If you recall from my last visit with Dr. Fgjisld, I suggested that I could dispense my own medication. The doc must have been humoring me, and now I know what that smirk was all about as I was leaving her office.

By mid-week, only days into my own experimentation with a Prozac-only diet, I began the downward spiral. It was striking this time. The contrast of a tanked mood against the months of productivity I’ve been enjoying as of late. Having spent many years in the dreck, it was familiar territory for sure. I was feeling hopeless, and anxious about not being able to function. I knew what was happening but wanted to be sure. By mid-week the wife was noticing my slide. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to stay in that mode very long, we raced over to the pharmacy only a few minutes before closing. Every hour would count and it would be yet another 24 hours until I could recover if I didn’t get the Symbyax in my system right away.

Within about two days of resuming the Symbyax 6/50 the fog started lifting. I was sleeping again and not feeling so depressed in the morning. It took about 5 to 6 full days before I was back on the rails again. A close call, and other than a few irritation moments at work, I made it through unscathed.

—

Where does that leave me now?

I got a taste of life without meds, or at least life on high dosage Fluoxetine and it wasn’t good. Not only did my Prozac experiment fail, but I was discouraged even further by the results (or lack thereof) of the Neurofeedback therapy. Almost half way through my treatments and there wasn’t even a hint that my depression was de-coupling from my brain.

To make matters worse, my new insurance company (Aetna) decided they weren’t going to cover treatment. This, after they said they would cover 60% when I was investigating the treatment. The doctors assistant said she would contact Aetna to find out why they changed their mind, but I’m not holding my breath. Seems like insurance companies use a dart board for deciding what to cover, and even then don’t abide their own commitments.

I can’t say I’m feeling anything different from when I started NF. The Adderall still provides the most help. If I forget to take my afternoon dosage I’m spaced out by about 1:30pm and my body lets me know it’s time for a booster.

I dunno. I’m not very hopeful for the NF anymore. However, knowing the medication works provides me with a way to live day-to-day. As long as I don’t build a tolerance for the Symbyax Adderall cocktail, I suppose I can work with that indefinitely.

Sometimes I get the feeling that the doctor just wants to be a pill dispensary. My appointment last Tuesday was one of those days.

She looked across her desk at me backgrounded in a preponderance of Freud tomes in various states of wear and asked how I was doing. I replied, “Great!” and didn’t waste any time letting her know about my recent foray into mind controlling video games. Expecting her to riff on my enthusiasm with a plan for decreased dosages, she merely acknowledged my effort as a cute stunt in self delusion. Suddenly I was dislodged from my intent and felt that maybe I’d just been suckered out of $3,500 in exchange for some hi-tech snake oil. Not wanting to confront reality and trying to get my wind back, I directly asked about how I might taper off of my medication intake.

Dr. Wmrwcx, in what I perceived as a condescending tone, looked over my chart and corrected me. She said, “You came here almost a year ago reporting lifelong chronic depression, and today you want to go off meds?” It was as if neurfeedback had never entered the conversation. Then, in so few words she communicated to me that a life without medication may simply not be possible for me given my history. Furthermore she said that the ADD might be able to be treated to conclusion, but not the depression. She mentioned something about a year (to be sure) but by that time my defenses had walled up to my disappointment and dendrites were snapping un-naturally. This was not the conversation I expected, but I didn’t want to lead on that I wasn’t still optimistic.

On to my questions…

Even though I knew I wouldn’t be going off medications in a wholesale manner, I had my own plan in mind. I wanted to go off the Symbyax. Not only was it expensive medication, I was unsure of what the Zyprexa portion of the pill was doing. If you remember in an earlier episode, I was taking 6/25 Symbyax and still depressed. I had to short-circuit my quarterly visit by a month because I was sliding. At the time I thought she would take me off the Symbyax and put me on something else. Instead she changed the dose to 6/50. That’s 6mg. Zyprexa nad 50mg. Fluoxetine (Prozac). I reluctantly accepted her prescription and gave it a try. Sure enough, in a couple days the cloud lifted and I’ve enjoyed normal motivation and elevated mood since. It’s been at least four months that I’ve been on the 6/50 and it’s been working well. I guess the doctor was wondering why I would want to discontinue something that was working.

