Tag Archives: depression

Modern Day Frankenstein (ECT)

Or, to make the reference accurate, Frankenstein’s monster. But that doesn’t have the same ring.

I am just back from my second ECT session, in which they are trying to use lightning to spark life out of that which is dead, meaning my vitality and joy and ability to live fully. So far, we’re lacking an “IT’S ALIVE!” moment, but here’s hoping. We are still at the beginning.

Today wasn’t much different than Wednesday. The biggest difference was the nurse did a worse job putting in the IV and had to dig around a bit to get the catheter properly in the vein. Good times.

So far today I’m more clear-headed and alert than I was yesterday (described here). It’ll be interesting to see how I am tomorrow, if my brain seems to be motoring at a lower RPM, or if yesterday was just a temporary adjustment, if related to the ECT at all.

O Aimless Me (ECT)

Aimless Tim

I suspect it has something to do with my brain reacting to yesterday’s lightning strike, but I am utterly useless today.

I’m unfocused. I don’t feel like going anywhere, or watching anything, or reading, or playing a video game. Unfortunately that leaves me spinning pointlessly through the internet on and on and on, not paying much attention. I have far too much day to spend dwelling on things I need to forget.

Well, there’s a reason they don’t let you drive while in ECT treatment. I guess while the brain works to fix things, it’s burning energy that normally would go to other things, like having an attention span or rational thought. I’m managing to write this, but I’m not really focused on it, and the writing’s slow.

I’m still gung-ho, though. This is kinda an adventure.

Lighting The Spark (ECT Day 1)

Survived.

It wasn’t nearly as harrowing as I expected.

They had me fill out some forms (“I agree that if my cerebellum sizzles like a frying egg, I absolve the cook from all responsibility…”). They encouraged me to empty my bladder, and recommended I put on a Depends diaper because sometimes people wet themselves when they’re on the muscle relaxants. I opted for no diaper. I’d expected to have to don a gown, but they let me keep my clothes on. Continue reading →

THUNDER

When I’m writing this, I’m up way too early Monday morning. But when it appears on my blog Wednesday morning, I will be at the ZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAP lab, possibly already riding the lightning.

To commemorate this first session (which I’ll try to blog about afterward), here’s some AC/DC.

Thanks to all my friends who are with me in spirit as I undergo this treatment…

Taken By The Wind (A Personal History, Part 5): The Got No Friends Blues

If you’ve been with the blog a while, you’ll be aware of my depression. It cripples my daily life, and I’ve suffered with it since I was a kid. Wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I realized something was wrong, and I’ve been battling it off and on through various means ever since. Tomorrow I do the biggy, ECT, electroconvulsive therapy, and they’ll knock me out and strap me down and zap some lightning through my brain, hopefully stimulating my hippocampus to do its fucking job.

I’m actually looking forward to it.

A few people, even online friends I don’t actually know, have made a point of being supportive and positive, both in this endeavor and my struggle in general. Thank you. It means a lot to me. I’m completely out of touch with my father and paternal family by choice, and my mother died when I was a baby and I haven’t been in touch with her family since my late teens. Isolation is one of the demons depression sics on its victims, and my friends have fallen away from me one by one over the years, leaving a few I rarely see. The only friend who is around often (and is going to drive me back and forth to the ECT sessions, because you’re not allowed to drive immediately after one) is my ex-wife. And though I walk a tunnel in which I rarely see a light at the end, my son burns bright enough to keep the walls from closing in entirely.

In September ’04, during one extended and rough depressive time, I sent an email to a couple of friends asking for help. I’ve decided to post it, in its entirety,  for the sake of those who don’t really know what depression is. It might give you some insight into the life of someone you know, and if you’re stalwart and true, you can stand by them and help. Continue reading →

More Thinking About Writing (Regarding Tools and Positioning)

Recently I’ve blogged about my attempts to optimize my approach to writing day to day, to hopefully become more productive and prolific. A huge part of that, by necessity, is that I have to deal with my depression; if I can’t, I might as well throw in the towel.

