# Ep154 "Can a Depressed Brain Find Its Way Out?" with Jon Nelson

An episode of [Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1677842672), 18 May 2026, 1 h 31 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/534dc725-2971-42a1-b1bf-afaa0107416e/9dbbed21-ac2f-4cff-a984-b44e001e680f/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=bee00526-7528-4581-b6b6-afaa01083a3d

What if your brain got stuck in sadness and never reset? What does it feel like when joy disappears completely? Can a person love their family deeply and still want to die? What do you do when treatment after treatment fails? What if the difference between despair and recovery is electrical? How can we better recognize invisible struggles in those around us? Join Eagleman with guest Jon Nelson, a man who suffered for years under the grip of depression, and finally found a science-fiction like treatment which gave him relief.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This month is Mental Health Awareness Month, and today's episode
[0:03] Speaker 1: is on clinical depression. What if your brain gets stuck
[0:07] Speaker 1: in sadness and never resets? What does it feel like
[0:11] Speaker 1: when joy disappears completely? Can a person love their family
[0:16] Speaker 1: deeply and still want to die? What does a person
[0:20] Speaker 1: do when treatment after treatment fails? What if relief could
[0:24] Speaker 1: come from rewiring the brain? What if the difference between
[0:28] Speaker 1: despair and recovery is electrical? And how do we as
[0:33] Speaker 1: members of our community come to better recognize suffering that
[0:37] Speaker 1: would otherwise be invisible. Today we're going to talk with
[0:40] Speaker 1: John Nelson, a man who suffered for years under the
[0:44] Speaker 1: grip of depression. As you're going to see, he's incredibly
[0:48] Speaker 1: honest and transparent about his experiences, what it was like
[0:52] Speaker 1: from the inside, and finally he'll tell us about the
[0:55] Speaker 1: radical treatment that he took to get relief. John speaks
[0:59] Speaker 1: and campaigns tirelessly for a better understanding of depression to
[1:03] Speaker 1: try to relieve the suffering of millions of other people.
[1:11] Speaker 1: Welcome to Innercosmos with me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist
[1:14] Speaker 1: and author at Stanford and in these episodes we sail
[1:18] Speaker 1: deeply into our three pound universe to understand why and
[1:22] Speaker 1: how our lives look the way they do. Today's episode
[1:45] Speaker 1: is about depression. Every brain is constantly generating a model
[1:50] Speaker 1: of the world. This includes the sites and the sounds
[1:52] Speaker 1: around you, your memories, your expectations, all that, and it
[1:55] Speaker 1: includes your emotional tone, meaning that at any given moment,
[2:00] Speaker 1: your brain is setting the dial on how the world feels.
[2:04] Speaker 1: For most of us, that emotional dial moves with circumstance.
[2:08] Speaker 1: You get good news and the dial goes up. You
[2:11] Speaker 1: hit a setback and it cranks down. You might wake
[2:14] Speaker 1: up groggy and then you perk up with a coffee
[2:16] Speaker 1: and you laugh at the friend and you relax into
[2:19] Speaker 1: the evening. There's this dynamic range. But now imagine something different.
[2:25] Speaker 1: Imagine that the dial gets stuck. It just locks in
[2:29] Speaker 1: at a low position and it doesn't come back. That's
[2:32] Speaker 1: where we're going to begin today. Now, what we call
[2:35] Speaker 1: depression can be confusing language because we often use the
[2:39] Speaker 1: same word for a passing emotion like I'm feeling sad,
[2:44] Speaker 1: and we use the same word for a brain disease.
[2:47] Speaker 1: And as we're going to see, those are two very
[2:48] Speaker 1: different things. One comes and goes, the other settles in
[2:53] Speaker 1: and when it settles in deeply enough, it reshapes everything.
[2:57] Speaker 1: Your motivation, your sense of meaning, your perception of time,
[3:01] Speaker 1: your sense of who you are. Today's episode is about
[3:05] Speaker 1: what clinical depression feels like from the inside. And I
[3:09] Speaker 1: want to say something important at the outset here. The
[3:12] Speaker 1: guest you're about to hear from John Nelson is extraordinary
[3:16] Speaker 1: in his willingness to be fully, radically honest about his
[3:21] Speaker 1: experience with major depressive disorder. He doesn't sanitize or soften anything.
[3:26] Speaker 1: And it's a tough story because his depression was resistant
[3:29] Speaker 1: to so many of the treatments that he tried. And
[3:32] Speaker 1: this kind of honesty matters enormously because for a lot
[3:37] Speaker 1: of people listening right now, this is either going to
[3:41] Speaker 1: resonate directly with your own experience, or it's going to
[3:45] Speaker 1: shine some really important light on the experience of somebody
[3:50] Speaker 1: that you know or love. So, just by way of
[3:52] Speaker 1: setting the table for this conversation, I want to say
[3:55] Speaker 1: that for decades we've typically described depression as a chemical imbalance,
[4:01] Speaker 1: and that framing has helped move the conversation forward. It
[4:05] Speaker 1: places the issue in biology instead of blame. But it
[4:09] Speaker 1: turns out that chemical imbalance is only a part of
[4:12] Speaker 1: the story, and increasingly neuroscience's understanding disorders like depression in
[4:18] Speaker 1: terms of circuit imbalances, in other words, patterns of activity
[4:23] Speaker 1: in brain networks, loops that become overactive or underactive, or
[4:28] Speaker 1: they're locked into states that no longer adapt appropriately. That
[4:32] Speaker 1: insight has opened the door to a different kind of
[4:35] Speaker 1: intervention that's not just about chemistry, but one that goes
[4:38] Speaker 1: directly into the circuitry itself. And that's where John's story
[4:43] Speaker 1: eventually leads to a treatment that even now sounds a
[4:47] Speaker 1: bit like science fiction to many people. But I'm getting
[4:50] Speaker 1: ahead of myself, because that's the end of the story,
[4:53] Speaker 1: and the really important part of this is where the
[4:55] Speaker 1: story begins and the journey itself. Here's my conversation with
[5:00] Speaker 1: John Nelson. Okay, John, so you have always been a
[5:08] Speaker 1: people guy, super enthusiastic and so on. At some point
[5:12] Speaker 1: in your life you started realizing that you were in
[5:15] Speaker 1: a funk. Tell us about that experience, about realizing that,
[5:19] Speaker 1: and about what this was like for you.
[5:21] Speaker 2: It was beyond confusing. And the reason it was is
[5:25] Speaker 2: I just am the world's biggest extrovert. I'm that guy.
[5:29] Speaker 2: You know. My business was all about being the client
[5:32] Speaker 2: service person. You know, I just I get my energy
[5:35] Speaker 2: from being around people. I get my energy from being
[5:39] Speaker 2: a good father, being a good husband, being a good friend.
[5:43] Speaker 2: And I was actually living in San Francisco at the time,
[5:46] Speaker 2: and we just moved back to the East Coast, and
[5:49] Speaker 2: the standard funk that you get into that you know
[5:52] Speaker 2: you have for a day or two, it kind of
[5:54] Speaker 2: came into my body and it just wasn't leaving, and
[5:58] Speaker 2: I couldn't figure out what was happening. You know, I'm
[6:01] Speaker 2: flying up the corporate ladder. I'm doing extremely well work wise,
[6:06] Speaker 2: I am. You know. We have the two kids, you know,
[6:09] Speaker 2: we got the dog, We got the happy life and family,
[6:12] Speaker 2: and my wife's the best. You know. It's just one
[6:14] Speaker 2: of these moments and you know your memarily thirties, you know,
[6:17] Speaker 2: you're making it happen. You're grinding, and all of a sudden,
[6:21] Speaker 2: I just started to not be myself in decline.
[6:24] Speaker 1: And so you felt like you were in a funk
[6:26] Speaker 1: and was it about something or was it a funk
[6:29] Speaker 1: that didn't have a central focus to it.
[6:32] Speaker 2: No central focus. You know, that was the hard part.
[6:35] Speaker 2: And I learned a lot about depression just by myself
[6:39] Speaker 2: going through it because I couldn't understand what was happening.
[6:42] Speaker 2: And I think also back to who I am as
[6:44] Speaker 2: a human being. You know, I'm always while I am
[6:48] Speaker 2: that extroverted person, that's my outside, right, I've always been
[6:51] Speaker 2: the way that I kind of say it is, I'm
[6:53] Speaker 2: confident on the outside. I have a zero self esteem,
[6:57] Speaker 2: and that's been who I am as a person my
[7:00] Speaker 2: whole life. You know, I've always been so hard on myself.
[7:03] Speaker 2: The way that I treat myself inside is absolutely different
[7:07] Speaker 2: than I would treat anybody, right, but that's just my temperament.
[7:11] Speaker 2: That's who I am. And so all of a sudden,
[7:14] Speaker 2: this funk started impacting my external self, and that really
[7:19] Speaker 2: was what was different is I started changing my behavior
[7:23] Speaker 2: pretty drastically.
[7:24] Speaker 1: And so let's explore what it was like to be
[7:27] Speaker 1: on the side. Was it like a sadness or an
[7:29] Speaker 1: absence of something or something else entirely?
[7:33] Speaker 2: The best way that I can explain it is the
[7:37] Speaker 2: standard human emotion that everybody has with sadness. You know,
[7:41] Speaker 2: you got them all, sadness, happiness, anger, irritability. It creeped
[7:45] Speaker 2: into me and it never left, and it kept getting
[7:49] Speaker 2: worse and worse every single day, and so it became hopelessness,
[7:57] Speaker 2: It became physically exhausting. It started wharping my brain, is
[8:03] Speaker 2: the easiest way to put it.
[8:05] Speaker 1: And out of curiosity, did time change for you? Did
[8:08] Speaker 1: days feel compressed or expanded?
[8:10] Speaker 2: Phenomenal question? Days felt so hard, they just felt difficult,
[8:15] Speaker 2: they felt I didn't want to be up. I didn't
[8:18] Speaker 2: want to be awake, you know, the only thing that
[8:21] Speaker 2: I wanted to do was not feel it. And you know,
[8:24] Speaker 2: one of the challenges for me is, since I've been
[8:28] Speaker 2: a kid, I feel everything like my like what guides
[8:31] Speaker 2: me through life is how do you make me feel?
[8:34] Speaker 2: How does the situation make me feel. I'm a gut guy,
[8:37] Speaker 2: and so being somebody who feels everything, and then you
[8:42] Speaker 2: magnify that with this, you know, small feeling of torture
[8:46] Speaker 2: that's starting into my body and never leaving. It consumed me.
[8:51] Speaker 2: It consumed me with that feeling, and all that I
[8:54] Speaker 2: wanted to do was escape and find some relief at
[8:58] Speaker 2: some point. And it was couldn't be more difficult.
[9:01] Speaker 1: And what it did you to your sense of motivation,
[9:05] Speaker 1: the things that you loved to do slowly declining.
[9:09] Speaker 2: I went from enjoying pretty much everything to over time
[9:13] Speaker 2: having no joy and not having that joy made me
[9:19] Speaker 2: feel even worse about myself. You know, while I'm sitting there,
[9:23] Speaker 2: I mean, as this disease progresses, you know, the easiest
[9:26] Speaker 2: way that I would put it is, you're a wonderful father, right,
[9:30] Speaker 2: I'm a very proud father too, And so to see
[9:34] Speaker 2: kind of what this deniacal brain disease does to you
[9:38] Speaker 2: me propt me was I'm looking at my children, I'm
[9:43] Speaker 2: guiding them, I'm being a great father, and I'm, you know,
[9:46] Speaker 2: just thinking I love you so much, like I would
[9:49] Speaker 2: do anything for you, like inside right, Like that's how
[9:51] Speaker 2: I am. And at the very same time, my brain's
[9:54] Speaker 2: also telling me all I want to do is die, right,
[9:58] Speaker 2: And so you're going through life like this. You're going
[10:01] Speaker 2: through life just having completely two different realities. And I
[10:06] Speaker 2: want to be there for my children. I want to
[10:08] Speaker 2: be a great dad, but guess what, at the same time,
[10:11] Speaker 2: I also want to die. Like living with that and
[10:14] Speaker 2: feeling everything all the time is complete and utter misery.
[10:19] Speaker 1: Let's zoom in on that issue of your brain telling
[10:22] Speaker 1: you something. Did you feel like your thoughts were not
[10:26] Speaker 1: your own and that your brain. Something in your brain
[10:28] Speaker 1: was telling you things that were someone else's voice, or
[10:32] Speaker 1: it felt like your voice. What was it like?
[10:34] Speaker 2: It was unrelenting torture and suffering, and it was my
[10:39] Speaker 2: brain saying I want to do anything that I can
[10:43] Speaker 2: to stop this. And so when you think about jumping
[10:47] Speaker 2: on your phone and just being like, hey, let's look
[10:49] Speaker 2: where would we go into HEDI as a family and
[10:51] Speaker 2: have some fun, right, and you're looking up the cool
[10:54] Speaker 2: spots that you would go, you know, that replaced that
[10:57] Speaker 2: feeling with me looking in the Netherlands that be like
[11:02] Speaker 2: maybe I could go there and compassionately die. Me were
[11:05] Speaker 2: researching every single thing that I could in Canada, be
[11:08] Speaker 2: like they have the Maids program, they have compassionate death there.
[11:11] Speaker 2: Why couldn't our country have that? That was my euphoria.
[11:16] Speaker 2: I was completely euphoric to death. I wasn't completely euphoric
[11:20] Speaker 2: to death because I was weak. I was completely euphoric
[11:23] Speaker 2: to death because the suffering and the torture was horrific
[11:27] Speaker 2: and I couldn't get out of it.
[11:29] Speaker 1: And who knew in your life?
[11:32] Speaker 2: So to start it was my wife. You know when
[11:36] Speaker 2: I tell you, I get emotional when I talk about it.
