Transcript: Episode 313
313. Ketamine, MDMA, and Therapeutic Ruptures
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This episode continues the conversation from the previous episode. As always care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
*Conversation continues*
[Note: Podcast host is in bold. Podcast guest is in standard font]
For my own experience, I, like, in relating to what you shared with me just now. So I mean, after the assault, I was, like I mentioned, naturally diagnosed with PTSD by my therapist, who was not a trauma-trained clinician. And the psychiatrist that I was working with was rather progressive, and she suggested that we try ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for my, basically treatment-resistant depression and PTSD.
And just for a moment, for your listeners, ketamine is currently the only legal psychedelic medication, though there is a lot of research on it as well as other psychedelics like MDMA being conducted. At low doses ketamine can be very, um, what they consider embodying, so bringing you into your body and opening your heart. And at high doses it's very disembodying and very, it's, it's actually considered, ketamine is considered a dissociative agent.
So, I've never tried anything recreationally. So this experience that I had clinically, therapeutically, was my first experience with a psychedelic. And I won't get into what that actually looked like. But I didn't really know what to expect. And looking back, I see that even the informed consent process around this medication didn't make sense to me, because just the language of it. I didn't know what it felt like, I didn't have anything to understand it from. So unfortunately, I was prescribed a very high dose of ketamine to take at home every few days, actually. And because I was seeing my therapist regularly, the psychiatrist felt comfortable with me seeing my therapist to work with this medication instead of going to work with the psychiatrist herself.
So several things went wrong here. My therapist knew nothing about ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and was not at all trauma trained. And my psychiatrist did not provide information or instruction on how my therapist might work with me and help me to integrate what was being opened up by the medication. I actually don't even think that my therapist even knew that I was taking it at home as prescribed. Also, I was given just a few assessment measures prior to my initial ketamine experience, such as the BDI and the HAM-A, which are depression and anxiety measures respectively. So no one really assessed my PTSD symptoms specifically, nor did the psychiatrist inquire about or assess my dissociative experiences. So nobody was checking in around, like, even though I had PTSD and I was having dissociative experiences, no one actually checked in about what those looked like or how severe they were, or where they were on the spectrum of dissociation. And so it was kind of like giving, like putting gasoline on a fire for me. And ultimately, you know, my, my psychiatrist had me on the ketamine for a year at this really high dose. And I didn't know that it wasn't supposed to feel as awful as it felt, because that was my only experience of it. And I was told, “this is gonna make you feel better.” And so I was desperate to, quote, get better, so I kept taking it and crying and getting worse and worse. It was almost, we understand now looking back, we suspect that it was kind of like, bringing down amnestic barriers very, very fast. So it just opened up way too much way too fast.
So after this experience, I was not in a good place. It totally sped up the transference and countertransference processes. And given that my therapist wasn't trained in trauma, I don't think she was prepared at all for what was going on. She didn't know what was going on in the room with me. I didn't know. I was being torn apart.
And there were tons of other things that went wrong in my therapy. Like, my therapist started holding me physically a month after the assault. And they’re not trained in touch therapy or anything like that. And, you know, as a clinician-in-training, I had never thought that this should, should be or would be part of my therapy. But I wasn't necessarily in control of what was happening in my therapy. I was opening up in ways that I hadn't experienced before. And I was confused. And I just, I trusted her. I trusted that she knew what was happening and I let her lead me. And you know, my therapist held me all the way up until the pandemic separated us, which was bewildering. And ultimately, no matter how much pain is involved in this, I know that I am, and even though I'm not better now, I know that I'm in a better place now than I was then. So I do see it as good, even though it feels awful. And I think that I'm moving forward in a way that I could no longer move forward with my therapist because the dynamics of our relationship were so hard to even repair at this point.
And I don't want to get into that too much because it's an active area of healing. I mean, this all is. Like, we're both, hopefully you're doing something too with your hands or your feet to ground yourself right now. I've got the squishy ball on my hand.
But I really appreciate the podcast episodes around the therapeutic relationship that have recently been, you know, launched.
But I think what I'm trying to lead into is that, you know, after this experience-. I should backtrack you, after this ketamine fiasco experience, you know, my psychiatrist got really bad. And I think she wanted to help me. I was pretty agoraphobic after this experience of the assault and the ketamine was making me sicker. I was trying to stay in school. My therapist didn't know what was happening. I was crying all the time and screaming in ways I've never screamed before. And, you know, my, so my psychiatrist was trying to help me, I think, and she asked me to work for her.
