Name: Theo Von Explains What Ketamine Therapy Was Like
Uploaded: 2021-06-03T02:05:23.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Theo Von Explains What Ketamine Therapy Was Like' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-06-03. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Theo Von Explains What Ketamine Therapy Was Like' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-06-03. Transcript available.

One of the reasons I went to get the ketamine therapy is because I didn't know
why I'm still
on antidepressants. It's like one of the weirdest medicines that, you know, I
was having a tough
time when I was like 20 and I went in, they put it on, they put me on it or I
agreed to be on it,
you know, I mean, I took part in it and then now 20 years later, I'm still on
it. So it's kind of
like, like if you broke your leg, you wouldn't have a cast on forever probably.
So some of that
to me is like, what's going on here? Like, is this something I need to be on
forever?
So that's one of the reasons that I went in probably to check it out. You know,
I wish I'd had a better, I was in there with a therapist and I think they were
just more of like
there if I had an issue. I sometimes wish that somebody would have been like
prodding me more
or telling me how to, it's almost like when you go snorkeling, that's what it
kind of felt like a
little bit. It was like, I'm looking at a lot was going on, you know, if I felt
like I'm a roller,
I'm on a roller coaster. I felt like the world is kind of, I felt like I was on
Space Mountain
sometimes with my eyes closed, you know, just kind of like moving through like.
Did you have the round shapes or the square shapes?
I mean, I think there was a turf war going on because there was a lot of,
there was some real, I think it was a lot of shapes out there. You know, it was
definitely like
somebody was, I mean, I remember one time literally yelling out that I was a
cryptocurrency.
I thought I was like, I went, it got pretty gnarly, you know, like it got
pretty gnarly.
Like I remember one time thinking, there's no way I'm going to end up back in
my chair
in this therapist's office. I don't know how I'm going to get there from where
I am.
I've had some fun, you know.
So that kind of stuff was kind of exciting. And I think sometimes I got too
caught looking
at the experience and not using the experience.
Right.
So that's why I wish that there had been more before I went in to get it, that
I had had
more of an understanding of how to navigate the universe a little bit and how
to use the
experience.
Yeah.
Because that I, that I didn't have.
And that is sort of like,
you can do a lot more with ketamine assisted psychotherapy. You can use that
place you're in
to visit the pain that has brought you to this distress state.
Yeah. There was a moment. I remember there was a moment where I got to see my
dad, be around
my dad. Right. And I'd never, my dad died when I was like 16 and he was really
older, man. He
was 86 when he passed away and I was 16. So he was older when I was born. He
was an adult,
you know, he was senior citizen. But, um, I got to have like this experience
around him and it was
like a real, like it felt like I was around him and I got to let him, I, I got
to, you know, I felt
like my dad never knew how much I loved him. I felt like I just never gotten to
an age where I could
tell him that I loved him, you know, and I didn't realize how much that was
kind of haunting me, I
think somewhere inside of me, you know, like, um,
Um, yeah, exactly. I just never knew like that. That was such a big thing going
on underneath me
somewhere. And, uh, and I literally got to have a moment or a little bit, a
couple moments with him
in a emotional state, kind of, it felt like anyway, to me, it felt very real to
me that I was letting
him know, uh, how much I loved him. Yeah. And that, and that's priceless. Cause
there's no,
there was no other way to do that. I mean, there may, there may have been, but
I hadn't found that
yet. Yeah. And that, that is like core to what, um, ketamine is psychotherapy
gives people access
to. It's like those little gaps, those little holes in our heart that, that
happened to us when
we're young shape a lot of our life. And so to be able to reach back in time
and, and find yourself
then and there, and that, that sort of that grief, pain of separation that you,
you didn't get to have
with him, you could connect to yourself and, and sort of complete almost in a
way like the grieving
process. So you could release that tension from yourself. Yeah. That, that,
that distress that's,
that's like, that's in there and it's always in there and it's, you don't know
how to get it out
and you're pushing through life and a couple of decades go by and you're like,
I'm still haunted by things. And some people are not able to even see some of
those things.
It felt really intimate, you know, I remember, I mean, right when I started to
go under,
I just started tears just like rolled out of my eyes, you know, like, I don't
even know what
was going on really, you know, I think it could have just been like, I mean, me,
I'm always probably
30% sad. So who knows what it was, you know, but, um, but I remember it just
being pretty emotional
out of the gate. And the first day I was dehydrated literally just from like
crying, I think half
of the whole session, like, and some of it, I didn't even realize I was crying.
