![\"TMS](\"https:\/\/www.jennifermargulis.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/daisies-388946_1280-1024x682.jpg\")
TMS Therapy For Depression: Here’s What Happened\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\nTMS Therapy For Depression: Here’s What Happened\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\nBy Astrid Lucas* I heard about TMS therapy for depression in early April of 2020. My mental health had been spiralling for a while., Bbut it had gotten particularly bad a few weeks into February. I suffer from severe depression and suicidal ideation. I was in my first year of college. When Covid-19 forced me to move back home in mid-March, I became more isolated than ever. After I lost the routine that had kept me afloat, I completely collapsed. Hello<\/a><\/p>\n The vortex of bad news that surrounded me made it feel impossible to be optimistic and it was harder for me to attend class than ever, despite (read: because of) virtual learning. I felt like I\u2019d hit a dead end. My bones felt too heavy to move. I couldn\u2019t get out of bed in the morning, but I couldn\u2019t fall asleep at night<\/a> either. When I did nod off, my sleep was interrupted by constant nightmares. The bad dreams<\/a>\u00a0 made me wake up more exhausted than when I\u2019d gone to bed.<\/p>\n I felt like the mental health system and my college had let me down. As my mental health\u00a0 had gotten progressively worse, I had been reaching out over and over again. I\u2019d been given more medications, different medications, and different pieces of advice that I couldn\u2019t follow. My therapist told me: \u201cReach out to a friend when things get bad!\u201d But how could I reach out to a friend when I was rocking back and forth in my dark room in the middle of the night, paralyzed with the irrational fear that my loved ones were dying or dead?<\/p>\n My college promised we could stay on campus as long as possible, then suddenly told us we couldn\u2019t return from Spring Break if we\u2019d already left, and had to leave immediately if we were still on campus. So I had to pack up and get on a plane to move across the country over the span of twelve hours.<\/p>\n As I was lamenting this to my therapist for the umpteenth time, wishing I could just \u201ctry harder\u201d or \u201cfind the right medication\u201d to feel better, she told me she didn’t think I could solve my mental health problems with either willpower or more medication. Then she told me about her colleague, a psychiatrist who did trans-cranial magnetic stimulation in his office. She said TMS therapy for depression might help.<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t even have to explain to me what it was; I already wanted to try it. Honestly, I would have tried anything. So I did some research on my own and told my parents I wanted to do it. I’d been through the medication merry-go-round with limited results, which was a discouraging process. The prospect of starting TMS for depression gave me hope for the first time in a very long time. Just knowing that it was an option for me and scheduling the first week of\u00a0 appointments gave me energy for a few days.<\/p>\n I went to the psychiatrist\u2019s office about half an hour from my house every day and stayed for about forty-five minutes. I drove myself there in my parents\u2019 car and called from the parking lot to be let in. A physician\u2019s assistant named Kelly would come get me. She brought me to a small room with a big chair with a helmet for the TMS sessions and some art and plants that made the room feel cozy. A window looked out into a small garden and I could watch birds<\/a> splash in a fountain during sessions.<\/p>\n Kelly fit a helmet over my head. She sat in the room for the duration of my 30-minute session to make sure everything was working properly and because of the small chance I could have a seizure, a very uncommon but serious side effect. But we didn\u2019t talk. (We probably would have gotten to know each other better over the course of those eight weeks had I not had to wear earplugs or noise-canceling earbuds to soften the loud tapping noise<\/a> from the machine.) Instead of chit chatting, I listened to music or audiobooks and colored virtual mandalas on the iPads the office had for us to use, which was very relaxing.<\/p>\n Every eight seconds or so, the machine would activate some magnets in a short burst and stimulate part of my brain. My fingers would twitch and the right side of my jaw would clench, so I had to wear a mouthguard during sessions to keep my teeth from grinding. It was surreal to watch my fingers shake. My hands were completely out of my control.<\/p>\n It was helpful for me just to have to go somewhere five days a week, especially when I wasn\u2019t going just about anywhere else because of Covid.