What happens when you send magnetic fields through the brain? Can it help treat depression? In this episode, Angelica and Bey talk with mental health journalist Courtenay Harris Bond about her experience using TMS to treat her depression. Later, we hear from neurologist Dr. Roy Hamilton about how TMS works and what’s going on in the brain. To wrap things up, The Franklin Institute’s Chief Bioscientist Dr. Jayatri Das is back with more TMS conversations!
Transcript
Hello and welcome to So Curious!, presented by the Franklin Institute.
Speaker:In this season, Human 2.0, we will be talking to scientists and
Speaker:non-scientists about technology, innovation and human experiences.
Speaker:We are your hosts.
Speaker:I'm Angelica Pasquini.
Speaker:And I'm The Bul Bey.
Speaker:You can call me Bey.
Speaker:In this episode, we're going to be talking
Speaker:to neurologist Roy Hamilton, and mental health journalist Courtney Harris Bond.
Speaker:So today we're going to be talking about TMS: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.
Speaker:Yeah. Say that five times fast.
Speaker:Yeah. I'm amazed by this.
Speaker:Yeah. It's going to be what?
Speaker:Magnets?
Speaker:To treat...I don't know...anxiety?
Speaker:Pulsating magnets are on your head. Right.
Speaker:It's actually apparently incredibly
Speaker:effective technology for treating not only depression...
Speaker:I've been reading about this because I love exploring different modalities for
Speaker:healing depression, considering that depression is essentially
Speaker:something that every person I know is dealing with in some capacity.
Speaker:And I think that this technology,
Speaker:apparently this therapy is extremely effective.
Speaker:I love learning about different modalities for treating depression.
Speaker:It's such a big part of our world. Yeah.
Speaker:And the brain continues to be a very complex, tricky thing to treat.
Speaker:Although we have all kinds of technology
Speaker:and therapy that has grown over the years, it's still a little tricky to try to treat
Speaker:the brain and depression and anxiety and all these other different mental illnesses
Speaker:or harms or things that keep us from living full lives.
Speaker:Yeah. It's just so difficult to try to pin down.
Speaker:So this is a new technology that seems to be, as you said, effective and has a
Speaker:little bit of light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I can't wait to learn about the different parts of your brain that affect your mood
Speaker:or maybe things like repetitive looping thoughts and how people explore using this
Speaker:technology, how to alleviate those symptoms.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I know that we're going to be talking to someone who used the therapy and we're
Speaker:going to be talking to someone on the clinician side.
Speaker:Yeah, getting those perspectives is going to be great.
Speaker:Right. Both sides.
Speaker:What is it like to use it, and then to receive it, and to talk about those
Speaker:parallels and where they align and overlap.
Speaker:It's going to be a really good episode.
Speaker:And I know the brain is just, like, it's such a weird organ, isn't it?
Speaker:Because some people would argue that maybe the heart is more important.
Speaker:Maybe. I don't know if the intestines are more
Speaker:important, but the brain continues to remain like top of the organ food chain.
Speaker:That's a terrible analogy.
Speaker:It's funny because we're just using the brain to study the brain.
Speaker:We only have a human brain. Right.
Speaker:So there is this meta element where it's like, as much as, you know, there's still
Speaker:so much mystery because you're literally using the thing to study the thing.
Speaker:Exactly. And it ends there.
Speaker:There is nothing more we have.
Speaker:So it's pretty trippy, but it is what it is.
Speaker:We're using the thing to study the thing so we can get a better grasp of the thing
Speaker:that we have try to connect with these other things?
Speaker:Exactly!
Speaker:Our first guest is Roy Hamilton. Dr.
Speaker:Roy Hamilton is an associate professor in the Neurology, Physical Medicine and
Speaker:Rehabilitation departments of the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker:He has been in the field of brain
Speaker:stimulation since 1998, and uses TMS and tDCS to study topics including cognitive
Speaker:control, language production, semantic memory, and creativity.
Speaker:Dr. Hamilton's work with TMS specifically
Speaker:focuses on how TMS can improve various aspects of cognitive functioning.
Speaker:Welcome, Doctor Hamilton.
Speaker:Can you introduce yourself in your own words?
Speaker:I am an associate professor at the
Speaker:University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Neurology.
Speaker:I'm a behavioral neurologist, which means
Speaker:that I see patients who have problems with aspects of their cognition, memory, other
Speaker:elements of thinking that arise from neurologic disease.