Like I didn't even
really feel it because I was kind of also, you get kind of, you're kind of
anesthetized
in a way. So the main part of me that's still awake is kind of this, kind of
that all knowing
place inside of your head where you have ideas and stuff, you know, like
whenever you're thinking
about something, you envision something like that place, you know.
I have had quite a few patients that, and I tell them this, I'm like, hey, you
know, a lot
of them tend to feel pretty quiet. Like they have like, um, all the, the, the
mental movie
is sort of taking a break when they're, when they're done for their session for
the day.
And they kind of like, I'm like, yeah, just roll with that. Don't do any
homework. Just
sort of like try to, you know, I try to keep them on zero. Um, and I, and I say
it is, you
know, very possible that if you just start burst out into tears later tonight,
that's normal.
That means like you're, you've connected to something and that's like an overdue
release.
That's fascinating, man. Yeah. I noticed after a couple of treatments, I'd had
an idea. I was
running one day and I just had like a good idea and I used to have good ideas
all the time. I mean,
I'm just, I'm judging my own ideas, but I thought they were pretty good, but,
but I used to have
ideas a lot. And I just, for like a year, I just hadn't even gotten an idea.
Like I've just been
kind of living with the pieces of every day, you know, and it's been fine. Life
has been fine. I'm not,
I'm not complaining. I'm not asking for any pity. I'm just explaining where I'm
at. But,
but I hadn't found it, gotten anything new to come out of my brain, you know?
And so I noticed that
I was running by some turkeys somewhere at this park. And then I don't know, I
just got like an
idea that was like fun and it made me laugh. It made me smile. I was like, oh
man, what a gift. Like
when something's able to just kind of travel through us and make us feel good,
which is how we probably should be a lot of times, you know, is to be a conduit
for joy to at least
pass through instead of being kind of a, um, a place where something has put up
a fence
or something has put up like a firewall or, you know, different elements like
you're saying.
Yeah. And that's what I want to say. Like I'm not telling anybody to go get
this therapy
or saying that this is, you know, I wanted to have an experience with it. Um,
cause I'm
going to try to get off of antidepressants. Yeah. So, um, I'm working with my
doctor now
and try and like slowly wean myself off, um, which is some, which is cool. The,
the, the place that I
went, the, there, they have like some follow through there with like trying to
help me like
do that and, and manage that. So I'm excited about that. And I'm still working
with my regular
therapist. Um, but yeah, I definitely wanted to have the experiences. So I knew
kind of what it was
like, um, and what's possible. Um, you know, I love to kind of figure out how I'm
thinking
and feeling and why and stuff like that, you know? Um, so it's, it's nice to
kind of see if
what things I can get, get through and get away from. And I, I find that like
anchors, I can pull
up kind of find that, you know, in, in my practice, about half my patients don't
get ketamine. Like
we, we, you know, it's sort of like, why are you here? And they're, they're
more like,
they don't know why they're there. They're like, they, they want access to well-being.
They want relief from distress. That's what they really want. Right. But they
come in with
like diagnoses and I'm like, well, let's talk about what you, what's really
going on. And
then, you know, we, we talk and we, we gotta, you know, it's like, we gotta get
to know each
other. It's not like, I'm like, Hey, yeah, here, get out. Um, and they may turn
into ketamine
patients. Once we find like hard stops, places that are, are, you know, like I,
I shared earlier,
I had that lady, she wasn't a ketamine patient. Okay. And as we got to know
each other and I was
sort of helping shape her therapy using other things, we, she felt comfortable
sharing me with
some pretty disturbing stuff. And then she shared some even more disturbing,
and then she, she couldn't,
she stopped. I was like, um, yeah, it's sort of like, let's, let's change gears
because we're
running into some very emotionally distressing things that she couldn't
articulate at that
point. And in order to get through those, we, I wanted to protect her. So that's
when we slid
over into the ketamine room. And now she's, she's about, she's in process and
she's autumn. You could
just see the light in her eyes. Now she's, you know, it's like, she, it's like,
it's not just like,
go get ketamine. It's like, why are you here? Right. And, and that's why we, we
talk about,
well, what's going on. And well, there was an experience one month. I had an
experience at one
point where I felt like I ended up like in a corner of the world, kind of, it
was kind of like,
I felt like you ever been in like a video game and you get stuck somewhere on
it and you can't even
move. Like your guy gets stuck and you're just, I felt like I got stuck at like
the edge of the
universe, like where the universe, like we, like I finally found like the two
walls of the universe,
like the ends of it. And I got stuck like in the corner and I don't know what
was going on.
