My Nervous System - Episode 16

I wake up mid-retreat and my body feels different — truly rested for maybe the first time in years. I break down my sleep numbers and why I think I’ve undervalued sleep my whole life. Then I go somewhere unexpected: an old memory, my nervous system being shot long before I knew it, and the grief I still carry for my kids. Tender episode. Meet me where I’m at.

#KarriKennedy #Katabasis #KetamineTherapy #NervousSystemHealing #SleepMatters #TraumaRecovery #MentalHealthJourney #GriefAndHealing #WellnessJourney #CPTSDRecovery #HealingJourney #MomOfSix

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Okay, so I just wanted to get on here because I think this part of ketamine is so important. Um, I just woke up. It's seven o'clock on the dot. I was like, wow, I know I slept good last night. Um, I went to the bathroom and my head is just kind of still in a I can feel that I either slept really good or had the ketamine or had the sound bath, whatever. Um, my head feels different. My brain feels different. I it's really hard to describe this, but I just uh like more of a heavy feel. Like my eyes are heavy still. I'm yawning still. I'm just trying to get up and get going, right? Like, and I I'm just this this relaxation state that I don't know if my body has truly, honestly ever been in. Um, I feel like I haven't talked about this enough, and it's very important. Um, so I don't know if it was after the first ketamine or the second ketamine, but I I know if I I would like to maybe after all of this, these two weeks, just you know, kind of go back and get the benchmarks from my Fitbit on how much sleep I've gotten. But like last night, the two nights before today, for whatever reason, I did not sleep well. Last night, I'm gonna give you some of my information. I got a um 82, which is good. Um, the sleep duration was not as long, but uh, we'll get to that in a second. I'm I've got high high numbers there. Uh sweet sleep quality was a four of four in the range. Now, here's the here's the crazy things. Two of the benchmarks are higher than usual. I got an hour and 50 minutes, an hour and 50 minutes of REM sleep. I got deep sleep 26%, and it was an hour and 46 minutes. So basically an hour and 50 minutes. I mean, roundup real quick, of both REM and deep sleep. That is a shitload. And I'm just here to tell you, before I started doing this, I do not think, I don't know whether it was the PTSD, just stress, just my nervous system. I don't know. But I could probably go back and look. I probably should do that. Like, okay, let's just do this for fun. Let's go back three months ago on this same date. Um, see if I can do something like that. I don't even know how I would. Anyways, okay, on my Google Health, it says I got before I do that, real quick, it says I got six hours and 47 minutes of sleep and my readiness is at a 57. I still don't really understand the readiness thing. But almost see, the reason it's not excellent is because my goal met is seven hours a night. So if I had just slept for 13 more minutes, I would have got excellent on this. But what I really think is important is your deep sleep, your REM, and then like how much restlessness. My restlessness, like just whatever, like moving, tossing, whatever, was only seven minutes. And I was only awake 24 minutes. So though those are just staggering, staggering numbers. Um, let me see if I can get to um okay, so I can do a 30-day average just before. I mean, it's gonna be a little askew because I've been here half of that time. Yeah, that's not gonna work because, hmm, I'm not sure how to get there. But either way, I think Fitbits are awesome. I think it really does help you realize what's working, what's not. Um, and you know, just your sleep quality. I will say the room I was in, it doesn't have a ceiling fan. Um, I like sleeping with a ceiling fan. It gets kind of hotter in this room compared to, you know, the rooms at the end of the building. But I did the I did borrow a fan from somebody some at some point. I think it was day two or three. Charles went and got me a fan. And I have the fan up because they have a tiny little table over there right now. I put it up on uh Trader Joe's box upside down. So the fan is literally on me. I did that last night because it was down too low. So I think between the fan, the magnesium on my feet, I take um magnesia when I get home. I could tell you this stuff, or you guys could message me magnesium peel, an adrenal pill, like two magnesium pills, an adrenal pill. I try to sleep with you know, cotton sheets and and you know, good quality bedding and stuff at home and have the fan on. Also, they say if you wear socks, this goes to Chinese or Japanese uh culture. Uh, if you wear socks at night, you keep your feet uh warm that you'll sleep better. And I just found that out. Like, I don't know, in the last well, I don't know, maybe two months. Yeah, maybe two months. And so I think that that's another really good thing uh to do. So I once again I think that like it says interruptions was five minutes, like where I was interrupted in my sleep last night. And who knows what that was, you know. Um, I also want to just say, I think it's better if you are really thinking about mental health and getting better and your nervous system and stuff to sleep by yourself. Um obviously the divorce, my I was sleeping upstairs for a while, and then my husband's now sleeping upstairs for a while. Um, I think the quality of your bed that you sleep in and all of that, you know, your sheets, your pillows, all of that, it's really, really important. I mean, we spend half of our life asleep, you know, um a huge portion, maybe not half, but a huge portion of our life asleep. And I really do think that the quality of your sleep is going to affect your next day. And I can think of how many years I went through life where I wasn't getting enough sleep. I was waking up in the morning just drinking basically, you know, coffee, which raises your cortisol level. I had no clue. I just clueless. I I remember when I had, you know, a bunch of little kids, I would drink pot, like a pot and a half of coffee. And I would kind of wear it as a badge. Like, yeah, I could drink a pot and a half a coffee a day because I have to. I've got the kids and I've got to get going. I never realized how bad that was for me. And it's it's not that I'm dumb, but I was just ignorant. You know, I just I didn't