Catherine Oxenberg: Trauma, Ketamine & My Journey to Healing

AFTER YEARS FIGHTING TO FREE HER DAUGHTER FROM A CULT, THE FORMER DYNASTY STAR FOUND HERSELF IN PHYSICAL AGONY. A DIAGNOSIS, AND RELIEF, ELUDED HER-UNTIL SHE TRIED AN UNCONVENTIONAL THERAPY

- DAVID WALTERS

Catherine Oxenberg remembers the moment she lost hope. Over a two-week period in early 2020, the former Dynasty star—who had been active and able-bodied throughout her life—suddenly found herself bedridden and overcome with pain: stabbing, radiating, excruciating pain that moved around her body seemingly at random. Her hands swelled, her feet went numb, her spine ached. Unable to sleep, drive or even hold a toothbrush, she churned through a “conveyor belt of specialists,” including rheumatologists, neurologists and psychologists. Doctors offered up a string of misdiagnoses—inflammatory arthritis, fibromyalgia, peripheral neuropathy, and pre-autoimmune disease, among others—and prescriptions for antidepressants and opioids that provided no relief. “The thing with pain is that your life gets small really fast. It becomes part of your identity without you even realizing,” says Oxenberg, 61. “Everything is filtered through it. One doctor told me, ‘This becomes chronic pain after three months. Once the brain is wired, it can’t be unwired.’ It was like getting a death sentence.”