Now, as a student-in-training, I was like, “Okay, wait, is this a boundary violation?” So I called, I consulted with APA, like both APAs, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychology Association, and talked with both of them. And I was ultimately told that because they operate under, like, psychologists and psychiatrists operate under slightly different ethics codes, that, you know, it's really up to me, my decision if I wanted to. And, you know, I talked to my advisors and my therapist, and I ended up taking the position.
But my reasoning for taking the position was to help create protocols around this ketamine-assisted psychotherapy in her clinic, in the psychiatrist’s clinic, to help prevent what happened to me from happening to other people utilizing this medication therapeutically in her, in her, her clinic. But what I had no idea of was that were a legal psychedelic is, illegal psychedelics follow.
So I walked into this situation like a fly on the wall, and I saw a lot that I was not prepared to see. The psychiatrist that I was working with—both now as an employee and my, you know, psychiatrist—was trained in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. Which there's a lot of clinicians that are seeking training in this so that when MDMA becomes legal that they can provide it, or they can be part of the trials or anything like that. And so she offered to do it with me. And after she finished the training, and I talked to my therapist, and she agreed to just give it a try, that I had nothing to lose, so to speak. But I was terrified. I was like, you want to give me another psychedelic. Like, this other drug over here, like, did not go well for me. And I'm watching all these other people having profound positive healing experiences with ketamine. And then I'm like, why am I not having this experience?
So I trusted my therapist, and I went, and I did the three rounds of the MDMA-assisted psychotherapy with my psychiatrist. And I'm not gonna like it, I'm not gonna say it wasn't helpful, because I think it was the most amazing and helpful medication experience that I've ever had. And unfortunately, I didn't have enough time with the medication. Like, I didn't have, I needed more of it, longer periods of time to get through maybe all of my traumatic experiences from development to current. So we didn't get to, you know, the thing that we thought I was coming in for, which was the assault. Because the assault ultimately opened up a ton of previous trauma that I wasn't aware of, or parts of me were not aware of.
And so I think after the MDMA experience, my psychiatrist had me try to ketamine again. But I started to unravel rapidly. Because whatever good the MDMA did for me, whatever pulling together that experience had for me, it wasn't, it wasn't rapid enough, or wasn't enough. And I just basically went straight back. There was a couple of sessions that I thought, “oh, maybe this is what other people experienced when they take ketamine,” like, “oh, I can kind of feel this heartwarming embodying experience.” But like I said, it just quickly became too much for my system.
Now by this time there was so much boundary violations, and so much like. You know, I knew so much about my therapist, my psychiatrist. I mean, there were just, I was completely involved in their lives and every day. And it's kind of, I'm relating to what you said. Like, you were living with your therapist. And it was hard to determine the boundaries of like, “Okay, what is she to me?” Or “what are they to me?” And I felt really sick. I just felt like I couldn't make a decision for myself without something like input from somebody else, or someone else's judgment. And, and by this point, you know, I knew what my therapist was thinking because it was written all over her face. Or if she didn't like something, or, you know, I think that I'm was able to, to feel into that because as a kid I was basically trained to read this information. And so I felt very sick in the setting.
And I had to extricate myself very slowly when my psychiatrist was not responding or listening to the pain that I was expressing having and just kept telling me, “you need to take this medication. No no, you need to take this medication. You need to take this medication.” And so I sought out, I was able to seek out, I knew something was terribly wrong. And I, I kept thinking, “Oh, it's me. I'm not doing something right. I'm not doing enough. I'm not trying hard enough. Why am I, you know, not responding to this medication like other people do?” Or, you know, there are all these things that I was thinking.
And so I sought out assistance from two trauma-trained clinicians. So I got a somatic therapist involved. And then I got like an EMDR therapist trained extensively in trauma and dissociation. And it was ultimately working with these trauma-trained clinicians on the side, doing something different than what my main therapist was doing, that I started feeling like my reality was being validated and I started to recognize that what was going on in my therapy was just as wrong as it all felt, even though it was under the guise of being assistive and helpful and informative, you know, like, trying to help me. And I realized that all my tears and screams were justified.
