Before Ember

I’ve had depression for most of my life, but in the last three to four years, my ability to bounce back from moments of significant depression has begun to diminish. Before coming to Ember, I felt as if I could no longer manage my mood. I was experiencing more frequent and intense suicidal thoughts in the months preceding my initial visit to Ember than at any other point in my adult life.

In May of 2022, I went to the hospital because I felt extremely suicidal. At that point, I realized what I was doing to manage my mental health was clearly not working.

I’ve been on all sorts of medications over the past 30 - 40 years, though nothing made a tangible change in my mood. I began researching other options and learned about ketamine. I looked at a number of clinics that focused on treatment-resistant depression (TRD), including Ember.

Ember’s website was far more informative than the other New York City clinics I was researching. One of the things I liked about Ember was how it works specifically with patients with my profile of managing severe depression.

I personally don’t like the term “treatment-resistant depression” because it has this pejorative connotation, as though you’re destined to remain depressed. There’s an element of futility to anything you may try. But even if I objected to this patient profile, it was very nice knowing that I was going to a clinic that was focused on people with issues like mine. Some of the other clinics I researched seemed like they were just capitalizing on the growing interest in ketamine, like anyone could show up and receive ketamine.

For a very long time I felt I was losing my mind. I was hopeful that, with treatment, I could reclaim my mind and my personality.

The Experience

I've been genuinely impressed with my overall experience at Ember. I first spoke with Dr. Sarah Buchman and thought she was terrific. She was far more thoughtful and thorough in her responses to my questions than other providers I was considering at the time. Dr. Buchman helped me think about ways I could get better, whether at Ember or another clinic. I really trusted her, as I still do today.

Ember’s physical space is very warm and welcoming. Some of the other practices I saw felt almost like a dowdy, tired outpatient clinic. They didn’t feel all that different from a hospital’s psych ward.

I’m always fascinated by how much variation there is in the sessions themselves. Starting out, sessions were very intense, vivid, and it was very difficult for me to differentiate the session from reality. My last two sessions have been sort of leisurely, it’s been much more muted, the pace has been much slower, and the dissociation between reality and the session itself has been easier to distinguish between the two. All that being said, what typically comes up for me is stuff related to my personal life and work. I wouldn't say anything has been particularly revelatory from the infusion experiences themselves.

At this point, I’ve done 12 - 15 different treatments through Ember. Following treatment, there is always a diminishing of suicidal thoughts. I feel more stable. In the beginning of my care, the results would last a week, but start to dissipate in weeks 2 - 3, until by week 3 - 4, I felt the floor fall out again entirely. It took awhile for me to understand that the ketamine needed to be supplemented by other things to get me to a place where I needed to be.

I started seeing a psychiatrist again a few months ago, who brought up the idea of introducing conventional antidepressants back into my protocol to see if it could help extend the duration of benefit I was seeing from the ketamine. I was reluctant, and I couldn’t understand why those medications would work now when they haven't for the past 25 years of my life.

My care team at Ember explained the potential benefits of starting antidepressants in conjunction with ketamine. They said it went back to the concept of neuroplasticity. Ketamine can potentially change your neural circuitry and allow these more conventional antidepressants to be more effective than they would be otherwise. Over the past few weeks, I’ve gone back on antidepressants and found this to be true.

The Impact I’ve Felt

Over the past two months, the immediate benefits I derive from the ketamine therapy seem to be evenly sustained over the course of the following four weeks. I’m just so relieved at this point to feel better that, personally, I don’t really care if I need to come in for treatment once a month to sustain how I feel.

Generally, I now find myself much more emotionally sound. There was a period of time before treatment where I had felt I couldn’t convey whatever was in my head, and that’s started to change, which is a big relief. I feel more clear-headed and energized. Ember has been the stabilizing force for me over the last year.