Were you, were you leaving the chair or coming back to the chair?
I was on my way back to the chair.
Okay. Yeah. It's interesting. Like, you know, because like, did you feel like
you were
like getting light in the chair and then like your fingers started to get all.
Yeah. You know, I didn't even notice that. I just remember kind of talking in a
conversation.
Then next thing you know, I go on this ride and I'm not even talking that much
anymore.
I'm just kind of on this journey.
People are, so I talk to my patients a lot and they, some of them remember,
some of them don't,
but they come in different, they come in different like personalities. Like you
can kind of, there's,
I'm starting to get a, there's different types that come in there. Like I got
my musicians
and they start singing for me and you know, they're belting it out or they're
composing
right there in front of me. And I'm like, this is cool. And then, you know,
you got the guys who are my, my trees are running off the screen. And my one
kid who tried to
hop up and run out, but he forgot he was on ketamine and you can't move.
He didn't even get out of the chair. You could just see it. He was like,
no, no, no, no, no. And I was like, it's okay, man. And, uh,
That's crisped out, man. He was probably all crisped out.
Yeah. He, he had some issues.
It gets, I mean, it's definitely gnarly. I was, I, it didn't feel like, I guess
in some
ways it felt like a drug. It felt like an experience to me, right? You know, um,
I felt like I was kind of grateful for the experience. I was grateful to be
back from the
experience whenever I got back from the like trip or whatever you kind of go on
during it or whatever,
like the visual, the experience, the out of body kind of experience. I felt
grateful whenever I got
back to my chair, because there was moments where I was like, I am never, you
know, I don't care.
Yeah. No, I'll never, they'll never find me.
And the, yeah, it's like, I'm lost. Like, where am I in the world, in the
universe?
That will never find me. I was at like, I was in Atlanta. I was in Castlevania,
that video game for when I was a kid. I was in some, I was on the back of
someone's
neck. I was, there was a lot, it was, I was sliding down stuff, a lot of like
moving along huge.
I don't know if it was like electronic land, sides of walls.
I had a lady recently, she could hear, I got like these pictures of a forest or
in my,
one of my rooms and she could hear the forest.
Wow.
And then she was like, then she could hear a lawn mower like, and I was like,
that's pretty cool.
You know, cause it was, she was not disturbed. She was just like, oh yeah, I
can hear the forest.
And I was like, that was a first. Like the auditories were, were, are not as
common.
That's strong.
Hope you enjoyed that video and you can watch another and you can watch this
one.
You can watch this one, different options, different choices.
Some guy just brings you a one option, not this guy, two options. Watch one,
this one or this one.

Theo Von Explains What Ketamine Therapy Was Like

One of the reasons I went to get the ketamine therapy is because I didn't know
why I'm still
on antidepressants. It's like one of the weirdest medicines that, you know, I
was having a tough
time when I was like 20 and I went in, they put it on, they put me on it or I
agreed to be on it,
you know, I mean, I took part in it and then now 20 years later, I'm still on
it. So it's kind of
like, like if you broke your leg, you wouldn't have a cast on forever probably.
So some of that
to me is like, what's going on here? Like, is this something I need to be on
forever?
So that's one of the reasons that I went in probably to check it out. You know,
I wish I'd had a better, I was in there with a therapist and I think they were
just more of like
there if I had an issue. I sometimes wish that somebody would have been like
prodding me more
or telling me how to, it's almost like when you go snorkeling, that's what it
kind of felt like a
little bit. It was like, I'm looking at a lot was going on, you know, if I felt
like I'm a roller,
I'm on a roller coaster. I felt like the world is kind of, I felt like I was on
Space Mountain
sometimes with my eyes closed, you know, just kind of like moving through like.
Did you have the round shapes or the square shapes?
I mean, I think there was a turf war going on because there was a lot of,
there was some real, I think it was a lot of shapes out there. You know, it was
definitely like
somebody was, I mean, I remember one time literally yelling out that I was a
cryptocurrency.
I thought I was like, I went, it got pretty gnarly, you know, like it got
pretty gnarly.
