We Tried To Cure Her Depression (In 5 Days)

It's gonna feel like a dapping sensation.

Three, two, one.

How do you feel?

I don't even know how to describe that. There's a treatment for depression that isn't invasive, isn't a drug, and has a 79% success rate. It's called the Saint Protocol, and it only takes five days internally. Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. I'm hopeful, but like, surface level, I'm skeptical. I'm like, I don't think it's gonna work. I'm the co founder of Blueprint building it alongside Brian for the past four years. Building Blueprint is one thing, but me taking care of my mental health is another. With some encouragement from Brian, I decided to try tms. For some, the change is instant, like flipping a switch. In the US about 13% of people are on antidepressants. Women are twice as likely as men to be on them. I wanted this treatment to work not just for me, but for everyone struggling with depression. So I packed my bags and headed to Kaizen Brain center in San Diego, hoping to come back a different person. I have a really hard time understanding myself and, like, being in touch with my own feelings. And I also am susceptible to always, like, undermining my own experience. But when I look at my experience over the last, like four years, I have been. I haven't been myself. I've been wanting to do something about it for a long time, but I haven't wanted to do SSRIs. And TMS is a really good first line treatment if you can get access to it. It's just one of those things that's kind of hard to get access to. This is also incredibly expensive. I think it's something like $30,000 out of pocket. And to get insurance to cover it is almost impossible.

What physical symptoms do you feel?

I get stuck. It's like my body starts to seize up and I like, I literally feel like I can'. Sometimes I wake up and I can't even pee. It's like the craziest thing. Like, I can't even get the motivation to go pee. That's when I know it's gonna be a bad day. Is that when I wake up and I feel like, can't pee?

How often does that happen?

Maybe like once a week. That bad? Maybe once every two weeks. That bad?

You think you're sad?

I think I'm numb. TMS uses magnets to activate parts of the brain linked to depression. First, I needed an MRI to pinpoint the exact area of my brain that would be targeted during treatment. As I was getting my mri, I was thinking that they have to take my brain, then they code it into ones and zeros and like in the future, can we then take this CD and then recreate my brain from it? And then is that brain having an experience, A depressed experience, just like me?

The saint is a very specialized form of TMS. So TMS has been FDA approved since 2008. You know, there's a standard protocol, but the CINT is more precise.

The CINT protocol showed results in patients with treatment resistant depression, some noticing a difference by day five. But it's not the first choice. Medications are not because they're better, but because they're cheaper, easier and more accessible. Do you think this could be something that eventually is accessible to everyone?

Absolutely. Medicare does cover it, but in a hospital setting. But I think the hope is that one day most of the insurance carriers should be able to cover this.

I really am sorry. So lucky to get access to this. And I feel motivated by wanting to make sure that like people legit do find out about this treatment. Yeah. Hopefully it works. It'll be a bummer if it doesn't. I went through like five different stages of emotions today. I caught up with some friends this morning and some of them were like, wait, what? I had no idea that you were going through this. I generally have this like self perception mismatch I feel like with people. So I thought it's been quite obvious that I've been struggling over the last couple years, but apparently it hasn't been. I felt really optimistic about tomorrow and then about 5pm today I started to crash. Yeah. Oh man. I've forgotten what it's like to live the Kate life without this darkness that's always kind of like around the edge waiting to completely overturn and over overwhelm my life at all moments. Yeah, yeah. I'll believe it when I feel it. It's 5:47am and I gotta get up because I gotta go to treatment. Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses, yet only 35% of those struggling seek treatment oftentimes because they don't see it as serious or feel ashamed to admit it. Emotional support, I'm good. Loneliness, I'm average. Anger, physical aggression, I'm good. Anger, affect, I am average. Like I'm. I'm kind of irritable a lot. Life satisfaction, I'm satisfied. Socially, I'm dissatisfied. Cognitively, I feel impaired, I feel slow. I answered rarely to the following questions that I had a sense of, well, Being that I felt hopeful, that my life was satisfying, that my life had purpose, that I had meaning, that I felt cheerful, that my life was worth living, that I had a sense of balance. I answered all those rarely. We are doing kernel flow. So Brian founded this company, however, many years ago. He and I worked on this together, and they have a algorithm that actually predicts whether or not you will respond to tms. So that's what we're going to be doing right now. And then we'll also grab some resting state data. Brian's calling. Should we pick up? You're on speakerphone. And you're on the record.

