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

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.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This month is Mental Health Awareness Month, and today's episode
is on clinical depression. What if your brain gets stuck
in sadness and never resets? What does it feel like
when joy disappears completely? Can a person love their family
deeply and still want to die? What does a person
do when treatment after treatment fails? What if relief could

(00:24):
come from rewiring the brain? What if the difference between
despair and recovery is electrical? And how do we as
members of our community come to better recognize suffering that
would otherwise be invisible. Today we're going to talk with
John Nelson, a man who suffered for years under the

(00:44):
grip of depression. As you're going to see, he's incredibly
honest and transparent about his experiences, what it was like
from the inside, and finally he'll tell us about the
radical treatment that he took to get relief. John speaks
and campaigns tirelessly for a better understanding of depression to
try to relieve the suffering of millions of other people.

(01:11):
Welcome to Innercosmos with me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist
and author at Stanford and in these episodes we sail
deeply into our three pound universe to understand why and
how our lives look the way they do. Today's episode

(01:45):
is about depression. Every brain is constantly generating a model
of the world. This includes the sites and the sounds
around you, your memories, your expectations, all that, and it
includes your emotional tone, meaning that at any given moment,
your brain is setting the dial on how the world feels.
For most of us, that emotional dial moves with circumstance.

(02:08):
You get good news and the dial goes up. You
hit a setback and it cranks down. You might wake
up groggy and then you perk up with a coffee
and you laugh at the friend and you relax into
the evening. There's this dynamic range. But now imagine something different.
Imagine that the dial gets stuck. It just locks in

(02:29):
at a low position and it doesn't come back. That's
where we're going to begin today. Now, what we call
depression can be confusing language because we often use the
same word for a passing emotion like I'm feeling sad,
and we use the same word for a brain disease.
And as we're going to see, those are two very
different things. One comes and goes, the other settles in

(02:53):
and when it settles in deeply enough, it reshapes everything.
Your motivation, your sense of meaning, your perception of time,
your sense of who you are. Today's episode is about
what clinical depression feels like from the inside. And I
want to say something important at the outset here. The
guest you're about to hear from John Nelson is extraordinary

(03:16):
in his willingness to be fully, radically honest about his
experience with major depressive disorder. He doesn't sanitize or soften anything.
And it's a tough story because his depression was resistant
to so many of the treatments that he tried. And
this kind of honesty matters enormously because for a lot

(03:37):
of people listening right now, this is either going to
resonate directly with your own experience, or it's going to
shine some really important light on the experience of somebody
that you know or love. So, just by way of
setting the table for this conversation, I want to say
that for decades we've typically described depression as a chemical imbalance,

(04:01):
and that framing has helped move the conversation forward. It
places the issue in biology instead of blame. But it
turns out that chemical imbalance is only a part of
the story, and increasingly neuroscience's understanding disorders like depression in
terms of circuit imbalances, in other words, patterns of activity

(04:23):
in brain networks, loops that become overactive or underactive, or
they're locked into states that no longer adapt appropriately. That
insight has opened the door to a different kind of
intervention that's not just about chemistry, but one that goes
directly into the circuitry itself. And that's where John's story
eventually leads to a treatment that even now sounds a

(04:47):
bit like science fiction to many people. But I'm getting
ahead of myself, because that's the end of the story,
and the really important part of this is where the
story begins and the journey itself. Here's my conversation with
John Nelson. Okay, John, so you have always been a

(05:08):
people guy, super enthusiastic and so on. At some point
in your life you started realizing that you were in
a funk. Tell us about that experience, about realizing that,
and about what this was like for you.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
It was beyond confusing. And the reason it was is
I just am the world's biggest extrovert. I'm that guy.
You know. My business was all about being the client
service person. You know, I just I get my energy
from being around people. I get my energy from being
a good father, being a good husband, being a good friend.

(05:43):
And I was actually living in San Francisco at the time,
and we just moved back to the East Coast, and
the standard funk that you get into that you know
you have for a day or two, it kind of
came into my body and it just wasn't leaving, and
I couldn't figure out what was happening. You know, I'm
flying up the corporate ladder. I'm doing extremely well work wise,

(06:06):
I am. You know. We have the two kids, you know,
we got the dog, We got the happy life and family,
and my wife's the best. You know. It's just one
of these moments and you know your memarily thirties, you know,
you're making it happen. You're grinding, and all of a sudden,
I just started to not be myself in decline.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
And so you felt like you were in a funk
and was it about something or was it a funk
that didn't have a central focus to it.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
No central focus. You know, that was the hard part.
And I learned a lot about depression just by myself
going through it because I couldn't understand what was happening.
And I think also back to who I am as
a human being. You know, I'm always while I am
that extroverted person, that's my outside, right, I've always been
the way that I kind of say it is, I'm

(06:53):
confident on the outside. I have a zero self esteem,
and that's been who I am as a person my
whole life. You know, I've always been so hard on myself.
The way that I treat myself inside is absolutely different
than I would treat anybody, right, but that's just my temperament.
That's who I am. And so all of a sudden,

(07:14):
this funk started impacting my external self, and that really
was what was different is I started changing my behavior
pretty drastically.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
And so let's explore what it was like to be
on the side. Was it like a sadness or an
absence of something or something else entirely?

Speaker 2 (07:33):
The best way that I can explain it is the
standard human emotion that everybody has with sadness. You know,
you got them all, sadness, happiness, anger, irritability. It creeped
into me and it never left, and it kept getting
worse and worse every single day, and so it became hopelessness,

(07:57):
It became physically exhausting. It started wharping my brain, is
the easiest way to put it.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
And out of curiosity, did time change for you? Did
days feel compressed or expanded?

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Phenomenal question? Days felt so hard, they just felt difficult,
they felt I didn't want to be up. I didn't
want to be awake, you know, the only thing that
I wanted to do was not feel it. And you know,
one of the challenges for me is, since I've been
a kid, I feel everything like my like what guides

(08:31):
me through life is how do you make me feel?
How does the situation make me feel. I'm a gut guy,
and so being somebody who feels everything, and then you
magnify that with this, you know, small feeling of torture
that's starting into my body and never leaving. It consumed me.
It consumed me with that feeling, and all that I

(08:54):
wanted to do was escape and find some relief at
some point. And it was couldn't be more difficult.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
And what it did you to your sense of motivation,
the things that you loved to do slowly declining.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
I went from enjoying pretty much everything to over time
having no joy and not having that joy made me
feel even worse about myself. You know, while I'm sitting there,
I mean, as this disease progresses, you know, the easiest
way that I would put it is, you're a wonderful father, right,

(09:30):
I'm a very proud father too, And so to see
kind of what this deniacal brain disease does to you
me propt me was I'm looking at my children, I'm
guiding them, I'm being a great father, and I'm, you know,
just thinking I love you so much, like I would
do anything for you, like inside right, Like that's how

(09:51):
I am. And at the very same time, my brain's
also telling me all I want to do is die, right,
And so you're going through life like this. You're going
through life just having completely two different realities. And I
want to be there for my children. I want to
be a great dad, but guess what, at the same time,
I also want to die. Like living with that and

(10:14):
feeling everything all the time is complete and utter misery.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Let's zoom in on that issue of your brain telling
you something. Did you feel like your thoughts were not
your own and that your brain. Something in your brain
was telling you things that were someone else's voice, or
it felt like your voice. What was it like?

Speaker 2 (10:34):
It was unrelenting torture and suffering, and it was my
brain saying I want to do anything that I can
to stop this. And so when you think about jumping
on your phone and just being like, hey, let's look
where would we go into HEDI as a family and
have some fun, right, and you're looking up the cool
spots that you would go, you know, that replaced that

(10:57):
feeling with me looking in the Netherlands that be like
maybe I could go there and compassionately die. Me were
researching every single thing that I could in Canada, be
like they have the Maids program, they have compassionate death there.
Why couldn't our country have that? That was my euphoria.
I was completely euphoric to death. I wasn't completely euphoric

(11:20):
to death because I was weak. I was completely euphoric
to death because the suffering and the torture was horrific
and I couldn't get out of it.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
And who knew in your life?