Like I remember one time thinking, there's no way I'm going to end up back in
my chair
in this therapist's office. I don't know how I'm going to get there from where
I am.
I've had some fun, you know.
So that kind of stuff was kind of exciting. And I think sometimes I got too
caught looking
at the experience and not using the experience.
Right.
So that's why I wish that there had been more before I went in to get it, that
I had had
more of an understanding of how to navigate the universe a little bit and how
to use the
experience.
Yeah.
Because that I, that I didn't have.
And that is sort of like,
you can do a lot more with ketamine assisted psychotherapy. You can use that
place you're in
to visit the pain that has brought you to this distress state.
Yeah. There was a moment. I remember there was a moment where I got to see my
dad, be around
my dad. Right. And I'd never, my dad died when I was like 16 and he was really
older, man. He
was 86 when he passed away and I was 16. So he was older when I was born. He
was an adult,
you know, he was senior citizen. But, um, I got to have like this experience
around him and it was
like a real, like it felt like I was around him and I got to let him, I, I got
to, you know, I felt
like my dad never knew how much I loved him. I felt like I just never gotten to
an age where I could
tell him that I loved him, you know, and I didn't realize how much that was
kind of haunting me, I
think somewhere inside of me, you know, like, um,
Um, yeah, exactly. I just never knew like that. That was such a big thing going
on underneath me
somewhere. And, uh, and I literally got to have a moment or a little bit, a
couple moments with him
in a emotional state, kind of, it felt like anyway, to me, it felt very real to
me that I was letting
him know, uh, how much I loved him. Yeah. And that, and that's priceless. Cause
there's no,
there was no other way to do that. I mean, there may, there may have been, but
I hadn't found that
yet. Yeah. And that, that is like core to what, um, ketamine is psychotherapy
gives people access
to. It's like those little gaps, those little holes in our heart that, that
happened to us when
we're young shape a lot of our life. And so to be able to reach back in time
and, and find yourself
then and there, and that, that sort of that grief, pain of separation that you,
you didn't get to have
with him, you could connect to yourself and, and sort of complete almost in a
way like the grieving
process. So you could release that tension from yourself. Yeah. That, that,
that distress that's,
that's like, that's in there and it's always in there and it's, you don't know
how to get it out
and you're pushing through life and a couple of decades go by and you're like,
I'm still haunted by things. And some people are not able to even see some of
those things.
It felt really intimate, you know, I remember, I mean, right when I started to
go under,
I just started tears just like rolled out of my eyes, you know, like, I don't
even know what
was going on really, you know, I think it could have just been like, I mean, me,
I'm always probably
30% sad. So who knows what it was, you know, but, um, but I remember it just
being pretty emotional
out of the gate. And the first day I was dehydrated literally just from like
crying, I think half
of the whole session, like, and some of it, I didn't even realize I was crying.
Like I didn't even
really feel it because I was kind of also, you get kind of, you're kind of
anesthetized
in a way. So the main part of me that's still awake is kind of this, kind of
that all knowing
place inside of your head where you have ideas and stuff, you know, like
whenever you're thinking
about something, you envision something like that place, you know.
I have had quite a few patients that, and I tell them this, I'm like, hey, you
know, a lot
of them tend to feel pretty quiet. Like they have like, um, all the, the, the
mental movie
is sort of taking a break when they're, when they're done for their session for
the day.
And they kind of like, I'm like, yeah, just roll with that. Don't do any
homework. Just
sort of like try to, you know, I try to keep them on zero. Um, and I, and I say
it is, you
know, very possible that if you just start burst out into tears later tonight,
that's normal.
That means like you're, you've connected to something and that's like an overdue
release.
That's fascinating, man. Yeah. I noticed after a couple of treatments, I'd had
an idea. I was
running one day and I just had like a good idea and I used to have good ideas
all the time. I mean,
I'm just, I'm judging my own ideas, but I thought they were pretty good, but,
but I used to have
ideas a lot. And I just, for like a year, I just hadn't even gotten an idea.
Like I've just been
kind of living with the pieces of every day, you know, and it's been fine. Life
has been fine. I'm not,
I'm not complaining. I'm not asking for any pity. I'm just explaining where I'm
at. But,
but I hadn't found it, gotten anything new to come out of my brain, you know?
