The Lulu Essey Podcast: A Courageous Story of Bipolar Depression and Finding Relief

At Ember, we’ve long believed that one of the most important ways to expand access to IV ketamine care for depression is through storytelling. Real, thoughtful, honestly told stories about what brings people to Ember, what care feels like, and the impact treatment does and doesn’t have on their lives. These nuanced accounts help people recognize themselves in others, feel less alone, and find a sense of hope and courage as they consider options for relief.

I recently had the privilege of speaking with one of our patients, Lulu Essey, host of The Lulu Essey Podcast on Spotify. Lulu had reached out to seek permission to name Ember in her accounts sharing her experience with IV ketamine treatment. At the time, she had begun recording a three-part series reflecting on her 30-year journey with bipolar disorder, including her experience with ketamine treatment.

What stood out immediately was Lulu’s sincerity and clarity of purpose. Her podcast is a deeply intentional body of work, and her decision to share her story comes from a desire to make others feel safer exploring their own options for care. She speaks with honesty and compassion, offering listeners a window into what it means to navigate bipolar depression, and what it can look like to pursue treatment.

Episode 1: My 30 Years of Bipolar. Is Ketamine the Answer?

Episode 2: My First IV Ketamine Treatment for Bipolar

Episode 3: What’s on The Other Side of IV Ketamine

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As Co-Founder of Ember Health, I’m often asked what care with us is like—and I always say the best way to understand is to listen to others who have walked similar paths.

And yet, stigma remains real. Speaking openly about mental health, especially about difficult or vulnerable experiences, can feel exposing and carries the risk of judgment. As a society, we are still learning to see that needing help and seeking it is an act of strength. Choosing to share that experience with others, so that they may feel emboldened to seek care themselves, is even more courageous.

For anyone who has struggled with bipolar depression or any form of depression, or who has felt in battle with their own mind, Lulu’s series is a must-listen. For anyone supporting someone who feels isolated, stuck, or in need of hope, it is a must-share.

And for anyone looking for practical, evidence-backed resources and accounts that can help fulfill personal commitments of self love, Lulu’s entire podcast is an invaluable resource. She speaks clearly, compellingly, and always from the heart.

We feel grateful to work with patients like Lulu. Her willingness to speak openly about her experience has the potential to make a meaningful difference for others seeking to understand their options and take the first step toward relief. I will say personally that her story gives me and our whole team conviction every day that what we’re doing matters. Her commitment to helping others live their fullest potential and understand their value in the world is a true act of generosity and love. We are all so grateful.

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Highlight clips from the podcast
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Highlights from Episode 1: My 30 Years of Bipolar. Is Ketamine the Answer?

“Please share this episode with anyone who lives with bipolar, who loves someone with bipolar, or who has felt like they’ve exhausted every option,”

“I was diagnosed in my very early 20s. It was pretty radical.”

“Medication was a lifesaver for me and at the same time it doesn’t give without taking, and what it takes from you can come at a very high price to your self confidence through side effects that can be so challenging to manage.”

“Part of my treatment at one stage also involved ECT or electroconvulsive therapy… For me, it didn’t make a significant difference and it has profoundly affected my long term memory.”

“Last year, I started falling and I kept falling. The pit felt like it was bottomless and I just couldn’t get a grip on my depression.”

“So I went back to the research, the peer reviewed studies out of institutions like Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins. Studies showing that IV ketamine could produce rapid, significant results for people with treatment resistant depression. Research showing that it works through a completely different mechanism than traditional psychiatric medication, targeting glutamate and neuroplasticity rather than just serotonin and dopamine. The science is there, it’s published, it’s peer reviewed, and it’s growing.”

“With profound respect for anyone who is fighting a battle with their own brain, and with gratitude for whatever brought you to this episode, this comes straight from my heart to yours.”
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Highlights from Episode 2: My First IV Ketamine Treatment for Bipolar: What it Actually Felt Like

“I was informed and empowered and I participated in my experience.”

“Everything is precise, everything is intentional”

“It feels safe, it feels held like a cozy cocoon”

“From the moment you walk into the center, every detail feels considered, respectful, like a warm hug.”

“I was completely dissociated from my body but in a way that was so soothingly comfortable and non threatening.”

“The thing I keep coming back to when I try to articulate what happened is a profound feeling of oneness and awareness. It was like opening an aperture on a lens.”

“The day after my first treatment, I started to feel my mood shifting in a meaningful way…. It was incremental, but the pace at which it started to improve was something I had never experienced before. In the 30 years of treatment, nothing has ever moved this quickly, this effectively for me.”

“I started to come back to myself, and what was so profound is that I started to feel like I could participate in my own thoughts again, like I could get a handle on them…. I was an active participant again, not a messenger being taken for some diabolical ride.”

“With that came my sense of agency, a sense of hope and possibility that I hadn’t felt in such a long time.”

“I had shown up as an informed, active participant in my own journey, and that is available to all of us in any area of our lives… we are able to educate ourselves, to ask questions, and we can show up fully and participate in our own healing.”

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Highlights from Episode 3: What’s on The Other Side of IV Ketamine

“From the very core of my heart, thank you and I hope you’ll keep sharing these episodes. It’s so important because that’s how we break stigma, not with campaigns or declarations, but with one honest conversation at a time.”

“Ketamine isn’t a switch you flip, it’s more like it opens a window in your brain and what you do with the light that comes in is up to you.”

“During the integration period, I developed a visualization practice. I could literally feel my brain changing… There was a physical, almost somatic awareness that something was shifting.”

“I would visualize the neural pathways in my brain that were associated with repetitive negative thinking, the loops, the ruminations, the grooves worn deep by decades of depression. And I would visualize them going dark, like lights being turned off one by one. And then I would visualize new pathways forming, symbolized by light, new connections, new routes for my brain to travel.”

“I really believe that the brain’s participation in its own healing matters.”

“You know that moment when you walk into a room and the lights are all dimmer and someone slowly turns them up?... The room gets brighter and you realize how dim it actually has been. That’s the closest I can get to describing what it has felt like for me.”

“My brain is what it is and I have loved it and fought with it for over 30 years. And that doesn’t just disappear now. I have a tool, an incredibly remarkable tool that I didn’t have before. And that is where my hope lives, not in the idea of never struggling again. But in the knowledge that when I do, I have something to hold onto. I can now support myself more effectively than I ever could before. And that is everything.”

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