And it took, I think it took about five months working a lot adjunctively with the EMDR therapist, who I basically hired to help me repair my relationship with my therapist. I just thought that there was a miscommunication issue, and so she was trying to help the therapist understand things from a trauma informed lens and support her. And I think it was about five months in she was able to do an assessment with me that ultimately diagnosed my DID. And a few months after my diagnosis, my therapist abandoned my care via email. And she told me, you know, she was sorry she couldn't heal all my trauma, and that she's not good enough, and she just needed to take a break. And I never heard from her again.
And so, I guess I'm, you know, I relate so much to just the lack of clarity. Because looking back, you know, at the whole experience involved with both of these people who were meant to be caring for me, but we're doing things unintentionally or just unaware or unconsciously that were really hurtful and not helping me grow or, and then it just wasn't helpful. So I think that it's hard. I mean, I, it's really hard to look back and find clarity around what was helpful, like you were saying. I think.
That's my long, very long, way of saying I can relate to what you're saying. And I don't know how I've navigated this because I haven't had any support or assistance to navigate it other than my, the people that I basically left and had to file a complaint on. I felt like I had to file a complaint. I guess I, I mean, there's a choice that I didn't. But that was the choice that I made, was that I loved these people so much that I mean, to me, I love these people so much. I don't know what happened that they thought that this was okay. That I decided that I, you know, this was the best way for me to, to do what I could. But I don't know, I don't know, looking back, if I would have made all of the same decisions. Obviously, I don't think I would have made the same. To me, it's obvious, I would not have made some of the same decisions.
But we do what we can with what we know, right? And filing a complaint in your case really sounds like it was a mobilization. Like a climbing back up the social ladder and re-empowering yourself. And that can be such a powerful thing, especially when there are actual violations.
What would you think-? I'm just curious. How would you describe to someone the difference between actual violations and just a limited capacity or a regular rupture? Like, all relationships have ruptures, right? So that even happens in therapy. And obviously, when it happens in therapy it's super triggering. It's very distressing. It's like, so dysregulating. But what's the difference? Like, where does that cross the line between just a rupture, and abandonment? Or a rupture and a violation? What, how would you clarify that after what you've been through?
I think that a rupture, that a rupture is something that has the chance that is, that is repaired. That is sought to be repaired. And a violation essentially goes without repair. It's something that changes the dynamics such that there, there is no way to bring it back to a therapeutic place. Or there might not be. There could be, but it's may be very difficult to get at. Because I think that when I'm looking back at, I think I said at one point, I thought that my therapist was doing the right thing. I trusted her, I trusted her judgment on, you know, her holding me, for example. And I didn't realize that it was changed, that by her physically holding me, that it was changing the dynamic between us such that she became like a surrogate mother. And that is stepping into a dual relationship. And when you have stepped into a dual relationship, you have abandoned your client. You cannot be therapist and mother. You just cannot. There are ways that a therapist can, can provide caring, and support, and nurturance and healing. Similar to, they can give those nurturing, conductive and attuned things, but they can never step in and be your mother.
And so I think that for me, you know, that's, that's a, that was a fine line that I didn't understand then. I didn't understand that her holding me was going to mean that three years down the line, we would be entangled in dynamics that I didn't know how to get out of. I didn't know how to correct. But I was doing my darndest. I was reading everything I could possibly get my hands on to understand what was happening. And it's only, you know, after promises and promises and promises that she would not abandon me, she would never leave me, she was always with me. Like those are actually not promises she could make.
So I think, you know, those, those, there's ruptures. And when a therapist brings awareness or attention to the rupture, and notices the rupture, and tries to correct that rupture in whatever way they can as soon as they can, there's opportunity to bring the therapeutic relationship back into the place that it belongs. And, but when that rupture, when that that rupture goes unseen and unnoticed and then unacknowledged, then you get into that that violation, and it only festers. It only makes things worse and worse and worse.
And I feel like in our experience, when we had Kelly's-. We call them Kelly's. Every previous therapist, we call Kelly now. That came from a podcast, and that's a different thing. But when we had Kelly's that were this kind of rupture or something that went wrong that couldn't be fixed. Yeah. Or when we lost that. There is something that is devastating about that internally at a whole different level even than the abuse we grew up in.
Oh, thank you for saying that. Thank you so much for saying. I agree. Like, I think I've told my new therapist so many times that, at least several times that, something about this feels bigger. It's like I had a hole where my mom, that my parents left me with. They didn't do it intentionally. They just didn't have the resources to parent me the way that I needed to be parented. And so there's this hole. But then my experience of abandonment by my therapists who stepped in to, quote unquote, become like a surrogate mother. It's like it pulled the hole open so much more. And it's devastating. It's extremely painful. And I, it's extremely lonely. There are just no words to, for me, there are no words to like get into that experience further for me right now. I just think I'm just speechless at times.
