So last year I did rTMS to try to whack my brain out of chronic treatment resistant depression and it was pretty helpful. Not perfect, but it pulled me out of a deep hole I was stuck in. I also treated the other side of my brain for anxiety and that was really helpful. I’ve taken one xanax in the last 6 months and anyone with severe anxiety disorder knows how big of a deal that is.
Unfortunately I’ve been in a bit of a hole lately and my doctor said another round of TMS treatments might really help to stop me before I’m too far gone so I started again this week.
I’m doing the same treatments as before but in slightly different spots (the science on TMS changes so quickly and doctors are always using the latest studies to try to perfect the treatment) and I’m also doing deep treatment on my right ocular something-or-another and I don’t entirely understand it but they think it may help break up the intrusive negative thoughts that get stuck in my head.
It is as painful as I remembered but less painful than living with mental illness so I’m down with it. They play nature videos with relaxing melodies so you can distract yourself but that’s not really my thing so instead they’re letting me watch Shrill on their TV and it’s lovely except that my headphones ran out of juice so the counselor who monitors me just turned up the volume in the room right as a particularly awkward sex scene came on, which was made even more awkward by the fact that I was forcing other people to watch it.
Embarrassing, but honestly, very on brand.
PS. Last treatment they had to find my hand through my brain (making my thumb move by punching me in the head with magnets) but this time they had to go deeper, which meant that I had to take off my shoes and get magnet punched until I involuntarily kicked myself. I was still wearing tattered remnants of months-old nail polish and I apologized for the state of my feet but no one seemed to care and honestly I suspect that if your feet look like shit it’s maybe just another sign that you need to be medicinally magnet thumped for a few months.