On the Precipice of Becoming

In December 2006, after spending 10 days in Israel the year prior, I made a decision in a matter of hours that very much changed me. I had a friend, who had gotten approval to spend the spring semester of 2007 abroad, living in Jerusalem, Israel, and I knew that I needed to be there too. In a matter of 42 days, I applied and was accepted into Hebrew University, I dropped out of the classes I’d been enrolled in, found someone to sublet my room, identified student housing in Jerusalem, and searched for nearly everything one could need while studying abroad that could also condense down into two suitcases and a carry on bag for six full months spanning all 4 seasons. (This was way before internet checklists and overnight Amazon ran the world - this was all real, diligent work, friends.)

The morning I arrived at the airport to embark on my trip, my feelings were too big to contain. I was so damn excited, but I was also scared. This was brand new, and I was going knowing only one other person in the program.

Without going into much more detail, the life lessons I learned while in Israel rivaled any that I learned in the classroom.

I was becoming someone new.

Someone stronger. Someone braver. Someone more open minded. The independence I gained is one that I’m very much jealous of today. At 20, I was an explorer. At 38, I’m a homebody. And I assume that much of that boils down to what I’ve lived through in the nearly two decades between now and then.

I went on side trips alone, navigating only with a practically ancient Nokia brick cell phone, an actual map of the country along with the bus rides and cab fares, and I found myself exploring without anything holding me back. I remember scrutinizing some of those decisions as I was in the middle of them, but in retrospect - I did a damn fine job in that chapter of Becoming. I became stronger. I gained trust of my instincts, and listened to them through London, Greece, Egypt, Turkey and even Palestine.

But that’s not the precipice I want to talk about today.

It was just a really important example for both me to remember and share with you that once upon a time, I did things everyday that scared me, but none of them made me feel unsafe. None of them made me feel lost. And none of them made me question who I was. It was the first time I only had myself to report to - and I thrived under that infrastructure.

Let’s talk about this moment. Here I was, a brand new mom, only five months on the job, still wearing my sweet girl whenever possible, still pumping every three hours to feed her, still running on adrenaline and lack of sleep. But look. Look in my eyes. I was happy. I was so damn happy. And I was proud - proud for the first time in my life of what my body let me do, what my body let me have.

I was still very much becoming a mother.

But this baby, she was only very slowly transitioning into her next milestones. I still had time to witness every moment.

I wish that I could have lived in this space forever, or that I could re-do it, even without making any changes. I think it’s critical for me to remember that as I new mom I made mistakes, there were things I didn’t know, a thousand google searches and nearly as many middle of the night texts to mom friends and to our incredible doulas. Each day I gained a little more confidence, a little more ability to be a good mother. To be the mother my daughter needed.

Again, this isn’t the precipice I want to detail today

AND, I want to note that it’s a critical example of the right before. This was about 18 months before my world imploded, but it’s a version of me I still look back proudly upon. This mama bear wasn’t afraid of much these days. She was still chalk full of emotions, but she was brave and she drew strength from the connection she shared with this tiny little peanut.

Now this, this is the precipice I’m climbing to reach.

This photo was taken in October of 2020, just 10 months after the one above, but it was the start of losing myself.

I sat on this ledge as I journaled about the early miscarriage I was experiencing. Tears streaming down my cheeks, “It comes and goes (in waves)” by Greg Laswell in my earbuds, an unmatched need to write until my brain slowed down. There’s something that sitting by the shore gives me - a sense of peace, a new understanding, the idea that the water washes over the rocks and they are as they’ve always been except they are also now different too. That felt like a metaphor for my life - before I even knew what was next.

For all intents, we’re going to label October 2020 through October 2024 as the lost years.

And this precipice I’m trying to reach - it’s happening in real time.

The lost years left me… without myself. I’d find my body in rooms that my brain never entered. I’d later hear stories that included me, but they were stories that I didn’t participate in. I started closing doors and putting up walls. I was convinced the only way I could climb this proverbial mountain was if I climbed it alone.

And DAMN, I tried.

I tried so desperately hard.

I listened to every recommendation, every suggestion, I tried every medication, every procedure, but it wasn’t until I found Ketamine that I saw some semblance of hope again.

In the last 4 months, I’ve received 22 IV ketamine infusions - and I can honestly say I have come away with something new, something productive, and/or some understanding of myself in the process- even if it just quieted my brain for a few hours.

In the beginning I just needed help with surviving. There was desperation. There were more questions than answers. Would this make a difference? There wasn’t a promise - but it was a tiny bit of hope. I’d heard mixed things. I did my own research, and made the most educated decision I could - I chose IV over nasal or oral. I chose a clinic over doing it at home. And later when it became available, I agreed to combine the medicine with a psychotherapist specializing integrating my experiences with the medicine into the person I was standing before her - living in a cycle of habits and responses built up over 30+ years that no longer served me, and in fact, were doing a pretty good job harming me.

I would say the first two months were more of a trial period. A season of laying the groundwork. Building the trust in my mind to surrender to the medicine. And then to share those deepest feelings with someone who was at the time a stranger. Now, I’m honored to call her a guide.

With her help, every week there’s been something new learned or uncovered or navigated through. The medicine has for me brought up memories that I had no recollection of, buried so deep I can’t imagine they would’ve come to the light of day any other way. It has also reduced my previously treatment resistant depression, increased my window of distress tolerance, and increased my ability to think about and even instill some healthy boundaries.

At the end of this month, at the end of 2024, my doses will begin to become more spread out - at first every two weeks, then every three weeks, and so on - and I feel irrationally nervous about this. I feel like I’m just starting to find my footing.

I can see more of the mountain now, but there’s still quite a bit of climbing to do.

I’ve worked so damn hard that I’m afraid I’m going to slide backward in my progress, or even just standstill, but those fears are also rooted in past experiences - medications, physicians, therapies and mental health providers that worked until they didn’t anymore.

I don’t feel like that about ketamine and I think that’s where the fear may be coming from. I don’t feel done. I don’t feel like it’s time to move on yet. And I don’t yet know what the options around that include.

This morning I woke up extremely anxious about today’s session. I texted my guide, who went out of her way to call me and talk through what I was feeling both physically and mentally, and her instinct was that we’re on the cusp of identifying something big.

That I’m on the precipice of becoming… again.

Becoming the next version of myself. A version that after four years of consistent compounding trauma, can stand up and be as mentally well as possible.

This feels terrifying to me. The unknown always has. But she had me think back to first few sessions in August where I needed my husband to stay in the room the whole time beside me just incase I felt unsafe. I’ve come a long way since then, surrendering control and growth to the medicine to allow it to work, to do its job.

And now it’s my turn to let my gut override my brain. To note the physical symptoms of crippling anxiety but not to question them. To wait, to sit with them. To understand that I may not feel safe in my body, but that externally there is no threat, there is no need for armor, there is no need for change, there is no need for walls or for shutdowns. The only goal is to to feel the physical feelings until I know why they are there.

So, as I enter that journey today and allow it to unfold over the next few weeks, I’m committing here that I will do my best to surrender. To be vulnerable. To allow the water to wash over me, leaving me both the same and different as it comes and goes in waves.

Have you ever felt like you were in the process of becoming? What has scared or liberated you in those seasons?