It is really one of the most painful experiences we've ever been through. And if you look at our trauma history, like that's a lot. It's a lot. There's something about it that's worse. Like, growing up with that hole where parents should be, where caregivers should be, that in itself is traumatizing enough. And now we know, you know, from research and how the neurological impact of that is more damaging even than other kinds of abuse. Like, we know that that's bad. Yeah. But, having a taste of what care and love feels like, and then that being taken away, is somehow worse. And the part about when that's taken away, then you also lose the only safety that you have learned to build, is so violating and such a betrayal. It is somehow. I wish they can measure that on brains like they have just measured all these other things in the last couple of years. Because it is so much worse even than everything I grew up with.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's interesting that, you know, with my, with my new therapist, I only really know working with her through a TV screen. Or it’s not even a TV screen, it's a computer screen, right? Because of the pandemic. And I think that that's ultimately been extremely helpful because the boundaries and the violations that I experienced within the therapy room were so profound, or even in the like the psychiatrist's office, they're so profound that I think that by having her-. By being in my own environment, I know that I cannot be hurt in the same way like it. I can be hurt, there's, there's that, there's definitely-. that I can be hurt, but not-. She can't touch me. She can't, she can't get through and touch my skin and violate me in the same way. So there's some safety there. If I want to call it safety. I'm not really sure I know what safety is right now. But, but I recognize that, you know that that's been one way that I've been able to even begin to sit with a new therapist, is that I know that that can't happen.
So it's been helpful because I think it's really really hard to engage in the therapeutic process, which you need. You need to be in therapy. You need help through this. And I can't talk to anybody around it. It's the very disenfranchised grief. And I mean, if I, I can't talk-. As a student, I can't tell my peers what just happened in therapy. I can't, I mean, I could, but I’d need to be really close to whoever I was telling. I need to trust that, quote, friend. I already have trouble with friends, you know, like, because of just the nature of my experience, and I know that you relate to this. So I think it is hard. It creates a rupture in so many devastating ways.
Two powerful things that I want to comment on that you just said was, one, the disenfranchised grief because no one understands what you've been through, and there's no one you can tell. And how difficult that is going through that alone. And how, like, to what extent that impacts every other relationship you have.
And then the other piece was about telehealth. I am experiencing the same thing where it was very, very difficult for us to re-engage in therapy with a new therapist. And even now, we are still doing therapy about therapy. Yeah. Because it was so traumatizing. What happened was so traumatizing. And she said just a week ago, “Numbers are down, I'm vaccinated, this and this and this. So if you want to come to my office, you can.” And it was immediately, “Absolutely not.” Right. Yeah.
I don't know how to open that part of myself again. And the progress that I had made in areas that I had never tried before, and parts of my life that I had opened up to that I had never tried before. Now not only like is all that shut down and the walls are up, but there are like new gates. And there's, it's not happening. It's not happening. When I thought I could be so brave and managing anxiety with peppermints, and go do such and such and get through that with some breathing and some peppermints. Like that's not a thing anymore. Because this is way worse than anxiety. This is life and death. This is, I can't stay alive and also tried to do that. It was so so devastating. And, and like you said, I don't want to get into more details because it's, it is so triggering and it's so difficult. But the healing.
And I don't mean to end on such an awful like, dark note, right? We are making progress. Being able to talk about it with you, being able to talk about it in therapy. We have a group therapy every week. Being able to put things into words, and slowly heal, and recognize what was good. Like, who is safe in our life? Who is safe in our life? What has been good about therapy in the past? What can we keep? Trying, just trying to rebuild some sense of self as well as safety.
Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. No, I think you just said that beautifully. I think, you know, the experience is kind of like having the axiom of the globe pulled out and watching all the continents like just disintegrate. But putting them back together is possible. And, like, I have to believe that. I don't, I guess I don't have to, but I'm choosing to believe that. I'm choosing to believe that it's possible to put the world back together to good, and to put myself back together again. And, or for the first time, maybe, you know, maybe it's an opportunity to put myself--or my selves—together in a different way that's more, more me and less everybody else, um, that, you know, has had major influence. And, but keeping what I want. Like, this choice to keep what I want from those experiences.