And so I noticed that
I was running by some turkeys somewhere at this park. And then I don't know, I
just got like an
idea that was like fun and it made me laugh. It made me smile. I was like, oh
man, what a gift. Like
when something's able to just kind of travel through us and make us feel good,
which is how we probably should be a lot of times, you know, is to be a conduit
for joy to at least
pass through instead of being kind of a, um, a place where something has put up
a fence
or something has put up like a firewall or, you know, different elements like
you're saying.
Yeah. And that's what I want to say. Like I'm not telling anybody to go get
this therapy
or saying that this is, you know, I wanted to have an experience with it. Um,
cause I'm
going to try to get off of antidepressants. Yeah. So, um, I'm working with my
doctor now
and try and like slowly wean myself off, um, which is some, which is cool. The,
the, the place that I
went, the, there, they have like some follow through there with like trying to
help me like
do that and, and manage that. So I'm excited about that. And I'm still working
with my regular
therapist. Um, but yeah, I definitely wanted to have the experiences. So I knew
kind of what it was
like, um, and what's possible. Um, you know, I love to kind of figure out how I'm
thinking
and feeling and why and stuff like that, you know? Um, so it's, it's nice to
kind of see if
what things I can get, get through and get away from. And I, I find that like
anchors, I can pull
up kind of find that, you know, in, in my practice, about half my patients don't
get ketamine. Like
we, we, you know, it's sort of like, why are you here? And they're, they're
more like,
they don't know why they're there. They're like, they, they want access to well-being.
They want relief from distress. That's what they really want. Right. But they
come in with
like diagnoses and I'm like, well, let's talk about what you, what's really
going on. And
then, you know, we, we talk and we, we gotta, you know, it's like, we gotta get
to know each
other. It's not like, I'm like, Hey, yeah, here, get out. Um, and they may turn
into ketamine
patients. Once we find like hard stops, places that are, are, you know, like I,
I shared earlier,
I had that lady, she wasn't a ketamine patient. Okay. And as we got to know
each other and I was
sort of helping shape her therapy using other things, we, she felt comfortable
sharing me with
some pretty disturbing stuff. And then she shared some even more disturbing,
and then she, she couldn't,
she stopped. I was like, um, yeah, it's sort of like, let's, let's change gears
because we're
running into some very emotionally distressing things that she couldn't
articulate at that
point. And in order to get through those, we, I wanted to protect her. So that's
when we slid
over into the ketamine room. And now she's, she's about, she's in process and
she's autumn. You could
just see the light in her eyes. Now she's, you know, it's like, she, it's like,
it's not just like,
go get ketamine. It's like, why are you here? Right. And, and that's why we, we
talk about,
well, what's going on. And well, there was an experience one month. I had an
experience at one
point where I felt like I ended up like in a corner of the world, kind of, it
was kind of like,
I felt like you ever been in like a video game and you get stuck somewhere on
it and you can't even
move. Like your guy gets stuck and you're just, I felt like I got stuck at like
the edge of the
universe, like where the universe, like we, like I finally found like the two
walls of the universe,
like the ends of it. And I got stuck like in the corner and I don't know what
was going on.
Were you, were you leaving the chair or coming back to the chair?
I was on my way back to the chair.
Okay. Yeah. It's interesting. Like, you know, because like, did you feel like
you were
like getting light in the chair and then like your fingers started to get all.
Yeah. You know, I didn't even notice that. I just remember kind of talking in a
conversation.
Then next thing you know, I go on this ride and I'm not even talking that much
anymore.
I'm just kind of on this journey.
People are, so I talk to my patients a lot and they, some of them remember,
some of them don't,
but they come in different, they come in different like personalities. Like you
can kind of, there's,
I'm starting to get a, there's different types that come in there. Like I got
my musicians
and they start singing for me and you know, they're belting it out or they're
composing
right there in front of me. And I'm like, this is cool. And then, you know,
you got the guys who are my, my trees are running off the screen. And my one
kid who tried to
hop up and run out, but he forgot he was on ketamine and you can't move.
He didn't even get out of the chair. You could just see it. He was like,
no, no, no, no, no. And I was like, it's okay, man. And, uh,
That's crisped out, man. He was probably all crisped out.
Yeah. He, he had some issues.
It gets, I mean, it's definitely gnarly. I was, I, it didn't feel like, I guess
in some
ways it felt like a drug. It felt like an experience to me, right? You know, um,
I felt like I was kind of grateful for the experience. I was grateful to be
back from the
experience whenever I got back from