[11:40] Speaker 2: When I think about it. You know, you start what's
[11:43] Speaker 2: better than when you first meet somebody, right, and it
[11:46] Speaker 2: clicks and that chemistry is there, and you're just like, dude,
[11:49] Speaker 2: all I want to do is be with you all
[11:51] Speaker 2: the time, like I love you so much, right, and
[11:56] Speaker 2: to see her love and support and kindness to me
[12:01] Speaker 2: and understanding and also the same thing for her, the
[12:06] Speaker 2: complete stress that it put on her. Right, Like, think
[12:10] Speaker 2: of how challenging it is to have a career, raise kids,
[12:14] Speaker 2: you know, make it all happen. And then next thing,
[12:18] Speaker 2: you know, you go from these wonderful moments of just
[12:21] Speaker 2: wanting to be with each other all the time and
[12:24] Speaker 2: in creating this life together and it's just completely taken
[12:27] Speaker 2: over by a brain disease that you didn't ask for.
[12:30] Speaker 2: And she was, by far my rock. She's the strongest
[12:36] Speaker 2: human being I've ever met in my entire life. To
[12:39] Speaker 2: become she signed up to be my wife, my entire goal,
[12:45] Speaker 2: My entire goal was to make her feel like the
[12:47] Speaker 2: most important person in the world, the most special person world,
[12:50] Speaker 2: the most love person in the world, to be the
[12:53] Speaker 2: best husband that I could be. And that's not what happened.
[12:58] Speaker 2: What happened was me being in the fetal position in
[13:01] Speaker 2: my bed, wanting to die every single second of the day,
[13:05] Speaker 2: me sleeping. Literally, if I could sleep twenty three and
[13:08] Speaker 2: a half hours a day, I would do it. You know.
[13:11] Speaker 2: Once a month she would hold it together. She would
[13:14] Speaker 2: just do everything she could to be a mom. Now
[13:18] Speaker 2: she's a dad to the kids. Now she's going back
[13:21] Speaker 2: and getting an additional degrease that she can get a
[13:24] Speaker 2: job that could support her family because I'm probably not
[13:27] Speaker 2: going to be able to work. And so to see
[13:29] Speaker 2: her go on like pure adrenaline, like listen, I got this.
[13:32] Speaker 2: I'm the rock now, all right, I gotta take care
[13:34] Speaker 2: of my dude. Right to have her do that, And
[13:37] Speaker 2: then about every month, she would be in the tub
[13:41] Speaker 2: and I'm in bed, I'm staring at the wall. I'm
[13:47] Speaker 2: completely miserable, and she's bawling and she's bawling and she's
[13:51] Speaker 2: just like, I can't I don't know if I can
[13:54] Speaker 2: take this, like this stress is so hard and so high.
[14:00] Speaker 2: And then guess what that was the release that she
[14:02] Speaker 2: needed to do it again for another month. And so
[14:06] Speaker 2: for me as a husband to see this woman that
[14:09] Speaker 2: all I want to do is make your life exceptional,
[14:13] Speaker 2: and this brain disease is making that not happen was
[14:19] Speaker 2: debilitating and guess what, you know, it just makes everything worse.
[14:22] Speaker 2: When when something's torturing your mind that you didn't ask
[14:27] Speaker 2: for and you're seeing everything around you fall to pieces,
[14:32] Speaker 2: it just makes it worse.
[14:34] Speaker 1: Did it feel like this was something coming from inside
[14:37] Speaker 1: of you or something happening to you?
[14:39] Speaker 2: That's such a good question. It felt like both both.
[14:46] Speaker 2: You know, the thing that people don't talk about with
[14:50] Speaker 2: depression is it's physically exhausting, exhausting, and it took every
[14:58] Speaker 2: single thing away from me motivation wise. It was a
[15:04] Speaker 2: struggle to get up and take a shower. It was
[15:11] Speaker 2: a struggle to brush my teeth. At the same time,
[15:16] Speaker 2: you know, I had to get up and go out
[15:18] Speaker 2: there and provide for my family and put food on
[15:21] Speaker 2: the table. It's so balancing. You were working during this time,
[15:26] Speaker 2: up and up and back and forth. I mean, I was.
[15:28] Speaker 2: It was everything that you could ever imagine. So I'll
[15:31] Speaker 2: never forget. I mean, you know, at the start of
[15:34] Speaker 2: the peak of my disease, you had asked me before
[15:37] Speaker 2: who knew? You know, it was my wife, and then
[15:39] Speaker 2: it was my family, and then God forbid, I'll let
[15:42] Speaker 2: the world know, right, we have an I have an
[15:44] Speaker 2: unacceptable disease by society. So got to keep that on
[15:47] Speaker 2: the down low. Let me tell you how much that
[15:49] Speaker 2: helps the suffering and the torture. And I was managing
[15:55] Speaker 2: director of an ad agency. I ended up leaving ad
[15:59] Speaker 2: world to go over the publishing side of the world.
[16:02] Speaker 2: And I did that because I started losing confidence in myself,
[16:07] Speaker 2: and so I was like, I can go to this
[16:08] Speaker 2: kind of digital publishing job. It's not going to be
[16:12] Speaker 2: as difficult. Hopefully I can still provide well for my family.
[16:16] Speaker 2: And it was easy. It was I worked twenty percent
[16:18] Speaker 2: as hard as I did the other job, and I
[16:20] Speaker 2: was making the same amount of money. The problem was
[16:23] Speaker 2: is I was alone, and.
[16:24] Speaker 1: So that tried from home.
[16:26] Speaker 2: I was working from home, right, And so what ended
[16:28] Speaker 2: up happening and how the disease presented itself there for
[16:31] Speaker 2: me was my daughter would go to school at eight
[16:35] Speaker 2: forty five in the morning. My wife would already be
[16:38] Speaker 2: at work at eight forty six. I was sound asleep.
[16:43] Speaker 2: My daughter would get home at three twenty five. I
[16:45] Speaker 2: would have my alarm set for three twenty four so
[16:48] Speaker 2: that when she came home, I was up and it
[16:50] Speaker 2: looked like I wasn't sleeping all day. That's how this
[16:54] Speaker 2: presented itself to me that way. And then I get
[16:57] Speaker 2: a call to come be the managing director of an
[17:00] Speaker 2: ad agency, and so at that point I was like
[17:04] Speaker 2: I need adrenaline. I was like, I externally can do this, Like,
[17:09] Speaker 2: let's go right, and I went and I did that.
[17:13] Speaker 2: I got proactively promoted from managing director to president of
[17:16] Speaker 2: the ad agency while I wanted to die every single
[17:19] Speaker 2: second of the day. When you're an ad world, you're
[17:23] Speaker 2: pitching all the time. I have this most vivid memory
[17:27] Speaker 2: of this is I'm running the shop. We win the
[17:30] Speaker 2: base of business. So what you do this standard thing
[17:32] Speaker 2: is you pull out the champagne. You kind of make
[17:35] Speaker 2: the pit, you make the toast. Guys kick you kick
[17:37] Speaker 2: the ass. Let's go right. And so I'm the guy
[17:40] Speaker 2: doing that right. I'm also the guy getting in my
[17:43] Speaker 2: car driving home and wanting to slam my car into
[17:47] Speaker 2: every single tree that I go by because I want
[17:50] Speaker 2: this complete torture as hell to leave my body. That's
[17:53] Speaker 2: what this looks like. It's completely different, and every person
[17:57] Speaker 2: you have no idea who's suffering. But that that's how
[18:00] Speaker 2: it presented itself in me, and I literally would think
[18:04] Speaker 2: you look at the world differently when you go through
[18:08] Speaker 2: this disease. At the level that I did, I was
[18:12] Speaker 2: so uphork for death that the world's different. You know,
[18:17] Speaker 2: driving down the highway, nobody would notice this stuff. But
[18:22] Speaker 2: you can't hit columns that are under for bridges on highways,
[18:26] Speaker 2: they're protected, right things like that. You're like, oh my god,
[18:30] Speaker 2: that would be such an amazing way to absolutely if
[18:32] Speaker 2: I could die, that'd be incredible. So I got consumed
[18:36] Speaker 2: with how do I die of an accidental death? How
[18:39] Speaker 2: do I do that? Because that solves all my problems
[18:42] Speaker 2: because if you die by suicide, which is the entire
[18:45] Speaker 2: goal of this disease, guess what, you don't get life insurance.
[18:50] Speaker 2: There's ways you can, but you don't get life insurance.
[18:54] Speaker 2: And so how can I die accidentally? How can I
[18:57] Speaker 2: make it look like there was a deer that when
[19:00] Speaker 2: front of me and I hit that tree. How can
[19:02] Speaker 2: I make it? I got to get my gutter, I
[19:04] Speaker 2: got to do my gutters. I got hit the leaves
[19:05] Speaker 2: on of my gutters. Like if I do that and
[19:07] Speaker 2: I go around this side and I fall on the pavement,
[19:09] Speaker 2: then it'll look like it's an accident, like that is
[19:12] Speaker 2: what your consumption is and not because people are weak.
[19:16] Speaker 2: That's the absolute symptom of what this thing is trying
[19:19] Speaker 2: to do. Along with physically ravaging your body, so you're
[19:23] Speaker 2: physically exhausted, you're mentally consumed with this torturous hell, and
[19:27] Speaker 2: you have society judging, labeling, blaming, and shaving you. It's
[19:32] Speaker 2: absolutely infuriating and it's a recipe for disaster.
[19:36] Speaker 1: Two things. One is you know our perception of the world.
[19:40] Speaker 1: We usually think of perception like a camera, but in
[19:44] Speaker 1: fact it's all about what is relevant to your brain.
[19:47] Speaker 1: And so that's fascinating and horrifying that that's what you noticed,
[19:53] Speaker 1: is oh, would that be a useful thing to crash
[19:55] Speaker 1: and do? There, they're as you're driving down the highway,
[19:57] Speaker 1: you're noticing something very different than you know and barist
[20:00] Speaker 1: or a city planner, or someone who's hungry and looking
[20:03] Speaker 1: for a hamburger. You're noticing different things on the road there.
[20:07] Speaker 2: One hundred percent. Yeah, So to let you know how
[20:11] Speaker 2: conflicting everything was, right, I was consumed with dying, but
[20:16] Speaker 2: at the same time I had an understanding of how
[20:21] Speaker 2: do I do this? Where it's the most minimal impact
[20:24] Speaker 2: that it can have on people. This is how it
[20:27] Speaker 2: presented itself in me. Right, I hadn't lost all tangents
[20:31] Speaker 2: to society, so I would be sitting there thinking about
[20:34] Speaker 2: it and I'm like, well, I don't want to do
[20:35] Speaker 2: this in my town. If I go to the next
[20:38] Speaker 2: town or I go to the other state, I want
[20:39] Speaker 2: to do this in an area where a first responder
[20:42] Speaker 2: can find me. It's going to still be horrific for them,
[20:44] Speaker 2: but they're used to this. I don't want this to
[20:46] Speaker 2: be you know, like, that's the level that it would
[20:48] Speaker 2: get to. And I'm always a fixer, right, I'm always
[20:51] Speaker 2: I'm always thinking about like what can I do? How
[20:53] Speaker 2: can I make this happen? But but this is the
[20:56] Speaker 2: this is this is the level of the previty that
[20:59] Speaker 2: this does to.
[20:59] Speaker 1: Your How did you look to find really? First of all,
[21:02] Speaker 1: did you go to see a psychiatrist? Okay? And was
[21:06] Speaker 1: what was suggested to you?
[21:07] Speaker 2: So the very first step was I went to a therapist.
[21:12] Speaker 2: Don't tell anybody, right, And so I go to a
[21:15] Speaker 2: therapist that I talk to my boy wife. I'm like,
[21:18] Speaker 2: I really feel like I need to need to figure
[21:20] Speaker 2: this out. And it was two sessions in and she said,
[21:23] Speaker 2: I think you have major depressive disorder. And you know,
[21:28] Speaker 2: you hear that. I'm like, really like, huh, I go home.
[21:32] Speaker 2: I look it up and man, was she right?
[21:35] Speaker 1: Did feel like a relief to have a label to
[21:37] Speaker 1: it a little bit? Okay?
[21:40] Speaker 2: You know, it was my first time in therapy, and
[21:43] Speaker 2: so that was interesting in itself. You know, like talking
[21:46] Speaker 2: about it's the standard stuff, right, you go back to
[21:48] Speaker 2: talking about your family dynamics and everything that's happening. So
[21:51] Speaker 2: I had that there, and then I just had the
[21:54] Speaker 2: confusion of like, you know, I'm not sure what's going on.
[21:56] Speaker 2: So in general, it was it was just a neat
[22:00] Speaker 2: experience to be a part of it right and feel
[22:03] Speaker 2: like I was starting the process right, That's what it
[22:08] Speaker 2: felt like.
[22:08] Speaker 1: And to go to the therapist or to get the diagnosis.
[22:12] Speaker 2: Go to the therapist. And then when I got the diagnosis,
[22:14] Speaker 2: it just felt comforting, like I'm talking to somebody, I'm
[22:17] Speaker 2: opening up about this, this is my mind, this is
[22:20] Speaker 2: somebody who does this on a daily basis, this is
[22:22] Speaker 2: her career, and she's guiding me to get me, to
[22:25] Speaker 2: let me know what's going on. And so if anything.
[22:28] Speaker 2: It kind of ended my confusion a little bit. You know.
[22:30] Speaker 2: It was like I could focus on Okay, I'm a fixer, right,
[22:33] Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, this is it. I'm a fixer.
[22:35] Speaker 2: Let's figure this out, right. And so when I read
[22:37] Speaker 2: that definition of major depress of the sword, I was like,
[22:40] Speaker 2: oh man. I was like, that's it, you know. And
[22:44] Speaker 2: so that started my journey to like, okay, so what
[22:47] Speaker 2: do we do to try to fix this? And I did.