My theory is that Prozac has worked all along. Granted, it was the first anti-depressant I took, and functioned for a good six years on 20mg. daily. After I reported decreased effect, my general practitioner (at the time) took me off the ‘zac instead of increasing the dosage. That was when I started a roller coaster of medications that would sink me into a mid-life dark age. So I applied simple logic that going from 6/25 to 6/50, where the Fluoxetine was the apparent elixer, why couldn’t I simply change my diet to straight Prozac that I could get for post-patent prices?

The doctor seemed a little disgusted with my theory, and questioned again why I wanted to change something that was working. I guess I had made up my mind that I was going to detox with or without the doctors blessing. My old GP used to tell me that Fluoxetine had billions of dosages over an extended period of time and very few side effects. Also, having a successful personal history with it provided a level of confidence. I’ve always been suspicious of the Zyprexa though. When the GP originally gave me that as a stand-along med, I proceeded to eat everything in sight. I gained 10 pounds the first week and could not sate my appetite. I can’t remember if I was depressed or not, just hungry all the time. Now with the Symbyax I wasn’t sure what the active chemical was, but I had my doubts about the Zyprexa portion.

She wrote a prescription for 60mg of Fluoxetine daily, 10mg more than my current 6/50. She also gave me another scrip for 5mg. of Zyprexa, just in case my theory was busted. Apparently you can only get ‘zac in 20mg increments, and she explained that generic meds are often not as potent as the name brand variety. I asked what the maximum dosage for ‘zac was, she responded, “80 mg. daily.”

She continued writing another three months of the magic Adderall, tearing off a tidy stack of prescriptions from her little blue pad. I still had another five months of Symbyax so I could go back on that if my own experiment didn’t work.

I left the office a little dazed, and less hopeful than when I arrived. Having expected to engage in a stimulating conversation about the promise of neurofeedback, I was instead tossed out with little hope of recovery. She did mention another treatment for depression that a colleague was engaged in that had to do with electro-magnetic brain resonance training (or something like that.) It was expensive ($7,000) required five sessions per week, and wasn’t covered at all by insurance. Based on her last suggestion, I didn’t even entertain this option for a moment.

–

Four days later I’m feeling stranger than usual. Last night I had some weird dreams, full of anxiety. Having been out of my 6/50 Symbyax for several days (Walgreens can’t seem to get the medication ordered before it runs out) I had been taking some 6/25 samples I had left over from months ago. I could tell it wasn’t working well. I was irritable at work and my mood had tanked. Within a day of starting the ‘zac I was feeling lighter. I also changed the time I was taking the medicine from the evening to morning. The first couple days I took the full 60mg. but today I started only taking 40mg. I’m going to see if perhaps I was over-dosing a bit.

Over the next several months I hope to identify the source of my depression. My theory as of the last several months was that it was actually a result of the ADD. The fact that I could never take a thought to completion, and compounded over the years, led my brain to re-wire itself to shut down when it continually failed to perform as desired. If this is the case, and neurofeedback can treat the ADD, then the depression should subside as well. If the ADD gets better with therapy and the depression persists, then I know there are different variables to address. At least I should find some defining answers at the least.

One more thought…

I asked the shrink about Aspergers. After discovering the distinct pattern in my brain map I did some Internet research and took a couple self-diagnostics. The results were conclusive, well into the range of the afflicted. A couple months ago I didn’t even know what Aspergers was other than laughing at the name a few times. Now that I understood the condition and have had time to reflect back to my earlier years, the pattern became very apparent.

The doctor just smiled with more looks of condescension as I asked her if there were any remedies for the condition. She said there were therapies for children to learn how to cope, but not much hope for adults. As the many articles I’d read about the condition, people either learn how to cope with it or they retreat into their own world. I suppose I did a little of both, certainly learning how to interact with the world as a social retard, at the same time learning how to enjoy being alone.

What a long winded entry, eh? It’s been awhile, but I finally got my fingers motivated to tap out some screed.

