Help Try TMS before quitting or use the money to buy N

[Final_frontier]

Title

 

[RRH]

TMS was completely ineffective for me, however it appears to help some people and could be worth trying.

 

[Final_frontier]

TMS was completely ineffective for me, however it appears to help some people and could be worth trying.

May I ask? How many sessions did you take? How severe was your depression?

 

[autumnal]

[Help] Try TMS before quitting or use the money to buy N
Title

This isn't really the kind of question anyone else can answer for you, nor is it the kind of thing for which you should be relying on the anecdotal accounts of others. Like any treatment, TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) can work better for some people and not as well for others. So there isn't much to be gained from simply hearing that some people had success with it and others did not. Furthermore, it is such a relatively new treatment (compared to ECT) that you aren't necessarily going to find a wide range of research findings or anecdotal accounts about it. And of course this being a suicide forum, anyone posting here is much more likely to have had a poor outcome from TMS (or indeed from any sort of mental illness treatment) than the general population. So the anecdotes here are not necessarily a representative sample of the wider population. The only opinion you should treat with any significance is that of your doctor, who may be able to advise whether TMS has been shown to be more or less likely to be effective with your specific kind or severity of depression. But even this is only an educated prediction rather than a certainty.

If you are looking at it from more of a philosophical rather than a practical perspective, then the question becomes 'Pay for a final chance at reducing my depression or instead use that money to afford the most peaceful suicide method'. That then becomes a topic where the input of others might have more relevance.

My personal answer to that more philosophical question is as follows. I would always want to know that I had given myself as much chance as possible to improve my situation before resorting to suicide. So I would definitely spend the money on the TMS. To me, the best case scenario of the TMS bringing the depression down to tolerable levels vastly outweighs the worst case scenario of the TMS not working and my needing to use a less peaceful method than N for suiciding due to financial constraints. This is especially the case as SN exists are a relatively peaceful method to use for those who cannot afford or obtain N.

Additionally, it is worth bearing in mind that the current relative importance and probability you are placing on each scenario is doubtless clouded to at least some extent by the severity of your depression. So you might not be accurately considering the likelihood of TMS working, and you might be seeing the negativity of having to use a method other than N as much greater than it is.

 

[RRH]

May I ask? How many sessions did you take? How severe was your depression?

I had them done about eight years ago. I can't remember the number of sessions, but it might have been twelve.

My depression was quite severe at the time.