[22:50] Speaker 2: I did the second thing, which was wild, as I
[22:53] Speaker 2: sent an email to my broader family and it just
[22:56] Speaker 2: said depression in the subject line, and I just said,
[22:59] Speaker 2: I just want to let you guys know what's going
[23:02] Speaker 2: on with me. And I just wanted them to know.
[23:07] Speaker 2: And you know, it was well received ish, but it
[23:11] Speaker 2: was my kind of start to be like, all right,
[23:13] Speaker 2: let me just talk about this. I go to my
[23:17] Speaker 2: primary care office and I see my nurse practitioner, Jane,
[23:22] Speaker 2: and I will tell you to this day, the most
[23:28] Speaker 2: empathetic person I've ever been around. You know, she sits
[23:32] Speaker 2: me down and just treated me with such respect and kindness,
[23:38] Speaker 2: and it was just amazing. Like again, I go back
[23:41] Speaker 2: to the feelings, right, I felt seen, I felt like
[23:48] Speaker 2: it was okay to have this, and she wants to
[23:51] Speaker 2: help me. And I didn't feel that for another ten years.
[23:56] Speaker 2: Why I was a nuisance to this. I was a
[24:02] Speaker 2: nuisance to insurance. I was a nuisance to society. It's infuriating.
[24:09] Speaker 2: I was looked through. I was a piece of paper.
[24:14] Speaker 2: I was a burden to everything. And so to have
[24:19] Speaker 2: my first experience be one of kindness and love and
[24:23] Speaker 2: empathy was really, really great. And I certainly would have
[24:28] Speaker 2: hoped that it would have been throughout the whole journey,
[24:30] Speaker 2: and it wasn't. And so then the process starts with
[24:35] Speaker 2: here's a medication. I wasn't aware at the time. It
[24:38] Speaker 2: was put your hand in and try to figure out
[24:41] Speaker 2: which one it would be in having no idea, and
[24:43] Speaker 2: take this one right. It was, here's this medication. Come
[24:47] Speaker 2: back in six weeks, and let's talk. I come back
[24:50] Speaker 2: in six weeks, and how are you feeling? Still feeling
[24:55] Speaker 2: pretty horrible? All right, let's try the next one. Prozac
[25:02] Speaker 2: is all keep going on and on and on. You know,
[25:06] Speaker 2: I did over ten different medications, and each time I'm
[25:09] Speaker 2: doing that, it's suffering for another six weeks and then
[25:13] Speaker 2: coming back in and just the only consistent that I
[25:17] Speaker 2: had in this entire journey was failure and increased torture.
[25:24] Speaker 2: That's it. And not one medication work for me.
[25:29] Speaker 1: Oh right. So the difficulty for psychiatrists is that they
[25:34] Speaker 1: prescribe these meds and sometimes they work and often they don't.
[25:39] Speaker 1: And exactly as you said, it's a lottery system where
[25:42] Speaker 1: you're trying it out and there's no way, at least
[25:45] Speaker 1: at the moment to know who's likely to respond and
[25:48] Speaker 1: which one they're likely to respond to. So, okay, so
[25:52] Speaker 1: you were trying pharmaceuticals. Did you try things like cognitive
[25:55] Speaker 1: behavioral therapy or other things?
[25:58] Speaker 2: I tried everything you know, and I will tell you
[26:02] Speaker 2: one of the words are very important in this condition
[26:07] Speaker 2: and when you were trying to find when you're trying
[26:11] Speaker 2: not to feel horrible and nothing works. And I had
[26:15] Speaker 2: the very first time I got introduced to CBT therapist
[26:19] Speaker 2: and we were having kind of the initial call like, hey,
[26:22] Speaker 2: come on in next week, I have the availability to
[26:24] Speaker 2: see you.
[26:25] Speaker 3: CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy, and she
[26:30] Speaker 3: ended the phone call and she said, John, I really
[26:33] Speaker 3: look forward to seeing you and helping provide you some relief,
[26:38] Speaker 3: and I was like, oh my god.
[26:40] Speaker 2: I was like, that's the word, Like that was all
[26:44] Speaker 2: I was searching for, and I couldn't find it, and
[26:47] Speaker 2: I couldn't put that word. It was a moment in
[26:50] Speaker 2: the day where I actually felt a little better. I'd
[26:54] Speaker 2: never felt better, right, And so I'm like, oh my God,
[26:57] Speaker 2: like that's what I need. And so I ended up.
[27:01] Speaker 2: And it's a wonderful question about therapy. And I respect therapists,
[27:06] Speaker 2: and I respect counselors or respects that causus. I respect
[27:08] Speaker 2: everybody tremendously for giving their entire career and passion to
[27:13] Speaker 2: helping people who are suffering. I also am triggered by therapy.
[27:20] Speaker 2: And the reason I'm triggered by therapy is I just
[27:23] Speaker 2: kept getting sicker. And it wasn't because of them. It
[27:27] Speaker 2: was because of how significantly severe my disease was. And
[27:32] Speaker 2: so guess what it did to me. It made me
[27:34] Speaker 2: feel like I was failing it, right, So I knew
[27:37] Speaker 2: what to do. I knew the DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy,
[27:42] Speaker 2: I knew the CBT. I tried all of it, and
[27:45] Speaker 2: then here's the problem is, you know, do this and
[27:49] Speaker 2: then this will happen. But guess what happens when you
[27:52] Speaker 2: are so sick. It's impossible for me to do things.
[27:57] Speaker 2: And so I know I'm supposed to be doing one thing,
[28:01] Speaker 2: and then guess what, I end up sleeping twenty three
[28:04] Speaker 2: hours and I feel even worse about myself because I
[28:07] Speaker 2: can't accomplish these basic things that I'm being told to
[28:10] Speaker 2: do that will improve my health. But that is another
[28:14] Speaker 2: major myss that we have in this system. Going through
[28:17] Speaker 2: my journey, I was never told one time that the
[28:22] Speaker 2: reason I couldn't feel pleasure is something called anedonia. Not
[28:27] Speaker 2: one person told me that, Like, this disease just wants
[28:30] Speaker 2: you to literally crush your soul whatever it could do, right.
[28:34] Speaker 2: And so I'm sitting there and I'm like, dude, like
[28:38] Speaker 2: I have zero pleasure, I can't feel I can't do anything.
[28:43] Speaker 2: And nobody told me that that was the brain disease.
[28:48] Speaker 2: So now I'm like, I'm sleeping all the time, I'm
[28:53] Speaker 2: a nuisance to everybody. I can't even experience pleasure. I
[28:59] Speaker 2: can't even enjoy anything. And this is what Anne hadonia is,
[29:03] Speaker 2: this is what adonia is. It's the ability of not
[29:05] Speaker 2: being able to feel pleasure. And so these beautiful things
[29:09] Speaker 2: that I used to do. Like perfect example, I used
[29:12] Speaker 2: to live in this beautiful Bay area. When I tell
[29:15] Speaker 2: you how much I enjoy coming here, it is the
[29:21] Speaker 2: people I love, It's the culture, the weather, and so
[29:26] Speaker 2: one of the things that I did. And just to
[29:28] Speaker 2: explain to you what thebility of losing pleasure looks like
[29:33] Speaker 2: is when I moved back east, I built right away
[29:36] Speaker 2: a really cool fire pit outside, you know, and I
[29:39] Speaker 2: was like, this is going to be my commemorative thing
[29:42] Speaker 2: in my love of the Bay Area. I'm bringing it here,
[29:45] Speaker 2: you know, like I love when I lived here. You know,
[29:47] Speaker 2: you'd meet up with your neighbors and you'd all sit
[29:50] Speaker 2: around and have a couple of beers and just to
[29:52] Speaker 2: have the fire going every single day. And to explain
[29:57] Speaker 2: to you how you lose pleasure, I for the last
[30:01] Speaker 2: three years of my disease, never had a fire once.
[30:05] Speaker 2: Couldn't have friends over to my house to have a fire.
[30:09] Speaker 2: I couldn't sit outside with my friends. I couldn't motivate
[30:13] Speaker 2: to make that phone call. It would be torture to
[30:16] Speaker 2: do it right. That is Anaedonia. And then you add
[30:20] Speaker 2: on the second one, which is called abolition. Nobody told
[30:24] Speaker 2: me about this either, right, So the losing the ability
[30:28] Speaker 2: to do daily routine activities like they're so difficult. Right,
[30:33] Speaker 2: that's the I showered today, right, I did it. Right.
[30:38] Speaker 2: The fact that that's like a marathon to make happen.
[30:42] Speaker 2: Nobody told me about that either.
[30:44] Speaker 1: And by the way, for the listeners, avolition is you know, volition,
[30:48] Speaker 1: your energy to go out and do something, and a
[30:50] Speaker 1: just means not. So if you have avolition, it means
[30:53] Speaker 1: you're not getting out and making things happen. But what
[30:57] Speaker 1: did it feel like when you were thinking of, hey,
[31:00] Speaker 1: should I text my friend to do the fire pit tonight?
[31:02] Speaker 1: What was the feeling that you had like I just don't.
[31:06] Speaker 1: I just don't want to, or I can't get myself
[31:08] Speaker 1: to pick up the phone. I just didn't do it,
[31:10] Speaker 1: didn't even didn't even cross my mind. It was like
[31:14] Speaker 1: the last thing in the world I want.
[31:15] Speaker 2: To do is anything I see. And it was an
[31:18] Speaker 2: example of what that's like. I only thing that I
[31:22] Speaker 2: wanted to do was because nothing was working. And this
[31:28] Speaker 2: is something to think about into, you know, for people
[31:31] Speaker 2: who are out there listening and trying to see like
[31:33] Speaker 2: how is this presenting itself and other folks is I
[31:38] Speaker 2: was exceptional. Like the only things that I was excellent
[31:41] Speaker 2: at was sleeping, was consuming far too much alcohol, was
[31:47] Speaker 2: consuming far too much cannabis. Was lying. Lying's huge?
[31:53] Speaker 1: What's an example?
[31:54] Speaker 2: Lying is? Hey, han, I need you to come to
[31:58] Speaker 2: the kid's appointment at ten o'clock. It's at school. Sorry,
[32:01] Speaker 2: I can't do it. I got a work meeting. I
[32:03] Speaker 2: didn't have a work meeting. My friend's calling me, Hey, dude,
[32:06] Speaker 2: you want to come out. We'll go to the game tonight.
[32:08] Speaker 2: Got out that the Steelers are coming in town. You
[32:10] Speaker 2: want to go? Sorry, man, I can't. I got I
[32:13] Speaker 2: got something going on. If anything going on, I just
[32:16] Speaker 2: didn't want to leave my room right. And so think
[32:21] Speaker 2: about that, like that's what you're doing at all times,
[32:23] Speaker 2: is like how can I get out of anything because
[32:26] Speaker 2: I don't want to do it right? And then this
[32:28] Speaker 2: is the depravity of this disease. So all you want
[32:33] Speaker 2: to do, you want people to notice you, to help you.
[32:40] Speaker 2: You don't get anything right, And so you're like, why
[32:43] Speaker 2: is nobody helping me? Why is nobody Why is nobody
[32:46] Speaker 2: helping my wife? Why is everybody lining up down the
[32:50] Speaker 2: street to bring cast roles for other diseases? And help
[32:53] Speaker 2: the family. Why why aren't they doing that for us? Right?
[32:58] Speaker 2: So you have that going on and at the same
[32:59] Speaker 2: time time, this is how maniacal it is when somebody
[33:04] Speaker 2: helps you. I don't want I please don't get around me,
[33:08] Speaker 2: like I don't like, No, this is too much, right,
[33:12] Speaker 2: So it's a it's a lose lose And guess what,
[33:16] Speaker 2: that's all in your mind and that mind is circling
[33:19] Speaker 2: all the time, and it's a it's literal hell that's
[33:21] Speaker 2: going on and it just doesn't end.
[33:25] Speaker 1: And do you feel that people weren't helping because they
[33:28] Speaker 1: did not know or because there was stigma?
[33:32] Speaker 2: It is. Stigma is the most horrific thing in the
[33:35] Speaker 2: entire world. It is the most deadly thing that we
[33:37] Speaker 2: do as a society. And it is comical to me
[33:41] Speaker 2: to keep for people to say that there isn't a stigma,
[33:45] Speaker 2: the stigma Gosh forbid, we would I would tell somebody
[33:49] Speaker 2: that I was suffering with this, right, Like, like stigma
[33:52] Speaker 2: makes you be quiet, and so to explain to you
[33:55] Speaker 2: took me years to be comfortable enough to talk to
[33:59] Speaker 2: people about it. I'm like, this is like I'm doing it,
[34:02] Speaker 2: like this is this is I'm going to do the opposite.
[34:05] Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna literally come out to masses. And
[34:08] Speaker 2: so I ended up doing the exact opposite. I do
[34:10] Speaker 2: a big I ended up contacting a trade publication in
[34:14] Speaker 2: my world, and I'm like, guys, I'm a I'm a
[34:16] Speaker 2: I'm a marketer, uh, you know, a successful marketer in
[34:19] Speaker 2: the space, and I have mental illness and I'd like
[34:22] Speaker 2: to talk about it. And I did, and it was
[34:26] Speaker 2: incredible to see the reaction was you had a lot
[34:29] Speaker 2: of people who were like, oh my god, I didn't
[34:30] Speaker 2: know there were people like me, right, But then it
[34:33] Speaker 2: was also it was very or interesting because I got
[34:35] Speaker 2: to see a different side of humanity. And so this
[34:38] Speaker 2: is my example of you feel awful all the time,
[34:43] Speaker 2: you feel your insides are just deteriorating, right, and then
[34:49] Speaker 2: think of think of how much balls it takes to
[34:53] Speaker 2: tell somebody you're suffering with a stigmatized disease. So I
[34:56] Speaker 2: got to that point where it was certain people I
[34:58] Speaker 2: would and it's like, you know, I've been It's been
[35:02] Speaker 2: just a horrific battle. You know, I'm struggling and I'm
[35:07] Speaker 2: suffering from treatment resistant depression, which is after two failed medications.