Speaker 2 (11:32):
So to start it was my wife. You know when
I tell you, I get emotional when I talk about it.
When I think about it. You know, you start what's
better than when you first meet somebody, right, and it
clicks and that chemistry is there, and you're just like, dude,
all I want to do is be with you all
the time, like I love you so much, right, and

(11:56):
to see her love and support and kindness to me
and understanding and also the same thing for her, the
complete stress that it put on her. Right, Like, think
of how challenging it is to have a career, raise kids,
you know, make it all happen. And then next thing,

(12:18):
you know, you go from these wonderful moments of just
wanting to be with each other all the time and
in creating this life together and it's just completely taken
over by a brain disease that you didn't ask for.
And she was, by far my rock. She's the strongest
human being I've ever met in my entire life. To

(12:39):
become she signed up to be my wife, my entire goal,
My entire goal was to make her feel like the
most important person in the world, the most special person world,
the most love person in the world, to be the
best husband that I could be. And that's not what happened.
What happened was me being in the fetal position in

(13:01):
my bed, wanting to die every single second of the day,
me sleeping. Literally, if I could sleep twenty three and
a half hours a day, I would do it. You know.
Once a month she would hold it together. She would
just do everything she could to be a mom. Now
she's a dad to the kids. Now she's going back

(13:21):
and getting an additional degrease that she can get a
job that could support her family because I'm probably not
going to be able to work. And so to see
her go on like pure adrenaline, like listen, I got this.
I'm the rock now, all right, I gotta take care
of my dude. Right to have her do that, And
then about every month, she would be in the tub

(13:41):
and I'm in bed, I'm staring at the wall. I'm
completely miserable, and she's bawling and she's bawling and she's
just like, I can't I don't know if I can
take this, like this stress is so hard and so high.
And then guess what that was the release that she

(14:02):
needed to do it again for another month. And so
for me as a husband to see this woman that
all I want to do is make your life exceptional,
and this brain disease is making that not happen was
debilitating and guess what, you know, it just makes everything worse.
When when something's torturing your mind that you didn't ask

(14:27):
for and you're seeing everything around you fall to pieces,
it just makes it worse.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Did it feel like this was something coming from inside
of you or something happening to you?

Speaker 2 (14:39):
That's such a good question. It felt like both both.
You know, the thing that people don't talk about with
depression is it's physically exhausting, exhausting, and it took every
single thing away from me motivation wise. It was a

(15:04):
struggle to get up and take a shower. It was
a struggle to brush my teeth. At the same time,
you know, I had to get up and go out
there and provide for my family and put food on
the table. It's so balancing. You were working during this time,

(15:26):
up and up and back and forth. I mean, I was.
It was everything that you could ever imagine. So I'll
never forget. I mean, you know, at the start of
the peak of my disease, you had asked me before
who knew? You know, it was my wife, and then
it was my family, and then God forbid, I'll let
the world know, right, we have an I have an
unacceptable disease by society. So got to keep that on

(15:47):
the down low. Let me tell you how much that
helps the suffering and the torture. And I was managing
director of an ad agency. I ended up leaving ad
world to go over the publishing side of the world.
And I did that because I started losing confidence in myself,
and so I was like, I can go to this

(16:08):
kind of digital publishing job. It's not going to be
as difficult. Hopefully I can still provide well for my family.
And it was easy. It was I worked twenty percent
as hard as I did the other job, and I
was making the same amount of money. The problem was
is I was alone, and.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
So that tried from home.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
I was working from home, right, And so what ended
up happening and how the disease presented itself there for
me was my daughter would go to school at eight
forty five in the morning. My wife would already be
at work at eight forty six. I was sound asleep.
My daughter would get home at three twenty five. I
would have my alarm set for three twenty four so

(16:48):
that when she came home, I was up and it
looked like I wasn't sleeping all day. That's how this
presented itself to me that way. And then I get
a call to come be the managing director of an
ad agency, and so at that point I was like
I need adrenaline. I was like, I externally can do this, Like,

(17:09):
let's go right, and I went and I did that.
I got proactively promoted from managing director to president of
the ad agency while I wanted to die every single
second of the day. When you're an ad world, you're
pitching all the time. I have this most vivid memory
of this is I'm running the shop. We win the

(17:30):
base of business. So what you do this standard thing
is you pull out the champagne. You kind of make
the pit, you make the toast. Guys kick you kick
the ass. Let's go right. And so I'm the guy
doing that right. I'm also the guy getting in my
car driving home and wanting to slam my car into
every single tree that I go by because I want
this complete torture as hell to leave my body. That's

(17:53):
what this looks like. It's completely different, and every person
you have no idea who's suffering. But that that's how
it presented itself in me, and I literally would think
you look at the world differently when you go through
this disease. At the level that I did, I was
so uphork for death that the world's different. You know,

(18:17):
driving down the highway, nobody would notice this stuff. But
you can't hit columns that are under for bridges on highways,
they're protected, right things like that. You're like, oh my god,
that would be such an amazing way to absolutely if
I could die, that'd be incredible. So I got consumed
with how do I die of an accidental death? How

(18:39):
do I do that? Because that solves all my problems
because if you die by suicide, which is the entire
goal of this disease, guess what, you don't get life insurance.
There's ways you can, but you don't get life insurance.
And so how can I die accidentally? How can I
make it look like there was a deer that when

(19:00):
front of me and I hit that tree. How can
I make it? I got to get my gutter, I
got to do my gutters. I got hit the leaves
on of my gutters. Like if I do that and
I go around this side and I fall on the pavement,
then it'll look like it's an accident, like that is
what your consumption is and not because people are weak.
That's the absolute symptom of what this thing is trying
to do. Along with physically ravaging your body, so you're

(19:23):
physically exhausted, you're mentally consumed with this torturous hell, and
you have society judging, labeling, blaming, and shaving you. It's
absolutely infuriating and it's a recipe for disaster.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
Two things. One is you know our perception of the world.
We usually think of perception like a camera, but in
fact it's all about what is relevant to your brain.
And so that's fascinating and horrifying that that's what you noticed,
is oh, would that be a useful thing to crash
and do? There, they're as you're driving down the highway,

(19:57):
you're noticing something very different than you know and barist
or a city planner, or someone who's hungry and looking
for a hamburger. You're noticing different things on the road there.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
One hundred percent. Yeah, So to let you know how
conflicting everything was, right, I was consumed with dying, but
at the same time I had an understanding of how
do I do this? Where it's the most minimal impact
that it can have on people. This is how it
presented itself in me. Right, I hadn't lost all tangents

(20:31):
to society, so I would be sitting there thinking about
it and I'm like, well, I don't want to do
this in my town. If I go to the next
town or I go to the other state, I want
to do this in an area where a first responder
can find me. It's going to still be horrific for them,
but they're used to this. I don't want this to
be you know, like, that's the level that it would
get to. And I'm always a fixer, right, I'm always

(20:51):
I'm always thinking about like what can I do? How
can I make this happen? But but this is the
this is this is the level of the previty that
this does to.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Your How did you look to find really? First of all,
did you go to see a psychiatrist? Okay? And was
what was suggested to you?

Speaker 2 (21:07):
So the very first step was I went to a therapist.
Don't tell anybody, right, And so I go to a
therapist that I talk to my boy wife. I'm like,
I really feel like I need to need to figure
this out. And it was two sessions in and she said,
I think you have major depressive disorder. And you know,

(21:28):
you hear that. I'm like, really like, huh, I go home.
I look it up and man, was she right?

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Did feel like a relief to have a label to
it a little bit? Okay?