And, you know, I ultimately know, I know in my heart that my therapist and my psychiatrist did not intentionally inflict harm on me. Like, they are human and they were doing the best that they could. And they had stuff that they weren't aware about about themselves. And that influenced the treatment exponentially. And influence what happened to me. And, you know, they had feelings about what happened to me with the assault, and it influenced them differently too. They had their own stuff come up.
And so I think that, like you said, the fact that we're talking about this is good. And quite honestly, Emma, like, I would not-. I don't know how to assess how I'm doing, except for what you just said, like, we're talking about this. This is good.
But I also know that I wouldn't be wherever I am right now without the podcast. Because it showed up in my life exactly when I needed it, and has helped me to embrace what's happening to me and what's happened to me in you know, a different way than I might have without it. And it's been a light in the darkness that I'm experiencing by myself. And so it's helping me to move forward to just hear all of the different experiences that I'm not alone. I'm not actually experiencing this darkness by myself, and there's way that we all can, you know, illuminate it and to grow and move forward.
And there needs to be more conversation about it because that's the only way that we can do it. But we can only do it slowly. Like what you said earlier. You don't know how to open up into it. And it's like, the only way we can open up into it is on our time and in our way. And that is got to be gentle and slow, when we're ready. And I relate to all the all the doors and things, and walls. It's like a Harry Potter chamber vault where all his money is, like all of these, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It’s like you're not getting in there, it's underground, it's something that cannot be touched. So.
I feel like this was some of the good that came out of it. Though not that I ever want to hurt like that. It was worse than unpleasant. [Laughter] What I learned from this was, like, from these two, last two years, specifically. I learned that. I have learned how to notice what I'm feeling. I have learned how to sit with what I'm feeling. I have learned how to let what I'm feeling just be accepted as what I'm feeling. And how to be present with that even when it feels big, or I don't understand why or where it's coming from. I have learned to trust myself. And I love what you said about putting pieces together on my own terms, in a new way, never before.
I feel like-. I sent a picture. I sent a picture to an ally of this tree that had been stripped of everything because of a tornado. There was just the tall trunk, there were no branches, and all the leaves have been stripped away, right? That's what happens here in Oklahoma because of tornadoes. So it's just like they're stripped naked, stripped bare, there's nothing left to them except just the evidence that there was a tree there. And that is how I felt. That there was barely a person still standing. And everything else was taken away.
But I also feel like because we were able to stand, and because we are still here, that like what you said about putting ourselves back together with the pieces that we choose, or in our way, in our time, without stuff that was other people stuff. Like, just thinking about all the foster parents I had, or all the people who said they cared and then didn't really, or other people who disappeared. Or when we had a pandemic and my life was actually in danger, who didn't show up? Or who wasn't there? Who didn't check on me? Like, all of those pieces of, “Okay, now time isn't safe. So where are my support people now?” Right? Like, looking at all these things and saying, “No. This is my tree. This is my life. This is my body. And I don't have to be ashamed of being DID, or having dissociation, or experiencing these things, because I have learned that my brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do.”
And taking all of these pieces of good, and all of this pieces of growth, I feel like now I'm that tree where there's only that tall trunk, but all the little leaves are starting to grow back. There's not even branches yet. Like, there's leaves on the trunk. Because the tree is trying so hard to survive, and trying so hard to replenish itself, that there are leaves growing on the trunk now because there's no branches for the leaves to grow on. And those leaves will become branches. And that growth, and that depth, and the pushing in a roots that was so so painful is the same thing that kept me alive long enough to be able to reach up into the sun.
Very profound. Like the growth after a hard prune. Pruning a tree is, I imagine for the tree, it's a very devastating process to have. Instead of choosing to let go of your branch, to have somebody rip it off, or to have it ripped off, or cut off, or whatever. That's got to be, you know, it's an imaginably difficult process, but the tree grows. Like you were just saying. Like you, you are rising despite the devastation. Like, there's this process of regrowth. And that is magical and beautiful.
I think that there is, in that analogy, there's that other cool layer. Because underground, where everything is dark, and everything is painful, and you're pushing your route through the earth, underground the trees are connected, right? They talk to each other even. And sometimes I feel like that's what the podcast is. And sometimes I feel like that's what a letter, or a card in the mail is, or what an email is, or what a text message is. Like we're getting those messages from each other that yes, this has been hard. And yes, everything does look different. Even therapy looks different now. But also we are still here. You are here. I am here. They are still here. They are still here. Like what good is still here that we get to keep? And look at how good that good is because it has survived all of this storm that we've been through together.
