Isabel suffers from agoraphobia and underwent ketamine-assisted psychotherapy to "achieve more freedom"

There were times when Isabel felt "a horrible panic" even to be home alone. She has suffered from agoraphobia since she was very young and the pandemic, with its empty streets, made everything worse and caused her to regress in her treatment. In order to "try again and achieve more freedom", she opted for Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy. She now feels renewed energy and, for the first time, she says she has got to the root of her phobia and understood it: "It was more heartfelt, it was more from the inside, it was more honest with myself."

Consult our doctors for prior assessment and diagnosis:
218 071 715
geral@theclinicofchange.com

Read Isabel's full testimony about her experience with Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy:

I had made a lot of progress pre-pandemic, but then with the pandemic, and also because of work, because I cared a lot about work and wanted work more than other things, I lost a lot of what I had gained.

My fear is precisely what the pandemic evokes: empty spaces, everything empty. I still managed to cope for a while, I still managed to get things done, but it died down, also because I didn't go to face-to-face therapy, I did a lot of virtual therapy, which in my case is not very advisable. I have to get out of the house, out of my comfort zone, and so I was very lost.

Now, in these post-pandemic times, since I came back to therapy, and before we moved into this building, and opened the clinic, I was very lost, I lacked a lot of will... it's not that I wasn't going to appointments, because I was, but I didn't see the will to suffer a little to achieve something, to change something.

I thought that in a while there was going to be a war, there was going to be a disease, everything was going to be the same again, it was going to happen again. And the good thing about the ketamine was that it gave me the strength to do it, to be willing to go through it. To really want to suffer again, because in my case it's really agony, it's anguish when you face that situation that makes you afraid. But the ketamine made me ready to try again, to achieve more freedom.

My diagnosis is agoraphobia, and agoraphobia has two types. There's the type that is without anyone, as if it were an empty agora, which is my type. And some people just don't like being in crowded places. I don't love it either, but I don't have a phobia about it.

For me, all these abandoned places, with no one there, are places where I could be dying and no one will help me, where I'll be there forever and I don't know what will become of me. It's a horrible panic.

The first panic attack and the anxiety of agoraphobia

The first time I showed that I had a panic attack, which could be related to this, and in a way it was, it wasn't the same thing, but it was, was after a very complicated orthopedic operation. I was born with femoral dysmetria. I had it corrected, and for that you have to spend time in leg irons.

The first time I had a panic attack, I had irons in my leg, I thought I might die out of nowhere and my heartbeat was racing. This is because we have to live our lives with irons and it's not always easy. Maybe, in some situations, they didn't wait for me, or they made me walk faster, or I felt I couldn't keep up with the person who was supposed to be protecting me. And I began, in a way, to see it as a phobic situation.

But where I can say that I really started to show this phobia, without any physical disorder or anything, was when it came time to go to college.

Many years have passed since I expressed this. Nobody took any notice. We really thought, everyone thought, ok, it's a fear like any other, you have to face it, it's something she has to tell herself: ok, nothing's going to happen, you'll manage. It's like a child: everything's fine.

But what is certain is that, over time, things fluctuated. Sometimes it increased, sometimes it decreased, sometimes it got bigger and bigger, and I reached a point when I was about 25 - I only started therapy when I was 25, really, really, because my family was very prejudiced against me asking for help, they didn't think psychology could solve anything, they didn't really believe in it. So it wasn't until I was 25 that I officially asked for help from a psychologist. Before that, I got to the point where I was terrified of even being in my own home alone.

It was my grandfather who one day found an article by my doctor in Saúde magazine. She was talking precisely about my problem, which was agoraphobia. And he said: so much money has already been spent on so many things in our family, why shouldn't it be spent on this, which is your case. You need this like bread for your mouth. And that's how it happened: he went head-to-head with my parents, told them the truth, got me in for a consultation, we tried it, and I never let go.

The pandemic got worse. Ketamine has improved

You can't see it now, but before the pandemic I managed to evolve and I was already doing a lot on my own. But with the pandemic, I remember - I live in an apartment building - going downstairs with my dog, choking, choking, taking the stairs to get to the door of the building, and thinking: I don't even dare leave the door of the building, this is what I hate the most.

The street is completely empty, there's nobody there, there's nothing there, if only there were some people there... sometimes I'd play games with myself, come on, let's face it, you'll see there are people in the laundry and it's okay, you'll go downstairs.

The ketamine was also good in the sense that, it's like this, a lot of things we're told in therapy, most of them we understand, but there are other things that we think: is this really it? Really? And it was nice because, with the ketamine, I heard myself talking to myself.

I'm completely conscious, I'm a bit sleepy but I know what I'm thinking, I know where I am, or I open my eyes under the blindfold and I see where I am, perfectly, and I hear my voice to myself, in my head.