Speaker 2 (21:40):
You know, it was my first time in therapy, and
so that was interesting in itself. You know, like talking
about it's the standard stuff, right, you go back to
talking about your family dynamics and everything that's happening. So
I had that there, and then I just had the
confusion of like, you know, I'm not sure what's going on.
So in general, it was it was just a neat

(22:00):
experience to be a part of it right and feel
like I was starting the process right, That's what it
felt like.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
And to go to the therapist or to get the diagnosis.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Go to the therapist. And then when I got the diagnosis,
it just felt comforting, like I'm talking to somebody, I'm
opening up about this, this is my mind, this is
somebody who does this on a daily basis, this is
her career, and she's guiding me to get me, to
let me know what's going on. And so if anything.
It kind of ended my confusion a little bit. You know.
It was like I could focus on Okay, I'm a fixer, right,

(22:33):
I'm like, all right, this is it. I'm a fixer.
Let's figure this out, right. And so when I read
that definition of major depress of the sword, I was like,
oh man. I was like, that's it, you know. And
so that started my journey to like, okay, so what
do we do to try to fix this? And I did.
I did the second thing, which was wild, as I
sent an email to my broader family and it just

(22:56):
said depression in the subject line, and I just said,
I just want to let you guys know what's going
on with me. And I just wanted them to know.
And you know, it was well received ish, but it
was my kind of start to be like, all right,
let me just talk about this. I go to my

(23:17):
primary care office and I see my nurse practitioner, Jane,
and I will tell you to this day, the most
empathetic person I've ever been around. You know, she sits
me down and just treated me with such respect and kindness,

(23:38):
and it was just amazing. Like again, I go back
to the feelings, right, I felt seen, I felt like
it was okay to have this, and she wants to
help me. And I didn't feel that for another ten years.
Why I was a nuisance to this. I was a

(24:02):
nuisance to insurance. I was a nuisance to society. It's infuriating.
I was looked through. I was a piece of paper.
I was a burden to everything. And so to have
my first experience be one of kindness and love and

(24:23):
empathy was really, really great. And I certainly would have
hoped that it would have been throughout the whole journey,
and it wasn't. And so then the process starts with
here's a medication. I wasn't aware at the time. It
was put your hand in and try to figure out
which one it would be in having no idea, and

(24:43):
take this one right. It was, here's this medication. Come
back in six weeks, and let's talk. I come back
in six weeks, and how are you feeling? Still feeling
pretty horrible? All right, let's try the next one. Prozac
is all keep going on and on and on. You know,

(25:06):
I did over ten different medications, and each time I'm
doing that, it's suffering for another six weeks and then
coming back in and just the only consistent that I
had in this entire journey was failure and increased torture.
That's it. And not one medication work for me.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Oh right. So the difficulty for psychiatrists is that they
prescribe these meds and sometimes they work and often they don't.
And exactly as you said, it's a lottery system where
you're trying it out and there's no way, at least
at the moment to know who's likely to respond and
which one they're likely to respond to. So, okay, so

(25:52):
you were trying pharmaceuticals. Did you try things like cognitive
behavioral therapy or other things?

Speaker 2 (25:58):
I tried everything you know, and I will tell you
one of the words are very important in this condition
and when you were trying to find when you're trying
not to feel horrible and nothing works. And I had
the very first time I got introduced to CBT therapist

(26:19):
and we were having kind of the initial call like, hey,
come on in next week, I have the availability to
see you.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy, and she
ended the phone call and she said, John, I really
look forward to seeing you and helping provide you some relief,
and I was like, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
I was like, that's the word, Like that was all
I was searching for, and I couldn't find it, and
I couldn't put that word. It was a moment in
the day where I actually felt a little better. I'd
never felt better, right, And so I'm like, oh my God,
like that's what I need. And so I ended up.

(27:01):
And it's a wonderful question about therapy. And I respect therapists,
and I respect counselors or respects that causus. I respect
everybody tremendously for giving their entire career and passion to
helping people who are suffering. I also am triggered by therapy.
And the reason I'm triggered by therapy is I just

(27:23):
kept getting sicker. And it wasn't because of them. It
was because of how significantly severe my disease was. And
so guess what it did to me. It made me
feel like I was failing it, right, So I knew
what to do. I knew the DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy,
I knew the CBT. I tried all of it, and

(27:45):
then here's the problem is, you know, do this and
then this will happen. But guess what happens when you
are so sick. It's impossible for me to do things.
And so I know I'm supposed to be doing one thing,
and then guess what, I end up sleeping twenty three
hours and I feel even worse about myself because I

(28:07):
can't accomplish these basic things that I'm being told to
do that will improve my health. But that is another
major myss that we have in this system. Going through
my journey, I was never told one time that the
reason I couldn't feel pleasure is something called anedonia. Not
one person told me that, Like, this disease just wants

(28:30):
you to literally crush your soul whatever it could do, right.
And so I'm sitting there and I'm like, dude, like
I have zero pleasure, I can't feel I can't do anything.
And nobody told me that that was the brain disease.
So now I'm like, I'm sleeping all the time, I'm

(28:53):
a nuisance to everybody. I can't even experience pleasure. I
can't even enjoy anything. And this is what Anne hadonia is,
this is what adonia is. It's the ability of not
being able to feel pleasure. And so these beautiful things
that I used to do. Like perfect example, I used
to live in this beautiful Bay area. When I tell

(29:15):
you how much I enjoy coming here, it is the
people I love, It's the culture, the weather, and so
one of the things that I did. And just to
explain to you what thebility of losing pleasure looks like
is when I moved back east, I built right away

(29:36):
a really cool fire pit outside, you know, and I
was like, this is going to be my commemorative thing
in my love of the Bay Area. I'm bringing it here,
you know, like I love when I lived here. You know,
you'd meet up with your neighbors and you'd all sit
around and have a couple of beers and just to
have the fire going every single day. And to explain

(29:57):
to you how you lose pleasure, I for the last
three years of my disease, never had a fire once.
Couldn't have friends over to my house to have a fire.
I couldn't sit outside with my friends. I couldn't motivate
to make that phone call. It would be torture to
do it right. That is Anaedonia. And then you add

(30:20):
on the second one, which is called abolition. Nobody told
me about this either, right, So the losing the ability
to do daily routine activities like they're so difficult. Right,
that's the I showered today, right, I did it. Right.
The fact that that's like a marathon to make happen.

(30:42):
Nobody told me about that either.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
And by the way, for the listeners, avolition is you know, volition,
your energy to go out and do something, and a
just means not. So if you have avolition, it means
you're not getting out and making things happen. But what
did it feel like when you were thinking of, hey,
should I text my friend to do the fire pit tonight?
What was the feeling that you had like I just don't.

(31:06):
I just don't want to, or I can't get myself
to pick up the phone. I just didn't do it,
didn't even didn't even cross my mind. It was like
the last thing in the world I want.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
To do is anything I see. And it was an
example of what that's like. I only thing that I
wanted to do was because nothing was working. And this
is something to think about into, you know, for people
who are out there listening and trying to see like
how is this presenting itself and other folks is I

(31:38):
was exceptional. Like the only things that I was excellent
at was sleeping, was consuming far too much alcohol, was
consuming far too much cannabis. Was lying. Lying's huge?

Speaker 1 (31:53):
What's an example?

Speaker 2 (31:54):
Lying is? Hey, han, I need you to come to
the kid's appointment at ten o'clock. It's at school. Sorry,
I can't do it. I got a work meeting. I
didn't have a work meeting. My friend's calling me, Hey, dude,
you want to come out. We'll go to the game tonight.
Got out that the Steelers are coming in town. You
want to go? Sorry, man, I can't. I got I
got something going on. If anything going on, I just

(32:16):
didn't want to leave my room right. And so think
about that, like that's what you're doing at all times,
is like how can I get out of anything because
I don't want to do it right? And then this
is the depravity of this disease. So all you want
to do, you want people to notice you, to help you.

(32:40):
You don't get anything right, And so you're like, why
is nobody helping me? Why is nobody Why is nobody
helping my wife? Why is everybody lining up down the
street to bring cast roles for other diseases? And help
the family. Why why aren't they doing that for us? Right?
So you have that going on and at the same
time time, this is how maniacal it is when somebody

(33:04):
helps you. I don't want I please don't get around me,
like I don't like, No, this is too much, right,
So it's a it's a lose lose And guess what,
that's all in your mind and that mind is circling
all the time, and it's a it's literal hell that's
going on and it just doesn't end.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
And do you feel that people weren't helping because they
did not know or because there was stigma?

Speaker 2 (33:32):
It is. Stigma is the most horrific thing in the
entire world. It is the most deadly thing that we
do as a society. And it is comical to me
to keep for people to say that there isn't a stigma,
the stigma Gosh forbid, we would I would tell somebody
that I was suffering with this, right, Like, like stigma
makes you be quiet, and so to explain to you

(33:55):
took me years to be comfortable enough to talk to
people about it. I'm like, this is like I'm doing it,
like this is this is I'm going to do the opposite.
I'm gonna I'm gonna literally come out to masses. And
so I ended up doing the exact opposite. I do
a big I ended up contacting a trade publication in
my world, and I'm like, guys, I'm a I'm a

(34:16):
I'm a marketer, uh, you know, a successful marketer in
the space, and I have mental illness and I'd like
to talk about it. And I did, and it was
incredible to see the reaction was you had a lot
of people who were like, oh my god, I didn't
know there were people like me, right, But then it
was also it was very or interesting because I got
to see a different side of humanity. And so this

(34:38):
is my example of you feel awful all the time,
you feel your insides are just deteriorating, right, and then
think of think of how much balls it takes to
tell somebody you're suffering with a stigmatized disease. So I
got to that point where it was certain people I

(34:58):
would and it's like, you know, I've been It's been
just a horrific battle. You know, I'm struggling and I'm
suffering from treatment resistant depression, which is after two failed medications.
So I was very quickly treatment resistant. And do you
know what the response was ninety nine point nine percent
of the time.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
What's that?