[35:11] Speaker 2: So I was very quickly treatment resistant. And do you
[35:14] Speaker 2: know what the response was ninety nine point nine percent
[35:17] Speaker 2: of the time.
[35:18] Speaker 1: What's that?
[35:20] Speaker 2: This? This being what I'm doing to you right now,
[35:23] Speaker 2: staring at you, not saying anything, just judgment, just silence,
[35:31] Speaker 2: just making you feel worse inside, making you feel even
[35:35] Speaker 2: more awkward.
[35:36] Speaker 1: Was it judgment or was it people not knowing what
[35:39] Speaker 1: to say?
[35:40] Speaker 2: Both? Right? But that's but that's that's the stigma. And
[35:44] Speaker 2: that's the best part when people are like, well, there's
[35:46] Speaker 2: one stigma out there, absolutely not true. And here's the
[35:50] Speaker 2: reason I will say it. If I had told somebody
[35:54] Speaker 2: I am dude, this is I'm just I have the
[35:57] Speaker 2: most debilitating situation right now I have. I just got
[36:01] Speaker 2: I'm dealing with colon cancer. Like, what's the immediate reaction
[36:05] Speaker 2: of a woman or anybody like I'm suffering from breast cancer? Immediately,
[36:11] Speaker 2: I'm so incredibly sorry. You have that internal feeling of compassion,
[36:17] Speaker 2: of sadness, of empathy. You don't need to know the
[36:21] Speaker 2: biology behind hou or through the science behind why it's happening, right,
[36:24] Speaker 2: You just know it sucks, and you know you feel
[36:27] Speaker 2: bad for them. You know you feel bad for their family.
[36:29] Speaker 2: They didn't ask for that, right, and they got the
[36:32] Speaker 2: crappy cards. It's the same exact thing with serious mental illness,
[36:37] Speaker 2: but society doesn't view it the same. It's not acceptable.
[36:40] Speaker 2: It's not an acceptable.
[36:41] Speaker 1: Disease, exactly right. And it's because when you look at
[36:44] Speaker 1: these other things, let's say, breast cancer, col and cancer whatever,
[36:47] Speaker 1: we understand that immediately is a biological thing. Now, as
[36:51] Speaker 1: it turns out, mental illness is a biological thing in
[36:55] Speaker 1: this three pound organ. But it's harder to tell that.
[36:58] Speaker 1: So people think, okay, well, John should just get over it,
[37:01] Speaker 1: should just you know, get himself out of bed and
[37:03] Speaker 1: do the right thing. And it's because you can't see it.
[37:07] Speaker 1: You can't see the MRI or the X ray of
[37:10] Speaker 1: a broken arm, or the clear measurement in the blood
[37:13] Speaker 1: labs or something.
[37:14] Speaker 2: I'll prove to you even more. Take it once that further,
[37:17] Speaker 2: so I gave you some non brain diseases, right with
[37:20] Speaker 2: the colon cancer, with the breast cancer. What is the
[37:24] Speaker 2: feeling from society if you got a call from your
[37:26] Speaker 2: friend the day that you were supposed to go out
[37:28] Speaker 2: at night and they said, dude, I'm dealing with the
[37:31] Speaker 2: worst migraine of all time you know your feeling aside
[37:34] Speaker 2: is like, dude, I'm so sorry. Absolutely, don't worry about tonight. Like,
[37:37] Speaker 2: don't worry about it. Right, that's the brain. That's something
[37:40] Speaker 2: off in your brain to make that happen. That's acceptable,
[37:42] Speaker 2: that's understood, right, same exact thing here, not the case.
[37:48] Speaker 1: Right, right. And I wonder if it's because we, you know,
[37:51] Speaker 1: all of us go up and down with our feelings sometimes,
[37:53] Speaker 1: and so if someone doesn't know what clinical depression is,
[37:57] Speaker 1: they think, well, come on, John, you know we've all
[38:00] Speaker 1: been sad for a moment, and you'll get over it,
[38:02] Speaker 1: and you'll get over by tomorrow.
[38:04] Speaker 2: So that is a that is a beautiful comment and
[38:07] Speaker 2: one of the biggest things that I like to tell
[38:09] Speaker 2: the world to understand. This is what you were referring
[38:12] Speaker 2: to and what people are saying when they're ignorant and
[38:15] Speaker 2: they're saying, snap out of it, dude, get over it.
[38:18] Speaker 2: I've I've been been sad before. You're talking about the
[38:22] Speaker 2: human emotion, you're not talking about the disease. And so
[38:27] Speaker 2: part of this as a marketing guy is the naming convention. Right,
[38:31] Speaker 2: what is another word for being sad?
[38:33] Speaker 1: Oh?
[38:33] Speaker 2: Dude, I just feel depressed man, right, you're you're you're us.
[38:38] Speaker 2: You're talking about the emotion. And so absolutely we all
[38:41] Speaker 2: have had sadness for sure, and that's exactly what what
[38:45] Speaker 2: should happen. And it comes in your body and at
[38:47] Speaker 2: least just like when you wake up, right, you wake up,
[38:50] Speaker 2: you're a little cranky, and then you go out and
[38:52] Speaker 2: you have a breakfast, you feel good, right, Like, that's
[38:54] Speaker 2: the cycle of life. And so when people are trying
[38:58] Speaker 2: to understand this diseasease, the disease is that emotion for me,
[39:03] Speaker 2: for a lot of people that never leaves your body
[39:07] Speaker 2: and just gets worse and worse and worse over time.
[39:12] Speaker 2: That's what this disease is. And so that that that
[39:17] Speaker 2: let me begin to tell you how frustrating it is
[39:22] Speaker 2: to have people who even think they're being helpful right
[39:27] Speaker 2: come up to you and say, do just do just
[39:30] Speaker 2: diet and exercise, like you don't think I know that,
[39:35] Speaker 2: like you don't you don't think that I like like
[39:38] Speaker 2: that Every part just makes you just go deeper and
[39:41] Speaker 2: deeper into a whole, you know, and all you want
[39:45] Speaker 2: is just some frickin relief, and and you're continuing to
[39:49] Speaker 2: be judged, you know, like do just die an exercise,
[39:52] Speaker 2: Just walk around the block, bro, I can't move I
[39:58] Speaker 2: know that, right, But but that even at every single
[40:02] Speaker 2: thing just feels like judgment, feels like scorn, feels like dude,
[40:08] Speaker 2: just figure it out. And you're like, all I'm trying
[40:10] Speaker 2: to do is figure it out. And the anti depresses, man,
[40:13] Speaker 2: they were at the beginning of a massive journey.
[40:17] Speaker 1: You know, this is the history of medicine is for
[40:21] Speaker 1: thousands of years people would say, just figure it out,
[40:23] Speaker 1: just snap out of it.
[40:24] Speaker 2: Yep.
[40:25] Speaker 1: And it was only really recently that we came to
[40:29] Speaker 1: take on this whole other category of you know, illness
[40:33] Speaker 1: of the body. But then this category of oh, the
[40:35] Speaker 1: psychiatric illnesses too. And the fact that that became something
[40:40] Speaker 1: that was studied as a biological thing, as a problem
[40:43] Speaker 1: with the brain, was a really big important step. But
[40:46] Speaker 1: it's it's interesting that it's still separated out like a
[40:49] Speaker 1: separate category. Oh well, that's a psychiatric illness, and we've
[40:52] Speaker 1: got physical illnesses over here, even though they're all physical illness. Okay,
[41:07] Speaker 1: So let's get back to the treatment. So you tried
[41:09] Speaker 1: pharma schools, didn't work, You tried different forms of therapy,
[41:13] Speaker 1: didn't work. Did you try trans cranial magnetic stimulation?
[41:16] Speaker 2: So I end up going It was twenty eighteen, the
[41:20] Speaker 2: week between Christmas and New Year, and so I'm running
[41:23] Speaker 2: that agency at the time. Nobody knows that I'm sick
[41:26] Speaker 2: at the shop, and my wife is going to her parents' house.
[41:30] Speaker 2: They have a kind of beach area where they go
[41:32] Speaker 2: to and she's like, you're gonna come again, back to
[41:36] Speaker 2: the line, I can't. I gotta work. I have to work,
[41:40] Speaker 2: and she jumps in the minivan. We got the minivan,
[41:44] Speaker 2: the three kids. She's backing out of our garage and again,
[41:50] Speaker 2: I'll never forget it, like we had this extra probably
[41:54] Speaker 2: half second glance at each other, like eye to eye,
[41:58] Speaker 2: and it was basically her just saying I love you,
[42:02] Speaker 2: you know, like I'm not. I don't know if I'll
[42:04] Speaker 2: see you again, you know, Like it was it was
[42:07] Speaker 2: not that she was leaving me to die by suicide,
[42:11] Speaker 2: but she knew just the absolute horror that was going
[42:14] Speaker 2: through my body. And that night, I consume far too
[42:19] Speaker 2: much cannabis, I consume far too much alcohol. I jump
[42:25] Speaker 2: on my little scooter that is uh takes me around town,
[42:28] Speaker 2: a little kind of like vespie looking scooter without a helmet,
[42:33] Speaker 2: of course, adrenaline, whatever you can do. I go pick
[42:37] Speaker 2: up the Indian food ordered way too much food, come home,
[42:41] Speaker 2: consume that. And I'm up in my bedroom and I'm
[42:45] Speaker 2: staring at the ceiling and I'm just screaming like why
[42:51] Speaker 2: am I so fing sad? And I'd like my tears
[42:55] Speaker 2: are going so far hard down my face that they're
[42:58] Speaker 2: like making a sound on the bed, like like that's
[43:01] Speaker 2: what's going on. And I was like, should I call
[43:05] Speaker 2: the suicide hotline? And I didn't. And the reason I
[43:10] Speaker 2: didn't is I didn't know if the police would show
[43:13] Speaker 2: up at my house and I didn't want to have
[43:16] Speaker 2: the police at my house and like make a scene, right,
[43:20] Speaker 2: And for some way, I was able to fall asleep
[43:23] Speaker 2: and I woke up the next day and I called
[43:27] Speaker 2: my or I texted my boss and she actually lived
[43:31] Speaker 2: close to me, and I just said, hey, my car
[43:34] Speaker 2: is broke down. Could you mind grabbing me today? And
[43:40] Speaker 2: she came over and I was, you know, imagine, you know,
[43:44] Speaker 2: your old Jim shorts twenty years ago and your worst
[43:47] Speaker 2: T shirt and I just bawling. You know. She walks
[43:53] Speaker 2: in and I'm I'm the guy running the shop. I'm
[43:56] Speaker 2: the guy who's got it all together, and I'm just
[43:58] Speaker 2: completely the lowest point in my life.
[44:01] Speaker 1: Is this the first time she'd ever seen you like that.
[44:03] Speaker 2: Is the first time she had anybody ever see me
[44:06] Speaker 2: like that outside of my family. And I just said,
[44:09] Speaker 2: I need help. I don't know what to do. And
[44:13] Speaker 2: she was the most incredible person in the entire world.
[44:18] Speaker 2: And she sat with me, and she called my father
[44:20] Speaker 2: and she called my wife, and you know, I told
[44:24] Speaker 2: my wife, I said, you no need to come home
[44:26] Speaker 2: like she's got me like, I'm going to go somewhere
[44:28] Speaker 2: and be safe. And my father came down, who was
[44:35] Speaker 2: incredibly helpful, and they helped me get to my first
[44:38] Speaker 2: residential treatment facility.
[44:39] Speaker 1: And was this new for your father as well?
[44:41] Speaker 2: So my father is a physician, and my father is
[44:45] Speaker 2: a surgeon, and when I first told him about my
[44:49] Speaker 2: suffering and going through this, his first reaction to me was, dude,
[44:54] Speaker 2: you got a family, figure it out, right. And so
[44:58] Speaker 2: to go from that to him seeing and understanding what
[45:04] Speaker 2: this disease can do to you and being my biggest supporter,
[45:09] Speaker 2: shows you what it is like when people can actually
[45:12] Speaker 2: experience this from the outside. The only people that this
[45:16] Speaker 2: disease was worse for than me were the loved ones
[45:19] Speaker 2: in my family that got to see it. And so
[45:22] Speaker 2: that go to this residential treatment facility and I'm thirty
[45:26] Speaker 2: days in this facility and it was the first time
[45:29] Speaker 2: in my entire life that I'd ever been in group therapy.
[45:33] Speaker 2: And that's something I try to tell everybody who's struggling,
[45:37] Speaker 2: is this disease is trying to keep you in your
[45:39] Speaker 2: bedroom and trying to keep you silent and trying to
[45:42] Speaker 2: isolate you. F fat, don't let it win. And being
[45:46] Speaker 2: around the first time I was in a group and
[45:48] Speaker 2: being with like minded people who were also struggling and suffering,
[45:52] Speaker 2: it was like the most therapeutic thing I've ever been
[45:54] Speaker 2: in around my life. And I'm in there. They call
[45:57] Speaker 2: it the tank, and so you're in the tank. So
[46:00] Speaker 2: people that are come in there with substance abuse disorder,
[46:04] Speaker 2: they make sure they're safe physically, they're not going through
[46:07] Speaker 2: withdrawal with mental illness. It's are you going to die
[46:10] Speaker 2: by suicide? We need to make sure you're okay before
[46:12] Speaker 2: you go to the general population. And there's like eight
[46:17] Speaker 2: people in this room and we're going around and we're
[46:19] Speaker 2: telling our stories. And there's a woman there who is
[46:23] Speaker 2: in rehab for a six time popioate addiction, and she
[46:28] Speaker 2: looks directly at me and she says, I am so
[46:32] Speaker 2: happy I have what I have instead of what you have,
[46:36] Speaker 2: and I'll never forget that. And I was like, oh
[46:39] Speaker 2: my gosh, I couldn't believe it. You know, like you thinking,
[46:43] Speaker 2: you hear, and you feel and you know, and society's
[46:46] Speaker 2: talking all the time about you know, addiction and these
[46:48] Speaker 2: things that are going on, and how like eight times
[46:50] Speaker 2: she's been here, right, this is a horrific thing that
[46:54] Speaker 2: she is going through with her brain disease, right, and
[46:57] Speaker 2: you think that's about as difficult of a journey as
[47:00] Speaker 2: it can be. And to have this person look at
[47:03] Speaker 2: me and say I don't want that was like, oh wow,
[47:09] Speaker 2: Like this is putting in a perspective on how bad
[47:11] Speaker 2: this is.
