Reddit on Ketamine Therapy: Real Stories That Challenge the Stigma
Ketamine therapy is gaining momentum worldwide: more studies confirm its effectiveness, new clinics are opening, and demand for treatment is rising among people who haven’t found relief with traditional medications. Beyond the data, Reddit has become one of the most vivid places where patients share what therapy really feels like.
In interviews for States of Mind, one user wrote, “While on ketamine, I was actively playing with my kids, cooking dinner, I had motivation that I hadn’t had in years”. Another shared, “My addiction completely vanished. Completely, without cravings”. These candid voices cut through stigma and show the human side of a therapy that is still often misunderstood. Let’s step into their worlds and see how ketamine therapy unfolds through authentic experiences.
What Is Ketamine Therapy and How Can It Help?
Ketamine therapy is a medical treatment that uses carefully controlled doses of ketamine, a medicine first developed as an anaesthetic in the 1960s. Therapeutic ketamine is given in safe clinical settings or prescribed in at-home protocols to ease severe mental health conditions. According to recent studies, ketamine works by affecting the brain’s glutamate system, which plays a crucial role in mood regulation and neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to form new connections.
Research shows ketamine can be especially effective for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), where standard antidepressants don’t bring relief. Clinical trials also support its use for major depressive disorder and suicidal ideation. Beyond depression, ketamine has shown benefits in anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), addictions such as alcohol or cocaine use disorder, and even premenstrual dysphoric disorder, where hormonal treatments fail.
There are several formats of ketamine therapy:
- Intravenous infusions (IV) in clinics, the most common method studied in trials.
- Nasal spray (esketamine), approved by the U.S. FDA for treatment-resistant depression.
- Lozenges (troches) for at-home dosing under medical supervision.
- Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) combining lozenges or low-dose sessions with guided therapy to help process emotions and trauma.
In every form, ketamine therapy is not a quick fix, but a part of a structured medical approach that can open new pathways for healing when other options have failed.
From Desperation to First Relief
Most Redditors who turn to ketamine therapy don’t start from curiosity — they arrive there when everything else has failed. It’s the breaking point after years of panic attacks, unhelpful SSRIs, or the heavy weight of suicidal thoughts. Ketamine often becomes the “nothing left to lose” option, opening an unexpected door to relief.
One 25-year-old user shared with States of Mind how desperation pushed him to try intranasal ketamine for addiction — on his own, DIY-style, after daily panic attacks:
I was so desperate, I just wanted something that would make me feel better. I had some ketamine and I remembered reading that it helped with depression… From there EVERYTHING CHANGED.
What followed was a transformation that traditional talk-therapy never brought him: “I felt a relief I’d never felt in 4 years of continuous psychotherapy. My addiction completely vanished. Like completely, without cravings. For the first time, I could relax around people and actually see them as possible friends instead of strangers who couldn’t be trusted.”
Others echo this theme: it’s about finding something that finally interrupts the cycle. One Reddit user explained that after years on SSRIs with little progress, discovering ketamine therapy felt like a turning point:
I had been on antidepressants for over 5 years and I could not function without them … I came across a few ads for KAT, read up on it, and decided that ketamine telemedicine was the right choice for me.
Another female Reddit user summed up the frustration of failed treatments before turning to ketamine:
No SSRI/SNRI/MAO/TCAs worked for me. Progestin birth control made my mental health worse. I couldn’t get out of bed. My mood was fine, but I can’t afford to be bedbound half the month! The exhaustion was unmatched.
At a critical point, when standard treatments have brought little relief, many people describe a heightened determination to try something new. Ketamine therapy often enters the picture at that moment — not as a miracle cure, but as a last-chance option that can offer the first glimpse of hope.
Inside the Infusion Room
Stepping into a ketamine session, Reddit users often describe entering a space that feels part medical, part dreamscape. In clinical infusions, the ritual starts with soft chairs, blankets, headphones, and dim lighting. A 35-year-old medspa administrator recalled her first treatment in a special interview for States of Mind:
At my first appointment, I was very nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. Everyone at the place I went to was genuinely caring. After checking in, they took me back to one of the infusion rooms — small, comfy, with nice decor. They gave me noise-cancelling headphones so I could listen to music, and a soft blanket, because the IV medicine can make you feel cold. Once the IV started, I felt happy and a little giggly. I kept my eyes closed and saw a lot of moving shapes and colours that danced and expanded to the music I was listening to. It was trippy, but not like any other psychedelic.
For her, the immediate experience was one of lightness. She described the sensation as not just visual but also emotional: relief, warmth, and the rare ability to feel present in the moment.
Beyond the clinical chair, other Redditors describe a different approach known as ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP). In a post from r/CPTSD, one user took a lozenge before a three-hour somatic therapy session. They describe the experience as both surreal and deeply grounding:
I visualised myself as a child, forgave myself, and felt my body as a whole for the first time. It was like floating in space and sorting my thoughts into what mattered and what was just noise. Three hours became some of the most meaningful of my life.
Some also write about doing ketamine at home, trying to recreate the safe and inward focus of clinical sessions. A 25-year-old man explained how he used music and sensory control to shape the experience:
I always took it in a dark room or with an eye mask on — it made a lot of difference in helping me tune inwards and not get distracted. I had music, of course, and loved peaceful, calming tracks with natural sounds, like ambient noises. One time I tried punk music (which I usually enjoy) and it wasn’t pleasurable at all lol.
These moments show that ketamine therapy causes altered states of perception — a vivid inner journey of colours, memories, and emotions. Whether in the structured calm of a clinic or in the profound integration of a therapy session, Reddit users describe the experience as a doorway into perspectives that were previously inaccessible.