Speaker 2 (35:20):
This? This being what I'm doing to you right now,
staring at you, not saying anything, just judgment, just silence,
just making you feel worse inside, making you feel even
more awkward.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Was it judgment or was it people not knowing what
to say?

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Both? Right? But that's but that's that's the stigma. And
that's the best part when people are like, well, there's
one stigma out there, absolutely not true. And here's the
reason I will say it. If I had told somebody
I am dude, this is I'm just I have the
most debilitating situation right now I have. I just got

(36:01):
I'm dealing with colon cancer. Like, what's the immediate reaction
of a woman or anybody like I'm suffering from breast cancer? Immediately,
I'm so incredibly sorry. You have that internal feeling of compassion,
of sadness, of empathy. You don't need to know the
biology behind hou or through the science behind why it's happening, right,

(36:24):
You just know it sucks, and you know you feel
bad for them. You know you feel bad for their family.
They didn't ask for that, right, and they got the
crappy cards. It's the same exact thing with serious mental illness,
but society doesn't view it the same. It's not acceptable.
It's not an acceptable.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
Disease, exactly right. And it's because when you look at
these other things, let's say, breast cancer, col and cancer whatever,
we understand that immediately is a biological thing. Now, as
it turns out, mental illness is a biological thing in
this three pound organ. But it's harder to tell that.
So people think, okay, well, John should just get over it,

(37:01):
should just you know, get himself out of bed and
do the right thing. And it's because you can't see it.
You can't see the MRI or the X ray of
a broken arm, or the clear measurement in the blood
labs or something.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
I'll prove to you even more. Take it once that further,
so I gave you some non brain diseases, right with
the colon cancer, with the breast cancer. What is the
feeling from society if you got a call from your
friend the day that you were supposed to go out
at night and they said, dude, I'm dealing with the
worst migraine of all time you know your feeling aside

(37:34):
is like, dude, I'm so sorry. Absolutely, don't worry about tonight. Like,
don't worry about it. Right, that's the brain. That's something
off in your brain to make that happen. That's acceptable,
that's understood, right, same exact thing here, not the case.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Right, right. And I wonder if it's because we, you know,
all of us go up and down with our feelings sometimes,
and so if someone doesn't know what clinical depression is,
they think, well, come on, John, you know we've all
been sad for a moment, and you'll get over it,
and you'll get over by tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
So that is a that is a beautiful comment and
one of the biggest things that I like to tell
the world to understand. This is what you were referring
to and what people are saying when they're ignorant and
they're saying, snap out of it, dude, get over it.
I've I've been been sad before. You're talking about the
human emotion, you're not talking about the disease. And so

(38:27):
part of this as a marketing guy is the naming convention. Right,
what is another word for being sad?

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Dude, I just feel depressed man, right, you're you're you're us.
You're talking about the emotion. And so absolutely we all
have had sadness for sure, and that's exactly what what
should happen. And it comes in your body and at
least just like when you wake up, right, you wake up,
you're a little cranky, and then you go out and
you have a breakfast, you feel good, right, Like, that's

(38:54):
the cycle of life. And so when people are trying
to understand this diseasease, the disease is that emotion for me,
for a lot of people that never leaves your body
and just gets worse and worse and worse over time.
That's what this disease is. And so that that that

(39:17):
let me begin to tell you how frustrating it is
to have people who even think they're being helpful right
come up to you and say, do just do just
diet and exercise, like you don't think I know that,
like you don't you don't think that I like like

(39:38):
that Every part just makes you just go deeper and
deeper into a whole, you know, and all you want
is just some frickin relief, and and you're continuing to
be judged, you know, like do just die an exercise,
Just walk around the block, bro, I can't move I
know that, right, But but that even at every single

(40:02):
thing just feels like judgment, feels like scorn, feels like dude,
just figure it out. And you're like, all I'm trying
to do is figure it out. And the anti depresses, man,
they were at the beginning of a massive journey.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
You know, this is the history of medicine is for
thousands of years people would say, just figure it out,
just snap out of it.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
And it was only really recently that we came to
take on this whole other category of you know, illness
of the body. But then this category of oh, the
psychiatric illnesses too. And the fact that that became something
that was studied as a biological thing, as a problem
with the brain, was a really big important step. But

(40:46):
it's it's interesting that it's still separated out like a
separate category. Oh well, that's a psychiatric illness, and we've
got physical illnesses over here, even though they're all physical illness. Okay,

(41:07):
So let's get back to the treatment. So you tried
pharma schools, didn't work, You tried different forms of therapy,
didn't work. Did you try trans cranial magnetic stimulation?

Speaker 2 (41:16):
So I end up going It was twenty eighteen, the
week between Christmas and New Year, and so I'm running
that agency at the time. Nobody knows that I'm sick
at the shop, and my wife is going to her parents' house.
They have a kind of beach area where they go
to and she's like, you're gonna come again, back to
the line, I can't. I gotta work. I have to work,

(41:40):
and she jumps in the minivan. We got the minivan,
the three kids. She's backing out of our garage and again,
I'll never forget it, like we had this extra probably
half second glance at each other, like eye to eye,
and it was basically her just saying I love you,

(42:02):
you know, like I'm not. I don't know if I'll
see you again, you know, Like it was it was
not that she was leaving me to die by suicide,
but she knew just the absolute horror that was going
through my body. And that night, I consume far too
much cannabis, I consume far too much alcohol. I jump

(42:25):
on my little scooter that is uh takes me around town,
a little kind of like vespie looking scooter without a helmet,
of course, adrenaline, whatever you can do. I go pick
up the Indian food ordered way too much food, come home,
consume that. And I'm up in my bedroom and I'm

(42:45):
staring at the ceiling and I'm just screaming like why
am I so fing sad? And I'd like my tears
are going so far hard down my face that they're
like making a sound on the bed, like like that's
what's going on. And I was like, should I call
the suicide hotline? And I didn't. And the reason I

(43:10):
didn't is I didn't know if the police would show
up at my house and I didn't want to have
the police at my house and like make a scene, right,
And for some way, I was able to fall asleep
and I woke up the next day and I called
my or I texted my boss and she actually lived

(43:31):
close to me, and I just said, hey, my car
is broke down. Could you mind grabbing me today? And
she came over and I was, you know, imagine, you know,
your old Jim shorts twenty years ago and your worst
T shirt and I just bawling. You know. She walks

(43:53):
in and I'm I'm the guy running the shop. I'm
the guy who's got it all together, and I'm just
completely the lowest point in my life.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Is this the first time she'd ever seen you like that.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Is the first time she had anybody ever see me
like that outside of my family. And I just said,
I need help. I don't know what to do. And
she was the most incredible person in the entire world.
And she sat with me, and she called my father
and she called my wife, and you know, I told

(44:24):
my wife, I said, you no need to come home
like she's got me like, I'm going to go somewhere
and be safe. And my father came down, who was
incredibly helpful, and they helped me get to my first
residential treatment facility.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
And was this new for your father as well?

Speaker 2 (44:41):
So my father is a physician, and my father is
a surgeon, and when I first told him about my
suffering and going through this, his first reaction to me was, dude,
you got a family, figure it out, right. And so
to go from that to him seeing and understanding what

(45:04):
this disease can do to you and being my biggest supporter,
shows you what it is like when people can actually
experience this from the outside. The only people that this
disease was worse for than me were the loved ones
in my family that got to see it. And so
that go to this residential treatment facility and I'm thirty

(45:26):
days in this facility and it was the first time
in my entire life that I'd ever been in group therapy.
And that's something I try to tell everybody who's struggling,
is this disease is trying to keep you in your
bedroom and trying to keep you silent and trying to
isolate you. F fat, don't let it win. And being

(45:46):
around the first time I was in a group and
being with like minded people who were also struggling and suffering,
it was like the most therapeutic thing I've ever been
in around my life. And I'm in there. They call
it the tank, and so you're in the tank. So
people that are come in there with substance abuse disorder,
they make sure they're safe physically, they're not going through

(46:07):
withdrawal with mental illness. It's are you going to die
by suicide? We need to make sure you're okay before
you go to the general population. And there's like eight
people in this room and we're going around and we're
telling our stories. And there's a woman there who is
in rehab for a six time popioate addiction, and she

(46:28):
looks directly at me and she says, I am so
happy I have what I have instead of what you have,
and I'll never forget that. And I was like, oh
my gosh, I couldn't believe it. You know, like you thinking,
you hear, and you feel and you know, and society's
talking all the time about you know, addiction and these

(46:48):
things that are going on, and how like eight times
she's been here, right, this is a horrific thing that
she is going through with her brain disease, right, and
you think that's about as difficult of a journey as
it can be. And to have this person look at
me and say I don't want that was like, oh wow,

(47:09):
Like this is putting in a perspective on how bad
this is.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
It allowed you to see yourself and understand this not
as an issue of your fault and understand that what
you have been going through is really rough. Is that?
Why is that what it meant to you or something else?