<\/p>\n Kelly and the office\u2019s nurse practitioner encouraged me to try meditation<\/a> during sessions. Yeah no. I wasn\u2019t into the idea of being watched while I meditated, and I\u2019ve tried meditation before without success. It\u2019s kind of a catch-22 when you struggle with PTSD and intrusive thoughts. Meditation is supposed to help with spiraling negative thinking, but when you\u2019re in a really bad place psychologically and feeling suicidal you can\u2019t control your thoughts. Instead of feeling peaceful and grounded, you end up ruminating and catastrophizing and getting caught up in the past.<\/p>\n My psychiatrist told me I could expect to start feeling better in 3-4 weeks, but possibly longer. I knew the stats: about half of people with treatment-resistant depression benefit from TMS therapy for depression, and about a third experience full remission.<\/p>\n TMS therapy for depression felt like a last resort to me. Although I knew there were other options, I was barely holding on as it was and I didn\u2019t think I could cope with another failed treatment. When I didn\u2019t feel any better after about three and a half weeks, my mood dropped lower than I thought was possible. I feared that I was going to have to endure this uncontrollable feeling of helplessness forever. Even a few months more felt like agony. I wanted to die. But I had reached the conclusion that I couldn\u2019t end my life. For the sake of my family. I didn\u2019t want to inflict that kind of suffering on them. So I felt completely trapped.<\/p>\n Planning my death and dreaming about an end to the pain I was experiencing gave me a sense of security and hope. When I lost that as an option, I felt completely empty. I couldn\u2019t function at all, and as far as I could tell, I was doomed to feel that way for the rest of my painfully long life. I discovered that my rock bottom wasn\u2019t a suicide attempt or plan or ideation, but the days and weeks I suffered knowing there was no end in sight.<\/p>\n Every thought I had centered around wanting to commit suicide. I would burst into tears at random throughout the day wishing that it could all end, but knowing I couldn\u2019t do it myself. I reminded myself that the TMS therapy for depression could start working, but the fact that it hadn\u2019t after over a month destroyed me<\/p>\n My mom realized that I had started taking handfuls of ibuprofen every night. Even I didn\u2019t know why. Perhaps it was some misguided attempt to make my death more gradual? Or to try to end my life without the guilt that I was doing so? I honestly don\u2019t know<\/p>\n She confronted me about it. I lied and told her I was just taking the painkillers for my shoulder pain. She could tell I was lying and reminded me that what I was doing wouldn\u2019t kill me, only injure me.<\/p>\n She called my therapist and told her she could tell I just \u201cdidn\u2019t want to be here anymore.\u201d I talked to my psychiatrist. He prescribed me a low dose of lithium<\/a> to help with the suicidal ideation.<\/p>\n My dad drove me to the pharmacy. My parents couldn\u2019t trust me to drive alone without ending my life. During that car ride he asked me why the doctor prescribed me lithium. My dad<\/a> said he knew a lot of people on some of the medications I\u2019d been on in the past, like prozac and zoloft, but lithium seemed like a \u201cdifferent ball game.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor suicidal ideation,\u201d I muttered.<\/p>\n \u201cHow bad is it?\u201d He didn\u2019t seem surprised, but I could tell by his forced steady voice that he was upset. He asked me how often I was having suicidal thoughts.<\/p>\n I told him with a deep sense of shame that every minute of every day was consumed by these thoughts. Trying to hold back the tears, I admitted I wished I could disappear.<\/p>\n I told myself I never should have been born. I felt guilty for putting my parents through all this. No parent deserves to hear that their child wants to take away the life they gave her. But I felt powerless. I forced myself to go on walks outside, but sometimes the best I could do was sitting on the porch. Being outside and exercising always helped, but I had to have the energy and motivation to get out the door, which was rarely. The one thing that gave me a reprieve was taking a THC gummy and forcing myself outside.<\/p>\n When I was high and outside, I could finally appreciate the things my depression didn\u2019t let me enjoy. I would lay on logs and watch the sky, or walk the local trails until I found a good tree to climb. To my disappointment, I always returned to my normal monotonous sadness once the gummy wore off and I came home.<\/p>\n However, things started to turn around after about six weeks of TMS therapy for depression. I finished the assignments for a class I\u2019d taken an Incomplete in, which decreased my daily stress and guilt. The combination of the lithium and the TMS therapy for depression seemed to help. For the first time in a long time I had some respite from fantasizing about driving a car off a cliff, falling off a bridge, or just going to sleep and never waking up.