Celeste quivered in the dark recesses of the closet… trying to breathe ever so quietly. She didn’t want to alert her husband to her hiding place. His violent assaults had become more and more severe…she could feel her eye throbbing and her lip swelling, but the worst was the soreness in her neck. He had almost crushed her airway this time. She knew if he found her he might finish her off. So she tried to breathe without making a sound. It was hard. She was terrified — and knew that this kind of severe abuse trauma leads to PTSD, but she couldn’t worry about that now.
Then, unexpectedly the closet door opened.
She froze.
Cam pushed the hanging clothes aside and peered into the darkness. She prayed he wouldn’t see her.
Then, with horror, she felt his hand close around her ankle, and he jerked her out of her hiding place by her leg. Her head bumped the wall as she was dragged out. She screamed.
He dragged her to the cat’s litter box and holding her hands behind her back he forced dirty litter into her mouth and down her throat. Celeste choked and coughed. Then gagged. She scrambled to get her feet under her so she could run, but he tackled her and forced her to the floor. He wrapped his arm around her neck and she could feel her airway closing off. She closed her eyes and tried to relax.
She went limp.
Cam loosened his hold to see what was going on. She took advantage of that split second he was off-guard, then twisted and kicked him in the stomach with all her strength. She spotted her keys on the table and pushed to her feet as she ran for the front door, grabbing the keys on the way. Out the door, into her car, she started it and threw it into gear. Celeste took off with tires squealing.
She looked in the rearview mirror. There was no sign of him.
She turned at one corner, then the next, trying to disappear. Then she turned her car toward the highway.
Celeste drove and drove, trying to calm down, but she was still shaking. The scenes of the morning played over and over in her mind. Terror that he would find her, pull up behind her on the road, kept her rigid with fear. She knew this kind of severe abuse trauma wasn’t normal in a relationship. She just couldn’t find a way to escape it, until now.
She exited at a random exit, and drove west until she reached another highway, then got on it and kept driving. Thank God there was gas in the tank.
He mustn’t find her.
After 2 hours of driving, she finally began to become calmer. With no where else to go, she called her Mom’s cell phone.
The sound of her mother’s voice made her tear up and her voice wavered.
“Mom, I’ve left him. Can I come to your house?”
“Of course, honey!! Where are you?”
“I’m not sure…I’ve been driving. I thought he was going to kill me this time…”
“Oh Celeste, honey, how horrible! I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever. I’m so glad you’re taking a stand to save yourself. Would it help if I met you somewhere?”
“No, Mom. I just want to come to you and be in a safe place. I need to park my car in the garage so if he drives by he won’t know I’m there.”
“Ok. That makes sense. Stay on the phone with me and talk while you drive so you don’t feel alone.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea.”
In 45 minutes, Celeste pulled into her mom’s driveway.
She saw the garage open, so she pulled in and her mom, Jill, was there when she got out of the car. They closed the garage door and went into the house and locked all the doors.
Over the next few weeks, Celeste cried, slept, ate, and slept some more. For the first time, she described to her mom the violence, fear, confusion, and terror that had been her life for the last two years. All of the severe abuse trauma seemed to engulf her.
Her mom had encouraged her to file a report with the police the day after she arrived, so they’d have pictures of her black eye, swollen lip and cheek, and bruised neck and chest.
It was hard. She loved him, or so she thought. She had not told anyone about the violence… to protect him. Letting go of that protection and loyalty – to take care of herself – was extremely difficult.
She didn’t want him to continue hurting her, but she didn’t want to hurt him, either.
Still, she saw his car drive by the house a few times over the next few weeks. She hired a lawyer to help her with a restraining order, and she never went anywhere alone.
She felt so vulnerable.
Celeste found herself jumping at unexpected sounds, loud noises, voices when she didn’t realize someone was nearby. When she ran into an old friend in a grocery store, the friend hugged her and patted her back. She froze, broke out in sweat and began to shake.
She slept very little, lying in her bed tense and wide awake, and plagued by a rapid cycle of thoughts, memories, fears. When she did fall asleep, she had nightmares of Cam and soon woke up again.
She knew in her head she was living in a safe place now, but Cam seemed all-powerful to her, and she expected he could turn up anywhere at anytime…and she believed he’d kill her.
She found she was too terrified, more and more, to step outside the house. Walking to the mailbox to collect the mail made her feel terribly vulnerable, so she stopped doing it. Trips to the grocery store became too threatening, so she stayed home. Severe abuse trauma choked her when she considered leaving.