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yes? And also I just was seen differently like it
kind of it kind of what I would say, this
is a great question. I've never been asked that. What
I would say, is it validated to me the absolute
horror that was happening in my body, That's what it was.
It was like, oh, yeah, this is as bad, This

(47:48):
is as bad as I think it is. That nobody
seems to care about. This isn't judgment, this is this
is I see your pain. I live with what people
think would be very difficult to live with, which it
absolutely is, and it's horrific, and it also is a
brain disease. Right, But I see your pain and I
see your suffering, and I'm so sorry and I'm so

(48:10):
sorry that.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
You have that.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Like it was, it was wild, and I had I
had a glimpse of hope when I was there. And
guess what that glimpse was. What that glimpse was transcranial
magnetic stimulation. Okay, And so I end up going in
the first day that I'm there, They're like, hey, would
you like to would you like to consider trying this?
I'm like absolutely, And I had tried to get approval

(48:35):
before it for it, and it wouldn't happen. And so
I get approval, I get insurance approval to do it,
and so I'm finally like, oh my god, I finally
have something that may work. I do two sessions and
the see unique part about transcranio magnetic stimulation, and the
version that I had is you sit in like a
dentist chair and they essentially put this put the miss

(49:00):
the machine or you know the word better. Yeah, so
they put that at you and it just goes every
I don't know the amount of time, but let's say
every you know, thirty seconds or forty five seconds, whatever is.
It just goes makes the sound and it's in it
and you feel it and it's not a pleasurable feeling,
but it's not unpleasurable. But here's what I will tell

(49:20):
you that I loved about it is I could feel something.
I could feel something trying to help me. I was like, okay,
this is good. I was like, I just got here.
They were like, there's a three hundred dollars test that
we can give you called gene site, which will tell
you maybe what drugs could or couldn't work in your body.
I'm like, let's go. I'm like, I finally have something
that I can focus on that tells me, Okay, this

(49:42):
is a drug that will probably work in you. This
probably won't. I'm like, Okay, that's that's something that I
can work with. Now I have transcreaming, a magnetic stimulation.
Now I have group therapy. I'm finally feeling something. I'm like,
this is dope. Like I'm I'm getting somewhere right. I
go into my third session and guess what happens, literally
pulled out of the chair, pulled out. I finally have
hope pulled out down of the chair by what insurance

(50:07):
denies me? And so let me begin to tell you
how completely I don't even know if I have the
right word. I don't want to swear, but how absolutely, completely,
ridiculously absurd it is to by far meet every single
inclusion criteria that you can have, and them just saying

(50:31):
we would prefer that you die when you're trying to
keel your mind and you're financially ruining your family, which
is what our insurance system does. It is absolutely absurd.
All I can tell you is that every single thing

(50:51):
that was possible for me to die was exacerbated by
the absolute ridiculous joke of an insurance system that we have.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
I'm sorry. So the TMS you felt was useful was
working for you. Then you got ripped out of the chair,
and so what did you do next?

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Go home? And ended up getting After two more denial letters,
I got acceptance again to do it, and so I
have to drive an hour to my psychiatrist's office. I
had to put four hundred ninety five dollars on my
credit card, not fully knowing if I'd be reimbursed, right,

(51:31):
having a hope that it would come or some of
it would hit. Right, But back again to the financial
ruining your family. Trying to hear your mind, very challenging, right,
I did that thirty six times, so driving an hour,
sitting in a chair for forty five minutes, driving an hour
back and the only thing that happened for me was

(51:51):
I got sicker, and so zero relief did nothing was
excited because I got the key trying right, I got
to keep figuring it out. And then after that happened,
I mean, the short version was another residential treatment facility,
three partial hospitalization plans, which is essentially nine to three.

(52:16):
You go into a facility, your more day based stuff,
three intensive outpatient programs, which is nine to twelve. But
the same thing. You're just going and you're trying to
get better and continuing throughout this whole process, just continuing

(52:36):
to get worse, and so I'm doing it all and
nothing's working. I also end up getting something called Ketemie
nasal spray, and so that was something that I was like,
all right, let's try it. Whatever I can do. And
this is before this was a compounded pharmacy version of
essentially of spravado, which is now approved, and this was

(52:57):
before that. It was just like cannabis and alcohol. To me,
it was wonderful because it was prescribed relief, and so
when I took it, it was beautiful because it was like,
all right, I feel okay, and to let you know
the kind of horrors of what this disease does. I
abused it because guess what, it felt good to not

(53:20):
feel like dying. Right. What I was supposed to take
at a time was eight eight sprays in your nose
and you do it. Two minutes. Wait, two minutes. I
had sixteen minutes on my timer. Was one of my
favorite things in the world was my phone timer. Sixteen minutes.
And I would get that thing on and it would
time deack down and every two minutes, I was like sick.

(53:41):
Boom another one, right, and then guess what that turns
into eighteen minutes, that turns into twenty four minutes. And
you know what that's doing is it's making me inside
feel worse because I'm like, oh my god, I'm doing
something I shouldn't do, but this is keeping me alive.
And you know, I have this moment where I, as

(54:03):
I said, I'm just so hard on myself right at
all times, whatever I can do to beat myself up.
You know, I wake up every morning for thirty years
of my life, you fat fn piece of s That
was my first thought, right, and then you add on
this disease, it gets worse and I'm I'm av ketamine.
And it was the only time in my entire life

(54:23):
where I had a feeling or a thought about myself.
And I vividly remember it. I'm floating above myself and
I'm looking down and there I was, and I was.
It was the most beautiful I've ever seen myself ever.
I was peaceful, I looked good, I felt good inside,

(54:45):
and it was because I was dead. It was me
on a gurney in a hospital hallway and I was
dead and it was beautiful. And I wake up I
come too. And the only thing that happened to me
when I got out of that ketamine experience, the bad trip,

(55:06):
as they would say, was I was just so pissed
that I wasn't dead. I was so angry that I
was like, oh my god, that was it. That's what
this disease does to you.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
Man.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
Okay, So you tried pharmaceuticals, which worked for some people,
but it didn't work for you. You tried TMS, which
does work for some people, but it didn't work for
you. You tried ketamine, same thing. So what did you do next?

Speaker 2 (55:32):
So what I did next was the gold standard treatment
for treatment resistant depression, which is electroconvulsive therapy shock therapy.
Let me begin to tell you how fun it is
to do a stigmatized treatment for a stigmatized disease. So
electroconvulsive therapy is me being wheeled into a room. They

(55:58):
prep you with your IVY and put you under anesthesia,
and they essentially shock your brain and create seizures in
your brain. So they activate seizures in your brain. Imagine
resetting your computer, right, hold down the button reset your computer.
I look at it that way that they're trying to

(56:19):
essentially reset yourself and then you wake up, They give
you the apple juice, they wheel you out to your car,
you go home. It was I was under in twenty
twenty two anesthesia twelve times. So twelve times I have

(56:42):
to do this. Twelve times. I have to be a
nuisance and get somebody to take me down there. Twelve
times I have to be awkward on both rides there
and back. Twelve times I get to go home and
be so dizzy that I'm falling down while I'm walking.
I have significant memory loss from that time. I have

(57:04):
significant memory loss to this day. So later tonight, if
we were hanging out and you were introducing me to
your friend, I'd remember his name at the beginning, but
about an hour into the night, I'd forget his name.
I multiple times as the evening goes on, I'll be
talking to you, telling you a story about the Pittsburgh
Seelers being the best, and then I'll forget what I'm