Turning Insights Into Lasting Change
Instead of delivering brand-new answers, ketamine therapy makes already existing insights resonate on a deeper, emotional level. For many Reddit users, this is what transforms years of abstract treatment into something that feels lived and real.
A 31-year-old woman shared her story in an AMA after completing six IV infusions. She had been in therapy for years and on Zoloft, but progress felt stuck. Ketamine shifted that:
Ketamine didn’t give me new answers, but it made therapy insights finally click on an emotional level. After 6 sessions, I was able to taper off Zoloft and step away from weekly therapy for the first time in my adult life.
Another Redditor, a 35-year-old female, described the immediate lift and how it translated into daily life. In a short interview for States of Mind, she explained it this way:
I felt pretty good after — happy and calm. The relief from my mental health symptoms was immediate but not long-lasting. After the initial 6 sessions, I went from feeling like a 25 out of 100 to a 90. Even when the euphoria wore off, I never dropped back to where I started. I used to spend the day in bed watching TV while my family took care of my kids. While on ketamine, I was actively playing with my kids, cooking dinner, being patient and kind. It was absolutely life-changing.
Other voices echo this sense of change that deepens over time. On another Reddit round-up, one person with PTSD wrote that ketamine brought more clarity and less reactivity to triggers, describing the effect as “life-changing clarity after years of constant hypervigilance.”
For LGBTQ+ users, the shift was described as a return to enjoying daily life again: “I could finally feel joy in small things, not just survive from one low point to the next.” Some users also highlight long-term resilience. One Redditor reported still feeling renewed after almost a year since his last infusion: “Even 9 months later, I feel reborn.”
These stories highlight that ketamine therapy works more like an amplifier — helping people trust insights they already had, process them emotionally, and carry them forward into lasting change.
Ketamine vs Antidepressants: A Different Kind of Relief
One of the strongest themes in Reddit threads is how people compare ketamine therapy with traditional antidepressants. Many describe years of trial and error with SSRIs, SNRIs, and other medications that brought partial relief or heavy side effects. In contrast, ketamine is often experienced as more immediate, intense, and embodied.
A 35-year-old female who did IV infusions put it starkly:
I cannot stress enough that ketamine literally fixes broken neural pathways and helps you grow new ones, so the effects are long-lasting. SSRIs have nothing on that!
Another Reddit user shared with States of Mind her frustration with the lengthy timelines of antidepressant trials compared to the rapid onset of ketamine:
For SSRIs, it takes months of titrating up even to know if it’s going to help. Then they have you try another, and so on. The symptom relief from ketamine was immediate, and even after stopping, I still didn’t go back down to how bad I felt before. It also helped with my anxiety, PTSD, and PMDD. I only stopped because my insurance was 100% covering the therapy, and then one day the company just decided it was “too experimental” and stopped paying the clinic.
In a comment on r/TherapeuticKetamine, one Redditor described how traditional SSRIs and NDRIs worsen his condition — but ketamine brought relief and clarity:
Definitely, yes. SSRIs & NDRIs made me WORSE. Microdosing ketamine eliminated my anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation in a matter of one month.
These voices underscore a pattern: antidepressants require waiting, dosage adjustments, and sometimes intolerable side effects; ketamine, though, can feel like a fast-acting alternative they’ve been hoping for all along.
Therapy from Partners’ Perspectives
On Reddit, partners often provide a raw view of ketamine therapy — a mix of hope and hard choices. In r/depression_partners, many describe short-term relief but frustration afterwards.
One user wrote about her husband’s treatment:
My husband did 2 rounds of ketamine injections at a clinic. It helped, but didn’t really have any real lasting effects, which was really disappointing because it seemed to be a miracle for so many people.
Another added a more immediate but fleeting outcome: “It helped my partner for a couple of days, but then it was like we were right back where we started.”
Cost is another recurring theme. As one partner explained:
There’s a tiny downside to it other than cost, so it’s always worth a shot if nothing else is working. My wife recently decided to stop the ketamine treatments entirely because she wasn’t getting anything worthwhile out of them. And it’s not cheap at $250 each session. I’m very curious about MDMA therapy — our doctor is on board to try it the second it becomes legal.
These perspectives show that while ketamine therapy can bring moments of improvement, partners often experience it as fragile. Their hope is tempered by fears for their loved ones, the sense that the treatment is still experimental, and the lack of long-term data or shared experiences from other users to lean on.
From Reddit to Research: Lessons on Ketamine Therapy
Reddit stories show that ketamine therapy is not a one-size-fits-all solution. For some people, it brings quick relief and new energy, while for others, the effects are brief or disappointing. These mixed experiences highlight both the potential and the limits of ketamine treatment.
Science reflects this same complexity. Randomised controlled trials confirm that ketamine can rapidly reduce depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation within hours, but the durability of these effects varies. Meta-analyses confirm that ketamine also has anxiolytic effects — meaning it can quickly reduce symptoms of anxiety. These benefits often peak within the first hours or days after infusion but tend to taper off without maintenance sessions.
The interviews also highlight this balance of promise and limits. As one Redditor put it:
The progress was incremental, but ketamine helped me feel more subjective about my past trauma. It lessened my triggers. Therapy has been helpful for me, but getting over things mentally is different from your body just feeling safe.
Together, the research and Reddit confessions sketch the same picture: ketamine therapy is a tool whose power depends on the individual, the setting, and the support that surrounds it. These voices help break stigma and remind us that behind every clinical trial are real people fighting for a life worth living.