I’m doing three 10 minute sessions now, first is a balance (electrode to either side, ground wire to the ear) .. second is a ‘trode to the left side of the forehead, and the last session is stuck to the right side. It’s still the same game, flying spaceships through wormholes, or driving cars around various landscapes. The electronica streaming through the headphones was unique and relaxing at first, but by now I’m gaining perhaps a little fatigue by the now familiar tunes. I can’t say for sure whether I’m any better at staying on task than I was at the beginning of treatment, but the novelty has worn thin.

I don’t see Dr. Rtqphc until the middle of this month when I’ll discuss a plan to wean off the meds. I want to get off the Symbyax first. That’s the expensive drug, and the one with the most side effects. I’m thinking maybe truncate the Zyprexa side of the pill and stick with 50mg of generic Prozac. As for the Adderall, I can see trying lower dosages of that as well and then popping one as needed for work. While I don’t think I’ve become addicted, I definitely feel some allegiance to the crutch. I certainly won’t drop the Adderall cold turkey, and hope to at least keep a tidy supply of IR for those break-glass-in-emergency mental moments. Ultimately it’s up to the kindly psychiatrist from Poland.

I’ve been anxious and tense for several days. Last night I had a difficult time falling asleep, for the first time in months. There have been reasons though. Seems like a string of financial strikes have left me feeling like I’m treading water with ankle bricks. I took the family out of town for the weekend which had it’s relaxing moments, but overall I find my own back yard to be the place where I find most peace with the universe. More specifically, floating in the pool with a chilled beverage while the cabana stereo provides ambient moods does more to relax me than anywhere/thing else. It seems like when I go on vacation, everything is strained, and always a jostle with the public. I just don’t find crowded settings to be appealing, which helps to confirm my Aspergers self prognosis.

Speaking of which, I took an online Aspergers test… scored 42, putting me seriously within the realm of the socially retarded. Since becoming aware of my potential condition, I’ve tried to pay more attention to my interaction with other people. It’s never become so apparent, but I really can’t read people at all. Instead I retreat into a neutral stance and climb into my existential cave of self protection. It’s not that I care what people think of me, but more that I’m afraid of hurting someone unintentionally. I’m sure over the years that I’ve offended many people that I wasn’t aware of.

Work has become routine. It’s not as difficult to log a full day as it was a year ago. having some predictability of routine has provided a certain sense of well-being. I still always worry if I’m doing a good enough job, and am very hard on myself when I make errors. Overall though, I’m finding some semblance of security in my employment.

While I find reading enjoyable, it’s always been a laborious task. Only as an adult have I been able to find enough enjoyment in the occupation to meter the focus and concentration required to slog through a book. Frequently I would read several pages mechanically, trolling through the words only to pause and realize I was getting no meaning from what I was reading. I would have to stop, go back to where I last knew what was going on, and start over reading the same material. Depending on the topic, and whether my mental rhythm was in sync with my interest in the book dictated how often I had to jump back. This made reading a real chore, but it was something I’d grown accustomed to. I was a very slow reader because of this handicap.

Recently I’ve found myself energized by reading. I usually try to read at least an hour before bed, and it was often much less time as I could hardly keep my eyes open for very long. Lately I’ve not only been able to log many more pages in a short period of time, but I find myself unable to stop. Sometimes I return to the shelves to cross-reference something or simply to browse through other books in search of interesting topics.

Furthermore, the actual process of comprehension while reading has taken a positive turn. Instead of zoning out for pages at a time, I find myself not getting beyond a paragraph before I snap back to task. I can identify the same feeling in my brain as when I’m in a neurofeedback session and being made aware by the software that I’m not on task. I can sense a parallel between the two exercises.

I also noticed that my mental endurance has found new stamina. Today could easily have given way to a depressive episode but I didn’t slide. Instead I’m feeling optimistic and alert with the pre-occupation of current projects along with the anticipation of my newly acquired ability to remain focused.

I just counted my therapy receipts… 10 sessions so far, one-fifth of the distance. It really doesn’t matter to me if placebo is at work, something is making my head work better than it ever has before and I’ll take that as a win.

