DEFEATING DEPRESSION

For more than two decades Sarah Reeves battled suicidal tendencies. Now, after undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery in India, the Australian is rediscovering her zest for life

- POOJA BIRAIA JAISWAL

Since the age of 14, Sarah Reeves wanted to die. Respite from wishing herself dead came in short bursts. Once that respite came when she underwent electroconvulsive therapy, which sent massive electric shocks to her brain. But, the respite lasted only a few weeks. Nonetheless, she was encouraged by the outcome and went through the shock treatment again, only to see its effects wear off in weeks. She also tried transcranial magnetic stimulation, in which magnetic fields are used to stimulate nerve cells in the brain to improve symptoms of depression. Yet, the desire and desperation to die would come back to haunt her again and again.

At the age of 20, she was in a car crash with her brother Matthew. He recalls the first thing she told him after the crash: that she was so disappointed that she had not been killed. In her 30s, during a casual conversation, Sarah asked her mother if she knew what it was like to keep living when you really did not want to. Her mom said she did not know, but sought to know why Sarah had asked. To that, she said that she genuinely assumed that everyone would rather die than live. She did not realise such thoughts were unusual.

Sarah's depression “came on severely” at 14 and she tried “dozens and dozens of medications and therapies”, including cognitive and behavioural therapies, but none worked. When depression responds to medication, that might be enough to keep someone well for life. But, what Sarah had was treatment-resistant depression, in which the brain becomes resistant to medication and, sometimes, to other treatments as well. “No medication would stop me from wanting to kill myself,” Sarah, now 38, tells THE WEEK in an interview from Australia, along with Matthew.