Mateo's recovery: "It's like I've gone to the future. As if he'd been in therapy for years, decades"

Mateo Chavez's story is full of obstacles - past traumas, suicidal thoughts and a depression that grew deeper and deeper led him to overcome his skepticism and undergo ketamine-assisted psychotherapy sessions. At The Clinic of Change, he found a team willing to dig deeper into the problems that plagued him.

Psychotherapy came into Mateo's life in 2018. After five years of professional counseling, it proved to be insufficient in treating a depression that had worsened. "As a result, some unresolved traumas reappeared in my life. I was very depressed for two years and tried to resolve it with therapy, yoga and meditation," he recalls.

Mateo's mental health deteriorated. At a certain point, he realized that his depression had developed into a deep state and that the tools he had at his disposal to control it were insufficient.

"It was a kind of depression that I couldn't get out of. At one point I had to stop working because I started thinking about suicide. And I also felt angry, because nothing I'd tried had worked. I just wanted to have a glimpse of liberation."

Living in the Netherlands, the fragility of his situation brought him to Portugal. With his mother's help, he started looking for effective treatment for his depression, but also for post-traumatic stress disorder. His reluctance to take antidepressants and other drugs made him skeptical about treatment options. He finally decided to give The Clinic of Change a vote of confidence.

"I have a specialization in psychology, so I knew what the side effects could be. I decided to bet on The Clinic of Change and that's when they told me about ketamine treatment. I'd heard of tests, but I never thought it would be available in clinics. While I was a bit skeptical, I also tried to be rational."

The team played a key role in making Mateo feel confident about going ahead with the sessions - four in total. "I felt from the start that I could talk to them and that they went much deeper into some topics, topics that my previous therapist had never even touched on. I think that was crucial to my recovery."

The communication, too, was transparent from day one. He wasn't promised a miracle treatment or an instant cure. Faced with a success rate of around 70%, he moved on to ketamine-assisted treatment. "At the point I was at, it was my last option."

A transformative first session

The first session, in which he focused on getting rid of the feeling of guilt that haunted him, remained in his memory forever.

"I remember being taken up into space, practically. It was like I was in free fall - I could see stars, planets. I remember being tense at first, but as I kept repeating this idea - it's not my fault, it's not my fault, it's not my fault - I lost control. What I realized from that session was that the more relaxed I was, the quicker I could get rid of that guilt."

Another moment he remembers to this day was when he went outside after his first session. On a spring day, he simply gazed at the jacaranda trees in bloom and the beauty that had so often gone unnoticed.

"I felt something very interesting. I'm still the same person, but it's almost as if I've gone to the future, as if I've learned a lot in a very short period of time, as if I've been in therapy for years, for decades. At a certain point, it even seems that the sessions are a kind of shortcut and that, sooner or later, I'll go back to my old patterns. But I continued to be accompanied and that never happened."

A new cycle for Mateo

It's clear to Mateo that there are two paths ahead of him - one capable of leading him to a fragile and precarious mental condition, the other guided by new habits capable of canceling out the anxiety he once felt. Today, he chooses the second without hesitation. "What has been most important to me is the fact that my anxiety has completely disappeared."

Now living happier days - and back in the Netherlands - he has no hesitation in recommending the treatment to people in the same situation. "Honestly, it was a life-changing experience, it really helped me deal with my problems and made me feel confident about myself and my life as a whole. There's still a lot of stigma about ketamine, which is sad. Still, it's something I've recommended to several friends."

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