I can hear myself. I know perfectly well that it's me. It's all conscious. It's like it's me in my head thinking it's this and that. And it was a way of telling myself what I was and wasn't. Why are you like this? Is this really it?

She [the psychologist] had already told me: you do this to get attention. It's a way of getting attention, even if you don't see it. There's a part of you that doesn't like being dependent and there's a part of you that loves it. And it's true. And, unfortunately or not, it's true, because it is. This is childish behavior. It's attention-getting behavior, in a way. I know it's strange, but it's true, I'm being very honest. I'm opening up completely.

So, in my head, one of the visions, one of the things I saw, because we have our eyes closed and I see lots of patterns of light, as if I were now looking at the lamp and forming little lights and images... one of the things that came to my mind was: so you did this to be closer to your mother, didn't you? And I'd say: yes, yes, that's exactly why, just like that. It was a conversation I was having with myself.

In other words, deep down, for me, in my case, it's my inner voice speaking. The voice that was echoing here was me talking to myself. So I think it was something more natural, something that came more from my subconscious, more from my neurons. It wasn't someone who came along and analyzed it and said I think this, this and this. It was more heartfelt, it was more from within, it was more honest with myself.

The ketamine-assisted psychotherapy "give me genica"

I feel I had more gumption. What you just saw when you arrived [Isabel climbing the stairs of the building alone], it's a suffering, but it's a suffering that has to be. If there isn't that suffering, if there isn't that pre-disposition, the brain won't adapt. In my case, and I know I'm one of the few cases here who is like this, it's as if you have to see it to believe it, you have to be there, you have to feel it.

If I don't lock you up with your fear, you won't evolve. Your brain makes a brutal effervescence with that thing and it doesn't kill you. And in my case it's like that, it's a lot of work. I believe that with other illnesses it can also be hard work, but there has to be a pre-disposition. I can make a fool of myself, look stupid, whatever, but I'm going to try. It doesn't matter. Because what I'm earning isn't any better either. There has to be that pre-disposition. In my case, it's very much like that.

When I take a dose of ketamine, I come out of it a little sleepy, but I'm in a good mood again straight away. I want to do it. As the dose increases, you get a little slower, depending on whether the dream is good or not. If it's not good, you get very, oh, I'm so slow, I want to talk and I feel like I'm standing still, but there's no bad recovery.

There isn't, so much so that I can tell you that when I finished my sessions, even if I was slow or had a vision that I didn't like so much, and I was so upset by what I saw or what I thought, or I'm fed up with it, I'm fed up with seeing holes or seeing whatever, there was always a great desire in my head to say: look, I'd like to do that, I'd like to do I don't know what. There's some kind of urge, some kind of gumption, I get gumption.

When a person comes from a world without much thought for fears, and they're in their head a thousand times, they just want to do things. So it's a bit like that: I want to do things. For a moment they're at a standstill, but then they're back to normal and in their head they want to start doing little things, they want to start letting go, because they're no longer so worried about fears or worrying about this.

Ketamines don't do everything. We have to do the rest ourselves. At least in my case, it has to hurt, there's no other way. But you have to understand that suffering leads somewhere, it's all for something, it's not: it hurts now and tomorrow it won't hurt anymore. It's like that, it's like getting a wax off.

"It was the first time I saw why I fell into this phobia"

I'm here, if you need me, I'll open the door for you, don't be afraid, I'm on this side, touch the door and I'll open it. I tested it and saw, it's true, she's really on the other side, she hasn't run away, she's here as soon as she hears me knock. And she [the psychologist] said: you're going down the stairs from the entrance to the exit door. And I didn't go down, I went halfway. This was on the day of the last dose of ketamine, when she did this to me for the first time.

The next day, it was an appointment to talk about ketamine, which I was supposed to do, and she said: let's do it. And I walked all the way down the stairs, which was something I couldn't do. And it wasn't something I even thought about. I did it, it just happened. Maybe because I was calmer and it was a message with...

The fourth session went very well, it was a very calm session. And, how can I put it, and I think that helped, but it wasn't something I thought about. I never thought: I'm going to do it. I didn't even think about it. I felt that I had done it and I enjoyed trying to do it. And I liked it so much that the next day I did more.

It's completely a dream of colors, a great braid of luminous colors making a beautiful tapestry, and me talking to myself and saying: you did all this to be closer to your mother, didn't you? Yes, that's right. And that was the first time I felt that there was a reason why I had fallen into this phobia. It was the first time I realized or internalized what she [the psychologist] had already told me.

Because I never internalized it, and I thought: but I'm rational, on the one hand yes, but on the other I'm a person who's even quick-witted, I don't have the patience to cry, I'm a very bread and cheese person. Apart from my phobia. And I couldn't feel that much. There I felt more, because it was something that really came to me, that was being talked about and seen in my head, in a more colorful way, but yes.

[The Clinic of Change would like to thank Isabel for her courage in sharing her story and for her generosity in helping others to seek help].

See other testimonials!