Depression Lifts
This Treatment was the Greatest Gift
I sit in the chair, ugly white skull cap on my head, with cryptic markings drawn atop it.
“Sixty-two?” he asks, and I nod. My body tenses in preparation. I place my hand over the right side of my face, fingers just above my eyebrow, trying to shield myself from the small, jerky movements I can’t control.
He turns the dial, presses a few buttons. “Ready?”
“Yes,” I say and then it starts. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. For five minutes the magnet taps at my skull, sending a current into my dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
Then the other side — a few adjustments, left hand over the left side of my face and, like a woodpecker, in bursts this time for three minutes. My jaw opens and closes rapidly without my consent. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but it did at first. Oh, it did.
Forty-five minutes in the car each way. Five days a week. Six weeks. Thirty treatments in all.
I was desperate, so desperate to find something that would fix me, and so I went to every single treatment.
At the first appointment, I sat in a chair as the magnet was positioned atop my skull. The doctor drew marks and made notes on the white cap as I sat, heart pounding, eyes cast downward, too depressed to look up but praying…