Speaker:Why is treating the brain so tricky?
Speaker:First, we can think about the complexity of the system itself.
Speaker:We're talking about a system that has approximately 100 billion neurons.
Speaker:Connections. Connections to connections.
Speaker:And connections to connections t o connections to connections.
Speaker:They are essentially uncountable.
Speaker:So you're talking about an extreme amount of complexity.
Speaker:Aside from that, there are also some basic
Speaker:mechanical challenges, especially if you're someone who's trying to affect that
Speaker:system from the outside without seeing it, hitting it with a magnet or an electrode.
Speaker:So that introduces a certain number of complexities.
Speaker:Let's get right into Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.
Speaker:Say it five times fast!
Speaker:You can just go with TMS.
Speaker:Okay, so with TMS, I'd love to just talk
Speaker:about ....,You named them briefly, but what disorders that TMS can treat?
Speaker:Well, the one that it is principally known for right now is depression, and that's
Speaker:the one that it has a clinical indication for.
Speaker:So in 2008, it was approved by the FDA for use in depression.
Speaker:Personally, myself, I'm interested in expanding its use into other spaces.
Speaker:I'm interested in the fact that it can be
Speaker:used to modulate brain activity in an enduring way.
Speaker:And so I, and obviously, a number of other
Speaker:investigators, are interested in its use in neural rehabilitation: the ability to
Speaker:help the brain remediate itself and to improve functions moving forward.
Speaker:And what exactly is it doing to the brain when it's working?
Speaker:So even though it's something that's becoming better known now as a breaking
Speaker:technology, the actual technology that drives TMS is about 190 years old.
Speaker:So electromagnetic induction is the idea that if you generate current, let's say
Speaker:you have a winding of wire, and you generate current in it.
Speaker:If you have something else that is capable
Speaker:of conducting electricity and you put it near that thing -- it doesn't have to
Speaker:touch it -- you put it near that thing, and then you generate current in that
Speaker:first thing that you're talking about, that first winding of wire.
Speaker:You'll create --when you create that
Speaker:current -- you'll create a fluxing magnetic field.
Speaker:That fluxing magnetic field, which is invisible, will then generate current in
Speaker:that second thing. They don't have to be touching. The brain, and specifically,
Speaker:the cells called neurons, have electrochemical properties.
Speaker:In other words, they use electricity to fire.
Speaker:They also have a certain, what they call, we call, threshold of current, where they
Speaker:say, "Okay, I'm past my threshold, now I'm going to fire.
Speaker:Now, I'm going to communicate with other neurons." That's how they work.
Speaker:So because they work via electricity, if
Speaker:you have something that generates enough current in them, they will fire.
Speaker:So now you see where we're going.
Speaker:We're going to take a magnet, we're going to put it over the scalp.
Speaker:We're going to generate a fluxing magnetic field.
Speaker:And the neurons that are right under it are going to say, "Oh, I'm having current
Speaker:generated in me now, and it's so much that I think I'll fire.
Speaker:And when I fire, I'm going to do all the things that I do as a neuron.
Speaker:I'm going to communicate to all the neurons I communicate with.
Speaker:I'm going to act like an active brain
Speaker:area." So you can activate the brain focally from the outside.
Speaker:You've been involved in research in this
Speaker:field since 1998, which is a long time. Could you talk more about tDCS?
Speaker:Thank you for asking about tDCS. So, TMS
Speaker:is one technology we can use to manipulate brain function.
Speaker:tDCS is Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation.
Speaker:Now, the idea there is a little bit simpler.
Speaker:You're going to stick at least two electrodes on your scalp.
Speaker:One of them has to be positive, one of them has to be negative.
Speaker:The current is going to run through them, but the thing is, your head's in between.
Speaker:And so the current is going to run from
Speaker:one electrode to the other through everything that's in its way, including
Speaker:your skin, your scalp, the bone, and your brain.
Speaker:That's how we get current in the brain using tDCS.
Speaker:Now, the amount of current is very small,
Speaker:so it works via a very different mechanism.
Speaker:With TMS, you are telling brain cells, "Fire!
Speaker:Right now!" With tDCS, you're applying it over a longer period of time.
Speaker:And what you're doing with this low current is you're nudging millions of
Speaker:brain cells just a little bit closer or a little bit farther away from that
Speaker:potential that I told you about, where they're going to fire.