I'm so excited. Today's the day.

Today's the day.

It's my first day of school.

It is. Can you see me?

Oh, cool. That's so exciting. That's the most exciting moment of life. I'm sending you all the positive energy in the world. This is gonna be the best week ever.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Oh, man, look at that. Look at that. It's real strong.

The mark of the beast.

Everything started to feel real. The final step was figuring out the exact intensity needed to stimulate my brain.

So we'll go with the first twitch.

Ready?

Yeah.

One, two, three.

Twitch.

Yep. Perfect.

You can go to the upper grid and see.

Did I twitch? Yeah. Whoa. I didn't. I didn't even know.

You wouldn't see it, but you will find Twitch.

39. We're going to start at low intensity and slowly work our way up. But at any point you feel like it's a little bit intense, just let me know, and then we'll kind of stay consistent at that intensity and slowly. Okay, ready? Yes. Three, two, one. Wow.

How do you feel?

I don't even know how to describe that. Yeah, just. Oh, my God. It feels like electricity mixed with tapping. You'll get about 60 trains at each session.

Very good.

My whole. My face is moving, right? Gosh. So weird.

One down, 49 to go.

Yeah, it does definitely worry me because I think about, like, times in the past where people would use crazy techniques to do all kinds of medicine. Is this gonna be, like, seen as some archaic thing in the future? Probably, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work, so. I had sacrificed so much in life for my career. I mean, I came from, like, the middle of nowhere in Australia, like, tight, like, random ass town, and then all of a sudden, we. We did it. We did what we set out to do, which was like, play on the global stage. After all that virality and it unlocked this feeling inside me where I was like, nothing in the world matters because beforehand, you know, I kind of believed in these like greater systems. But once you kind of get to that system and you're interfacing with it directly, you realize that it's all made up. And so I went through definitely like that time as well. I was like, what is the purpose of anything? And it coincides with the depression. And so. So for a long time I tried to figure out what caused this and I ran through all the list of things and one of the reasons I was like, oh, maybe I've just lost my ambition, my motivation for existing. It's hard to know what caused what though. Alrighty. Number two. Number two. Normally TMS therapy takes months, but with the SAINT protocol it's an intense sprint. Five days, 8am to 6pm every hour, a 10 minute TMS session followed by a 50 minute break. 10 minutes on, 50 minutes off repeat all day. It's wild to think that a non invasive treatment with almost no side effects could completely change my life. I'm feeling pretty tired, to be honest. I'm feeling a little nauseated and sick right now. Yeah, I can imagine that by like session 50, I'll be toast. That was way more tiring than I expected it to be. I don't know, just being in like a tiny room and being cooped up all day and not eating the same thing that you typically eat. I just felt kind of out of it. Not painful, weird sensation, definitely like uncomfortable. But overall something that everyone could do, which is cool. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I think I started to feel like today I might be starting to feel better. I definitely had moments where my felt like my overall mood was just like nicer. That is day two wrapped. Let's go home. All right, bye. If anything, right now I feel so tired that I feel pretty depressed. This whole time I've been feeling like I'm not the picture of depression. And only just now, today, like an hour ago, did I realize like, what is this picture of depression that I've been imagining? I think I thought it was going to be some emo experience where I'm sulking about all day or something like that. Which is probably just some deep taboo thing that's been embedded in me and what I think depression is not. Having had examined this, I'm stopping and I'm looking at myself and I'm surprised at how much I've been able to just like keep going in everyday life. I can still get by at work. I Can still interact with friends and tell them, like, it's fine, I'm fine, everything's okay. My ability to act like everything's okay somehow convinced me that I am okay, which is like a mind blowing thing to just come to this realization. Now it's day three, and I just completed my first session of 10 today. As the days passed, my doubt crept in. Maybe it was too soon to feel anything, but what if I never did? Does that then mean that my depression is something like treatment resistant? Which is a. That's a scary category to fall into for that chapter of my life where things were light and easy and I wasn't at friction with the world. For that to be done and closed, and I can't get myself back into a state where I feel like life is full of possibility. For that to be closed forever in my life is a terrifying thought. Just gonna have faith in the process and just trust the process and hope that it will work out. I also can't seem to shake this thought that I don't deserve this treatment. Today, one of the technicians, I was like, oh, so, you know, who do you usually see in here? Like, what's their affect? Like, what is their kind of mood like when they come in? And he was very honest that most people are pretty. Pretty last resort, that this treatment is really at the end of the line for them and they're seeking out something with. After trying a lot of things and with no hope left, it made me question again, like, imposter syndrome, perhaps I'm not actually depressed after all. I'm spiraling tonight. The weight of it all feels unbearable. I'm in bed, and I was just gonna text Brian and be like, oh, my God, I feel so depressed. And I thought I'd share that with you guys. I don't feel very good. Okay, I'm gonna go try and make myself feel better by showering and getting ready for the evening. All right, bye.