This week, I start a course of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), which will hopefully give me the edge in that fight. I’m assuming it will, so I’m working on setting the stage for the writing I plan once it’s over.

Kate gave me a book about writing for my birthday, Chapter By Chapter by Heather Sellers. Generally I find books about writing to be a waste of time for a writer; most of them say essentially the same things, and once you’ve read one, you’ve pretty much read the rest. If you’re trying to be a writer, your time is better spent writing than reading about writing. Till now, I’ve recommended only two books to writers looking for advice, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and On Writing by Stephen King.

Chapter By Chapter is now on that list, and not just because it came to me via hot redhead. Kate chose well; Sellers has some fresh perspectives on the work, and her book has been useful to me as I try to figure these things out.

One chapter proved pertinent to this post, the one about “positioning.” Sellers defines positioning as preparing to do the work, mentally and physically, in advance, so that when it’s time to get to work you can just sit down and write. Part of this is making a routine of connecting with your project every evening, thinking about the next day’s writing, staying involved. The other part of it is making sure you’re physically set up in advance so you don’t have to waste time gathering materials and setting up when you sit down to write again. Continue reading →

Counting The Clock That Tells The Time

I have the go-ahead from my psychiatrist, and just got off the phone with the ECT clinic.

Next Wednesday morning, I start my lightning ride.

If we can stand up
When all else falls down
We’ll last through the winter
We’ll last through the storms
We’ll last through the north winds
That bring down the ice and snow
We’ll last through the long nights
Till the green field’s growing again
Growing again…    

(Peter Gabriel w/ Kate Bush)

Taken By The Wind (A Personal History, Part 4): The Sound of Her Wings

Death is always with me.

I think I first met her Christmas Eve, 1965. I was still a season short of two years old, living in Missouri with my mom who had fled back to her parents’ home to escape my father’s jealousy and rage. My mom’s name was Linda, and she was 16.

She was working that night, I think waitressing or as a cashier…it’s been decades since I heard the story, and have no one to ask now. But I do think she was working in a restaurant of some sort. And she took a ride home with a coworker. Home to spend Christmas with her family. With her baby. With me.

She never got there. Another driver–I think it was a woman–slammed into the car and my mom was ripped from my life forever.

I don’t remember her. I vaguely recall photos of her, but have none, as they’re in my father’s possession and I’m years out of contact with him. She was a cute young Italian girl with a nice smile and lots of long dark hair.

For most of my youth, I didn’t realize the impact her death had on me, except for the fact it put me in the path of a couple of incredibly damaging step-monsters, and left me in the hands of my mean-ass drunken father.

But as far back as I can recall, my greatest fear has been the loss of a loved one. Continue reading →

Maybe I’m Going To Graceland

Thought of these Paul Simon lyrics last night, and they touched me through my pain…

And I see losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody feels the wind blow

Back From The ZZZZZZZAAAAAAPPP! Lab

Stalwart coffee drinker

Okay, I survived the ECT evaluation.

The people were nice, and the info I received gave me some peace of mind regarding the odds of my brain being permanently fucked up. The damage tends to be short term memory loss, and it usually goes away within a few weeks of treatment. There is always a danger that you’ll be one of the unlucky, but that’s life, and my life in its current state isn’t something to hold onto.

I need to make a change, and none of the other methods seem to work. ECT has the highest success rate of any treatment for depression, somewhere around 90% if I recall my initial reading. Antidepressants have less than 50%.

At my best, I’m very capable. I do things well. I tend to the details (I vacuum, when I vacuum, under the furnishings and in the corners, not just in the middle of things), and I do things right (like my writing, which I pride myself on making as close to copy-editor proof as possible). I’m outgoing and genial and people like me. I’m playful and goofy. And I am one damn fine dancer.

Unfortunately, my depression robs me of all that. Continue reading →

Not Calm Before The Storm

In three hours, I’m supposed to be at Emory for my ECT evaluation.

Shock treatment.