(57:26):
talking about as I'm telling you why they're the best.
Like these are long term lasting effects from the gold
standard treatment that You're ready for this bad boy, I
love trivia. Guess how old electro convulsive therapy is.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
It's quite old. It was actually the first treatment for depression.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
It is older than the very first McDonald's. Yeah, it's
literally the same decade that helicopters were formed. It's ninety
years old. And so that's what's being used to treat
people to get out of it. And so guess what,
my guess what happened to me after I did that?
Just got sicker, got worse, zero relief, zero, more financial strain,

(58:11):
more stress on my family, more stress on me.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
And so then you heard about a pretty radical treatment
for depression that not that many people have done, and
you decided to go for it. So tell us how
you first heard about that, so great question. So the.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Thing that people need to know in this world is
I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be alive if it
wasn't for my caregivers. Right I my wife and my
father found it. I'm in a feudal position, you know,
and I had signed up. You know, I'd gotten to

(58:53):
the point where I was either going to die by
suicide or I was going to sign up for misery
for the rest of my life. And I just decided
to sign up for misery. And the reason being is
because I had one little tangent holding me onto reality,
one tiny string holding me onto reality, which was my

(59:15):
children going back to school after my suicide and being teased,
and that happens. And so the thing that I'll tell
you about that that I want to be very clear
to every single person living listening to this is I
am not stronger than anybody who has died by suicide
from this disease. You know. I was sitting there and

(59:37):
I was like, Wow, this is maybe one more thing.
And they told me, They're like, listen, this is going
to be a brain surgery. You look to be a
good candidate. And I was a good candidate because I
had failed everything, everything right, So these are the most
se your or severe, and I was just like, let's go.
I was so excited. I was like, all right, like

(59:57):
this is one more thing that I can do. And
I hear people a lot say, well, do that's brainstur
as you re freaked out. The exact opposite. I was psyched.
And the reason I was psyched is I wanted to die.
And so I'm like, dude, if I do this, there's
two options that are going to happen. I'm going to
die of a complication, which would be amazing because my

(01:00:20):
family gets life insurance now. And then guess what, Society
will feel bad for them because I died on the
operating room table. So they're not going to continue to
be judge and labeled and shamed. It's like, this is
best case scenario. I was like, and what's the chances
of something working because nothing else has worked? But maybe
this will work? Right, And so I was like, when

(01:00:41):
I say beyond, I was like the most fortunate, unfortunate
person in the world. I roll into Mount Sinai Hospital
and doctor Helen Mayburg was the lead investigator of this trial.
And she's a badass. And the reason she's a badass
is thirty years ago she was like, I want to

(01:01:03):
help these people suffering with depression. I want to figure
this out. I'm curious, and she spent thirty years doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Okay, so here you are in doctor Helen Mayburg's clinic.
What was the technique.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
So the technique was deep brain stimulation, which means so
deep brain stimulation is something that's been around since the
early two thousands for Parkinson's disease, and so with Parkinson's disease,
when they do this, they essentially put two wires, two
leads down into your brain, and they stimulate a certain
section of your brain with electricity. And so with parkinson

(01:01:38):
as an example, your tremors will will basically stop. It
takes you back, and people, let I know, with Parkinson's
are like, it brought me back ten years of my life,
Like I have an electrical issue in my brain. With Parkinson's,
we stimulate, We're good. And so doctor Mayburg was like,
how do we do this and how do we impact
other parts of the brain, And so she focused purely

(01:01:58):
on depression. On the very top of my head, you
can see two little kind of dots that I have.
These are two covers that go over the two berholes.
So they make two dime size holes in my head,
and they they put down two electrical kind of wires.
On the end of those wires are eight different electrodes,
four on each side, and they stimulate those. And so

(01:02:23):
based off this thirty years of research, they figured out
the subcolossal cingulate, which you can give the layman's version
of that. I don't understand this stuff, right, And so
the psychiatrist is like, there's you know, a motivation portion
of your brain, and yours is pretty much at zero.
If we stimulate that portion of your brain, we're going
to neutralize that. And then there's the you know, horror

(01:02:47):
side of your brain right you're you're at the you're
at torture times at the highest level. We're going to
stimulate that. We're going to bring you back to neutrality.
And so that's what they did. I sat through this surgery.
I wake up the next day, I go down. I
got my head all bandaged up. Doctor Mayberg is sitting
literally exactly in the chair that you are. The chairs
looked exactly like this, and they turned on each electrode

(01:03:10):
one one time, one at a time, and so there's
twenty three people there from around the world, reachers as
from around the world. And first electrode turned on, and
so she would say, John, do you feel like you
can walk your dog? And I just be like, I
feel like I feel I guess a little bit more motivated. Yeah. Maybe.

(01:03:32):
The next one they did this eight times, John, do
you think you can have your friends over for a
fire pit? I don't feel that different.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Next one, when you said, they did the same time
as you mean, they turn on one more electrodey.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Exactly each time they would turn on electrode, and so
I'm exhausted, right, And then next thing I know, like
she gets up with her with her team and they
literally huddle and she says, you're good to go, like
your go go home. We got this thing turned on,
we got to activated.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
And when all eight were activated, what was your impression
did you say I could walk my dog all?

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
My impression was, was I am exhausted. I see I
have my wife here and my father here. I'm exhausted.
I'm so happy to be here. Thank you guys so
much for being here. Like I just was, You're just
then like the mode of I'm leaving the hospital.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
So just before we go on, I just want to
make clear. So you've got these two electrodes in the brain, electrodes.
Think of them like if you straighten out a hangar.
It's a wire like that, except it's much thinner. And
so the two holes are drilled in your head. These
are inserted all the way down through the wrinkly outer
bit the cortex, all the way down to this area
twenty five is Helen. This is what Helen Mayburg is

(01:04:46):
really concentrated on. But other people have tried deep brain stimulation.
Or DBS in other parts of the brain for depression.
Helen has found great success in this area. And so
the idea is electricity is the language of the brain,
and she's just zapping electricity into this area on both
sides of your brain. YEP, okay, great, So now you

(01:05:07):
go home.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
So I go home, and I wake up on August
twenty four. The two most severe, those severe debilitating symptoms
that I had were constant suicidal ideation. The second one
was just the physical, complete destruction of my body. And

(01:05:29):
everybody knows that feeling of like chills when you're of
the flu or the cold, right you have that physical sensation,
you know. My physical sensation was like that twenty four
to seven. But replaced that aches and shakes and chills
with death, with dread, with constant misery circulating in my
body at all times. And from the moment I woke

(01:05:50):
up on the twenty fourth of that year, I've been
completely in remission of the absolute incredible horrorse of this.
I've not felt that is ease. I've not had a
single suicidal thought, and I immediately go to this isn't real, Like,
how is this real? That's the first thing I think,

(01:06:12):
and then the second one just instantaneously. And this is
where my personality and why I'm so effing happy that
this disease picked me is I'm pissed. I wake up
and I didn't know that this surgery would create anger
in me, and it has, and it has created anger
in me because of the absolute stupidity, absurdity of what

(01:06:32):
I've had to go through in figuring out that all
of this is as an electrical deficiency in my brain,
this is a biological disease. This is something that millions
of people are suffering through with a disease that they
didn't ask for, that is not accepted by society. And
to be able to be proof of that and be
able to go out there and tell the world that

(01:06:55):
we as a society are murdering people because of how
we treat these beautiful human beings that are suffering with
diseases that they didn't ask for. Shot me out of
a cannon, right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
And we can't see typically what's going on when somebody
has clinical depression. You know, we can look at the
symptoms from the outside, assuming we understand and recognize those symptoms.
Lots of people, as you point out, didn't recognize what
was going on with you. Now. For the last fifty
sixty years, we've really thought about this as a chemical imbalance,

(01:07:29):
and what these deep brain surgeries demonstrate is another way
to think about it. Often a better way is that
it's a circuit imbound. There's a problem with the circuitry,
and so you went in and got the circuitry fixed
with these two simple little wires that went down.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
All I have is an electrical deficiency. That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
Yeah, It's all I have.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
And what I have is twenty three million electrical pulses
per day going to this section of my brain, and
I'm completely in remission. That's all it is. I have
a broken portion of my brain that when it's stimulated,
I'm good. And it is absolutely fascinating. And in six

(01:08:08):
months into the surgery, they turned it off for a
week and just I don't know, as part of the protocol.
And let me tell you that for the six months
I spent six months in therapy with them being like,
how do how do I handle what's going to happen?
Like what? Like I'm freaked out? Like let me begin
to tell you how fun it is to not feel