Speaker:The net result of nudging millions of
Speaker:neurons, millions of brain cells a little bit closer to their firing threshold is
Speaker:that overall, if you look at them all at the same time, they might fire more
Speaker:rapidly, getting them to fire, and nudging them away a little less rapidly.
Speaker:So when you're figuring out how to place
Speaker:it and what parts of the brain are perfect for that particular patient, are the
Speaker:brains looking similar to you? And is every single placement unique to that
Speaker:person's brain, or is it like they're similar?
Speaker:It's actually, I think, one of the
Speaker:million-dollar questions of neuromodulation moving forward.
Speaker:So in the past, we thought about how brain
Speaker:areas were organized by looking at brains at the group level and say, o"kay, well,
Speaker:on average, when people are performing this kind of mental activity, this area,
Speaker:the brain activates," or, "when they're performing this other kind of activity,
Speaker:this area, this other area of the brain activates." And so a lot of stimulation in
Speaker:the past was driven by this idea that there are these common areas that get
Speaker:activated based around the idea that our brains are kind of similar.
Speaker:But the more we learn about brain function and the association between the anatomy
Speaker:and function, and the differences between people, the more we realize that, oh,
Speaker:actually we should be sensitive to these differences.
Speaker:Maybe different people should be getting stimulated in somewhat different ways.
Speaker:Can you talk about using tDCS for creativity?
Speaker:I've been fortunate enough to be involved with a couple of teams that have used tDCS
Speaker:to try and explore what the brain basis of creativity is and to try and enhance it.
Speaker:There are two instances, one.
Speaker:And again, I want to credit where credit is due.
Speaker:So the big players here were Sharon
Speaker:Thompson-Schill, psychologist at Penn, and Lila Chrysikou, who is now at Drexel.
Speaker:And I just applied the brain stimulation.
Speaker:So they were looking at novel uses for common objects.
Speaker:It's a kind of creativity, right? Yes, it is.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So what we found was that we could stimulate the brain in such a way that
Speaker:individuals were faster at coming up with the novel uses for common objects.
Speaker:So see common objects and come up with some other use for it than the normal use.
Speaker:And also they were less likely to not be
Speaker:able to come up with something because it's actually pretty hard.
Speaker:Once somebody shows you something, quick, come up with another use for this.
Speaker:So they were less likely to just go blank. Right.
Speaker:Because they were coming up with more creative uses.
Speaker:We also did some work with musicians
Speaker:trying to figure out if we could increase spontaneity in musicians.
Speaker:And? Well, the answer is kind of mixed.
Speaker:So, we brought in improvisational jazz artists.
Speaker:Right on. Okay.
Speaker:And we had other people who were jazz artists rate the quality of their
Speaker:improvisation before and after they got stimulation.
Speaker:And what happened was the individuals who
Speaker:weren't that experienced as improvisational jazz artists, they
Speaker:actually got better at improvisation as a function of receiving brain stimulation.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:The people who are already really good at it, they actually got a little worse.
Speaker:That's funny. Okay.
Speaker:So it's not a one-size-fits-all.
Speaker:Do you think there'll be a point where
Speaker:these devices are a household item in the future?
Speaker:There are a number of companies that are
Speaker:already trying to make these household items.
Speaker:They are already on the market
Speaker:commercially available, which introduces a whole host of questions
Speaker:as to what the strengths and weaknesses of doing that might be.
Speaker:There also are communities of individuals who are trying to figure out how to do
Speaker:stimulation themselves, so called do-it -yourself brain stimulation community.
Speaker:They are reading the papers that persons like myself publish.
Speaker:They are buying the electronic components
Speaker:and creating brain stimulation units for personal use.
Speaker:I could see the future of this being something that you put on and you feel
Speaker:stimulated, and then you go do something new in your day.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That'll be something that people have a lot of opinions around, of course.
Speaker:They already do. And Dr.
Speaker:Hamilton, you are also deeply involved in
Speaker:issues of diversity, inclusion and health equity in medicine.
Speaker:You hold the position of Assistant Dean of Diversity and Inclusion, and the inaugural
Speaker:vice-chair for inclusion and diversity in the Department of Neurology.
Speaker:Why is it important for you to hold these positions?
Speaker:Let me tell you a little bit about my story and my background.
