Revisiting Kowalski Part Two: The Descent

Nobody Should Believe Me

True Story Media

Society & Culture, True Crime, Personal Journals

4.2 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Andrea sheds light on the disconnect between the narrative presented publicly vs the medical records and trial testimony. She traces how ketamine became the driving force in Maya Kowalski’s treatment from Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick. What followed was a rapid escalation: four-day ketamine infusions, increasingly alarming blog posts written in Maya’s voice, and ultimately a controversial, high-dose ketamine coma in Mexico. This sets the stage for Maya’s arrival at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. *** Try out Andrea’s Podcaster Coaching App: https://studio.com/apps/andrea/podcaster Order Andrea’s book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy. Click here to view our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! Subscribe on YouTube where we have full episodes and lots of bonus content. Follow Andrea on Instagram: @andreadunlop Buy Andrea's books here. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	True Story Media.
0:10.4	If you're an elder millennial like me, you may remember a time when ketamine was mostly known by its street name, special K.
0:19.0	Otherwise known as a substance you are not even tempted by after that
0:22.6	one time that your friend's cousin got stuck in a K-hole and hallucinated in a hall closet for an
0:27.6	entire night and freaked everyone out. The ketamine has gotten a bit of a makeover in recent years
0:33.1	after the FDA's 2019 green light for intranasal ketamine has helped fuel thousands of ketamine clinics across the United States,
0:40.4	and a large number of clinical studies are currently exploring the drug for treatment-resistant depression and other conditions.
0:46.9	But despite some genuinely promising research, ketamine has been trending again more recently for less positive reasons,
0:53.2	as it was responsible for
0:54.7	the death of beloved actor Matthew Perry in October of 2023, and is also responsible for some
1:00.7	of whatever the hell is going on with Elon Musk.
1:04.1	Ketamine is also a big part of this story.
1:06.8	You see enough of these patients, you know how they deteriorate, and nothing is working,
1:10.2	surgery doesn't work, drugs don't work, neuroblocks they deteriorate, and nothing is working. Surgery doesn't work.
1:11.2	Drugs don't work.
1:12.0	Neweroblocks don't work.
1:13.2	And you do this one thing, and it works.
1:16.2	One of my enduring questions about the public reception of the Kowalski's story is how on earth they managed to tell this story in such a way that it seemed fine and normal to give a nine-year-old girl so much ketamine.
1:31.1	Hi, I'm Josh Spiegel, host of the podcast, Lunatic in the Newsroom. It's news like you've
1:37.8	never heard before. We'll talk about things like a possible ban on recreational pot, Americans
1:43.3	giving up on dressing like civilized human beings
1:46.4	and a call for fraternities to be outlawed.
	...

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