(01:08:29):
like dying, Like when you when you don't want it
to come back, right, And so I'm like, what is
going to happen? And so they're teaching me to stress tolerance.
This is a part of therapy, which is like accepting
it but knowing it's going to leave you right. Like
I'm I'm still doing that. I'm learning that and and
it lam with they and so I'm i four days in,

(01:08:49):
it came immediately back physically started ravaging my body. Didn't
mess with my mind, but physically started ravaging me. And
then they turned it back on. It took me about
a week about a month to get back up the baseline,
and so, you know, seeing the absolute dependence on it
was was amazing. I mean it made it was like, Okay,
this is exactly what it is. And doctor Mayburg and

(01:09:11):
I'll give her in her team because anytime I give
her credit, she's like, wasn't me, It was my team, right.
So doctor Mayburgh and her team told me after the surgery,
They're like, they're like, you're gonna have to rehab your brain.
And I was like, what do you mean. I'm like, dude, Doc,
I'm gold like I have this disease out of my body,

(01:09:32):
Like I'm good. Oh my god, was she right? And
that's something that I want to completely help the world with.
Is like after the surgery, you're just in awe, like
this doesn't make any sense, like when's the shoe gonna drop? Right?
And then the very first time, And this is what
I mean when I was talking to her before about
the emotion. About six weeks after the surgery, I woke

(01:09:54):
up and I felt sad. And let me begin to
tell you how fabilitating that was. Me feeling like one
percent of what I used to feel, but me feeling it.
I immediately I immediately started overeating. I immediately started sleeping.
That day I told my wife I couldn't make something

(01:10:15):
when I tell you, this was the most triggering thing
that ever happened. And then that was again where the
distress tolerance came in. John, we need to teach you
how to live with normal human emotions. And so I
come into like if you would have told me like
I had such a eye opening experience where I'm like,
I look at people who have like, for instance, you

(01:10:38):
suffer with alcohol abuse disorder. Imagine having alcohol abuse disorder.
You're in recovery and you have to still consume a
glass of wine every week. That's what this is like.
And so I didn't know that. And so learning how
to live with something that you have to experience every day, right,

(01:11:00):
it's just similar to a sex addiction or a food disorder,
right where you're still around this. That's been that's been
wild for me to try to learn how to live
with this because it's so incredibly triggering.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
So you're saying once in a while you feel sad,
just yeah, got it, but it scares you and it
brings me back to the the years they had.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
It's hard not to go immediately back to that place.
And it's just it's super triggering.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
I see. Yeah, but beyond that, the rest of your
days that you experienced, you're happy, you're optimistic, you're back
to being your you know, extrovertedself. And it's all because
of these electrical pulses going.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
That's it remark and like the woldest thing. And I
hear a lot of like did this change you? The
literal only thing that this did for me was remove
the disease, the brain disease from my body.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
I was going to ask you this, did you feel
like you'd snapped back into yourself or that you were
a new person.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
I was back cool. I was imagine just the massive,
like weighted blanket remove from you. You're like, oh my god,
this is incredible. And so you also realize like what
it did to you that you didn't expect, And so
little things like my voice was different with the disease.
You know, now my voice is back. My face drooped

(01:12:22):
all the time. Now my face is back, my complexion
is different. Right, all of these things different is in
like it's back.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
And so you've had a chance to tell other people
about both sides of your journey, about what clinical depression
is and what it's like to be on the inside,
with the hopes that people who are having that recognize
what's going on and so that the rest of the
people can understand what's happening with their friends and neighbors
and loved ones. And now you've been able to tell

(01:12:52):
people about your recovery and deep brain sert for different people.
Some people are helped by pharmaceuticals and tms, and for
you was DBS great. And so you've been able to
tell people about what's what's going on on the other
side of that as well.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
Yes, and I get I get asked a lot, what
do I do with uh with a loved one that's suffering?
Like that's the biggest thing is confusion. The people that
are going through it are confused initially, and friends and
family and loved ones are also They don't know about
it or think about it. When they see someone's suffering,
they immediately know and they're like, oh my gosh, like
I want to I want to see what I can

(01:13:29):
do to make happen. And you know, the simplest guidance
I have is be proactively kind. You know, I will
never forget. I came home one day. Don't ask somebody
what they need, proactively do it. And I came home
one day and my lawn was mode. You know, my

(01:13:51):
neighbor next door just mowed my lawn. I still get
teary eyed when I when I I still feel that,
like I literally feel I feel the love man like
when you don't feel anything but horrificness and you I
come home and I'm like, oh my God, Like he
just he saved me. He saved me the like they
don't have to do that. This week. He didn't ask me,

(01:14:13):
did it? You know, Like I can't begin to tell
you amazing. Somebody taking something off my wife's plate didn't
happen that often, but when it did, man like that
was that was the most therapeutic thing in the world.
So like being able to relieve some stress from a
loved one was just absolutely exceptional, right, you know, being

(01:14:33):
able to talk to somebody who's struggling with serious mental
illness and saying to them. And people are afraid of
the word suicide because it's taboo and they don't know
if it's going to trigger or this or that. Right,
here's my My perspective on suicide is very simple. When
somebody asked me if I was having thoughts of suicide,

(01:14:55):
it was the most comforting thing in the entire world
because they saw it was because they had an understanding
of the hell that I was going through, and it
was like I had somebody in my corner. It was
I had somebody that I could talk to. And so
the responses that you're going to get back are very simple.

(01:15:16):
The responses if you ask that to somebody, the responses
are going to be back, which is no, I'm not
which is great. Yes, I'm having thoughts of suicide, I'm
having suicidal ideation, suicidal ideation is one of the most
common things in the entire planet with depression. Right, and
then you don't know, you know, you don't know how

(01:15:37):
people are going to react, so you kind of keep
it inside. Right. All it is is an understanding that
I am having thoughts of suicide. Do you have a plan?
That's the question after that. I don't, but I'm thinking
about it. Well, here's what I want you to do.
I'm here for you. You call me at any time
if things get worse. Right, A month later goes by.

(01:15:59):
How are things go on? How are you still having
thoughts of suicide? Right? I am, but they're a little
less right, So now you're getting a measuring stick of
where the disease is. Or I'm actually I've gotten some
pretty significant relief. I'm feeling good, or things are getting
a little bit worse, you know. And then you go
and you try to get that person more help. But
you have a connection to them. They have somebody to
talk to about. How do you ask the question? Exactly

(01:16:24):
what you do? And this is the most important thing
for anybody who is struggling is let them be seen,
let them feel like a human being. All you need
to do and this is the most infuriating thing to
me about all of this is we have fifty thousand
people in this country every year die by suicide. You know.

(01:16:47):
One of the primary ways that we can stop that
is just changing our perspective is purely being kind and empathetic.
If we can approach serious mental illness like we approach
every other acceptable disease, we're saving countless lives like this
doesn't take trillions of dollars of investments to pick right.

(01:17:10):
And so that's where you start with. If you start
with the place of kindness and empathy and you see them.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
So let's role play here. How would you ask me?

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
Yeah, okay, so if you tell me so you telling
me I'm struggling.

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
I'm really struggling, David.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
I am. I am so sorry that this is happening.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
You're loved.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
I'm here for you. I want to help you feel
some relief. I want to help you get better. You know,
I'm here for you at any time that you absolutely
need it. Let me let me share some things that
have been helpful, some resources. Let's continue to talk. I
want you to I want you to know that I
am in your corner and I'm so incredibly sorry that
you're going through this. Just just just the normal human

(01:17:53):
starting point of this is somebody that I can talk to.
This is somebody that I feel comfortable opening up to.
This somebody who is not judging me. If that's an
amazing place to start. You know, I love you, I'm
so sorry. I'm gonna do everything I can. I'm in
your court. Let's figure this out right like that. Just
just the fact that you've got somebody with you, right

(01:18:14):
like that, that's what you need. And then I flip
it too, like, here's the fun part. The disease wants
you to say nothing that I don't like losing, right, Like,
I don't like that, I'm a competitive guy. F that like,
it wants you to not say anything. It wants you
to feel horrible. It wants you to feel miserable. Screw that,
talk about it. And here's the thing when you talk

(01:18:36):
about it. And the wildest part about mental illness is
this society is not cool with talking about it. We're
all perfect, right, look at the world that we have.
You know, it's what you got to do. Everybody has
an association to it, family, friends, themselves and it and
to me, life is simple, Like I look at life
differently now. And you know, when you think back to it, right,

(01:18:59):
who are the people? Like when you're with your really
close friends, it's really fun, right, And you know what
it's really fun is you're totally yourself. You are just you.
You don't have to try, you don't have to do
anything other than be yourself, and they love you and
they accept you if you are and that's who you are. Like,
imagine if all of us could live a life like that,
Like imagine that, right, And it's the same thing here

(01:19:22):
these with this disease. Like what are we doing when
people are struggling in their brain and they just need
all they need is love? That's it? Like you like
hug them, right, Like I literally hug people. I love you.
I'm so sorry you're going through this. I see you,
I feel you. I want to do everything I can.