Speaker:Absolutely. Okay.
Speaker:So I'm originally from Southern California.
Speaker:I am Biracial So, my father, who's passed, is African American.
Speaker:My mother is a Japanese immigrant.
Speaker:I am the youngest of a cohort of five brothers.
Speaker:I'm the only member of the American side
Speaker:of my family to pursue any form of higher education.
Speaker:I'm the only member of my sibling cohort to graduate from high school.
Speaker:A consequence of that kind of experience
Speaker:is that when I went to college and medical school, in this case, both of those being
Speaker:Harvard, and then came here to Penn for residency and then stayed on as faculty...
Speaker:Many, many times, I was experiencing things for the first time in anyone's
Speaker:knowledge in the community in which I was raised.
Speaker:So I have very few points of contact, very few points of mentorship, aside from the
Speaker:very important mentors I made professionally.
Speaker:And so as I mature in my role, it's
Speaker:important to me to try and lower the activation energy that...
Speaker:Basically lower those barriers, the ones that I found myself pushing through, to
Speaker:get to each stage that I wanted to achieve in my career, to make it that much easier
Speaker:for individuals who are faced with similar challenges.
Speaker:I'll say one other thing about this and why it's important.
Speaker:So that was from the perspective of the
Speaker:individuals themselves trying to make it through their journey.
Speaker:There is ample evidence now that practically every endeavor in which there
Speaker:is greater diversity, it's shown that those institutions and environments
Speaker:outperform institutions and environments that are homogeneous.
Speaker:So not only is it better for individuals
Speaker:who are facing barriers to have those barriers taken away from them, it is
Speaker:better for the institutions who are bringing them in.
Speaker:It accelerates excellence to have more diverse environments.
Speaker:And so that's why those are the two reasons why I pursued these roles.
Speaker:And would you say, as a consequence, it's better for science?
Speaker:It is absolutely better for science.
Speaker:There is evidence, for example, that scientific papers that have greater
Speaker:diversity in the authorships produce higher-impact science.
Speaker:They're cited more, and they're in higher-
Speaker:impact journals because they're just better science.
Speaker:You can demonstrate the same thing with gender diversity as well.
Speaker:Diversity leads to excellence.
Speaker:It leads to excellence in science.
Speaker:Thank you for your time. Sure.
Speaker:Of course. My pleasure.
Speaker:That was a fair amount of information.
Speaker:Nah, let's be honest, that was a lot of information.
Speaker:Let's take a moment to really sit with it and reflect.
Speaker:Roy. Wow.
Speaker:I learned a lot. That was good.
Speaker:Sometimes I feel a little bit barricaded
Speaker:from these spaces of information around science and tech and the brain.
Speaker:And him pulling back those myths helped me feel like now, you know, a little bit more
Speaker:like "you're not too far from where the truth is."
Speaker:Yeah. And apparently neither of the scientists,
Speaker:this technology is all new and they are on a bleeding edge.
Speaker:And I'm glad to be having these dialogues
Speaker:with them because it's bringing us in on the good stuff, the secrets.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Also, I like learning about someone who has studied TMS.
Speaker:When you hear about a magnet on someone's brain, it seems pretty far out.
Speaker:And then when you get to understand the
Speaker:science of it, it's very simple and obviously deeply complex, but also where
Speaker:it's going on, your brain is super complex, but the actual idea behind it is
Speaker:essentially just stimulating places in the brain that need more stimulation,
Speaker:repeatedly, and then seeing how that affects that person's ability to...
Speaker:I like when he talked about how it can affect your ability to speak better.
Speaker:To feel better. Yeah.
Speaker:Why not? It's useful.
Speaker:It's so useful. And I appreciate the work that he does
Speaker:away from the medicine in social spaces and representation.
Speaker:I love that. Okay.
Speaker:You know what's incredible is that we're
Speaker:actually able to speak to someone who's had this treatment before.
Speaker:Lucky for you, our next guest can speak to that.
Speaker:Let's introduce her. Hi, Courtenay.
Speaker:Welcome.
Speaker:Can you introduce yourself in your own words?
Speaker:My name is Courtenay Harris Bond, and I am
Speaker:a freelance journalist in the Philadelphia area.
Speaker:Courtenay has received transcranial
Speaker:magnetic stimulation to treat her chronic depression.
Speaker:And we're going to talk to her today about that process.