[47:12] Speaker 1: It allowed you to see yourself and understand this not
[47:15] Speaker 1: as an issue of your fault and understand that what
[47:19] Speaker 1: you have been going through is really rough. Is that?
[47:22] Speaker 1: Why is that what it meant to you or something else?
[47:25] Speaker 2: Yes? And also I just was seen differently like it
[47:30] Speaker 2: kind of it kind of what I would say, this
[47:33] Speaker 2: is a great question. I've never been asked that. What
[47:35] Speaker 2: I would say, is it validated to me the absolute
[47:40] Speaker 2: horror that was happening in my body, That's what it was.
[47:44] Speaker 2: It was like, oh, yeah, this is as bad, This
[47:48] Speaker 2: is as bad as I think it is. That nobody
[47:50] Speaker 2: seems to care about. This isn't judgment, this is this
[47:55] Speaker 2: is I see your pain. I live with what people
[47:59] Speaker 2: think would be very difficult to live with, which it
[48:01] Speaker 2: absolutely is, and it's horrific, and it also is a
[48:03] Speaker 2: brain disease. Right, But I see your pain and I
[48:07] Speaker 2: see your suffering, and I'm so sorry and I'm so
[48:10] Speaker 2: sorry that.
[48:11] Speaker 1: You have that.
[48:12] Speaker 2: Like it was, it was wild, and I had I
[48:16] Speaker 2: had a glimpse of hope when I was there. And
[48:18] Speaker 2: guess what that glimpse was. What that glimpse was transcranial
[48:23] Speaker 2: magnetic stimulation. Okay, And so I end up going in
[48:27] Speaker 2: the first day that I'm there, They're like, hey, would
[48:30] Speaker 2: you like to would you like to consider trying this?
[48:32] Speaker 2: I'm like absolutely, And I had tried to get approval
[48:35] Speaker 2: before it for it, and it wouldn't happen. And so
[48:39] Speaker 2: I get approval, I get insurance approval to do it,
[48:42] Speaker 2: and so I'm finally like, oh my god, I finally
[48:44] Speaker 2: have something that may work. I do two sessions and
[48:48] Speaker 2: the see unique part about transcranio magnetic stimulation, and the
[48:52] Speaker 2: version that I had is you sit in like a
[48:55] Speaker 2: dentist chair and they essentially put this put the miss
[49:00] Speaker 2: the machine or you know the word better. Yeah, so
[49:03] Speaker 2: they put that at you and it just goes every
[49:06] Speaker 2: I don't know the amount of time, but let's say
[49:07] Speaker 2: every you know, thirty seconds or forty five seconds, whatever is.
[49:10] Speaker 2: It just goes makes the sound and it's in it
[49:15] Speaker 2: and you feel it and it's not a pleasurable feeling,
[49:18] Speaker 2: but it's not unpleasurable. But here's what I will tell
[49:20] Speaker 2: you that I loved about it is I could feel something.
[49:23] Speaker 2: I could feel something trying to help me. I was like, okay,
[49:27] Speaker 2: this is good. I was like, I just got here.
[49:30] Speaker 2: They were like, there's a three hundred dollars test that
[49:32] Speaker 2: we can give you called gene site, which will tell
[49:34] Speaker 2: you maybe what drugs could or couldn't work in your body.
[49:36] Speaker 2: I'm like, let's go. I'm like, I finally have something
[49:39] Speaker 2: that I can focus on that tells me, Okay, this
[49:42] Speaker 2: is a drug that will probably work in you. This
[49:43] Speaker 2: probably won't. I'm like, Okay, that's that's something that I
[49:45] Speaker 2: can work with. Now I have transcreaming, a magnetic stimulation.
[49:49] Speaker 2: Now I have group therapy. I'm finally feeling something. I'm like,
[49:51] Speaker 2: this is dope. Like I'm I'm getting somewhere right. I
[49:54] Speaker 2: go into my third session and guess what happens, literally
[49:57] Speaker 2: pulled out of the chair, pulled out. I finally have
[50:01] Speaker 2: hope pulled out down of the chair by what insurance
[50:07] Speaker 2: denies me? And so let me begin to tell you
[50:12] Speaker 2: how completely I don't even know if I have the
[50:14] Speaker 2: right word. I don't want to swear, but how absolutely, completely,
[50:19] Speaker 2: ridiculously absurd it is to by far meet every single
[50:25] Speaker 2: inclusion criteria that you can have, and them just saying
[50:31] Speaker 2: we would prefer that you die when you're trying to
[50:35] Speaker 2: keel your mind and you're financially ruining your family, which
[50:41] Speaker 2: is what our insurance system does. It is absolutely absurd.
[50:47] Speaker 2: All I can tell you is that every single thing
[50:51] Speaker 2: that was possible for me to die was exacerbated by
[50:55] Speaker 2: the absolute ridiculous joke of an insurance system that we have.
[51:00] Speaker 1: I'm sorry. So the TMS you felt was useful was
[51:04] Speaker 1: working for you. Then you got ripped out of the chair,
[51:08] Speaker 1: and so what did you do next?
[51:10] Speaker 2: Go home? And ended up getting After two more denial letters,
[51:15] Speaker 2: I got acceptance again to do it, and so I
[51:18] Speaker 2: have to drive an hour to my psychiatrist's office. I
[51:22] Speaker 2: had to put four hundred ninety five dollars on my
[51:25] Speaker 2: credit card, not fully knowing if I'd be reimbursed, right,
[51:31] Speaker 2: having a hope that it would come or some of
[51:34] Speaker 2: it would hit. Right, But back again to the financial
[51:36] Speaker 2: ruining your family. Trying to hear your mind, very challenging, right,
[51:40] Speaker 2: I did that thirty six times, so driving an hour,
[51:43] Speaker 2: sitting in a chair for forty five minutes, driving an hour
[51:45] Speaker 2: back and the only thing that happened for me was
[51:51] Speaker 2: I got sicker, and so zero relief did nothing was
[51:58] Speaker 2: excited because I got the key trying right, I got
[52:01] Speaker 2: to keep figuring it out. And then after that happened,
[52:04] Speaker 2: I mean, the short version was another residential treatment facility,
[52:11] Speaker 2: three partial hospitalization plans, which is essentially nine to three.
[52:16] Speaker 2: You go into a facility, your more day based stuff,
[52:21] Speaker 2: three intensive outpatient programs, which is nine to twelve. But
[52:25] Speaker 2: the same thing. You're just going and you're trying to
[52:29] Speaker 2: get better and continuing throughout this whole process, just continuing
[52:36] Speaker 2: to get worse, and so I'm doing it all and
[52:39] Speaker 2: nothing's working. I also end up getting something called Ketemie
[52:44] Speaker 2: nasal spray, and so that was something that I was like,
[52:47] Speaker 2: all right, let's try it. Whatever I can do. And
[52:50] Speaker 2: this is before this was a compounded pharmacy version of
[52:54] Speaker 2: essentially of spravado, which is now approved, and this was
[52:57] Speaker 2: before that. It was just like cannabis and alcohol. To me,
[53:03] Speaker 2: it was wonderful because it was prescribed relief, and so
[53:07] Speaker 2: when I took it, it was beautiful because it was like,
[53:09] Speaker 2: all right, I feel okay, and to let you know
[53:12] Speaker 2: the kind of horrors of what this disease does. I
[53:16] Speaker 2: abused it because guess what, it felt good to not
[53:20] Speaker 2: feel like dying. Right. What I was supposed to take
[53:23] Speaker 2: at a time was eight eight sprays in your nose
[53:27] Speaker 2: and you do it. Two minutes. Wait, two minutes. I
[53:30] Speaker 2: had sixteen minutes on my timer. Was one of my
[53:32] Speaker 2: favorite things in the world was my phone timer. Sixteen minutes.
[53:36] Speaker 2: And I would get that thing on and it would
[53:37] Speaker 2: time deack down and every two minutes, I was like sick.
[53:41] Speaker 2: Boom another one, right, and then guess what that turns
[53:44] Speaker 2: into eighteen minutes, that turns into twenty four minutes. And
[53:50] Speaker 2: you know what that's doing is it's making me inside
[53:53] Speaker 2: feel worse because I'm like, oh my god, I'm doing
[53:55] Speaker 2: something I shouldn't do, but this is keeping me alive.
[53:59] Speaker 2: And you know, I have this moment where I, as
[54:03] Speaker 2: I said, I'm just so hard on myself right at
[54:06] Speaker 2: all times, whatever I can do to beat myself up.
[54:08] Speaker 2: You know, I wake up every morning for thirty years
[54:11] Speaker 2: of my life, you fat fn piece of s That
[54:13] Speaker 2: was my first thought, right, and then you add on
[54:16] Speaker 2: this disease, it gets worse and I'm I'm av ketamine.
[54:20] Speaker 2: And it was the only time in my entire life
[54:23] Speaker 2: where I had a feeling or a thought about myself.
[54:26] Speaker 2: And I vividly remember it. I'm floating above myself and
[54:31] Speaker 2: I'm looking down and there I was, and I was.
[54:35] Speaker 2: It was the most beautiful I've ever seen myself ever.
[54:39] Speaker 2: I was peaceful, I looked good, I felt good inside,
[54:45] Speaker 2: and it was because I was dead. It was me
[54:49] Speaker 2: on a gurney in a hospital hallway and I was
[54:52] Speaker 2: dead and it was beautiful. And I wake up I
[54:58] Speaker 2: come too. And the only thing that happened to me
[55:02] Speaker 2: when I got out of that ketamine experience, the bad trip,
[55:06] Speaker 2: as they would say, was I was just so pissed
[55:09] Speaker 2: that I wasn't dead. I was so angry that I
[55:12] Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, that was it. That's what
[55:16] Speaker 2: this disease does to you.
[55:17] Speaker 3: Man.
[55:18] Speaker 1: Okay, So you tried pharmaceuticals, which worked for some people,
[55:22] Speaker 1: but it didn't work for you. You tried TMS, which
[55:25] Speaker 1: does work for some people, but it didn't work for
[55:27] Speaker 1: you. You tried ketamine, same thing. So what did you do next?
[55:32] Speaker 2: So what I did next was the gold standard treatment
[55:37] Speaker 2: for treatment resistant depression, which is electroconvulsive therapy shock therapy.
[55:45] Speaker 2: Let me begin to tell you how fun it is
[55:47] Speaker 2: to do a stigmatized treatment for a stigmatized disease. So
[55:52] Speaker 2: electroconvulsive therapy is me being wheeled into a room. They
[55:58] Speaker 2: prep you with your IVY and put you under anesthesia,
[56:04] Speaker 2: and they essentially shock your brain and create seizures in
[56:09] Speaker 2: your brain. So they activate seizures in your brain. Imagine
[56:13] Speaker 2: resetting your computer, right, hold down the button reset your computer.
[56:17] Speaker 2: I look at it that way that they're trying to
[56:19] Speaker 2: essentially reset yourself and then you wake up, They give
[56:25] Speaker 2: you the apple juice, they wheel you out to your car,
[56:29] Speaker 2: you go home. It was I was under in twenty
[56:35] Speaker 2: twenty two anesthesia twelve times. So twelve times I have
[56:42] Speaker 2: to do this. Twelve times. I have to be a
[56:44] Speaker 2: nuisance and get somebody to take me down there. Twelve
[56:46] Speaker 2: times I have to be awkward on both rides there
[56:49] Speaker 2: and back. Twelve times I get to go home and
[56:53] Speaker 2: be so dizzy that I'm falling down while I'm walking.
[56:58] Speaker 2: I have significant memory loss from that time. I have
[57:04] Speaker 2: significant memory loss to this day. So later tonight, if
[57:08] Speaker 2: we were hanging out and you were introducing me to
[57:11] Speaker 2: your friend, I'd remember his name at the beginning, but
[57:15] Speaker 2: about an hour into the night, I'd forget his name.
[57:18] Speaker 2: I multiple times as the evening goes on, I'll be
[57:21] Speaker 2: talking to you, telling you a story about the Pittsburgh
[57:23] Speaker 2: Seelers being the best, and then I'll forget what I'm
[57:26] Speaker 2: talking about as I'm telling you why they're the best.
[57:29] Speaker 2: Like these are long term lasting effects from the gold
[57:34] Speaker 2: standard treatment that You're ready for this bad boy, I
[57:37] Speaker 2: love trivia. Guess how old electro convulsive therapy is.
[57:42] Speaker 1: It's quite old. It was actually the first treatment for depression.
[57:45] Speaker 2: It is older than the very first McDonald's. Yeah, it's
[57:49] Speaker 2: literally the same decade that helicopters were formed. It's ninety
[57:53] Speaker 2: years old. And so that's what's being used to treat
[57:58] Speaker 2: people to get out of it. And so guess what,
[58:00] Speaker 2: my guess what happened to me after I did that?
[58:03] Speaker 2: Just got sicker, got worse, zero relief, zero, more financial strain,
[58:11] Speaker 2: more stress on my family, more stress on me.