realize that drinking that much coffee was bad for you. Uh, there's so many things that I was just ignorant about. And uh on sleep, I used to tell myself, it's okay. You'll sleep when you, you know, die. And sleep's not that important. And, you know, I would just goof off with it, you know. I I remember if I woke up in the middle of the night when I had the younger kids, I would get up and I would start folding laundry or doing dishes or, you know, making snacks or making breakfast or whatever in the middle of the night. It never occurred to me that, hey, you know, instead of focusing on all the things you could do and take care of and accomplish, you should really put a high priority on sleep. And so I'm really hoping that this reset of my brain and this, you know, miracle grow and all of this and perspective shifts and nervous system reset, all of this is really going to help me sleep better, which is then gonna help me have better days, which is just gonna help me have a better life and a better outlook, etc. etc. So, um, anyways, that's that. It's seven o'clock. I'm probably gonna sit here for a little bit longer. I listen to podcasts throughout the night. That's the other thing. So if I do get up because I'm on a weird podcast or I don't want to hear that, or whatever it is, I'll I'll put my glasses on real quick and I'll I'll change the podcast. But I I do listen to a lot of that last night, actually, uh at the sound bath, I thought maybe I should start uh it's it's a I've been doing this podcast thing for about eight years, nine years, maybe more, eight or nine years at least, um, where I've used the podcast to sleep. And part of it was because I would have these just thoughts of my kids. Um the time, you know, I had teenagers and babies, and it was just I would just ruminate on all of my kids and their situations and what they're going through and what they needed. And I would just spend a lot of my time in the middle of the night uh waking up and thinking, thinking, thinking. And I so even when I would like take a nap, I'd go try to lay down to take a nap and thoughts of I've got to do this and I've got to take care of this, and this needs to be done, that would pop in my head, and I just could not rest. So focusing on somebody's words and trying, at least trying, um helped me. And now after the sound bath, I thought I'm gonna get on to Spotify at some point today. Boy, I have quite the list now. I'll I'll go through it, but I'm gonna go through Spotify and um, you know, make another. I've got a bunch of different kinds of music here and there, but kind of go in and and play with stuff that isn't what I have right now and maybe look for and make a sound a playlist, you know. Ask uh Christina Joy, you know, do you do you have a playlist like what you played in the Sound Garden that you could share with me? I don't even know if it's I'm guessing it might be Spotify. Some other people use something called YouTube playlist or something, or maybe it's Amazon Prime, something else a lot of people here use, and I can't remember what it is. Um but trying to figure out should I start listening to you know classical music at night or Hertz, you know, whatever. I think it's 426, maybe. I I'm not positive. Um 432, maybe I I'll look it up. Um but also after the when we were talking last night, I thought, ooh, I really like those bowls. That would just be so peaceful to have those bowls and play with those bowls. It would just, I really love the singing bowls. And um I love all of it. Yeah, I'm waking up this morning just going, that was just so awesome. And hopefully you guys heard a little bit of it. I don't think you heard the whole thing at all because um I haven't even seen how many minutes that was. Let me look. That was wow. Okay, I think you did. I think you heard like 40 minutes of it. So um, yeah, almost 37 minutes. So I think that was well no, I take that back. That was another episode. 20 minutes. You heard about 20 minutes of it, if that's right. Um yeah, just trying to keep up with it all. I don't have these even all it says is the title and then the episode. So I don't even know what these are about. I'm gonna have to go back and figure out transcripts when I get back home and then put in what the topic is or something. I have yet to figure that out. Or maybe I'll just leave it elusive. Who knows? Um, but okay, so here's what my plan is today. I feel like it might be a little advantageous. You're gonna be like, that's not that much, but when time functions differently. Oh, and I did realize I forgot this yesterday when I looked at my Fitbit this morning, it also says that yesterday um it tracked me sleeping at 5.07. Um, no, 4:32 to 5.07. So when I was like, what happened to time yesterday? I guess when you know Charles was sitting on the couch and I was watching that movie, I did fall asleep. Um, it says I was awake 14 minutes of it, but I got light sleep of 16 minutes. So I was in and out of consciousness for a little bit. So um 16 minutes, you know, whatever. But uh hey, it was still sleep. So yeah, I think that sleep is very, very important. And y'all need to focus on it if you're not. Okay, here's what I'm planning to do today. Obviously, I have to do the integration thing at 10 o'clock, where you talk about your experience and what you're thinking and processing and learning and blah, blah, blah. So I've got that with Heather, who is also my guide, which I think you should keep those two in line, obviously, because obviously the person who's with you and you're talking to, you know, that makes sense. You don't want to keep going to different people on that, at least from my perspective. I'm sure there's some blind spots somewhere. I don't know everything about ketamine. This is my first, you know, experience, and I've never gone anywhere else. Um, but, anyways, so I've got that at 10 o'clock. I'm gonna do the cold plunge, the sauna, and the spa. I've decided to start cleaning up my pictures on my phone and just start deleting stuff there just at some point. Even if I only spend 15 minutes, I'm going to just start trying to clean up the photos in my phone because I I don't even, it's insane. Um it's um where's my photos here? Let's see, does it tell you how many you have? Oh, okay. 27,851 items. It's just like 28,000 pictures. It just seems absurd to me. And then I thought I would really like to take some good pictures out and maybe make like