—

Last night I went to a favorite place in my dreams. It’s a wide river somewhere in the desert southwest. I’m with a group of kindred souls who enjoy the motion of the river. Sometimes in rafts, other times just floating freely through the gentle rapids under the warm sun. The water, wind, and landscape fills me with peace and hope that lasts throughout the day as I occasionally pause to wonder if and where such a place exists.

I’ve almost exhausted my options. It’s either flying a geometric spacecraft through wormholes or driving one of several types of cars over various landscapes. I opted to take the Camaro for a spin through the lava fields. As usual, my mind wanders through fields of noise. I think about what I’ll do at work, wonder if the therapy is working, and probably the strangest obsession during therapy is wondering what the algorithms look like that guide the car through the course. I am always impressed at how robust the software appears to be. Jumping off cliffs, crashing into barricades, and plummeting into lakes of molten lava. The car shudders and smokes as the screen fades to various stages of inattention before righting itself on the course path. I want to reach for a steering wheel but can only do that virtually.

After 15 minutes the doctor paused the game and moved the electrode from the right side of my head to my forehead. He asked what I’d like to improve, anxiety or concentration. Since anxiety hasn’t ever really been an issue, I opted for the giant problem in the room, focus and concentration.

For the remainder of the session I raced the jacked up Chevy around the course. It didn’t feel much different other than I had a wire glued to the front of my head. I still couldn’t control the car like a Jedi master would. “Too much noise in the upper works,” as my 6th grade teacher would have said. Actually, he used the term, “Touched in the upper works” to describe the various misadventures of me and my compadres. Come to think of it, where did that memory just come from? That was 37 some-odd years ago. Maybe it’s working after all… I was advised (warned) that childhood memories could possibly percolate to the surface during therapy.

I wonder what other clowns and demons lurk beneath that swamp of childhood?

That fuzzy dope who inhabited the backyard for the last 10 years was little more than background life to my domestic abode. Sure, I patted him on the head now and again, or scratched his neck, but admittedly took him for granted. He was more friends with the kids I suppose, I merely the landlord.

Yesterday he was blowing blood out of his nostrils and had become very weak so we loaded him in the car and rushed him over to the animal ER. After a half hour the veterinarian gave us the somber news. It was most likely nasal cancer but he wouldn’t know for certain unless they were able to A) stop the bleeding, and B) find a specialist who could perform the proper scoping and X-rays to determine cause. Procedures could easily run into the high four figures, and possibly higher.

It was a tough decision, but the only prudent action given the age and condition of the dog was euthanasia.

My youngest daughter was probably the dogs best friend. She had taken to him as a favorite playmate and they spent hours together rolling around on the back lawn. She was in the waiting room with us and broke into uncontrollable sobs which choked-up my wife and I as well.

It’s a very strange and emotional experience to spend time with a living creature knowing that it will soon undergo the separation of life. We surrounded the wheezing cur, stroking his head and assuring him that he’s always been a good dog. He certainly wasn’t his usual, chipper self as he strained for air behind dim eyes and bloody snout. The room was filled with profound emotion.

After about 20 minutes we bid him farewell and notified the assistant that the doctor may proceed with the procedure. You always hear about the master holding the dog as the lethal dose of anesthetic is injected, but we wanted our last memory to be of his kind brown eyes. The veterinarian was a gentle man with a long gray ponytail, so we knew our beloved dog would be comforted as he dozed off for the last time.

Last night the family was in an expected funk. We’d lost a member that day and needed some time to grieve. I have been searching my soul to identify the emotions I have been feeling and how those differed from depression. I have lost loved ones to death in the past but have not really taken the time to understand the feelings. I now know that grieving loss is not the same thing as being depressed. It’s sadness, which is a very different emotion from depression.

Sadness is also squarely a pain in the heart. It’s easy to understand the feeling of something suddenly missing from the left side of the chest. A broken heart is also a good description. This feeling or emotion is entirely different from the vacuum of feeling that accompanies depression. Considering that only now am I seeing 20/20 emotional vision after nearly 50 years of darkness, can I begin to understand what people have been talking about.

Depression is a void in the head, whereas sadness is a vacuum in the heart.

Perhaps it’s the natural optimism of youth that structures the depressive episode differently as a young person. In looking back decades I can recall episodes of depression manifested in what I considered just a part of life. Everyone has their ups and downs and I was just weakly managing my down times.

