Heather B. Armstrong Nearly Dies Ten Times and It Works Out Great

The Hilarious World of Depression

American Public Media

Comedy Interviews, Comedy

4.8 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2019

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Author and blogger Heather B. Armstrong (dooce.com) was in, by far, the deepest depression she had ever experienced and nothing was working to lift it. That’s when her psychiatrist told her about a study using powerful doses of the anesthetic Propofol. Heather had ten appointments where she was placed in a brief medically-induced coma. The idea is similar to electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) but without the electricity and, hopefully, without side effects like memory loss. She shares the story of what led her to try the treatment and how it went.

You can pre-order John's book at bit.ly/HilariousWorldBook.

Transcript

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0:00.0	How far would you go to fight your depression?
0:02.8	So the heart is still beating, but I couldn't breathe on my own.
0:06.3	And they took it all the way down.
0:08.1	So he actually, my brother came to see one of the sessions.
0:11.7	And the anesthesiologist showed in the monitor, and he said,
0:15.4	see here at the top is a hundred.
0:18.0	Here at 40, this is where we start cutting people open.
0:21.3	This is where we start to really do the surgery.
0:24.6	We're taking your sister all the way down to zero.
0:30.0	It's the hilarious world of depression. I'm John Mell.
0:46.0	As of a couple years ago, my guest this week had been living in a world of extremes.
0:50.6	A depressive episode so extremely deep and ferocious that she could neither
0:55.2	bear it nor solve it.
0:57.2	She fought that depression with the most extreme depression treatment I've ever heard of.
1:02.9	I am Heather B. Armstrong, mother of two young daughters, and I am in Solicity.
1:09.2	And the B is mandatory as I understand it.
1:11.4	The B is mandatory. It's a it's a it's my tribute to Mormonism.
1:16.2	But how is that a tribute to Mormonism?
1:19.2	The main that we call them the general authorities,
1:23.3	the main leaders in the church, they all have their middle initial whenever they are presented.
1:30.4	That's like Mormon leader Samuel L. Jackson.
1:33.3	Yes, Samuel L. Jackson.
	...

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