It’s fucking scary. I keep having the impulse to call and cancel, or to at least reschedule. This is not going to be a pleasant process. I may not be the same at the other end of it. Of course, that’s the point…I was the same after I did the full TMS course with Brian Teliho, so that was an expensive failure. But I may not be able to write when I’m done…I may not be able to spell, I may not have the same vocabulary, I may not be able to make those twisty mental leaps which tap out on the screen so magically.

I may forget things. I may lose memories of my son. I may remember little of my wonderful times with Kate, since recent memories are usually the ones most affected. I may forget the holographic sense of the stories I have in my mind, and never be able to regain it in order to write them.

But as I think of calling it off, or putting it off, I have the concomitant thoughts that I can double down on my efforts to get things done. Hey, if I make myself go the gym every day, for real this time, the resulting vitality and health will get me to the point I can write regularly too. And I can eat better. And make a point of sleeping better…

And I’ve (not) done this a few thousand times already.

Scary.

I want to thank those friends who’ve contacted me through the hard times of late. I feel alone a lot of the time, and that meant a lot.

Shock Me

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with the storm.

I’ve written here about my longtime depression, and my attempts at dealing with it. Last year, I spent a fuckton of money I couldn’t afford trying a treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation, with a local doctor named Brian Teliho. (You can read all about it here and here). I saw it as my last stop before taking the step of ECT, electroconvulsive therapy, the less barbaric modern version of ye olde electroshock. If the TMS didn’t work, I planned in January to sign on for ECT.

Well, the TMS was a complete waste of time and money. But come January, I went back to my regular pattern, which is, frankly, to try to do better. To try to get to the gym regularly. To try to write a bit every day. You can find my little plans and hopes in the posts I wrote here, and as always, the depression won out.

Then, I fell in love, and that did make a difference. Kate improved my life. She inspired me to write. I started to think, y’know, I sure am glad I didn’t do ECT, because all I really needed was Kate.

But the truth of the matter was that, as much as her support and presence helped, it didn’t help nearly enough. When I was with her, I functioned well enough, but most of that functioning was just hanging out with her, enjoying her and sharing things with her. When she was back home, hundreds of miles away, I tried to stay upbeat and buckle down, and I did get some writing done, but the usual fluctuations of energy and motivation were still there. Maintaining that same pace, I’d still get nowhere.

Then, of course, I lost her. I expected that to pretty much destroy me, at least for a while, but as I wrote in my last post, I recovered (mostly) from the trauma of it almost immediately. I was relieved and clear-headed and thoughtful…and I picked up the phone and called the ECT clinic.

The only thing this has to do with Kate is that I wasn’t doing it while I was with her because I was entertaining the false hope that I didn’t need it. This is what I need to do. I should have done it in January. I damn sure should have done it instead of TMS.

It’s a big step. It’s a harrowing process, it costs a lot (though not as much out of pocket as TMS, which insurance won’t cover), and there are dangers. The biggest danger is memory loss and possible losses in cognition; as a father, I’m terrified of losing memories of my son, and as a writer I’m worried I’ll lose the particular synergy between left brain and right which allows me to use language and imagery in the fanciful ways I do.

But you know what? If I can’t actually make myself write often enough to produce anything, it doesn’t matter how great that synergy is. And if I wind up losing all hope and killing myself, I lose my son altogether and worse, he loses me.

So, I have an appointment with the storm, and I’m going to ride the lightning.

Wish me luck.

“Wild Soul – Nature, Civilization, and the Ecological Spirit” (Now Available, Just 99¢)

 

JUST 99¢!!!

My essay “WILD SOUL – Nature, Civilization, and the Ecological Spirit” is now available from Amazon as a Kindle download for 99 cents.

In the near future, it will be going up at other online venues, in other ebook formats. (If you don’t have a Kindle, you can still read Kindle books with free programs downloadable from Amazon, like Kindle for PC. I read Kindle books on my iPhone and desktop computer.)

Traditional tales across the world describe mankind’s joyful rise in a wild paradise like the Garden of Eden. But they also tell of our fall from such lives of bliss and natural grace.