It came on like any illness, a bad cold or flu, only the symptoms were based in my head. When I was young I could identify an oncoming depressive episode by the relative ‘high’ of the moment. Perhaps it was my upbringing in a religious atmosphere of cosmic equilibrium that dampened my good times with foreboding doom. I was taught that the universe relied on justice. If you had good fortune, you (or someone else) would be paying for it, in this life or the next. It was only as an adult that I realized that justice is merely a wish that people delude themselves with to cope with the inevitable misfortunes of life. Regardless, I blamed mood equilibrium for bouts of depression. I was paying for the good times.

As I reached adulthood and shed the superstitions of youth, the depressive episodes continued. I still held to the idea that I might be off-balance, but it wasn’t so much a zero-sum game anymore. I began to search for answers in books and ideas, thinking that perhaps I was simply missing something that would fill the void during my down times. I learned a lot about life during that phase and had many eye/mind-opening revelations that turned my childhood reality of life on end. None of those ‘revelations’ mattered anyway as the depression continued. I was finding answers to questions I never had, which in a way gave me a sense of personal purpose.

Moving into the ‘productive years’ of adulthood, my doctor (at the time) suggested I was experiencing a biological condition of which I had no control over. This was to be the single biggest breakthrough both physically and psychologically in my depression. I’d spent my whole life taking responsibility for something I had no control over. That was about 15 years ago.

Here’s what a depressive episode looks like…

Sometimes there is a trigger. Bad news of some sort: unexpected bill, family tension… the neighbor cutting down a tree. But most of the time it simply happens. During the onset of an episode are foreboding symptoms, similar to the swollen glands or a swore throat precedes the flu, a certain headstorm begins to form in the brain. I know that in a day or two I’ll be in a full-blown depression.

My head turns gray and I lose emotion, empathy, and hope. I shut down socially finding everyone, including my closest family to be an annoyance. I just want to be left alone, but feel extreme pain in doing so. I wish I could sleep through it but the body can only withstand so much unconsciousness at one time. I bury my face in the pillow while my ears scream in a high pitch and the only hope I have is that life would end and take the pain away. I can appreciated the motivation of ‘cutters’ during this phase as any sensation is better than no sensation. I don’t act, merely endure. Time crawls as I function minimally. If I have obligations such as work or domestic duties during these phases, my gray turns to anger as I am unable to process thoughts. Little frustrations are amplified and trigger outbursts of irrational rage. Fortunately I’ve not harmed anyone physically, but I’m sure plenty have been offended emotionally by my harsh words or actions.

The duration is anywhere between three and ten days. During this time I just want to escape, to fade away, to find respite from the dull pain. One big difference between youth and middle age is that during my youth I could fantasize about escaping to a better life by physical movement. If only I could live in a better environment, enjoyed the company of other, more enlightened people, if only I could do this or that, life would be better. Truth is, it is all in my head. I’ve discovered that hell and paradise can be experienced anywhere, and has little to do with environment. Perhaps it’s maturity, or rational conclusion that has contributed to some very low lows. Where I could one time fantasize of a better life, I can now only suffer.

Suicide.

It is always a possibility during depression. I have spent a lot of time pondering the subject during my depressive episodes but have not acted upon it. During the darkness I just wish that life could end. Nothing seems worth living for, and knowing there will be future episodes with the same pain, it becomes unbearable. The flawed rationality in my head considers my life to be a failed experiment in biology. Suicide becomes nothing more than the natural thinning of the herd.

It’s hard to say what might ramp out of an episode. I don’t think anything other than brain chemicals starting to function properly once again. Just as bad news might trigger a downward spiral, sometimes good news during a neural springtime provides hope and catalyst for recovery. Just as recovering from influenza, weakness and vulnerability provide for a hopscotch recovery.

In recent years there has been less hope and more foreboding during depression, mostly in knowing that there would be future episodes. Prior to this exploration I had been self medicating for about five years. I was taking a heap of vitamins. Multi, 1000mg garlic, B-complex, D, fish oil, st. Johns wart, 5-htc. Since taking the Symbyax I can’t say my vitamin routine provided any results, although I will say that I haven’t been sick for a long time. When I was young I constantly caught whatever illness that was making the rounds. Even though I’m taking the Symbyax/Adderall combo, I still take my vitamins. I suppose it can’t hurt.

