"don't ctb before you try everything" — so tell me, what have you tried besides therapy and medication?

[Sweet Tart]

They suggested ECT to me and I'm desperate for some mental relief! Does it hurt after? And how many treatments did you have until it became helpful. Hope u don't mind me asking

I'm also curious about this- it's been suggested to me, too.

 

[telro]

I feel I did everything within my power to try everything before I CTB. I take care of myself. I stay on top of tasks. Good routine. Decent social life. Average attractiveness. Good testing scores. Fast learner. Multiple hobbies (music, videogames, hiking). Plenty of job opportunities. Nice parents. Decent amount of money (middle class). And so on

For me it just always boiled down to: I hate being aware of my own existence. It pains me

Therapists always seem to be looking for some sort of reason as to why I'm ill and why I feel this way, but they just get stuck. Then they try to convince me I have problems that I don't actually have. Seriously, a psychologist admitted to me that she was trying to find autism within me, even though the test came out negative for autism. People really have trouble grasping the concept that I just don't enjoy existing. I hate consciousness itself. My life is completely fine. If I continued living I'd probably have no problem landing a well paying job. I just don't care. Put me on a cozy beach in the middle of the summer and I'll still feel the same way because the underlying issue is that I despise existing, but it's so hard for therapists to understand for some reason

Therapists and psychiatrists were only frustrating me, so I stopped going. I tried one med. It did nothing. I'm not about to go on a journey of countless meds with horrible side effects just to somehow overcome this pain I've always had. At this point, I feel it's hard to even expect that of me after all the effort I've put in to improve my mental health through means other than a pill

Scream at me all you want about how I technically haven't tried everything because x and y med still exist and there are still 50 therapists I should try, so I'm not allowed to CTB yet, I don't care anymore. Existence is just so fundamentally jarring for me and it has been since the beginning. I've fantasized about sleeping and never waking up for as long as I can remember and it's not like I came to that realization and just relished in my misery doing nothing to try and fix my life. I did a lot. I've thought about CTB for years and years. The decision I'm making is well calculated and rational. It should be my right to choose what to do with my own life

 

[Kerrtu]

They suggested ECT to me and I'm desperate for some mental relief! Does it hurt after? And how many treatments did you have until it became helpful. Hope u don't mind me asking

I'm sorry to respond so delayed @blackmoon and @Sweet Tart

ECT doesn't hurt - they put you under general anesthesia which, to me, is the best part. At the hospital where I underwent ECT, they'd give me 800mg of Ibuprofen afterwards, so a bit of a headache was the only pain.

I've had approximately 20 treatments, and I did lose some memory though some lost memories have resurfaced. There was a difference in me after the first treatment. Apart from feeling a tad disoriented, my eyes weren't as dark, for example.

Some people undergo "maintenance ECT", too - if they feel it's working for them.

 

[lachrymost]

Other than way too many psychiatric drugs and various therapy modalities over fifteen years, I've also tried:

-Cannabis
-Ketamine therapy
-Psilocybin

-Sobriety
-Exercise and going for walks around the neighborhood
-Eating lots of fruits and vegetables with minimal red meat
-Meditation
-ASMR
-Vagus nerve stimulation
-Breathing exercises
-Stretching exercises to feel that distracting burn
-Atrempting to compartmentalize my negative emotions
-Journaling
-Creative writing
-Consuming various self-help materials
-Case management to help me with basic life shit
-Getting tattoos in an attempt to reclaim some sense of bodily autonomy after medical abuse and being tormented by psychiatry for half of my life
-Getting into a relationship and moving out of my parents' house
-Having friends and socializing
-Not having friends and isolating
-Numerous attempts to go back to school
-A few attempts to work (I've been on disability since I was 19)

And that's just what I can recall right now. They can't say I didn't try.