Speaker:Thanks for coming to the show. Thanks you so much.
Speaker:My pleasure. Can you talk to us about your depression
Speaker:journey and your introduction to transcranial magnetic stimulation?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I've been struggling with depression and anxiety since I was very young and
Speaker:have been in treatment pretty much since the fourth grade on.
Speaker:I've had three different psychiatrists,
Speaker:all very good, done a lot of intensive therapy. I started medication at 18, and
Speaker:I've rolled through all different kinds of meds.
Speaker:And one day my psychopharmacologist, who handled my medication, said to me, you
Speaker:know, I think I've reached the limit of my knowledge to help you.
Speaker:But there's this doctor, John O'Reardon,
Speaker:who pioneered this treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation.
Speaker:And he said, I really think you should have a consultation with him.
Speaker:It was great. Dr.
Speaker:O'Reardon is an amazing person, and definitely said I was a candidate for TMS.
Speaker:What were some of your first impressions and question, I guess, about TMS?
Speaker:I was in a pretty low point.
Speaker:My depression kind of ebbs and flows.
Speaker:I'm a pretty high-functioning depressive.
Speaker:I usually can do everything I need to do, but there are times where I get so low
Speaker:that I really have to push to do even basic things.
Speaker:So I was in that state.
Speaker:So I'm totally open to trying any modality that might help me.
Speaker:I was very curious. It's non-invasive, safer than meds.
Speaker:And I was like, sign me up.
Speaker:It involves placing magnets on very
Speaker:specific parts of the skull and then sending magnetic currents into the brain.
Speaker:Through a lot of research, they found this helps with everything from treatment
Speaker:resistant depression, to Parkinson's, to PTSD, to OCD.
Speaker:There's a whole list of things that it can help with.
Speaker:What I found with TMS...
Speaker:I think I had to go.
Speaker:...my memory may not be correct, so forgive me, Doctor O'Reardon, but I think
Speaker:I had to go 36 days in a row. A nd Voorhees is not close to
Speaker:Philly, so... The good news is you can drive.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It doesn't affect your driving.
Speaker:I drove back and forth to Voorhees for a
Speaker:long time, and it really did lift me out of the pit I was in.
Speaker:And then we began a maintenance schedule.
Speaker:For a lot of people, the maintenance is minimal. So I had an amazing reaction to
Speaker:begin with, but then it petered out for me.
Speaker:Part of it was just the maintenance was too much.
Speaker:You mentioned just a while ago, before we got on that you do some freelance writing
Speaker:and you share your story as a way to break down stigma. Can you talk about the stigma
Speaker:that is around mental health and actually certain treatments like TMS?
Speaker:I think people are afraid of mental illness.
Speaker:And as I've gotten older, one of my goals
Speaker:in my journalism is to help break down stigma around behavioral health issues,
Speaker:whether it's substance use disorders or mental health issues.
Speaker:So I just think it's really important to keep the conversation going.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Keep it a topic that people become less and less afraid to discuss, and that
Speaker:people will feel more open to share their struggles.
Speaker:So I've laid it all on the table, which
Speaker:some people might judge me for, but I feel like I'm doing what's important to me.
Speaker:Would you be open to talking a little bit
Speaker:more about the different modalities that you've tried?
Speaker:Yeah. So after TMS -- and I've always been on
Speaker:medication, too, so I didn't go off medication for TMS.
Speaker:I kind of rolled along for a while.
Speaker:I'm always in therapy with a psychiatrist, always doing the meds thing.
Speaker:Kind of hit another pretty rough spot and decided to try Ketamine.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. I read that article.
Speaker:I wrote about that for Undar.
Speaker:Again, I had this experience where it lifted me it sort of buoyed me up.
Speaker:And I loved the experience of ketamine.
Speaker:It sounded like it! I was like, this sounds kind of relaxing.
Speaker:Like high in the middle of the day or the morning or whatever.
Speaker:So it was a very soothing experience for me.
Speaker:Luckily I had a euphoria response to it.
Speaker:Some people have horrific responses to it.
Speaker:It lifted me out of a really bad place.
Speaker:And then again, with the maintenance, I was having to go all the time and I
Speaker:reached a point where I'm like, I just don't think it's good to keep doing this
Speaker:because I'm not sure how much it's helping me.
Speaker:I am putting pretty serious drug in my body.