Our technology, our cities, our toys, our wealth, all have done nothing to ground us as individuals or as societies. If they had, we would live in a near Utopia, rather than the reelingly chaotic and violent world-on-the-brink around us, for surely our affluence and level of comfort is greater than it has been for any people in the history of the earth.

Is Eden forever lost, or is there a way back?

Can we access that marvelous, mythic place in our souls, find a path to its joyful, natural wonders? Or have we slumbered so long in civilized ways that our vital selves are banished for the rest of time?

Can we reclaim the power of the primitive without denying ourselves the comforts and wonders of the modern world?

Exploring sources ranging from the Old Testament and Eastern mysticism, from poetry to popular fiction, from ancient fable to contemporary deep psychology, novelist Tim Byrd finds the prescription for our ills.

We need to live and love more fully, and do things that matter.

We need a renewal of a sense of sacredness towards the natural world, and intimacy with that world.

We need wild soul.

Jaded (Song of the Week, 1/17/11)

I first saw the video for Aerosmith’s “Jaded” years ago, in the midst of a loveless marriage, overcome by my depression, feeling utterly cut off from the primal charge of life and from the world outside.

The video, which tells the tale of a young woman living an artificial life, similarly out of touch with the marrow of existence, moved me incredibly. Eyes might’ve gotten misty. I watched it repeatedly, seeing in it what I’d lost, and trying to use it to inspire me in finding it again.

It’s a well-crafted, beautiful video for a fun song, and as I renew my offensive against my depression today, and once more try to find that doorway into the world, it’s once again a rousing call to life.

My TMS Adventure [UPDATED]

I mentioned in a post yesterday that last year, trying desperate measures to deal with my lifelong chronic depression, I’d looked into ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), and while researching it, found out about a newer, less harsh treatment called Neurostar transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

TMS seemed very promising. A sort of less powerful electro-shock which uses a targeted electromagnetic charge (about as strong as an MRI) to stimulate an area in the prefrontal lobe of the brain that controls mood, it lacked the potentially dire side effects of ECT, such as memory loss. It was a simple in-patient procedure that didn’t require anesthesia every time, as ECT does, so you don’t pay for an anesthesiologist and have to have someone drive you home every day because you’re so out of it. And the claims for its results, and the longevity of its effectiveness, sounded very appealing.

The biggest downside to trying it: insurance doesn’t cover it. It’s only been FDA-okayed for treatment of major depression since 2008 and insurance companies, always leery of paying for anything, haven’t accepted its use yet.

Still, it sounded promising, and nothing else had worked to any significant degree, and I was quite leery of ECT (which insurance does cover). So I decided to go for it.

There were a couple of places in Atlanta I could go, and I opted to be treated by Dr. Brian Teliho because he was the less expensive option. The course of treatment was a session every day Monday through Friday for 4-6 weeks, depending on how the patient responded.

Each session cost $300, so I was paying $1500 a week. This is a lot of fucking money for me, as it would be for most people.

But, I was desperate. Continue reading →

Walking Out Of The Darkness

I’ve been blogging a bit lately about my battles with depression and the impact it has had on my life. Now, leaving the wretched first decade of this millennium behind, I’m determined to turn this around and stop letting the monster control things.

Last year, I reached a point of near hopelessness. Therapy hadn’t helped much. Meds hadn’t helped much. And I was just getting worse. I decided extreme measures might be called for, and started looking into electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), the modern version of ye olde electro-shock.

ECT is intense, and it has side effects (most notably memory loss, sometimes dire and permanent memory loss). But it also has the highest success rate of any depression treatment, and many people who’ve undergone it have had their lives not only significantly improved, but pretty much saved.

Still, it’s a big scary thing to do. And while reading up on it,  I found out about a newer treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a more controlled and allegedly highly effective therapy without ECT’s scary side effects. I decided to try it, even though it’s so new it’s not covered by insurance in this country, even though it cost me $9,000 for the course of treatment.

I’m going to blog in detail about my TMS adventure, but here’s the short version: it didn’t do shit for me. In fact, it cost me a huge amount of savings while not doing shit for me, so if anything it contributed deeply to my overall sense of hopelessness and despair. [UPDATE: the detailed post about TMS can be found here.]