[58:15] Speaker 1: And so then you heard about a pretty radical treatment
[58:19] Speaker 1: for depression that not that many people have done, and
[58:24] Speaker 1: you decided to go for it. So tell us how
[58:26] Speaker 1: you first heard about that, so great question. So the.
[58:31] Speaker 2: Thing that people need to know in this world is
[58:35] Speaker 2: I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be alive if it
[58:38] Speaker 2: wasn't for my caregivers. Right I my wife and my
[58:44] Speaker 2: father found it. I'm in a feudal position, you know,
[58:50] Speaker 2: and I had signed up. You know, I'd gotten to
[58:53] Speaker 2: the point where I was either going to die by
[58:57] Speaker 2: suicide or I was going to sign up for misery
[59:01] Speaker 2: for the rest of my life. And I just decided
[59:05] Speaker 2: to sign up for misery. And the reason being is
[59:07] Speaker 2: because I had one little tangent holding me onto reality,
[59:11] Speaker 2: one tiny string holding me onto reality, which was my
[59:15] Speaker 2: children going back to school after my suicide and being teased,
[59:21] Speaker 2: and that happens. And so the thing that I'll tell
[59:24] Speaker 2: you about that that I want to be very clear
[59:26] Speaker 2: to every single person living listening to this is I
[59:31] Speaker 2: am not stronger than anybody who has died by suicide
[59:35] Speaker 2: from this disease. You know. I was sitting there and
[59:37] Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, this is maybe one more thing.
[59:40] Speaker 2: And they told me, They're like, listen, this is going
[59:41] Speaker 2: to be a brain surgery. You look to be a
[59:45] Speaker 2: good candidate. And I was a good candidate because I
[59:48] Speaker 2: had failed everything, everything right, So these are the most
[59:51] Speaker 2: se your or severe, and I was just like, let's go.
[59:55] Speaker 2: I was so excited. I was like, all right, like
[59:57] Speaker 2: this is one more thing that I can do. And
[59:59] Speaker 2: I hear people a lot say, well, do that's brainstur
[1:00:03] Speaker 2: as you re freaked out. The exact opposite. I was psyched.
[1:00:08] Speaker 2: And the reason I was psyched is I wanted to die.
[1:00:11] Speaker 2: And so I'm like, dude, if I do this, there's
[1:00:14] Speaker 2: two options that are going to happen. I'm going to
[1:00:16] Speaker 2: die of a complication, which would be amazing because my
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: family gets life insurance now. And then guess what, Society
[1:00:24] Speaker 2: will feel bad for them because I died on the
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: operating room table. So they're not going to continue to
[1:00:30] Speaker 2: be judge and labeled and shamed. It's like, this is
[1:00:32] Speaker 2: best case scenario. I was like, and what's the chances
[1:00:35] Speaker 2: of something working because nothing else has worked? But maybe
[1:00:38] Speaker 2: this will work? Right, And so I was like, when
[1:00:41] Speaker 2: I say beyond, I was like the most fortunate, unfortunate
[1:00:46] Speaker 2: person in the world. I roll into Mount Sinai Hospital
[1:00:50] Speaker 2: and doctor Helen Mayburg was the lead investigator of this trial.
[1:00:56] Speaker 2: And she's a badass. And the reason she's a badass
[1:01:00] Speaker 2: is thirty years ago she was like, I want to
[1:01:03] Speaker 2: help these people suffering with depression. I want to figure
[1:01:07] Speaker 2: this out. I'm curious, and she spent thirty years doing that.
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: Okay, so here you are in doctor Helen Mayburg's clinic.
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: What was the technique.
[1:01:16] Speaker 2: So the technique was deep brain stimulation, which means so
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: deep brain stimulation is something that's been around since the
[1:01:23] Speaker 2: early two thousands for Parkinson's disease, and so with Parkinson's disease,
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: when they do this, they essentially put two wires, two
[1:01:31] Speaker 2: leads down into your brain, and they stimulate a certain
[1:01:35] Speaker 2: section of your brain with electricity. And so with parkinson
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: as an example, your tremors will will basically stop. It
[1:01:43] Speaker 2: takes you back, and people, let I know, with Parkinson's
[1:01:45] Speaker 2: are like, it brought me back ten years of my life,
[1:01:47] Speaker 2: Like I have an electrical issue in my brain. With Parkinson's,
[1:01:51] Speaker 2: we stimulate, We're good. And so doctor Mayburg was like,
[1:01:54] Speaker 2: how do we do this and how do we impact
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: other parts of the brain, And so she focused purely
[1:01:58] Speaker 2: on depression. On the very top of my head, you
[1:02:02] Speaker 2: can see two little kind of dots that I have.
[1:02:05] Speaker 2: These are two covers that go over the two berholes.
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: So they make two dime size holes in my head,
[1:02:10] Speaker 2: and they they put down two electrical kind of wires.
[1:02:15] Speaker 2: On the end of those wires are eight different electrodes,
[1:02:18] Speaker 2: four on each side, and they stimulate those. And so
[1:02:23] Speaker 2: based off this thirty years of research, they figured out
[1:02:27] Speaker 2: the subcolossal cingulate, which you can give the layman's version
[1:02:30] Speaker 2: of that. I don't understand this stuff, right, And so
[1:02:33] Speaker 2: the psychiatrist is like, there's you know, a motivation portion
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: of your brain, and yours is pretty much at zero.
[1:02:40] Speaker 2: If we stimulate that portion of your brain, we're going
[1:02:43] Speaker 2: to neutralize that. And then there's the you know, horror
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: side of your brain right you're you're at the you're
[1:02:50] Speaker 2: at torture times at the highest level. We're going to
[1:02:52] Speaker 2: stimulate that. We're going to bring you back to neutrality.
[1:02:55] Speaker 2: And so that's what they did. I sat through this surgery.
[1:02:58] Speaker 2: I wake up the next day, I go down. I
[1:03:00] Speaker 2: got my head all bandaged up. Doctor Mayberg is sitting
[1:03:03] Speaker 2: literally exactly in the chair that you are. The chairs
[1:03:06] Speaker 2: looked exactly like this, and they turned on each electrode
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: one one time, one at a time, and so there's
[1:03:13] Speaker 2: twenty three people there from around the world, reachers as
[1:03:16] Speaker 2: from around the world. And first electrode turned on, and
[1:03:19] Speaker 2: so she would say, John, do you feel like you
[1:03:22] Speaker 2: can walk your dog? And I just be like, I
[1:03:27] Speaker 2: feel like I feel I guess a little bit more motivated. Yeah. Maybe.
[1:03:32] Speaker 2: The next one they did this eight times, John, do
[1:03:36] Speaker 2: you think you can have your friends over for a
[1:03:37] Speaker 2: fire pit? I don't feel that different.
[1:03:41] Speaker 1: Next one, when you said, they did the same time
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: as you mean, they turn on one more electrodey.
[1:03:45] Speaker 2: Exactly each time they would turn on electrode, and so
[1:03:48] Speaker 2: I'm exhausted, right, And then next thing I know, like
[1:03:51] Speaker 2: she gets up with her with her team and they
[1:03:54] Speaker 2: literally huddle and she says, you're good to go, like
[1:03:57] Speaker 2: your go go home. We got this thing turned on,
[1:03:59] Speaker 2: we got to activated.
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: And when all eight were activated, what was your impression
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: did you say I could walk my dog all?
[1:04:07] Speaker 2: My impression was, was I am exhausted. I see I
[1:04:10] Speaker 2: have my wife here and my father here. I'm exhausted.
[1:04:14] Speaker 2: I'm so happy to be here. Thank you guys so
[1:04:16] Speaker 2: much for being here. Like I just was, You're just
[1:04:20] Speaker 2: then like the mode of I'm leaving the hospital.
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: So just before we go on, I just want to
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: make clear. So you've got these two electrodes in the brain, electrodes.
[1:04:28] Speaker 1: Think of them like if you straighten out a hangar.
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: It's a wire like that, except it's much thinner. And
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: so the two holes are drilled in your head. These
[1:04:36] Speaker 1: are inserted all the way down through the wrinkly outer
[1:04:39] Speaker 1: bit the cortex, all the way down to this area
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: twenty five is Helen. This is what Helen Mayburg is
[1:04:46] Speaker 1: really concentrated on. But other people have tried deep brain stimulation.
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: Or DBS in other parts of the brain for depression.
[1:04:53] Speaker 1: Helen has found great success in this area. And so
[1:04:56] Speaker 1: the idea is electricity is the language of the brain,
[1:05:00] Speaker 1: and she's just zapping electricity into this area on both
[1:05:04] Speaker 1: sides of your brain. YEP, okay, great, So now you
[1:05:07] Speaker 1: go home.
[1:05:08] Speaker 2: So I go home, and I wake up on August
[1:05:11] Speaker 2: twenty four. The two most severe, those severe debilitating symptoms
[1:05:18] Speaker 2: that I had were constant suicidal ideation. The second one
[1:05:23] Speaker 2: was just the physical, complete destruction of my body. And
[1:05:29] Speaker 2: everybody knows that feeling of like chills when you're of
[1:05:32] Speaker 2: the flu or the cold, right you have that physical sensation,
[1:05:35] Speaker 2: you know. My physical sensation was like that twenty four
[1:05:38] Speaker 2: to seven. But replaced that aches and shakes and chills
[1:05:41] Speaker 2: with death, with dread, with constant misery circulating in my
[1:05:45] Speaker 2: body at all times. And from the moment I woke
[1:05:50] Speaker 2: up on the twenty fourth of that year, I've been
[1:05:53] Speaker 2: completely in remission of the absolute incredible horrorse of this.
[1:05:58] Speaker 2: I've not felt that is ease. I've not had a
[1:06:01] Speaker 2: single suicidal thought, and I immediately go to this isn't real, Like,
[1:06:08] Speaker 2: how is this real? That's the first thing I think,
[1:06:12] Speaker 2: and then the second one just instantaneously. And this is
[1:06:15] Speaker 2: where my personality and why I'm so effing happy that
[1:06:18] Speaker 2: this disease picked me is I'm pissed. I wake up
[1:06:23] Speaker 2: and I didn't know that this surgery would create anger
[1:06:26] Speaker 2: in me, and it has, and it has created anger
[1:06:29] Speaker 2: in me because of the absolute stupidity, absurdity of what
[1:06:32] Speaker 2: I've had to go through in figuring out that all
[1:06:35] Speaker 2: of this is as an electrical deficiency in my brain,
[1:06:39] Speaker 2: this is a biological disease. This is something that millions
[1:06:43] Speaker 2: of people are suffering through with a disease that they
[1:06:46] Speaker 2: didn't ask for, that is not accepted by society. And
[1:06:50] Speaker 2: to be able to be proof of that and be
[1:06:52] Speaker 2: able to go out there and tell the world that
[1:06:55] Speaker 2: we as a society are murdering people because of how
[1:06:59] Speaker 2: we treat these beautiful human beings that are suffering with
[1:07:01] Speaker 2: diseases that they didn't ask for. Shot me out of
[1:07:05] Speaker 2: a cannon, right.
[1:07:06] Speaker 1: And we can't see typically what's going on when somebody
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: has clinical depression. You know, we can look at the
[1:07:13] Speaker 1: symptoms from the outside, assuming we understand and recognize those symptoms.
[1:07:17] Speaker 1: Lots of people, as you point out, didn't recognize what
[1:07:21] Speaker 1: was going on with you. Now. For the last fifty
[1:07:24] Speaker 1: sixty years, we've really thought about this as a chemical imbalance,
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: and what these deep brain surgeries demonstrate is another way
[1:07:32] Speaker 1: to think about it. Often a better way is that
[1:07:34] Speaker 1: it's a circuit imbound. There's a problem with the circuitry,
[1:07:37] Speaker 1: and so you went in and got the circuitry fixed
[1:07:40] Speaker 1: with these two simple little wires that went down.
[1:07:42] Speaker 2: All I have is an electrical deficiency. That's it.
[1:07:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, It's all I have.
[1:07:46] Speaker 2: And what I have is twenty three million electrical pulses
[1:07:51] Speaker 2: per day going to this section of my brain, and
[1:07:55] Speaker 2: I'm completely in remission. That's all it is. I have
[1:07:58] Speaker 2: a broken portion of my brain that when it's stimulated,
[1:08:02] Speaker 2: I'm good. And it is absolutely fascinating. And in six
[1:08:08] Speaker 2: months into the surgery, they turned it off for a
[1:08:10] Speaker 2: week and just I don't know, as part of the protocol.
[1:08:14] Speaker 2: And let me tell you that for the six months
[1:08:18] Speaker 2: I spent six months in therapy with them being like,
[1:08:21] Speaker 2: how do how do I handle what's going to happen?
[1:08:24] Speaker 2: Like what? Like I'm freaked out? Like let me begin
[1:08:27] Speaker 2: to tell you how fun it is to not feel
[1:08:29] Speaker 2: like dying, Like when you when you don't want it
[1:08:31] Speaker 2: to come back, right, And so I'm like, what is
[1:08:33] Speaker 2: going to happen? And so they're teaching me to stress tolerance.
[1:08:36] Speaker 2: This is a part of therapy, which is like accepting
[1:08:38] Speaker 2: it but knowing it's going to leave you right. Like
[1:08:40] Speaker 2: I'm I'm still doing that. I'm learning that and and
[1:08:44] Speaker 2: it lam with they and so I'm i four days in,
[1:08:49] Speaker 2: it came immediately back physically started ravaging my body. Didn't
[1:08:54] Speaker 2: mess with my mind, but physically started ravaging me. And
[1:08:57] Speaker 2: then they turned it back on. It took me about
[1:08:59] Speaker 2: a week about a month to get back up the baseline,
[1:09:02] Speaker 2: and so, you know, seeing the absolute dependence on it
[1:09:06] Speaker 2: was was amazing. I mean it made it was like, Okay,
[1:09:09] Speaker 2: this is exactly what it is. And doctor Mayburg and
[1:09:11] Speaker 2: I'll give her in her team because anytime I give
[1:09:15] Speaker 2: her credit, she's like, wasn't me, It was my team, right.