an at-home actual real album, get pictures made at Walgreens or something and have it there. Maybe not have to be digging through here for different things. Um I, you know, speaking of that, just side note, I remember back in the day they used to have this is like, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago. I remember my nervous, I have these like little highlights of my nervous system being shot, but me not realizing it, right? Me just thinking, oh, I'm just stressed or I'm just tired, not realizing it was my nervous system, like a rubber band being pulled to the max. Um, but I um went to this, I guess it was a they were like photo album making things, scrapbooking. That's what it was. It was some kind of name that went with scrapbooking, and all my friends at church were doing it. And I got invited to this party, this scrapbooking party. They sell the items to you, so you buy an album, and and you know, money was tight. You know, we had six kids, and I remember thinking, gosh, this is a lot of money. Should I buy the album? I ended up going to the kitchen, calling Mark and you know, convincing him I needed this album and and we need to, you know, start doing it. And everybody got down and everybody was all happy and excited, and they're all making their pages, and I was losing my ever-loving mind because I felt so much pressure. I felt so much stress to get everything just perfect. And I started feeling just so much tension and stress in my body. I'm sure I had left the kids, you know. Mark was watching them. I, you know, I didn't get out a whole lot for those type of things at that when the kids were that age. Um, you know, the old I it was probably even older than like 20 years ago. Some the oldest kid was probably like nine or something, um, maybe 12, somewhere in there. And it was just the stress of me leaving them, you know, giving him the, you know, watch them for so long, and and just maybe me needing to get out because I just was so busy taking care of everybody else. I didn't think about myself. This is the pattern, but I remember just feeling so much stress. I started crying at that party, and I I remember feeling like, how dumb are you? Like, I I had to walk outside, I had to leave early. I remember crying in the car. I think I ended up calling Mark. I was just like, I can't do this. I just felt so stupid. I felt so overwhelmed. It was just this whole, I was one of those, you know, you have those markers in your life. And I just remember thinking, why was everybody else totally fine and enjoying their time and you know, putting their scrapbooks together? And I felt so stressed out. I felt so sad, so overwhelmed, just such a pull of I need to be at home, I need to take care of the kids. I couldn't even relax out at with friends because I was just had so much on my plate. And uh I look back at that now and go, oh my gosh, you know, I don't know where that photo, oh, because I was talking about the photos. Um, but yeah, I I mean, so I'm gonna go through and maybe this time that I'm in a different place, I could sit down and actually make a photo album or I could work on it and I could give myself some grace and some time and some processing with that. You know, there's a lot of pictures on my phone that I don't want to see. And uh I, you know, happy I got rid of Facebook because it would pop up and it would say, here's your memory, and then you're you're like forced to see it, right? Like I just it it's sometimes just too painful. Um, especially my grandkids, you know, seeing pictures of them. I I don't know how to process that grief. I don't know how to handle that. Um yeah, I can't even, like I just really, really hard. I'm I'm like I really wanted to, I feel I'm starting to feel the pressure, I think, that I'm leaving in four days and I wanted I wanted this just to be like this. Okay, you know, like I just wish I could take the red pill, blue pill, whatever, you know. And and just not feel the the suffering and the sadness and the loss and the grief. I just feel like I'm in purgatory. And I just don't know how to I don't want to feel those feelings anymore. And I don't know how to reset my brain or reset my thoughts or reset my life to where I don't feel the those pain, the pain of the the the seeing the pictures anymore. And I mean, just for self-preservation, I remember in the beginning of all this, I had to take pictures down because it was just too painful. It was just too painful, and here it is three and a half years later, and it's just still, it's just so painful. And I saw a picture last night that came up, it was like, here's your it was like 85 pictures. I didn't even know what it came up on, my camera or what. And I saw a picture of my son, um the one of of the I guess he's like almost 22, he's coming up on 22, which is crazy. I haven't seen him since he was 18. And I just looked at that picture and just thought, he's such an awesome, awesome kid. I just remember his awesome personality and his highlights. I mean, sure, everybody has their down points too, but I just remember thinking how proud I was of him and how awesome he was. And how I was so amazed that God could make such a fun, loving kid. Like I just I still remember him throughout the years and just thinking God really outdid himself with that one. And I he did with all of my kids. All of my kids were, you know, brilliant and smart and capable and amazing personalities. And each one of them, you know, I remember thinking to God, wow, you know, you outdid yourself again, the the complexity and the the depth and all of that with each one of their smiles or their eyes or their personalities or their character or their funniness or goofiness or whatever. Um, but yeah, he had personality plus, just like all of them. I mean, but he would sing songs randomly, and he was always such a happy, happy kid, and uh he just filled with fun and and just antics and and goofing off, and um, he loved to read all these things, and it's just I was one picture of him, just one good picture of him in the kitchen that I took, and I just remember that day and seeing him, and it's just like it's so amazing how pictures can just take you back, you know, like to a time and a place that was so much better. And I I wish I could just see them as what they were, you know, a time and a place that was better. But it just stirs up all these feelings and emotions that if he was here, I would just

