“Motherhood is a choice you make everyday, to put someone else’s happiness and well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when you’re not sure what the right thing is…and to forgive yourself, over and over again, for doing everything wrong.” – Donna Ball, author of At Home on Ladybug Farm

Let’s talk about moms.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and if you were a mom yesterday, chances are, you’re still a mom today. We could talk about all the idealistic and billowing praises that are bestowed upon moms in greeting cards, but let’s don’t. Let’s talk about what it’s really like to be one. And if you’re a depressed mom, ketamine can restore your hope, your joy, and your stamina to help your children grow. More about that in a bit.

Motherhood Is a Handful.

With the best of intentions, you gather your kids together and tell them you’re all going on a camping trip. Together! But….there is so much to be done before you can all load the car. So in the spirit of pitching in and working for the common good, you assign each one a task that will help shorten the prep time.

Then you focus on your own tasks which include packing food for meals. While you’re busy in the kitchen, you hear an unusual noise.

Closer inspection reveals that your 10 year-old son is in the bathroom (which he was supposed to be cleaning) after putting his sleeping bag by the front door, and has filled the sink with water.

He’s floating a little boat on the water with his pet hamster in the boat which immediately jumps out of the boat, over to the counter and jumps down under the cabinet and disappears.

Oh dear.

Now there’s a loose rodent in the house. Aaaarrrgghhhhh!!

Feel your resilience waning..? If you find out you’re a depressed mom, ketamine can restore. Keep reading…

Your son, who got bored cleaning the bathroom, had gotten distracted with his hamster. Now how to find the hamster?

Kids are just kids. Full of surprises. It takes a sense of humor…

When It Rains It Pours

Meanwhile, you stop in the boys’ room and find your 7 year-old, who was supposed to clean his room after delivering his sleeping bag to the front door, sitting among a pile of Little Golden books. Reading. (What joy!) But apparently he had to go through the entire bookshelf of 43 Little Golden books to find the one he wanted to read. His floor is covered with books he’s tossed.

After sternly instructing him to pick up all his books PRONTO! you realize you better check on your 21 month-old daughter. Distractions can pile up when you’re focusing on packing 3 meals a day for 4 days and you have a houseful of active children…you didn’t notice she wandered off.

Turns out she’s in your bedroom. At first sight, you panic. Is that blood? Her face is covered! What happened??

Upon closer inspection after snatching her up in your arms, you see that it’s not blood. It’s lipstick. Her face is so covered with the stain of it, you know she’ll be raw by the time you get it even partially off.

Then you look at your feet. Your favorite white leather summer bag, and your butter soft cream-colored pumps, have both been painted with lipstick to match.

How thoughtful. Sigh.

The fact that that was a brand new tube of lipstick is now beside the point.

Calamities, Crises, and Catastrophes

Then…sniff, sniff… what is that smell…?

You head for the kitchen, baby girl on your hip, and the kitchen and living area are in a cloud of smoke…then BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!! The smoke alarms.

Run to the stove. OH NO!! The eggs you put on to boil for sandwiches have boiled dry and are burning!!!

Move the pan off the burner. Turn off the burner. Open windows. Gather kids and go outside for fresh air.

You collapse into a lawn chair and watch the kids playing happily in the yard. The classic comic escapades of Calvin and Hobbes comes to mind…

Maybe you’ll just get chicken at the drive-through…?

Add to all of this the challenges of quarantine in a global pandemic! There aren’t words. But you do what you have to do, don’t you?

Motherhood is providing a listening ear, helping with Cub Scouts and Brownies, fighting fevers in the wee hours, encouraging the discouraged, instilling hope, tutoring when homework overwhelms, instructing, providing structure, instilling values, creating celebrations, stretching the budget, inspiring creativity, keeping idle hands occupied, teaching self-reliance, comforting broken hearts, and so much more.

And this is when you’re healthy, resilient, and stable.

But what about when you’re not?

What about when anxiety makes it impossible for you to participate in sports with your child, or Cub Scouts, Brownies, or Blue Birds?

The sheer dread you feel about leaving the house to take your child to these activities and interact with the parents makes it so difficult that you may make it a time or two, but eventually the energy required to push through all that dread and fear leads to missing meetings and practices…if not abandoning it altogether.

To the Depressed Mom: Ketamine Can Restore Your Hope

Then there’s the guilt you feel for failing to give your child every advantage.

What about when PTSD creates such traumatic responses in you that you just can’t leave the house, and find your reactions are terrorizing your children…but you can’t make it stop..?

If you’re a mom with PTSD…or a depressed mom… ketamine can restore your resilience and your hope.

A simple pat on the back when you attend a gathering, or a loud noise in the kitchen…even the deep voice of a stranger… can send you into such terror, sweating, and reactions that, you know, you just feel safer at home.

Or when you just can’t get out of bed… so you get the children to watch TV, because you know at least they’re safe, but it nags at you because you know this isn’t a healthy, carefree way to spend childhood.

But it’s the best you can do.

If you struggle with symptoms like these, and they interfere with the mom you want to be…and if the medicines prescribed by your doctor haven’t helped… there’s hope.

When you’re a depressed mom, ketamine can restore your joy.

If you’ve been seeing your doctor and the medicines she’s prescribed have worked to reduce your symptoms, then you’re all set.

But did you know that at least a third of people who have these symptoms are not helped at all by prescription medicines?

That’s where ketamine treatment comes in. It works in the brain in ways these prescribed medications don’t. And its remarkable, even extraordinary, and robust relief is transformative for most of those who receive it.

Ketamine works in multiple ways and in multiple areas in the brain. And it’s fast. So, instead of having to wait weeks or months for a prescription to help you feel better, with ketamine treatment you can feel better in hours or days.

Ketamine turns on mRNA so it will turn on DNA to turboboost BDNF — brain derived neurotrophic factor — that works like a rich compost to trigger the rapid and prolific growth of dendrites and dendritic spines in the neurons in your brain.

This multiplies the synapse connections fast to send signals across your brain, and wake up your emotions. Creativity blooms, quick thinking, solid decision making, initiative, motivation, hope…and joy all come to life and transform your outlook and your productivity.

And you can love life again.

You Don’t Have to Endure Suicidal Thoughts…You Really Don’t

In addition, if you’ve been plagued by suicidal thoughts, it can stop those thoughts in a few hours. Then you can be free to invest in restoring your life, rebuilding your thoughts and infrastructure, and restructuring and strengthening your relationships.

It may sound too good to be true…but if you’re a depressed mom, ketamine can restore the real you, the person who has dreams for yourself and your children, and wants to have the resilience to help them fulfill their dreams.

At Innovative Psychiatry, we enjoy the privilege of watching people walk out with fresh joy and hope every week.

If you’ve struggled with the kinds of symptoms we’ve talked about here, and medicines haven’t helped, call us.

We’re here to help you live well again, to find your joy in life again.

Ketamine doesn’t do this for every single person who receives it –of course not!– because there isn’t any medicine or treatment that helps everyone. But it does amazing things for most. There’s no other treatment currently available that brings relief and restoration so quickly for so many who are so symptomatic — in the privacy of a beautiful office, beginning that afternoon . . .

Discouraged, Depressed Mom? Ketamine Can Restore Your Resilience

You can sing again, experience joy welling up inside you, laugh with your children, and all the things you have wished you could do.

Give yourself the opportunity to feel truly better. Spend this year enjoying your life and your family. We can help you get there.

To the blooming of your best self,

Lori Calabrese, M.D.

Lori Calabrese, MD

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