Looking ahead to the beginning of this year, I’d pretty much decided that, if I didn’t manage to at least finish up Doc Wilde and The Mad Skull and deliver it to my editor by now, I’d go ahead with the ECT. The book’s not done yet. But ECT’s still pretty scary, and I figure I owe myself at least one final attempt at a Hail Mary pass before going with the electrodes.

In the past, I’ve made big plans to overcome the depression and to get back on track, and clearly that has never worked to any consistent degree. So this time, I’m taking my cue from Bill Murray’s character in What About Bob?

Baby steps. “Baby steps through the office…baby steps out the door…all I have to do is take one little step at a time and I can do anything…baby steps out of the office…baby steps to the hall…baby steps to the elevator…”

The two most important things I need to do every day are:

  1. Write
  2. Exercise

So my new plan begins there. Whatever else I have on my to-do list, whatever else I may or may not accomplish in a day, I need to at minimum get at least some of both those things done. Every damn day.

So my daily to-do list from now on forms around this:

  • Write 500 words
  • Do 20-30 minutes of cardio of some sort

That’s my minimum daily requirement now. I will often write more, and exercise more, but when the will is weak, I can at least force myself to do that much.

My plan will evolve, and I’ll blog as I go. Hopefully I’ll be able to wrangle the dark beast enough that I won’t have to ride the lightning.

I start officially on Monday. Stay tuned.

Taken By The Wind (A Personal History, Part 3): The Beard of Loneliness

When things never get better, when do you give up hope that they will?

I’m not there yet, but I’ve been on the edge of that chasm for a long time.

For most of my life, I’ve alternated between times when I have to struggle to get anything at all done, and times when I was on task, organized, and convinced I could make permanent change. Note that these have never been “manic” times, just times when I was operating closer to the norm, closer to what I should be, what I might have been had it not been ripped out of me as a child.

But those productive times are always followed by collapse. To-do lists curl and die like leaves in a fire. Lonely chapters gather virtual dust on the hard drive, awaiting fellows who’ll never show. The bed forgets what it’s like to be made. And my chin thickens with whiskers, a barometer of my efficacy in my own life because I do not want a beard.

I have one now. Continue reading →

Good Memories of 2010, Prologue

2010 kinda blew.

I had major health issues and major struggles with my depression. As a result, I blew a deadline on my next book, which I still have yet to finish.

I realized that some people I thought I was close to weren’t really there for me in a meaningful way. These epiphanies come when you’re sitting around week after week thinking dark, with no one around.

I watched a Democratic president with overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress govern with his fucking hat in his hand, accomplishing some good things that could have been great had he acted with a tenth the chutzpah his ridiculous and vile predecessor had.

I watched ignorant rabble and theocratic authoritarians rebuild their power and influence in a time when rationality and progressive values were initially emergent, thanks to the lack of effective political leadership by that president and his party in general.

I didn’t get to sleep with Olivia Wilde.

And, basically, not a whole lot of good happened in my life otherwise.

Now my year has opened again with illness, and my “fine Irish melancholy” is clawing my eyes, and I feel somewhat  less than motivated to write about the good things I experienced last year. It’s an effort of memory even to recall such things. But I’m going to, because I’ve established that tradition and keeping to it is good discipline, and because it may do me some good to think back on some positive things.

The Ballad of Fuck-All (Song of the Week, 12/30/10)

By Malcolm Middleton

Oh will you come home soon
Come home soon and save me
I’m so bored
Life threatening doom
The walls are closing in all around

Oh will you find me now
Find me out and save me
I can’t get up
Life threatening doom
Dragging me darker and down

Take my hand
Dragging me down
Through the ground
Darker and down
Down down down
All the way down

Oh will you come for me
Comfort me in the night
I’m so tired of feeling sick and tired
Dying at life’s door all the time

Oh I’m locked inside
Trapped inside this body
I can’t get out
And there’s not enough room
I’m glued to the back of this bone mask…

HURT

(Song of the Week, 12/13/10)

Enough said.