SPEAKER_00 22:15

I would hug him and I would tell him how much I love him and I miss him so much. Yeah, I'm getting emotional. It's freaking only 7:20 in the morning. I hate this. Like I just I don't want to cry anymore. I don't want to suffer anymore. I don't want to be sad anymore. And I just I just feel like there's a limit on what a human being can handle. And that's why I came here because I just I want to heal. I want I feel like I have the biggest scars all over my body from the suffering of the last three and a half years, and plus the years before the last three and a half, but really this is the biggest battle wounds of life and scars I will ever endure.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

And I've got literal, like, it looks like I've been eaten by a shark because I've had so many, you know, cancer surgery and and fixing things up on my body. But I just feel like my whole body is just like a gaping wound of sadness and pain.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

And I just it doesn't matter how much freaking sleep I get, and it doesn't matter where I go, and it doesn't matter what I put in my brain, and it doesn't matter what I try, it just I don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

I just I just feel very trapped. I feel alone and I feel abandoned and I feel hurt and just don't want to feel this way anymore. When they give you the ketamine treatments, one of the things they have to ask you is like, are you having any suicidal thoughts? And they're fleeting. I say, you know, I said no. Um, but there's not really a day that I don't think I want Jesus to come back and I want heaven to be here, and because the suffering on this planet is not cool. Like, it is just not cool. And I know I have so many things to say when I go through my notes, and I'm not gonna do that here right now. I'm gonna try to. I'm just trying to get the tears off my eyes, and I'm like, how did it already get to be 24 minutes? I was just literally gonna come on for like six minutes and say, hey, here's what I think about sleep. And next thing I'm all over the place. Okay, so here's what I'm gonna do. I was talking about getting pictures off my phone. I'm also planning on going through my notes, which I have like 135 notes and starting to consolidate them. So in my mind, um, I'm gonna do some things for myself, but also things for my future. Um, I'm gonna read the Bible a little bit more, maybe clean up my room, maybe have a good lunch slash dinner if that's available. And uh I'll come back here and do another episode. Uh maybe I'll record the integration today. Um, it's just me talking, so I can I can record that. They don't want me recording that. I I don't know why somebody said that. I don't know if it's a rule or not. Maybe I should ask that information on doing the actual treatments because I would really love to record my last one. So I I don't know. Anyways, okay, so I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna get going, and here we go. All right, we'll talk to you later.