Food allergies have always been on my radar for cause, but I’ve never identified a positive correlation between depression and anything I’ve eaten. Exercise is another exploration. When I was younger and had the time and place, I rode my bicycle for long stretches. I can still identify periods of depression during that time, but have a general recall of feeling good. As I get older, exercise seems to cost more in terms of recovery than in any benefit.

It’s difficult to describe depression to those who haven’t experienced it. Everyone experiences causal depression at some point in their life… it’s a part of life. But clinical or biological depression is another animal, and only those who have it can relate. To understand it you need to temporarily erase all the good times from past memory, and abandon all hope for the future. There is no thought or feeling other than doom, and certainly all rationality flies out of the head. No one can say anything helpful and there is no base for optimism.

I’m happy to say that I’ve not had an extended depressive episode for better than six months. It was interesting that prior to my ADD diagnosis I was having episodes of mental frustration where I questioned whether the Symbyax was working.  That was when Dr.Kkjsez suggested the Adderal, which proved to be the balancing ointment. Since then I have been able to meter my days with varying dosages, predictably throttling my mental states as needed.

The doctor asks what I would like to do today, fly or drive. “Are there any other choices?” He replies, “there’s a train, but that’s more for little kids.” It’s my third session and I’ve already done a ‘flier’ and a ‘driver’ so I opt to do another driver. I pick the dune buggy this time and start the course selections top of the order.

I start down the course rather bumpy. The car bucks and slams into other cars. The screen fades to various levels of gray as I attempt to control the movement with my brain waves. I want desperately to control the movement of the car by my conscious thoughts but I can’t find a pattern of intent that is predictable. On either side of the screen are gauges that indicate whether my brain is on task and my vision wanders to the sides to try and control motion by meter. No luck there either.

When I’m in ‘the zone’ a blue vapor trail escapes the rear of the buggy as it races through the middle track of the course. When off task, the vapor turns to red, and/or the car slows or stops. I only experience momentary states of flow throughout the entire 30 minute session.

—

I felt more irritable than usual after this session. However, I have to place blame on a project at work that has made me frustrated the past couple days. What should have been a quick bug fix took nearly two full days of code study to figure out how the application was working. I get irritated when I spend so much time on something that should only take a few minutes. Until further reflection indicates differently, I’ll blame it on OPCC (Other Peoples Computer Code)

Even though I have a cause, I need to note that 2 out of my 3 sessions thus far have resulted in unusual stress and a headache later in the day that required Excedrin treatment. Whether the therapy was causal or coincidence remains to be determined.

I was invited to sit in the egg chair. As soon as I eased back into the aural dead zone of the cocoon the doctor confirmed my suspicions that it was a modified stereo chair from a 1970’s Sharper Image catalog. I leaned forward while the doc glued-up electrodes for each side of my head just above my ears, and clipped a third ‘trode to my left earlobe explaining that it was the ground wire. A set of stereo headphones comfortably squeezing my head completed the wiring and I eased back into the egg in my favorite position for relaxation… slouched.

On the flat panel television in front of me the doc was queuing up what looked to be a video game. I got to pick my car make (Cobra), color (green), and starting track (mountain). For the next 10 minutes I just sat in my egg and watched the screen while the doctor scooted the mouse around outside the periphery of my vision. The car on the screen jumped around much like the cartoon antics of Mario Cart on the home Nintendo Wii. Finally the doctor announced a lock on the frequency that I would be sensitive to.

Without any instruction he started the ‘game’ and left me to my puzzle. I had a lot of thoughts running around my head, mostly what was happening and how it was beginning to re-map my neural pathways. As my mind wandered to different places the car would stop, crash into other cars, and sometimes the screen would fade to gray indicating that I wasn’t consciously in attendance. Amazingly I found the game strikingly accurate in response to my thoughts, even though I couldn’t consciously make the car travel predictably. It was obvious that there was subconscious calisthenics at work.