Speaker:It didn't last, work for me long-term, but
Speaker:I will say again about the ketamine that there are people that I've spoken to and
Speaker:heard of who have had amazing life-changing results.
Speaker:So just because mine didn't last doesn't
Speaker:mean it's not a great thing for other people to try.
Speaker:I think these alternative modalities are showing us that sometimes we can play a
Speaker:little bit around with the timeline, how long some things have to take.
Speaker:I am really curious about this
Speaker:conversation around maintenance that you brought up saying that that's sort of
Speaker:where you have to stop because of price point and also availability.
Speaker:It'll be interesting to see if those kinds
Speaker:of things become more accessible to the people who need them.
Speaker:I mean, one thing I will say is that I
Speaker:truly do believe in psychotherapy and psychiatry.
Speaker:I do these things as a compliment to, I'm
Speaker:never out of my therapy , and I've not been off medication in many
Speaker:years. So for some people it can be a substitute or the only thing they do.
Speaker:For me, I have had to maintain a pretty
Speaker:high level of talk therapy at the same time, but it's very grinding work.
Speaker:I'm also curious, has anything been
Speaker:particularly surprising on your journey, specifically with magnetic stimulation?
Speaker:Like either the way it literally felt, or how you felt after? Anything surprising
Speaker:that people would be interested in hearing?
Speaker:Yeah, I think it seemed so Sci-Fi to me.
Speaker:I was like, can this really be true?
Speaker:I was sort of like, I'll try it, but it
Speaker:seems like magical thinking that this could help.
Speaker:Yeah, but it's true science.
Speaker:What did you feel physically from TMS?
Speaker:The first time I went and they had a cap,
Speaker:like a cloth cap, and they took all these measurements and made marks on the cap so
Speaker:they would know where to place the magnets.
Speaker:Every time I went in to put my cap on and
Speaker:placed the magnet or magnets on the exact spot.
Speaker:And then Dr.
Speaker:O'Reardon turned on the machine and it was like a rhythmic tapping.
Speaker:I kind of compare it to like a little
Speaker:woodpecker tapping on your head, but it doesn't hurt at all.
Speaker:Wow. It's a surreal experience.
Speaker:And these are magnets? Yeah.
Speaker:These are like giant magnets. Wow.
Speaker:I have a question about your depression and creativity. Do you have anything that
Speaker:works for you to help you finish your work?
Speaker:To be kind of cynical, I wonder if that's been a little overblown because like I
Speaker:said, people with mental health issues are silent soldiers, so they really are
Speaker:pushing hard every day, or not every day, but a lot of days, to do sort of basic
Speaker:things that other people don't even think about doing.
Speaker:Like, there are some days when it's hard for me to take a shower.
Speaker:I would say occasionally I feel more creative because of my struggles.
Speaker:But the most important thing that I feel
Speaker:is that I have a huge capacity for empathy.
Speaker:Because of my own suffering, I feel I can engage with another person
Speaker:and their own issue, whatever it may be....
Speaker:I write a lot about opioid use disorder...
Speaker:And really feel a lot of empathy and try to put myself in their shoes.
Speaker:And I think if you've experienced pain,
Speaker:any kind of pain or trauma, you can relate to different kinds of pain and trauma.
Speaker:Are there any tangible things you can point out that may have come from the TMS?
Speaker:I'm a big fan of TMS.
Speaker:I think it's a great modality for people to try.
Speaker:It's non-invasive.
Speaker:There's no medication, it's easy, it's relaxing, it doesn't hurt.
Speaker:And you would say it helped your depression?
Speaker:And it definitely helped my depression.
Speaker:I just couldn't sustain it over time.
Speaker:But there are people who do TMS and it changes their life forever.
Speaker:They're just like a new person.
Speaker:So I would highly recommend people suffering from treatment-resistant
Speaker:depression or different conditions to look up TMS and try to find a provider.
Speaker:And if you don't mind me asking, you
Speaker:mentioned a couple of seconds ago that some days it's hard to just jump into the
Speaker:bathroom and take care of yourself when you need to. What does the experience of
Speaker:depression, what has it looked like for you?
Speaker:It's been a long, hard struggle.
Speaker:Some days are better than others.
Speaker:Mornings are really tough for me.
Speaker:Getting out of bed to get my kids off to
Speaker:school is a really hard time for me, usually, almost every day.