[1:09:19] Speaker 2: So doctor Mayburgh and her team told me after the surgery,
[1:09:24] Speaker 2: They're like, they're like, you're gonna have to rehab your brain.
[1:09:26] Speaker 2: And I was like, what do you mean. I'm like, dude, Doc,
[1:09:29] Speaker 2: I'm gold like I have this disease out of my body,
[1:09:32] Speaker 2: Like I'm good. Oh my god, was she right? And
[1:09:36] Speaker 2: that's something that I want to completely help the world with.
[1:09:39] Speaker 2: Is like after the surgery, you're just in awe, like
[1:09:43] Speaker 2: this doesn't make any sense, like when's the shoe gonna drop? Right?
[1:09:47] Speaker 2: And then the very first time, And this is what
[1:09:49] Speaker 2: I mean when I was talking to her before about
[1:09:51] Speaker 2: the emotion. About six weeks after the surgery, I woke
[1:09:54] Speaker 2: up and I felt sad. And let me begin to
[1:09:58] Speaker 2: tell you how fabilitating that was. Me feeling like one
[1:10:03] Speaker 2: percent of what I used to feel, but me feeling it.
[1:10:06] Speaker 2: I immediately I immediately started overeating. I immediately started sleeping.
[1:10:11] Speaker 2: That day I told my wife I couldn't make something
[1:10:15] Speaker 2: when I tell you, this was the most triggering thing
[1:10:18] Speaker 2: that ever happened. And then that was again where the
[1:10:21] Speaker 2: distress tolerance came in. John, we need to teach you
[1:10:24] Speaker 2: how to live with normal human emotions. And so I
[1:10:27] Speaker 2: come into like if you would have told me like
[1:10:29] Speaker 2: I had such a eye opening experience where I'm like,
[1:10:35] Speaker 2: I look at people who have like, for instance, you
[1:10:38] Speaker 2: suffer with alcohol abuse disorder. Imagine having alcohol abuse disorder.
[1:10:44] Speaker 2: You're in recovery and you have to still consume a
[1:10:48] Speaker 2: glass of wine every week. That's what this is like.
[1:10:52] Speaker 2: And so I didn't know that. And so learning how
[1:10:55] Speaker 2: to live with something that you have to experience every day, right,
[1:11:00] Speaker 2: it's just similar to a sex addiction or a food disorder,
[1:11:03] Speaker 2: right where you're still around this. That's been that's been
[1:11:07] Speaker 2: wild for me to try to learn how to live
[1:11:09] Speaker 2: with this because it's so incredibly triggering.
[1:11:11] Speaker 1: So you're saying once in a while you feel sad,
[1:11:13] Speaker 1: just yeah, got it, but it scares you and it
[1:11:17] Speaker 1: brings me back to the the years they had.
[1:11:20] Speaker 2: It's hard not to go immediately back to that place.
[1:11:23] Speaker 2: And it's just it's super triggering.
[1:11:25] Speaker 1: I see. Yeah, but beyond that, the rest of your
[1:11:28] Speaker 1: days that you experienced, you're happy, you're optimistic, you're back
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: to being your you know, extrovertedself. And it's all because
[1:11:38] Speaker 1: of these electrical pulses going.
[1:11:39] Speaker 2: That's it remark and like the woldest thing. And I
[1:11:42] Speaker 2: hear a lot of like did this change you? The
[1:11:45] Speaker 2: literal only thing that this did for me was remove
[1:11:50] Speaker 2: the disease, the brain disease from my body.
[1:11:54] Speaker 1: I was going to ask you this, did you feel
[1:11:56] Speaker 1: like you'd snapped back into yourself or that you were
[1:11:58] Speaker 1: a new person.
[1:12:00] Speaker 2: I was back cool. I was imagine just the massive,
[1:12:05] Speaker 2: like weighted blanket remove from you. You're like, oh my god,
[1:12:10] Speaker 2: this is incredible. And so you also realize like what
[1:12:13] Speaker 2: it did to you that you didn't expect, And so
[1:12:16] Speaker 2: little things like my voice was different with the disease.
[1:12:19] Speaker 2: You know, now my voice is back. My face drooped
[1:12:22] Speaker 2: all the time. Now my face is back, my complexion
[1:12:26] Speaker 2: is different. Right, all of these things different is in
[1:12:28] Speaker 2: like it's back.
[1:12:29] Speaker 1: And so you've had a chance to tell other people
[1:12:32] Speaker 1: about both sides of your journey, about what clinical depression
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: is and what it's like to be on the inside,
[1:12:38] Speaker 1: with the hopes that people who are having that recognize
[1:12:43] Speaker 1: what's going on and so that the rest of the
[1:12:46] Speaker 1: people can understand what's happening with their friends and neighbors
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: and loved ones. And now you've been able to tell
[1:12:52] Speaker 1: people about your recovery and deep brain sert for different people.
[1:12:57] Speaker 1: Some people are helped by pharmaceuticals and tms, and for
[1:13:00] Speaker 1: you was DBS great. And so you've been able to
[1:13:04] Speaker 1: tell people about what's what's going on on the other
[1:13:06] Speaker 1: side of that as well.
[1:13:07] Speaker 2: Yes, and I get I get asked a lot, what
[1:13:10] Speaker 2: do I do with uh with a loved one that's suffering?
[1:13:13] Speaker 2: Like that's the biggest thing is confusion. The people that
[1:13:16] Speaker 2: are going through it are confused initially, and friends and
[1:13:20] Speaker 2: family and loved ones are also They don't know about
[1:13:23] Speaker 2: it or think about it. When they see someone's suffering,
[1:13:25] Speaker 2: they immediately know and they're like, oh my gosh, like
[1:13:27] Speaker 2: I want to I want to see what I can
[1:13:29] Speaker 2: do to make happen. And you know, the simplest guidance
[1:13:33] Speaker 2: I have is be proactively kind. You know, I will
[1:13:39] Speaker 2: never forget. I came home one day. Don't ask somebody
[1:13:43] Speaker 2: what they need, proactively do it. And I came home
[1:13:46] Speaker 2: one day and my lawn was mode. You know, my
[1:13:51] Speaker 2: neighbor next door just mowed my lawn. I still get
[1:13:54] Speaker 2: teary eyed when I when I I still feel that,
[1:13:57] Speaker 2: like I literally feel I feel the love man like
[1:14:01] Speaker 2: when you don't feel anything but horrificness and you I
[1:14:05] Speaker 2: come home and I'm like, oh my God, Like he
[1:14:07] Speaker 2: just he saved me. He saved me the like they
[1:14:10] Speaker 2: don't have to do that. This week. He didn't ask me,
[1:14:13] Speaker 2: did it? You know, Like I can't begin to tell
[1:14:15] Speaker 2: you amazing. Somebody taking something off my wife's plate didn't
[1:14:20] Speaker 2: happen that often, but when it did, man like that
[1:14:23] Speaker 2: was that was the most therapeutic thing in the world.
[1:14:26] Speaker 2: So like being able to relieve some stress from a
[1:14:29] Speaker 2: loved one was just absolutely exceptional, right, you know, being
[1:14:33] Speaker 2: able to talk to somebody who's struggling with serious mental
[1:14:38] Speaker 2: illness and saying to them. And people are afraid of
[1:14:42] Speaker 2: the word suicide because it's taboo and they don't know
[1:14:44] Speaker 2: if it's going to trigger or this or that. Right,
[1:14:47] Speaker 2: here's my My perspective on suicide is very simple. When
[1:14:51] Speaker 2: somebody asked me if I was having thoughts of suicide,
[1:14:55] Speaker 2: it was the most comforting thing in the entire world
[1:14:59] Speaker 2: because they saw it was because they had an understanding
[1:15:03] Speaker 2: of the hell that I was going through, and it
[1:15:07] Speaker 2: was like I had somebody in my corner. It was
[1:15:11] Speaker 2: I had somebody that I could talk to. And so
[1:15:14] Speaker 2: the responses that you're going to get back are very simple.
[1:15:16] Speaker 2: The responses if you ask that to somebody, the responses
[1:15:19] Speaker 2: are going to be back, which is no, I'm not
[1:15:23] Speaker 2: which is great. Yes, I'm having thoughts of suicide, I'm
[1:15:27] Speaker 2: having suicidal ideation, suicidal ideation is one of the most
[1:15:31] Speaker 2: common things in the entire planet with depression. Right, and
[1:15:35] Speaker 2: then you don't know, you know, you don't know how
[1:15:37] Speaker 2: people are going to react, so you kind of keep
[1:15:39] Speaker 2: it inside. Right. All it is is an understanding that
[1:15:44] Speaker 2: I am having thoughts of suicide. Do you have a plan?
[1:15:47] Speaker 2: That's the question after that. I don't, but I'm thinking
[1:15:50] Speaker 2: about it. Well, here's what I want you to do.
[1:15:53] Speaker 2: I'm here for you. You call me at any time
[1:15:55] Speaker 2: if things get worse. Right, A month later goes by.
[1:15:59] Speaker 2: How are things go on? How are you still having
[1:16:01] Speaker 2: thoughts of suicide? Right? I am, but they're a little
[1:16:04] Speaker 2: less right, So now you're getting a measuring stick of
[1:16:06] Speaker 2: where the disease is. Or I'm actually I've gotten some
[1:16:08] Speaker 2: pretty significant relief. I'm feeling good, or things are getting
[1:16:11] Speaker 2: a little bit worse, you know. And then you go
[1:16:14] Speaker 2: and you try to get that person more help. But
[1:16:17] Speaker 2: you have a connection to them. They have somebody to
[1:16:19] Speaker 2: talk to about. How do you ask the question? Exactly
[1:16:24] Speaker 2: what you do? And this is the most important thing
[1:16:27] Speaker 2: for anybody who is struggling is let them be seen,
[1:16:32] Speaker 2: let them feel like a human being. All you need
[1:16:35] Speaker 2: to do and this is the most infuriating thing to
[1:16:39] Speaker 2: me about all of this is we have fifty thousand
[1:16:42] Speaker 2: people in this country every year die by suicide. You know.
[1:16:47] Speaker 2: One of the primary ways that we can stop that
[1:16:51] Speaker 2: is just changing our perspective is purely being kind and empathetic.
[1:16:58] Speaker 2: If we can approach serious mental illness like we approach
[1:17:01] Speaker 2: every other acceptable disease, we're saving countless lives like this
[1:17:06] Speaker 2: doesn't take trillions of dollars of investments to pick right.
[1:17:10] Speaker 2: And so that's where you start with. If you start
[1:17:12] Speaker 2: with the place of kindness and empathy and you see them.
[1:17:15] Speaker 1: So let's role play here. How would you ask me?
[1:17:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so if you tell me so you telling
[1:17:21] Speaker 2: me I'm struggling.
[1:17:22] Speaker 1: I'm really struggling, David.
[1:17:24] Speaker 2: I am. I am so sorry that this is happening.
[1:17:28] Speaker 1: You're loved.
[1:17:30] Speaker 2: I'm here for you. I want to help you feel
[1:17:33] Speaker 2: some relief. I want to help you get better. You know,
[1:17:36] Speaker 2: I'm here for you at any time that you absolutely
[1:17:39] Speaker 2: need it. Let me let me share some things that
[1:17:41] Speaker 2: have been helpful, some resources. Let's continue to talk. I
[1:17:44] Speaker 2: want you to I want you to know that I
[1:17:46] Speaker 2: am in your corner and I'm so incredibly sorry that
[1:17:49] Speaker 2: you're going through this. Just just just the normal human
[1:17:53] Speaker 2: starting point of this is somebody that I can talk to.
[1:17:56] Speaker 2: This is somebody that I feel comfortable opening up to.
[1:17:59] Speaker 2: This somebody who is not judging me. If that's an
[1:18:01] Speaker 2: amazing place to start. You know, I love you, I'm
[1:18:05] Speaker 2: so sorry. I'm gonna do everything I can. I'm in
[1:18:08] Speaker 2: your court. Let's figure this out right like that. Just
[1:18:11] Speaker 2: just the fact that you've got somebody with you, right
[1:18:14] Speaker 2: like that, that's what you need. And then I flip
[1:18:16] Speaker 2: it too, like, here's the fun part. The disease wants
[1:18:19] Speaker 2: you to say nothing that I don't like losing, right, Like,
[1:18:23] Speaker 2: I don't like that, I'm a competitive guy. F that like,
[1:18:28] Speaker 2: it wants you to not say anything. It wants you
[1:18:30] Speaker 2: to feel horrible. It wants you to feel miserable. Screw that,
[1:18:34] Speaker 2: talk about it. And here's the thing when you talk
[1:18:36] Speaker 2: about it. And the wildest part about mental illness is
[1:18:40] Speaker 2: this society is not cool with talking about it. We're
[1:18:42] Speaker 2: all perfect, right, look at the world that we have.
[1:18:45] Speaker 2: You know, it's what you got to do. Everybody has
[1:18:48] Speaker 2: an association to it, family, friends, themselves and it and
[1:18:53] Speaker 2: to me, life is simple, Like I look at life
[1:18:55] Speaker 2: differently now. And you know, when you think back to it, right,
[1:18:59] Speaker 2: who are the people? Like when you're with your really
[1:19:02] Speaker 2: close friends, it's really fun, right, And you know what
[1:19:04] Speaker 2: it's really fun is you're totally yourself. You are just you.
