and care for it. Pruning the damaged leaves makes me feel like I’m caring for wounds, watering it reminds me of how good I feel after a big drink of water on a hot day, and watching buds form tells me it’s growing. I make many mistakes in the garden. Neglect, sun scald, drought, poor choice of area in the garden. Some are not wins, but others are decent. I like to get my hands in the dirt and see the worms, because seeing worms equals healthy soil, usually. I always have my eye on the prize of a fruit or vegetable to come. That’s my goal. It will mean that my plant is thriving. Often, I work hard. Take the courses. Follow the steps. Sometimes, I pour blood, sweat, and tears into growing something. It can still fall short. I do a lot in the garden, but I do forget to fertilize.

 

Treating patients with Treatment Resistant Depression, means treating patients who have put a lot of effort into their mental health. It means people have tried many, many medications. Some for years, some just once, but there is usually a long list. They have done countless therapy sessions, sometimes with many therapists, sometimes just one. They have had alternative or interventional treatments, sometimes multiple, sometimes just one. What these patients have in common is that they have worked hard and made mistakes; Not tending to their wounds, not nourishing their bodies, and stunting their growth. They work hard, they take the courses, they follow all the steps—year, after year, after year. They often pour blood, sweat, and a lot of tears into trying to regain power in this area, trying to take hold of their mental health. So, what if for some people those things are almost enough? They are helpful but keep them falling short of their goal. The plant grows, but there is no crop. Their Treatment Resistance makes it harder for them to flourish with just the basic. For some…perhaps they need to fertilize.

 

Esketamine is a newer treatment, FDA approved in 2019 for Treatment Resistant Depression and 2020 for Major Depressive Disorder. It is essentially a derivative of the molecule Ketamine, something used largely across the medical field for amnesic (short-term memory loss), analgesic (pain-relieving), and hypnotic (sleep-producing) purposes. It is a nasal spray/medication that is self-administered by the patient, in office, with the psychiatric provider on site. The sessions last about 2.5 hours for proper monitoring, and vitals are taken along the way by a nurse or technician. During the peak of the medication in the first hour, there is some light dissociation which allows the patient to go “within”. It gives patients the opportunity to switch to observation mode and evaluate things that are challenging to do in everyday life. The drug wears off about an hour in and the second hour is spent recovering. These sessions have been described by patients as “inward therapy”, but it is different for everyone. 

 

The way I see esketamine therapy is like this: it is the fertilizer to our roots when it comes to the brain (and neurons). It boosts the elements and chemicals that cause excitation, strength, bonding, and growth, and it sends signals to the base of the “plant” (brain) that encourages it to produce the nutrients it needs. Patients often say, “I’ve tried so many things, so many meds, so many therapies. I feel like my brain needs a jumpstart.” Well, they are probably correct. A lot of people are putting in the effort, the blood, the sweat, and tears but they fall short. Like when I forget to fertilize, I am only getting a minimal growth, with almost no fruit. 

 

While not all treatments and therapies are right for people, I can say that esketamine is an option that will help many. It still pains me to hear patients say, “I wish this would have been around 20 years ago.” I do, too. I wish the advancements of today were present decades ago, and everything was further along. I wish if we wanted to take up gardening, we just knew everything there is to know, and did it all correctly each season. We can still wish, but we must try along the way, too. This emerging treatment has helped many, many patients in different ways than traditional medications for depression. It has stimulated the brain differently than electromagnetic waves, and it has restored hope for those who feel they go season after season with no crop. As a clinician in psychiatry, my intention is never to push one treatment over the other, but to inform and encourage a new way of pruning, tending, and nurturing a garden. After all, the right amount of fertilizer can bring a bountiful harvest.  

 

 

SoCal TMS: https://socaltms.com

SoCal TMS on Social Media: 

            Instagram: @socaltms

            Facebook: Southern California TMS Center