Speaker:Even though I don't try to let them know that.
Speaker:They can't listen to this. They can't hear this.
Speaker:Yeah. No, it's okay.
Speaker:I've written so much.
Speaker:It's hard to hide depression from kids. It is.
Speaker:They know everything.
Speaker:And it's so interesting because out of any kind of ailment that we would all face,
Speaker:right, in life, it just adds to it to have to keep it to yourself, right?
Speaker:Since you grew up with all of this too, and you've known it about yourself, am I
Speaker:right to assume that there was support around you and understanding?
Speaker:I'm so glad you brought that up because I consider myself to be so fortunate.
Speaker:I have been able to receive all these
Speaker:different kinds of treatments throughout my life.
Speaker:There are people suffering in silence who don't have access to anything.
Speaker:And my heart just breaks.
Speaker:They don't even have the language. Right.
Speaker:Totally.
Speaker:They don't even know how to say what's wrong.
Speaker:Well, and a lot of those people get so bad
Speaker:that they end up completing suicide, which is a huge problem in our country.
Speaker:So I am very blessed.
Speaker:Even though I struggle, I'm very blessed now.
Speaker:I grew up in a very traumatic household.
Speaker:But the one thing I will say is that my parents got me in to see a doctor early.
Speaker:And what would you say to someone who
Speaker:wants to take that first step and is completely exhausted by the idea of it?
Speaker:Do it.
Speaker:It'll be such a relief.
Speaker:You'll feel good about yourself because you're taking action.
Speaker:You'll start to feel better.
Speaker:I do want to emphasize one other thing, if you guys don't mind.
Speaker:I know there have been shifts in insurance, but I really think we need to
Speaker:make a hard push in this country to get insurance to cover.
Speaker:I mean, there's this parody out there where insurance is supposed to cover
Speaker:mental health treatment equally as they do treatment of other illnesses.
Speaker:Right. But in practice, if you're depressed or
Speaker:have PTSD or whatever it might be and your insurance is fighting you every step of
Speaker:the way to pay for the treatments, you're just going to give up.
Speaker:And I think that's unacceptable.
Speaker:And I think people like Patrick Kennedy are really pushing hard to change things.
Speaker:But I think this is a major issue in our country.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Courtenay Harris Bond, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker:Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Speaker:Thanks for talking about this stuff. It's really important.
Speaker:It really means a lot to us here. Thank you so much.
Speaker:Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker:Bye. Wow.
Speaker:That was reflection time.
Speaker:I really have to take a moment to just say
Speaker:thank you to Courtenay Harris Bond for sharing her experience.
Speaker:Depression, anxiety.
Speaker:They're serious, serious topics.
Speaker:And a lot of people really do move day -to-day with these burdens, essentially.
Speaker:And she's doing it with her chin held high, fully functional.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Yeah. I really appreciated the honesty.
Speaker:Someone who can chronicle their experience this way.
Speaker:A lot of people just Google things to learn and they're privately suffering.
Speaker:Right. So they could find someone like her, and
Speaker:find her work, and discover a way to feel better.
Speaker:And that whole thing can be private for them.
Speaker:Right? Like she said, "silent soldiers."
Speaker:Totally. And I love and honor and validate that.
Speaker:And then there's someone like Courtenay, and they're like, "I have to spread this
Speaker:message." So it's just, there's different types of people that are struggling.
Speaker:And when she did say "silent soldiers," I was like, yeah, that's most people.
Speaker:Right? And we need to keep in mind that we just
Speaker:never know who is experiencing what she's going through.
Speaker:Absolutely. I also like that she talked about that she
Speaker:was able to afford these things until she couldn't.
Speaker:Like, let's be real. It's extremely expensive.
Speaker:Yeah. And I think on both sides of medicine,
Speaker:technology and advancement, we're always going to have the scientists say, "hey,
Speaker:try this new thing, let us put this magnet on your head." But I really appreciate her
Speaker:saying, hey, I have these really hard experiences and this technology helps.
Speaker:I think you need voices from both sides to
Speaker:really inform us fully, to really help us step forward into medicine with more of a
Speaker:heart and this discussion, definitely my heart grew three times.
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Speaker:Check them out at radiokismet.com.
Speaker:There's a lot of people who make this podcast happen.
Speaker:Thanks to the producers Joy Montefusco and Jayatri Das.
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