[1:19:09] Speaker 2: You don't have to try, you don't have to do
[1:19:10] Speaker 2: anything other than be yourself, and they love you and
[1:19:13] Speaker 2: they accept you if you are and that's who you are. Like,
[1:19:15] Speaker 2: imagine if all of us could live a life like that,
[1:19:19] Speaker 2: Like imagine that, right, And it's the same thing here
[1:19:22] Speaker 2: these with this disease. Like what are we doing when
[1:19:25] Speaker 2: people are struggling in their brain and they just need
[1:19:30] Speaker 2: all they need is love? That's it? Like you like
[1:19:33] Speaker 2: hug them, right, Like I literally hug people. I love you.
[1:19:37] Speaker 2: I'm so sorry you're going through this. I see you,
[1:19:40] Speaker 2: I feel you. I want to do everything I can.
[1:19:44] Speaker 2: And that takes me to the next part about this
[1:19:46] Speaker 2: is you know, like I said, I think about the
[1:19:49] Speaker 2: world differently now. Right. I got a call about six
[1:19:54] Speaker 2: months after the operation and I was asked to go
[1:19:59] Speaker 2: to Congress and do a congressional briefing with my wife
[1:20:02] Speaker 2: as part of the NIH Brain Initiative. And I was like, why.
[1:20:05] Speaker 2: I was like, explain this to me, like, I don't understand, right,
[1:20:08] Speaker 2: I'm just I'm coming out of this. I'm learning it.
[1:20:11] Speaker 2: And then I started to educate myself about how I
[1:20:15] Speaker 2: ended up being healed. You know, all I ever thought
[1:20:18] Speaker 2: was this is doctor Mayberg and her team, right, these
[1:20:21] Speaker 2: guys are great. I was fully unaware that the government
[1:20:25] Speaker 2: saved my life. I had no understanding of it, right,
[1:20:29] Speaker 2: And so I've learned so much about just the absolute
[1:20:35] Speaker 2: brilliance of passionate, curious scientists, researchers that are spending their
[1:20:44] Speaker 2: entire life dedicated to fixing brain diseases. Right, And when
[1:20:49] Speaker 2: you come from a world where you just feel like
[1:20:52] Speaker 2: a nuisance and nobody cares, and now I'm in remission
[1:20:55] Speaker 2: of the horrors of this disease, and I see this
[1:20:59] Speaker 2: world of these just brilliant people like you and all
[1:21:03] Speaker 2: your colleagues completely dedicating everything to this, and I'm like,
[1:21:07] Speaker 2: oh my god, Like that's the number one thing that
[1:21:08] Speaker 2: I tell people struggling. I'm like, dude, there's so many
[1:21:12] Speaker 2: people out there that are helping you, right, Like, this
[1:21:14] Speaker 2: is what's going on. And the neat part about since
[1:21:16] Speaker 2: that day, which is about two and a half years ago.
[1:21:20] Speaker 2: Is at that point I was like, Oh, there are
[1:21:22] Speaker 2: people trying to change this, and I want to get
[1:21:24] Speaker 2: to know all of them. And I want to get
[1:21:26] Speaker 2: to understand the technologies that are being done and created
[1:21:30] Speaker 2: to save these people who are suffering. I want to
[1:21:33] Speaker 2: know the researchers. I want to know. I didn't know
[1:21:37] Speaker 2: engineers were involved in any of this. I never met
[1:21:40] Speaker 2: an engineer. I just you know, I didn't have any idea, right,
[1:21:43] Speaker 2: like to see the teams that are put together to
[1:21:46] Speaker 2: make this happen, right, and then to understand that the
[1:21:49] Speaker 2: only financial challenge I didn't have was because the government
[1:21:53] Speaker 2: provided this funding, I didn't have to I don't have
[1:21:55] Speaker 2: to pay for the surgery, right. And so now I'm like,
[1:21:58] Speaker 2: this is best case scenario. Like doctor Mayberg and her
[1:22:01] Speaker 2: team and all these people have spent thirty years figuring
[1:22:04] Speaker 2: this out. Now I'm like, Okay, the government provides these
[1:22:08] Speaker 2: grants in order to advance science, advance research in order
[1:22:12] Speaker 2: to better humanity. She figured it out, right, So I'm like,
[1:22:16] Speaker 2: this is best case scenario. This has been figured out.
[1:22:20] Speaker 2: Let's take this research even further. And then I learned
[1:22:24] Speaker 2: the complexities of this world, which are. We are making
[1:22:29] Speaker 2: some of the most ridiculous decisions in the entire world.
[1:22:33] Speaker 2: This Brain Initiative was created in twenty twelve and I
[1:22:38] Speaker 2: look this up how much funding has been provided to
[1:22:40] Speaker 2: then h Brain Initiative and it's about three billion dollars,
[1:22:44] Speaker 2: So three billion dollars and fourteen years to save humanity
[1:22:49] Speaker 2: to be order to provide the funding to these researchers
[1:22:53] Speaker 2: too can figure out the brain, which, as you know,
[1:22:56] Speaker 2: we have a lot more to figure out, and we
[1:22:59] Speaker 2: as a country are deciding now to not do that.
[1:23:03] Speaker 2: We have completely decimated the funding that we are doing
[1:23:07] Speaker 2: to advance science in order to cure human beings. Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, everybody.
[1:23:15] Speaker 2: This is everybody. This isn't a political thing, but we
[1:23:19] Speaker 2: are deciding to not advance research. We are an extremely
[1:23:22] Speaker 2: cocky country. We're the best in the world right well,
[1:23:25] Speaker 2: I can tell you because of the completely moronic decisions
[1:23:28] Speaker 2: that we're making right now with not investing in research,
[1:23:31] Speaker 2: we are falling light years behind the other countries that
[1:23:34] Speaker 2: are advancing research. The best people that I have gotten
[1:23:38] Speaker 2: to know in this space that are that are doing
[1:23:40] Speaker 2: exactly what I've said, trying to cure these brain diseases.
[1:23:44] Speaker 2: They're chasing grants now instead of chasing science. Wouldn't it
[1:23:49] Speaker 2: be amazing if we could just chase science? Right? And
[1:23:53] Speaker 2: so these decisions have a massive impact on humanity, on society,
[1:23:58] Speaker 2: on us continue to be this scientific wonder that we are.
[1:24:03] Speaker 2: We have to do better.
[1:24:05] Speaker 1: So, John, you've made it your mission to quote pulverize
[1:24:08] Speaker 1: the stigma. So why that language? What does this mean
[1:24:10] Speaker 1: to you?
[1:24:11] Speaker 2: So stigma is the reason, is the primary reason why
[1:24:17] Speaker 2: people die, why people needlessly suffer. That's absolutely unacceptable to me.
[1:24:24] Speaker 2: All we need to do is a world, in a society,
[1:24:26] Speaker 2: is show empathy and be kindness. That's it. I am
[1:24:31] Speaker 2: proof of the biological nature of these diseases. When you
[1:24:35] Speaker 2: are suffering with mental illness, right, society spitting on you
[1:24:42] Speaker 2: the entire time, and then you die and they continue
[1:24:46] Speaker 2: to not only spit on you, they now spit on
[1:24:49] Speaker 2: the family. So think about that, you're suffering relentlessly. The
[1:24:57] Speaker 2: disease is terminal. This is something that's extremely important for
[1:24:59] Speaker 2: you able to know. You know, you get the diagnosis
[1:25:02] Speaker 2: of pancreatic cancer, it's it's a there's a strong chance
[1:25:06] Speaker 2: you're passing, and it's horrific, right, same exact thing with
[1:25:09] Speaker 2: serious mental illness, serious mental illness, and it's most of
[1:25:12] Speaker 2: your form is a terminal disease. We can make it
[1:25:14] Speaker 2: not terminal if we're good kind people. Because the entire
[1:25:18] Speaker 2: the environment we have right now stigma, shame, awkwardness. You die,
[1:25:23] Speaker 2: and then society now takes that stigma that you had
[1:25:26] Speaker 2: and puts it on the family. So now the family
[1:25:29] Speaker 2: gets to feel awkward and shame for the rest of
[1:25:31] Speaker 2: their life. That needs to absolutely change. So imagine somebody
[1:25:35] Speaker 2: dying from pancreatic cancer, not getting life insurance and then
[1:25:40] Speaker 2: their kids being shamed, labeled and made fun of and
[1:25:43] Speaker 2: them feeling awkward for the rest of their life. Like,
[1:25:46] Speaker 2: that's what happens with mental illness.
[1:25:48] Speaker 1: So part of the good news is that, you know,
[1:25:50] Speaker 1: we're making this podcast during Mental Health Awareness Month, and
[1:25:54] Speaker 1: that has always existed, and so the idea that there's
[1:25:59] Speaker 1: this month where we can talk about the amazing Yeah,
[1:26:02] Speaker 1: it's amazing, it's.
[1:26:03] Speaker 2: Beautiful, and you know, the neatest part about Mental Health
[1:26:07] Speaker 2: Awareness Month is just providing a platform for people to
[1:26:11] Speaker 2: talk about this. Like that's all we need to do, man, Like,
[1:26:14] Speaker 2: it's all we need to do is we just need
[1:26:16] Speaker 2: to create safe spaces like you. Having me on here
[1:26:19] Speaker 2: is just awesome, Like, what an incredible opportunity to talk
[1:26:22] Speaker 2: to the world about the fact that we have beautiful
[1:26:26] Speaker 2: human beings that are suffering. It's that simple, beautiful kind
[1:26:30] Speaker 2: human beings who are suffering, and we can help them,
[1:26:34] Speaker 2: and we can help them by providing an environment that
[1:26:38] Speaker 2: lets them be comfortable, lets them be open, lets them
[1:26:41] Speaker 2: talk right. And so Mental Health Awareness Month is a
[1:26:44] Speaker 2: major way to do that. You know, let's do everything
[1:26:48] Speaker 2: we can to make people feel comfortable, seeing accepted, loved,
[1:26:54] Speaker 2: and just we're there for you.
[1:27:09] Speaker 1: That was John Nelson. I'm so happy to have had
[1:27:12] Speaker 1: him on this podcast for two reasons. First is his
[1:27:16] Speaker 1: pure honesty and transparency about his experience, and the second
[1:27:20] Speaker 1: is because we often divide the world into categories where
[1:27:24] Speaker 1: we have physical illness over here and mental illness over there,
[1:27:28] Speaker 1: so one you can see and you can easily measure it,
[1:27:31] Speaker 1: and the other it feels more ambiguous, it feels like
[1:27:33] Speaker 1: maybe a personality issue. But John's experience is one clear
[1:27:39] Speaker 1: illustration among tens of millions of others that this distinction
[1:27:42] Speaker 1: doesn't make sense because what ultimately helped John was a
[1:27:46] Speaker 1: direct intervention into the electrical activity of his brain, a
[1:27:51] Speaker 1: circuit level adjustment, and when the activity in that circuit
[1:27:55] Speaker 1: was changed, everything else changed. The suicidal thoughts disappeared, and
[1:28:00] Speaker 1: his physical suffering went away, and John was back. So
[1:28:04] Speaker 1: this illustrates one of the wackiest things that we know,
[1:28:07] Speaker 1: that what you experience is your identity, your personality, your
[1:28:12] Speaker 1: sense of self. It's all part of the dynamics in
[1:28:15] Speaker 1: the brain. And when those dynamics go awry, the experience
[1:28:20] Speaker 1: can devastate you. And when the dynamics are restored, something
[1:28:25] Speaker 1: re emerges, as John describes it, his old self without
[1:28:29] Speaker 1: the distortion. And there's one more thread running through John's
[1:28:32] Speaker 1: experience that I really want to revisit, and that is
[1:28:34] Speaker 1: the role of society. So I want to say two
[1:28:38] Speaker 1: things here. First, John is actively engaged in the One
[1:28:41] Speaker 1: Mind Foundation. He's a member of their Lived Experience Council,
[1:28:45] Speaker 1: and I've got to say, thank God, there are organizations
[1:28:48] Speaker 1: like One Mind who put an enormous amount of time
[1:28:52] Speaker 1: and love and grant funding to directly tackle mental health challenges.
[1:28:57] Speaker 1: Check them out in the show notes. And the second
[1:29:00] Speaker 1: thing I want to say about society is that even
[1:29:03] Speaker 1: as neuroscience advances and the treatments become more sophisticated, all
[1:29:07] Speaker 1: that's great, but there's something more fundamental to having a
[1:29:11] Speaker 1: good planet, and that is how we respond to one
[1:29:14] Speaker 1: another as individuals. As you heard, John speaks very passionately
[1:29:19] Speaker 1: about stigma and about silence, about the way that people
[1:29:23] Speaker 1: don't know what to say and so they say nothing.
[1:29:27] Speaker 1: And we saw from a story that that silence can
[1:29:29] Speaker 1: be interpreted in a lot of ways as judgment, or
[1:29:33] Speaker 1: as distance, or as a signal to retreat further. And
[1:29:37] Speaker 1: what John emphasizes is a totally straightforward solution kindness, reaching
[1:29:45] Speaker 1: out saying I see you asking someone, are you having
[1:29:50] Speaker 1: thoughts of suicide? You don't have to offer solutions, but
[1:29:53] Speaker 1: just being there. And this is where neuroscience and humanity
[1:29:58] Speaker 1: intersect because while we continue you to develop better tools,
[1:30:01] Speaker 1: like better diagnostics and treatments, there's already something available to
[1:30:06] Speaker 1: all of us, and that is attention and empathy and
[1:30:10] Speaker 1: the willingness to engage. So please don't pass up a
[1:30:15] Speaker 1: chance to seek help or to reach out to someone
[1:30:20] Speaker 1: else who you suspect might need a helping hand. Go
[1:30:28] Speaker 1: to Eagleman dot com slash podcasts. More information and to
[1:30:31] Speaker 1: find further reading, join the weekly discussions on my substack,
[1:30:35] Speaker 1: and check out and subscribe to Inner Cosmos on YouTube
[1:30:38] Speaker 1: for videos of each episode and to leave comments. Until
[1:30:41] Speaker 1: next time, I'm David Eagleman and this is Inner Cosmos

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