Right now we are driving to San Diego, and we're going to surprise Kate. I'm going to visit Kate with Talmad because Kate is an amazing person. She spends her entire life thinking about other people's needs. And so this is one of the first times I've ever seen her actually invest in herself. And I want to support her and be there for her. A while back, she was complaining that she just wasn't feeling well. And I started asking some questions, and the patterns I saw were very similar to what I was experiencing when I was depressed. And I said, kate, I think you're depressed. And she denied it. She thought, no, it's just I'm stressed and tired or whatever. And I said, no, I think you're really depressed. And I said, I think you should do something about it. I'd been familiar with this, this research out of Stanford University called the Saint Protocol. And so when Kate and I were talking, I said, kate, you should go do Saint. And so she's now, this is day four of her therapy. So by the time we get there, she will have done around 35 sessions. There's so many layers to what Kate is going through. I mean, we are functionally, we build a business all day together. And then spiritually, we're trying to give birth to era of humanity. And then philosophically, we're grappling with new ideas of what it means to be human when you're not feeling well. It's pretty hard to tackle all those. All of the things. It's possible that she's been depressed for so long, she may not know what it feels like to not be depressed. Hi.

I'm. A surprise. Do you want it? I remember. Oh, my God. I don't know his name. There's a surprise. Hi, Kate. There you go. I wasn't expecting this, actually.

Hi.

Hi. No, I wasn't prepared for this. Oh, no, even better. I'm trying to think. Is there anything embarrassing in this room?

Don't worry about it. It's important we capture it as is. I was saying your messages have changed.

Really?

Yeah.

No, they have not.

Yes, they have.

No.

Yes, they have. Your word construction. Hey, what's going on? How you doing?

You have a surprise, doctor.

Yeah, we showed up. How you doing, doctor?

Yeah, good.

My son, Talmage.

Hey, nice to meet you.

Good to meet you.

Okay, you did.

Hey, nice to meet you.

Isn't this crazy? Like, what is it doing?

Do you know the mechan mechanism of action?

But it's like stimulating an area that is like kind of dull and dysregulated into regulation, like jumpstarting.

I've been warning everybody to get ready for a jump starting. Kate.

Yeah, but that hasn't happened, right?

Kate, stay still.

I wish I was quite back for you guys.

Yeah, I know. Me too.

So this morning I was depressed. I was very, very sad. And last night. So all of last night, and then this morning I was really, really down. Yeah, this. This visit really threw me off. I definitely feel like I got a. A pep in my step. Is that what they say? Is there a part of you that.

That kind of wishes you weren't visited today?

