Warning- This is deeply personal and could be upsetting/triggering to some…read more
It is difficult to find the words to describe the life-saving, compassionate, expert doctors, nurses, and staff who literally saved my life.
After a personal trauma and then the traumatic deaths to not one but two fiancés, I had battled treatment resistant depression for decades, and itstole so much of my life.
I hid it for so long because I had to work to support myself, but it was taking everything out of.
When my fiancé in college committed suicide after I said things I didn't mean out of insecurity, his friends took him to a pub crawl to cheer him up. He called me later than he was supposed to, and I was madly in love so had been waiting by the phone which made me upset, and even though he sweetly asked me THREE TIMES to please pick him up, I said no. I had no idea what had happened before that call to me. Only after coming home and finding his body on the blood soaked couch would I learn that he had discovered something heartbreaking just before he called me.
If trying to live with that for years wasn't hard enough, my best friend, who kept me from killing myself, and I became engaged, but on his 30th birthday, we learned he had stage four pancreatic cancer, and the doctor literally gave him 6months to live. In spite of the cruel 4 years of pain and suffering he endured and fighting it by trying experimental drugs and everything under the sun, he lost the battle, and my precious love passed away. Once again, I was truly devastated and alone.
I knew what suicide would do to my mother, and even though we had never been close, I never wanted to put anyone through the hell that I was trying to live with, so I was pretending to be ok but was consumed with PTSD, grief, and depression. .
My life was a struggle to keep my chin above water because I was drowning, and nothing I had tried was helping.
I met the man who I married and then began living a double life where I had an amazing man and life, but I was still pretending to be alright hiding the depression that I lived with. The years of anti depressants and counseling never amounted to anything, and after having my first child who brought me so much joy to have, I developed severe postpartum depression too.
This is where I still shudder thinking about it because I began to thinking that I had to die. I couldn't let my child and husband be around me because I would only bring them down, make problems and ruin their lives. I believed it, and made plans to make it look like an accident.
Imagine having an amazing life with the most incredible gift of a tiny human who had a loving, doting father and having a wonderful husband...but I could not feel it. I BELIEVED I had to save them from me.
I researched ketamine and found an angel who answered my phone call named Linda. She told me it didn't have to be this way and to meet with Dr. Ghorieshi.
It was my last attempt of finding help, and I can tell you that I am writing here and now because Dr. Ghorieshi, Linda, the world class PAs, nurses and MAs, and the kind staff. Saved my life.
Let me be clear that I would not be alive, not live to see my beautiful son turn another year older, not experience the joy that life offers if it wasn't for the ketamine and then Spravato treatments that I truly know cured my incurable depression!
My life now is joyous, I am the strong, intelligent, funny, and capable mother and professional that I knew I could be once the TRD was gone.
No matter the trauma, suffering, and hell you're going through, there IS treatment, and you can honestly trust the professionals like Dr. Ghorieshi, Dr. Yaghoobi, and Nazanin to name a few to succeed where all else failed.
This has been my personal
story of triumph over trauma, life after loss, and the hard working dedicated people who chose to help even the toughest cases like mine.
PAMB saves lives, and I am living proof.