After awhile, she found she only felt safe in her bedroom.
So she stayed there. All the time.
Her mom watched her emotional state deteriorate more and more. She brought meals to her room, gave her plenty of time to herself, and sat with her on her bed sometimes to talk and offer moral support.
Finally, Jill got on her laptop and searched for an understanding of the symptoms she saw in Celeste. The hypervigilance, tension, and insomnia… her reaction to being touched, patted, or spoken to… her fear of leaving the house, then her room.
She felt gut punched and choked all over again. Apparently, 2 years of trauma had taken a toll.
PTSD from severe abuse trauma seemed the best explanation.
Jill talked to her about it and what she learned. She bought a book about it for Jill to read in hopes it would help her understand herself and her fears.
She also learned there was an effective treatment for PTSD using IV ketamine treatment.
IV Ketamine for PTSD
She read one article after another that explained neuroscience studies about how IV ketamine treatment can bring remission to symptoms of PTSD. The jumpiness, the panic, the fear and anxiety, the depression.
After printing off a pile of articles, she went to her daughter and told her what she’d found. She told her she was also searching for a place where Celeste could receive ketamine treatment.
Celeste started scanning the articles, writing notes in the margins as she read.
She began to feel hope that life could be better.
The idea that she didn’t have to live in a prison of fear and panic opened a window in her mind and light and fresh air streamed in.
She learned about how the stress of severe abuse trauma wears down the synapses or connections between brain cells, called neurons. That the neurons rely on those connections to send signals around the brain, communicating from one region to another. When those connections are lost, the signals can no longer be transmitted, and depression grows.
Cognition, courage, creativity, and hope all rely on those connections. The result is poor concentration, fear, panic, despair, and hopelessness… a cluster of PTSD symptoms. A cluster in general.
Celeste asked her mom to help her find a psychiatrist who treat her with IV ketamine treatment.
IV Ketamine Treatment
With her mom’s help, they found a practice within a couple hours drive and called to make an appointment.
There were other clinics closer to her home that offered ketamine treatment, but she wanted a prominent psychiatrist who understood her condition and could guide her as she received treatment. It felt safer.
After the first three infusions which were 3 days apart, Celeste couldn’t really feel any difference, and she began to worry. She read more articles about how long it should take to feel better, went online, started panicking that it wasn’t going to work….and then learned that everyone is different. Some feel a little better the first day, others after a couple treatments, others later than that… so she told herself to be calm and patient. It was hard to hold on to hope.
After the 5th treatment, it was as if a light began to turn on inside her. She felt slightly less nervous, less fearful, less panicky.
After that, with each treatment, she felt better and better. After 8 treatments, she felt remarkably better and noticed in the following couple weeks the improvement continued.
She decided to attend a therapy group of others who had suffered from PTSD. And it helped for awhile, then she didn’t feel as well as she had.
Sometimes a booster is the ticket
About a month after her last treatment, she seemed to be feeling shaky again, as the severe abuse trauma seemed to begin to surface again. So she called for a booster infusion. Once again, after that she improved dramatically again until she felt more like her old self than she had in a number of years.
Cam was arrested for assault, evidence was collected, and the case was built with her help and numerous visits to the D.A. Without ketamine, she could not have left the house, much less gone to his office for meetings to build the case.
As it happened, Cam was sentenced to 3 years in prison, which gave Celeste time to rebuild her life to some degree. But most importantly, she could live in peace with her surroundings, and her emotions.
The panic attacks subsided, her hope grew, and she decided to go back to school to get her law degree so she could help people who have been through what she had.
She could breathe again, and she looked forward with joy.
Do you know someone who suffers from PTSD?
IV ketamine treatment can do wonderful work in your brain cells and their synapses to soothe PTSD symptoms. In fact, it can help you achieve remission.
If you’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, or can identify with Celeste’s symptoms, and nothing you’ve tried has helped, call us.
One of the most effective treatments for PTSD today is IV ketamine treatment. We’ve been watching people like you recover from PTSD symptoms for years with the IV ketamine treatment we provide.
If you’ve been through severe trauma and fear has made your life feel like a prison, let us help you receive this remarkable treatment, so you can find freedom from the symptoms that keep you from living the life you deserve.
We’re all about helping you move forward with joy.
To the restoration of your best self,