I finished the 3 or 4 laps of the mountain circuit and it queued up another course automatically. This time I was on snow and ice. The Cobra did most of the same maneuvers only with a different backdrop. The music in the headphones changed as well. Instead of the usually synthesized motor and metal sounds of a video race game, I listened to soothing instrumental music. The doctor checked on me after about 10 minutes and announced that I had another 10 minute exercise ahead. I really wanted to feel control of the game but at the same time realizing that ‘letting go’ was what made my car stay on the path in steady acceleration. There was definitely something my brain was learning with this exercise but I couldn’t articulate anything other than it was important.

After the final session the doctor removed the electrodes and swabbed the glue from the sides of my head with a sterile gauze. I mentioned the traffic in my head and the doctor confirmed from his vantage point of computerized charts and graphs that there was plenty of mental pollution going on. Besides the usual chaos in my head, there was a certain novelty I was fighting with as well. It’s not every day that; A) I’m up this early, and B) that I’m wired up to a video game that I’m controlling using only my brain waves.

I drove to work thinking about what I’d just experienced, and what did it possibly mean. No answers yet, but 49 sessions to go. There were no after effects except toward late morning I started getting a low-grade headache. I popped a couple Excedrin to move the pain from my head to my stomach. Nothing else noticeable other than returning to memory of my feedback session throughout the day, dreaming possibly of a future time when I could command my head to function with focus and concentration.

Appointment time

15 minutes later…

…30 minutes later…

… finally, 45 minutes after my scheduled appointment I get called back to the lab. 15 minutes later and I would have walked out of the office probably never to return.

The doctor apologized profusely for the delay and wasted no time wiring my head. He placed two electrodes near the hairline in front, a couple on the back of my neck, and one on each ear lobe. He then pulled a skull cap over the remainder of my exposed cranium. On the monitor in front of me was a graphic of the top view of my head with about 25 dots that kept bouncing numbers. He explained that the numbers represented electrical impedance. The numbers varied but the color was a steady red. “When all the dots turn blue or green, we’ll have good connections,” he said.

Then he took a tube of goo and began injecting each of the dots in the skull cap. I could feel the cool electrical gel make contact with my scalp as each of the dots on the monitor began to register lower numbers and turning into cool colors.

when all the electrodes were in place the doctor described the test:

1) Eyes open – staring at the brain poster on the wall

2) Eyes closed – just that, eyes closed

3) On task – reading something

At each task he would announce that he was recording for 4 minutes each. I couldn’t see the monitor anymore as he had turned it to face him more directly. He seemed to be paying attention to the monitor which was now recording my brain waves from several angles. After the last test he removed the skull cap, electrodes, and let me wash my hair in the adjacent sink.

The results of the analysis would require a couple hours to compile so I agreed to return early afternoon.

…later that same day…

I’m back in the waiting area promptly at the designated time, even 5 minutes early.

10 minutes later…

15 minutes later…

This was my third visit to the waiting room and not once had they been on time. I wouldn’t really have cared except there seemed to be a little hypocrisy in the warning about being on time for the appointments.

The doctor grabbed a pile of paper off the printer and sat down with me in the conference room. He flipped pages and explained things about the brain and results that I didn’t comprehend. I just wanted some validation for my ADD/Depression. When he finished I asked what a normal map looked like. He responded that in 14 years of doing neural feedback, he’d never seen a ‘normal’ map. That was fine, but I still needed something to compare my eval to so he flipped open some other maps from previous patients and showed before and after. That was a little more helpful, but still not answering my question directly.

He showed me several pages of the various colored heads from the printout and showed where the ADD and Depression patterns were apparent. Then he caught me off guard by showing me some yellow and orange wave patterns normally attributed to Aspergers and Autism, or perhaps a historical head injury. I’d always kinda thought that I was a highly functioning retard, but now I had the evidence.

The doctor turned me over to his assistant to close the deal. I wrote the check for $3,490.00 and scheduled my first appointment for calibration. Insurance will only pay 60%, and only after I prove that I’m actually doing the therapy.

From nearly walking out the door to enthusiastically embracing the journey of my next six months, all in one day. I start my first appointment in less than two days. I’ll be back here with a report.