Raising funds for a client to receive therapy treatment. Dear Friends, I have a client that I have been working with for over six years with very little results. She has complex trauma and has been living in a state of extreme internal terror and dysregulation since a massive trauma 10 years ago. To protect her privacy I cannot share too many details about her, but if you know me well, I think you can trust my integrity and judgment around why I'm doing this fundraiser for her. We have tapped into some cutting-edge treatments that involve the use of psychedelics that her psychiatrist, myself and her husband who is a physician are all in full support of. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN 10 YEARS THAT A TREATMENT HAS FELT PROMISING AND THERE IS DATA TO BACK IT UP. She tried MDMA but it didn't work because she is on SSRI medication that blocks the MDMA from working. So we tried ketamine which she is responding well to (this means that the ketamine is able to settle her nervous system for a few minutes- this is something she has never (never!) felt before). Our hope is that the ketamine can help her taper off of her SSRI so that she can benefit from other psychedelics. (Again, there is some compelling data on the use of ketamine along with hyperbolic tapering to support a successful taper). We are doing all of this with a trusted medical doctor who specializes in trauma and psychedelics. The current treatment plan is a 12 month plan. I can share the details if you want them. This treatment is not covered by insurance and M has three small children, two with special needs. She cannot work because of her trauma. She has a partner who works, but they still cannot afford the treatment. The doctor we are working with and I am charging her only half our fee, but there are other hard costs associated with this plan. This includes weekly therapy with me, consistent monitoring by her psychiatrist and the physician we are working with, ketamine sessions weekly, babysitters to watch kids while she's in sessions, flights to LA to do MDMA with the team here once she has tapered, etc. We'd be happy to share a detailed breakdown of the budget (which actually totals almost 16k for the one year protocol we have mapped out). M is committed to documenting her process to share with others, and I am committed to paying forward all that I am learning through this process by finding ways for others to access this treatment. M is very special to me and this treatment is literally a matter of life or death for her at this point. She will not be able to care for her family if she's not able to get some relief. She is one of the kindest and most sincere people I've met and she deserves a shot at having a stable life. *********************** Below is something that she has written to share with anyone considering supporting this fundraiser: It took me a long time to admit I suffer from PTSD. In the beginning, I rested in the notion that my body and spirit could find their way back. I used to get homesick for what I called “old me.” Now I don’t even remember her. The truth is that trauma changes us. It changes our neuro chemistry. It changes the connections in our brain and how our brain connects to our body. My nervous system runs on high most of the time. My outside rarely pairs with the sparks or darkness flickering through my inside. It’s like my toddler got a hold of my circuit board and reconnected the wires. It looks good- but runs faulty. Excitement sometimes makes me panic because my nervous system reads the hormones wrong. Panic sometimes makes me freeze because my brain thinks I must stay absolutely still to survive, despite being safe in my bed. PTSD is a thief. It stole my ability to imagine and see the color of life. I’ve been on medication for longer than my children have been alive. They don’t know a mama who is healthy on her own accord- I’m the only version of me that they’ve ever known. There have been times that medicine kept me safe, a participant in the world, a capable partner and mom. But medicine also keeps me in the middle. I see the world via the 10 pack of Crayola crayons and I hear there is a 108 pack- colors that are dark all the way to sparkle and neon. I’ve needed other people to hold the hope for a long time. Times change. My team, my family and even I believe in this moment. As medicines like ketamine and MDMA rise to the horizon, they offer evidence based hope. The data says I can live a different life if granted the opportunity. My hope is to taper off my medication in a safe, sustainable and monitored way. The internet, the doctors, everyone says it’s nearly impossible to taper off short acting SNRIs. But that impossibility lies in the fact that there aren’t means to support the patient. Forced to army crawl through the process, the stories I find are ones of despair and relative failure. I want to document this experience in real time, in both its challenge and in success. This medicine and treatment that has the potential to help me, to change my life for the better, it only exists outside the paradigm of clinical practice. Its cost is almost unreachable for even the steady and insured among us. Access requires providers who flex and bend and exhibit a willingness to walk on the cutting edge of medicine. It requires people who practice in integrity with themselves, who offer a level of transparency uncommon in the walls of institutions and a commitment to their patients to keep trying. I never could have imagined that an opportunity to be free would come my way. I thought this was my life. Hala, my doctors, this time and space- it’s begging me to take a leap. To try. And to believe in something better. Thank you for helping me. Thank you for sharing my story today and for all the days to come.
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