Help Hunter treat their chronic depression!

Hi Everyone :)

My name's Hunter and I'm fundraising to pay for the medical bills of a treatment I'm going to be receiving for my longstanding depression.

I've lived with almost daily depression (a combination of major depressive disorder and persistent depressive disorder) for about eight years, and it's now gotten to the point where I'm pretty scared for the future viability of my life. I live in a continual cycle of -severe-mild-severe- depression, which repeats about every two months. The severity of my depression when I'm in a trough is oppressively intense and highly debilitating. Sadly, I've lost so many opportunities and so much of my adult life to this disease.

I've tried everything to help treat my depression: I did seven years of psychotherapy with an amazing clinical psychologist; I spent two-and-a-half weeks as an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital; I've tried four different psychoactive medications (antidepressants and mood stabilisers) over almost as many years; I've implemented myriad lifestyle changes; I've journaled countless pages and gone through tens of self-help books; I did almost a year-and-a-half of behavioural therapy; I've seen numerous specialists about treating my other mental and physical health issues; I've used a variety of mental health crisis services; and more. All of these interventions have helped me in one way or another, including with my other mental health and neurodevelopmental difficulties (anxiety, BPD and ADHD), but my depression is still not going away to any substantial degree, and at this point has become significantly neurological.

The cold, hard truth about depression is that the longer you have it, the more difficult it becomes to fully recover from. Mental health difficulties are already built into my genetics, as every one of my immediate family members has struggled or is still struggling with psychological issues - some extremely severe - and my father's mental health deteriorated so badly that he took his own life. The longevity of my depression is now ingraining the disease more deeply into my brain and consolidating the genetic predisposition I have for it.

My family and I have spent tens of thousands of pounds on my mental health treatment over the years, but the costs have now become unsustainable, especially since I'm currently unable to work and am receiving a minimal amount of benefits. That's why I set up this fundraiser, to help me pay for a new type of treatment.

The new treatment, which is shown in the diagram below, that has been recommended to me is repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), which is used in cases of treatment resistant depression such as mine. The treatment involves a medical device conducting an electromagnetic field through your scalp and skull to induce an electric current to stimulate regions of the brain. The theory behind the procedure is that it encourages the brain's neuroplasticity in the hope that it rewires itself away from whatever issue is being treated.

This treatment is expensive, with costs running to at least £5,000 (approx. £200 per session) to cover a minimum of five 30-minute-long sessions per week over five weeks. Like every medical treatment, there's no guarantee that it'll work, but I have no choice but to try. There's simply no way that I'll be able to live indefinitely with this depression, a depression that has taken so much from me despite my best efforts otherwise.

If there's anything you can donate to my fundraiser, large or small, it'd be so greatly appreciated. This treatment could be life-changing, and there isn't much else more important in my life for me to spend money on.

To end on a brighter note, I never would've made it this far without the support of close friends and family, so I wanted to publicly thank them all on my fundraiser's webpage to make sure that everyone else knows how much they've helped me. I couldn't be more grateful for all of them!

Thank you so much for reading this, and thank you in advance for helping me try to get my life back.

Love,

Hunter