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t trust it though. I\u2019d had some good days that preceded the worst periods of my life, so I knew that I could feel comparatively okay from time to time just to end up in a pit of sadness an hour or a day later. But two weeks of feeling better gave me hope. I began to trust that I could actually get better, just a little. I still didn\u2019t particularly want to be alive. But dying didn’t obsess me anymore. I started planning a backpacking trip. It felt good to\u00a0 have something to look forward to.<\/p>\n Long term, the success rate of TMS therapy for depression drops a bit. From what I\u2019d seen online, a lot of people experience a dip in mood around six months out and require more sessions. I didn\u2019t find that to be true. My mood started improving as soon as I got back to college. Having a community and a routine made it a lot easier to keep my head above water and even feel consistently happy.<\/p>\n I worried a lot that those good periods wouldn\u2019t last, but they did. Even though I’ve had a few low days or a bad week, like my friends who haven\u2019t been diagnosed with or medicated for mental illness, it never got worse than that. I still had the energy to do the things that kept my depression from getting worse, like hanging out with friends and exercising regularly, which made all the difference.<\/p>\n I stopped taking lithium once, but found that my baseline mood started worsening, so I talked with my psychiatrist and decided to start taking it again. Today I take 150 mg every night, a relatively low dose. When prescribed for bipolar, people usually take at least 450 mg. I attribute about half of my positive changes to TMS, and half to being on lithium.<\/p>\n I’m still taking bupropion, and I have trazodone on hand in case I have trouble sleeping, but I haven\u2019t needed it in the last two months. The lithium and the TMS therapy for depression have helped me decrease the doses of the other medications, I think.<\/p>\n The most important things for my mental health right now are having things that give me purpose. Like working and volunteering, and maintaining relationships with the people I love.<\/p>\n For the first time I can remember, I feel like I can handle my mental illness. I lived in terror of getting depressed again, thinking that another depressive episode would be too much to bear. Each time I woke feeling down I panicked, sure that it was the beginning of the end. Of my happiness. And my will to live. But now I feel stronger and more hopeful. The last six months have taught me that I can live a life that I love, even after my depression told me there was nothing left.<\/p>\n For now, I\u2019m doing seasonal work in a couple beautiful locations until September. I plan on returning to college and taking a reduced schedule to make time to work and take care of myself, and I\u2019m excited for what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n About the Author:<\/b>*Astrid Lucas is a pen name for a 20-year-old who has struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts. A sister, daughter,\u00a0 friend, and excellent student, Astrid loves the Pacific Northwest, backpacking, and mountain biking. She is taking a semester off from her sophomore year of college to work at an outdoor job in Utah. You can read her first essay about trying TMS to help her struggle with suicidal thoughts here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related posts<\/strong> TMS Therapy For Depression: Here’s What Happened\u00a0 By Astrid Lucas* Special to JenniferMargulis.net I heard about TMS therapy for depression in early April of 2020. My mental health had been spiralling for a while., Bbut it had gotten particularly bad a few weeks into February. I suffer from severe depression and suicidal ideation. I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[532,8351],"tags":[429,6056,12879],"yoast_head":"\n
\nSpecial to JenniferMargulis.net<\/a><\/p>\nFeeling too heavy to move<\/b><\/h3>\n
Told one thing, then another<\/b><\/h3>\n
TMS therapy for depression: wanting to try it<\/b><\/h3>\n
Fitted with a helmet while magnets stimulate the brain<\/b><\/h3>\n
Someplace to go<\/b><\/h3>\n
When did I start to notice a difference?<\/b><\/h3>\n
Wanting to die<\/b><\/h3>\n
An awkward drive to the pharmacy<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Cannabis a reprieve<\/b><\/h3>\n
A turn for the better<\/b><\/h3>\n
Helped by TMS therapy for depression<\/b><\/h3>\n
Was it the TMS, the lithium, or something else?<\/b><\/h3>\n
A sense of purpose<\/b><\/h3>\n
\nI’m Suicidal and Hoping TMS Will Help Me<\/a>
\nSuicide and Covid-19<\/a>
\nCoronavirus and Suicide: Which is Killing More People in Oregon?<\/a>
\nTalking Openly About Suicide May Help PREVENT It<\/a>
\nMy Husband’s Best Friend Died By Suicide, And We’re So, So Sad<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"