(01:19:44):
And that takes me to the next part about this
is you know, like I said, I think about the
world differently now. Right. I got a call about six
months after the operation and I was asked to go
to Congress and do a congressional briefing with my wife
as part of the NIH Brain Initiative. And I was like, why.

(01:20:05):
I was like, explain this to me, like, I don't understand, right,
I'm just I'm coming out of this. I'm learning it.
And then I started to educate myself about how I
ended up being healed. You know, all I ever thought
was this is doctor Mayberg and her team, right, these
guys are great. I was fully unaware that the government
saved my life. I had no understanding of it, right,

(01:20:29):
And so I've learned so much about just the absolute
brilliance of passionate, curious scientists, researchers that are spending their
entire life dedicated to fixing brain diseases. Right, And when

(01:20:49):
you come from a world where you just feel like
a nuisance and nobody cares, and now I'm in remission
of the horrors of this disease, and I see this
world of these just brilliant people like you and all
your colleagues completely dedicating everything to this, and I'm like,
oh my god, Like that's the number one thing that
I tell people struggling. I'm like, dude, there's so many

(01:21:12):
people out there that are helping you, right, Like, this
is what's going on. And the neat part about since
that day, which is about two and a half years ago.
Is at that point I was like, Oh, there are
people trying to change this, and I want to get
to know all of them. And I want to get
to understand the technologies that are being done and created
to save these people who are suffering. I want to

(01:21:33):
know the researchers. I want to know. I didn't know
engineers were involved in any of this. I never met
an engineer. I just you know, I didn't have any idea, right,
like to see the teams that are put together to
make this happen, right, and then to understand that the
only financial challenge I didn't have was because the government
provided this funding, I didn't have to I don't have

(01:21:55):
to pay for the surgery, right. And so now I'm like,
this is best case scenario. Like doctor Mayberg and her
team and all these people have spent thirty years figuring
this out. Now I'm like, Okay, the government provides these
grants in order to advance science, advance research in order
to better humanity. She figured it out, right, So I'm like,

(01:22:16):
this is best case scenario. This has been figured out.
Let's take this research even further. And then I learned
the complexities of this world, which are. We are making
some of the most ridiculous decisions in the entire world.
This Brain Initiative was created in twenty twelve and I

(01:22:38):
look this up how much funding has been provided to
then h Brain Initiative and it's about three billion dollars,
So three billion dollars and fourteen years to save humanity
to be order to provide the funding to these researchers
too can figure out the brain, which, as you know,
we have a lot more to figure out, and we

(01:22:59):
as a country are deciding now to not do that.
We have completely decimated the funding that we are doing
to advance science in order to cure human beings. Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, everybody.
This is everybody. This isn't a political thing, but we

(01:23:19):
are deciding to not advance research. We are an extremely
cocky country. We're the best in the world right well,
I can tell you because of the completely moronic decisions
that we're making right now with not investing in research,
we are falling light years behind the other countries that
are advancing research. The best people that I have gotten
to know in this space that are that are doing

(01:23:40):
exactly what I've said, trying to cure these brain diseases.
They're chasing grants now instead of chasing science. Wouldn't it
be amazing if we could just chase science? Right? And
so these decisions have a massive impact on humanity, on society,
on us continue to be this scientific wonder that we are.

(01:24:03):
We have to do better.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
So, John, you've made it your mission to quote pulverize
the stigma. So why that language? What does this mean
to you?

Speaker 2 (01:24:11):
So stigma is the reason, is the primary reason why
people die, why people needlessly suffer. That's absolutely unacceptable to me.
All we need to do is a world, in a society,
is show empathy and be kindness. That's it. I am
proof of the biological nature of these diseases. When you

(01:24:35):
are suffering with mental illness, right, society spitting on you
the entire time, and then you die and they continue
to not only spit on you, they now spit on
the family. So think about that, you're suffering relentlessly. The

(01:24:57):
disease is terminal. This is something that's extremely important for
you able to know. You know, you get the diagnosis
of pancreatic cancer, it's it's a there's a strong chance
you're passing, and it's horrific, right, same exact thing with
serious mental illness, serious mental illness, and it's most of
your form is a terminal disease. We can make it
not terminal if we're good kind people. Because the entire

(01:25:18):
the environment we have right now stigma, shame, awkwardness. You die,
and then society now takes that stigma that you had
and puts it on the family. So now the family
gets to feel awkward and shame for the rest of
their life. That needs to absolutely change. So imagine somebody
dying from pancreatic cancer, not getting life insurance and then

(01:25:40):
their kids being shamed, labeled and made fun of and
them feeling awkward for the rest of their life. Like,
that's what happens with mental illness.

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
So part of the good news is that, you know,
we're making this podcast during Mental Health Awareness Month, and
that has always existed, and so the idea that there's
this month where we can talk about the amazing Yeah,
it's amazing, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:26:03):
Beautiful, and you know, the neatest part about Mental Health
Awareness Month is just providing a platform for people to
talk about this. Like that's all we need to do, man, Like,
it's all we need to do is we just need
to create safe spaces like you. Having me on here
is just awesome, Like, what an incredible opportunity to talk
to the world about the fact that we have beautiful

(01:26:26):
human beings that are suffering. It's that simple, beautiful kind
human beings who are suffering, and we can help them,
and we can help them by providing an environment that
lets them be comfortable, lets them be open, lets them
talk right. And so Mental Health Awareness Month is a
major way to do that. You know, let's do everything

(01:26:48):
we can to make people feel comfortable, seeing accepted, loved,
and just we're there for you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
That was John Nelson. I'm so happy to have had
him on this podcast for two reasons. First is his
pure honesty and transparency about his experience, and the second
is because we often divide the world into categories where
we have physical illness over here and mental illness over there,
so one you can see and you can easily measure it,

(01:27:31):
and the other it feels more ambiguous, it feels like
maybe a personality issue. But John's experience is one clear
illustration among tens of millions of others that this distinction
doesn't make sense because what ultimately helped John was a
direct intervention into the electrical activity of his brain, a
circuit level adjustment, and when the activity in that circuit

(01:27:55):
was changed, everything else changed. The suicidal thoughts disappeared, and
his physical suffering went away, and John was back. So
this illustrates one of the wackiest things that we know,
that what you experience is your identity, your personality, your
sense of self. It's all part of the dynamics in

(01:28:15):
the brain. And when those dynamics go awry, the experience
can devastate you. And when the dynamics are restored, something
re emerges, as John describes it, his old self without
the distortion. And there's one more thread running through John's
experience that I really want to revisit, and that is
the role of society. So I want to say two

(01:28:38):
things here. First, John is actively engaged in the One
Mind Foundation. He's a member of their Lived Experience Council,
and I've got to say, thank God, there are organizations
like One Mind who put an enormous amount of time
and love and grant funding to directly tackle mental health challenges.
Check them out in the show notes. And the second

(01:29:00):
thing I want to say about society is that even
as neuroscience advances and the treatments become more sophisticated, all
that's great, but there's something more fundamental to having a
good planet, and that is how we respond to one
another as individuals. As you heard, John speaks very passionately
about stigma and about silence, about the way that people

(01:29:23):
don't know what to say and so they say nothing.
And we saw from a story that that silence can
be interpreted in a lot of ways as judgment, or
as distance, or as a signal to retreat further. And
what John emphasizes is a totally straightforward solution kindness, reaching

(01:29:45):
out saying I see you asking someone, are you having
thoughts of suicide? You don't have to offer solutions, but
just being there. And this is where neuroscience and humanity
intersect because while we continue you to develop better tools,
like better diagnostics and treatments, there's already something available to

(01:30:06):
all of us, and that is attention and empathy and
the willingness to engage. So please don't pass up a
chance to seek help or to reach out to someone
else who you suspect might need a helping hand. Go

(01:30:28):
to Eagleman dot com slash podcasts. More information and to
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next time, I'm David Eagleman and this is Inner Cosmos