Yeah, I love that. It's beautiful. And it's alluring, even. It’s like, you wouldn't think that in so many instances when so much has been, quote unquote, wrong and felt bad, and that shame that comes with everything. It's like we want to hide. And yet, all this stuff that makes us feel like we want to hide, when we like open up and let it breathe and grow, it actually is something that's very drawing. You, you're drawn to it, you're-. It's alluring. It's beautiful. It's captivating. It's totally different than feeling that feeling that shame brings.
Exactly. And I think that there is something about being so brave to see what there is to see, even when it's like in your case, the need to file a complaint. Being so brave to see what you need to see. Which requires knowing what you know. And then like what I learned in the over the last year, to sit and feel and honor my feelings for what they are. And then to take the information from them and learn from that. And because I've not dissociated that away, I mean, there's dissociation involved, you know, of course. [Laughter] But I mean, in processing that, in processing that, feeling all there is to feel means I get to feel the good too. Which is different than not feeling anything.
Yeah. And it's almost an opportunity to feel. It's an opportunity to feel in ways you haven't felt before. Like, in ways we haven't allowed ourself, or haven't been able to, or weren't taught to, didn't know to. And that opportunity to feel is healing because it teaches us, like you said. We know how to sit with our feelings in different ways now and that can only lead us in further growth and opportunity and being a part of life in ways we've never been before.
I am grateful that you are one of those trees out there growing new greens, and speaking with us today, sharing your experience. Thank you for your courage and thank you for being so vulnerable.
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. And I'm so grateful for the path you are blazing with your roots and with your branches. And I'm thankful to consider you a part of my community and my tribe.
Oh, that's so special. Thank you. Thank you.
How do you feel after all that? That was so intense.
It was intense. It was intense. I'm kind of not sure what I even said in some parts. But that's okay.
I think, you know, there's this quote that I have been gravitating to the last several days as I shakily head back into what feels like a landmine, as I start working clinically, again in a hospital, which is where my assault happened. So very triggering and hard to stay present sometimes. But I read this quote, and it says, “Are you feeling a bit shaken, maybe stirred, maybe fearful and doubtful, and completely, utterly, wildly terrified? Good. Keep going.” And that's kind of how I'm, I’m relating to that right now. It's like, it's, it's scary, but we're braving it, and we're doing it anyways. And knowing that, you know, fear only, fear can be my friend if I listened to it. And, and, and it can lead me to places, really, that I want to go if I listened to it. It might be, you know, fear gets such a bad rap. We think fear is, like, preventing us from everything that we want, or it's keeping us closed off. But in some ways, too, fear can be this thing that fuels us and tells us, “hey, there's something I desperately want and I'm scared that I'm not gonna get it.” And so if we listen, you know, it's just, it's just the way that we flip it or we spin it, or the way that we're listening to it and what we're paying attention to. So for me right now, my fear is telling me like, “if I do not do this, I will stay stuck and I will not grow. And I don't want that to happen.” So I'm gonna do it, even if I'm shaking in my boots. [Laughter]
Exactly, exactly. So well stated. Thank you.
Was there anything else that you wanted to share that you didn't get to or that we missed?
Oh, no. Likewise. I appreciate your time. I think the only thing that I’d like to mention is that, you know, my experience with ketamine was clearly not a positive experience. And I think that there is a lot of caution to be utilizing this, that, that prescription medication with patients with dissociative disorders without carefully screening and assessing that to prevent it from worsening the situation in any way or opening things up too fast. So there's just that caution that my experience may not be what other people experience. And I trust that there are providers out there that are prescribing appropriately and utilizing, you know, the ethics around these things. So I think that my caution with my story is that, you know, there were definitely things that were going wrong ethically, but not all providers are, you know, practicing that way, and they are practicing within the bounds and ethics codes. So not necessarily a reason to distrust your provider in any way. Of course, trusting is something that we learn to experience over time with consistent behavior and actions and words. So that's just my one caveat around my story, or some of my story, I guess, to share, that I've shared with people.
I love that it comes right back to safety. It seems so simple.
It seems that way.
Thank you so much for talking to us.
Thank you Emma. It's been a pleasure.
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