I have been intending to post about this for several days now and here I am, finally getting to it. I referred previously to getting trans-cranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, therapy. If you had asked me how I thought it was going a few weeks ago, I would have said I thought it was helping with my anxiety symptoms, especially the hyper-alertness. Not game-changing but certainly worth pursuing. Two weeks ago, something clicked. Let me preface this by saying in the intervening time things have settled back down closer to, but still above, my previous baseline but for a few days there, my brain was working, possibly better than it ever has.
When I say something clicked, I really do mean the change was almost instantaneous. I was walking along in my usual depressive funk then, as best I can describe it, an instrument panel got plugged in. I could monitor and regulate things I hadn’t even been aware of that affected my mood. “What kinds of things?”, I hear my excited audience ask. Therein lies the problem. I’ve referenced the original Star Trek episode Spock’s Brain before, the relevant part being Dr. McCoy using the alien hair-dryer to learn how to put Spock’s brain back in and his amazement at how simple the procedure is, once he already knows how to do it1. Of course, as time goes on, the effects of the magic hair-dryer start wearing off and McCoy, mid-procedure, realizes how complex it is and that he no longer has any idea what he’s doing. Très dramatique. All this is to say, I feel like I’ve lost that level of admin access and I’m not sure how I was making it all work.
For those few days though, I felt invulnerable. I bumbled through life feeling vaguely cheerful. I had fun doing things I enjoyed2. The closest I’ve ever come to that before was the first time I started taking antidepressants3. While things have pulled back somewhat, I still feel considerably better than I have for quite some time
As long as I stay in the house, don’t go anywhere, or do anything. Baby steps, I suppose.
- If you prefer a more high-brow reference, you can think of this as being my Person on business from Porlock ↩︎
- I told my therapist I wanted to go back and revise every PHQ-9 I’d done for the last three years. I have a much better understanding of the “Little interest or pleasure in doing things” question now. ↩︎
- For the curious, it was sertraline and I think it was somewhere in the early 2000s? Maybe? That I’m not so sure about. ↩︎
I hate to ask something at patently simplistic as this, but here goes: what would happen if you went outside to a place with no emotional baggage attached to it? I dunno, someplace like a big open park with nobody in close proximity? Would you still be as uncomfortable? Is your issue more with the space or with the possibility of people with whom you might have to interact? What if you put on a pair of headphones and sat at a bench, with or without anything playing? Would that make any difference to your level of comfort?
I know you don’t post here in order to solicit advice, not of any quality, let alone something as lame and pollyanna-ish as this. So apologies in advance.
Kind of ramping off of Andrew’s thoughts up there – once Nicole and I are set up in a long-term spot up here in Vancouver, the offer we made while we were in LA, for you to get away from things for a minute and stay in one of our spare rooms and interact as little or as much as you wanted while around, will be back in effect – just in Vancouver now.
This is, as before, no pressure, and I’m sure your reasons for declining previously still apply, but should you decide that that is something you could do and that would appeal to you, please do get in touch.