No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, no, I loved every second of that because I was like, oh, you're driving back tonight. And they were like, well, we can. Well, we're thinking we could stay, we could go. And in my mind I'm like, oh my God, I don't want to burden them with staying. Then Brian takes that and sees it as a signal as, oh, Kate doesn't want me to stay. But that's not at all. I just don't want to be a burden. And then he's in return leaving because he doesn't want to be a burden on me. All that to say that I. I really appreciated being visited today. There's no part of me that doesn't didn't want that. In fact, of course I wanted them to stay. I gotta stop doing that. I gotta stop like, making it difficult for people to appreciate, show their appreciation for me. I get in the way and I'm like, oh, don't do that. Anyway, we'll play cornhole and forget about our emotions.

Yeah, cornhole that out.

Internally. Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down, I'm hopeful, but like, surface level, I'm skeptical. I'm like, I don't think it's going to work.

I.

That's what I honestly do think. I'm like, I don't think this is gonna work. And I think it's kinda shitty that I don't think it's gonna work because a, I want this to be hopeful for everyone else out there and like, I don't know if it didn't work. Is it because of my specific kind of depression or is it for. Because the treatment isn't good enough, you know what I mean? So I would hate to. For other people to lose hope just because it didn't work for me. So that's really sad.

Oh, you did it.

Good morning. It's day five. I'm at the end. Okay. To be honest, I woke up and I felt pretty good. Yeah. Honestly, since Brian and Talmage came and visited, I've been very chipper. So we'll see if that lasts today. But I feel pretty good. I feel definitely lighter. I just had my last treatment. Something shifted. It was subtle at first, like a weight I'd been carrying for years was finally lifting. How are you feeling? I felt amazing. Like night and day difference. The feeling of depression having gone away is like, life is okay. I didn't find myself at the end of the day, like wanting to stay up late, eat shitty food, like self destruct in some Way, like my HIV has been steady this entire time since treatment. Like, this is the last week versus. These are all the other weeks. So I was really hopeful. And then two nights ago, I just had it crash coming, come crashing back down on me. And I kind of was. I was here in a day and as with Brian Talmadge, and I was like, oh, like it's back. And I was like, really emotionally crushed by it. Like, all of that positivity toward my depression went away. People want to know, am I better? And the funny thing is I think I am not a reliable person to answer that question. So I asked people around me and they were like, yeah, you're better. I was like, you think that TMS worked? They're like, yeah, like, you're different. So day four, Brian and Talmadge came and visited me. And I feel like that marked the change of my overall mood being so much better. And then I've had like these drops since then where something bad will happen in life and I'll like, dip deep into depression. And I actually feel the weight of it. And it's actually very helpful because I feel how different it is. And then also last week, I was PMSing for the entire week and I just felt like shit the entire time. And I was thinking, oh my God, am I depressed again? And then immediately got my period and I'm out of it. And so now I feel like so much better. And I think genuinely TMS worked, which is mind blowing.

Is there anything you wish you knew.

Before starting this journey or perhaps would have changed?

I don't think so. I think I was thinking, oh, like, what if I had these insights I sooner and what if I had done the treatment sooner? But I think I was so out of control, like I was just scrambling to get by that there's not much that I didn't feel like I was capable of getting my button gear and like, organizing this sooner or doing anything like that. So it would have been nice had I done this like a year ago, as opposed to waiting two for so many years of going through depression. Yeah. In watching back footage of myself during that time period, I feel like I looked duller.

Interesting.

What advice would you give to someone who is going through depression?

I would say the quicker you can get through the denial phase, the quicker you'll be toward recovery. Because if you hang out in that denial phase, you're almost just like, denying yourself reality. And without that, you can't actually, like, start to get, like, solutions in place and support from people around you. So I would say, like if you can maybe talking to your doctor, seeing, just saying, like I've experienced these things, like what do you think? Like you've seen me asking people around me. Of course, like you don't want to over diagnose and over make things complicated, but like if you can distill things down to just like, what is the true raw facts and data, then yeah, you're a step closer to feeling better. If you're struggling with feelings of depression, know that you're not alone. Support is there if you need it. Reach out to someone you trust for help.