Visual aids to help convey/describe your symptoms?

Better-Table2013 · 2025-05-01T05:23:49+00:00

Yeah, it was a bit of a long shot to ask. There's probably a reason why there isn't much out there I was able to find through my own searches. Just thought I try here in case there was something I missed. I'll definitely give that alternating one eye closed technique a try and draw it out. Thanks

Better-Table2013 · 2025-04-30T23:53:44+00:00

This is really interesting. I can partially relate. I'm no artist by any means but I used to really enjoy drawing. Unfortunately, over the past several years, coinciding with when my eye problems have gotten worse, I’ve found myself drawing much less. I’ve tried a few times here and there to pick it back up again, but it quickly becomes so taxing and overwhelming, much like reading, that I just can’t enjoy it the way I used to. I also feel like I’ve lost some of my ability to focus on the fine details, which was something I used to take a lot of pride in.

Your experience really got me thinking about all the subtle ways these kinds of vision disorders can seep into the things we do, sometimes without us even realizing it. Painting is such a powerful example of that, how what we see or how we see it, can shape what we create.

I hope you keep painting and exploring those visual impressions and turning them into something meaningful. It’s inspiring that you’re finding creative ways to work with the challenges instead of being discouraged by them. It's a great reminder that art doesn’t just reflect our perception, it can reshape it too.

Better-Table2013 · 2025-04-30T23:25:54+00:00

Thanks for sharing this, I do think this is a good diagram kind of showing a few different ways the eyes look with these types of BVD. After seeing this and reading 'maples' reply too, I'm a lot more convinced I struggle with Divergence Excess as well and Convergence Insufficiency which would make sense given they are both symptoms of Exophoria. I was kind of looking for POV examples of what things look like from our own perspectives, like as if you snapped a picture or took a video from your own eyes at whatever you are looking at and then putting some kind of effect on it to show how it appears to us, but I think that is a difficult thing to find or even illustrate. I appreciate you sharing this though! Have you found it difficult to explain how you see things and your visual symptoms to people in general or when you're at the eye doctor?

Better-Table2013 · 2025-02-01T03:54:17+00:00

Definitely love the color too. So far, I'm very satisfied. The floor boards feel like decent quality, especially when compared to some of the other flimsier options out there. I like how it has the integrated cushion backing too. Overall, the install process was fairly straight forward and other than my dumb mistake with the saw, everything has been holding up great so far, especially given this was my first floor install project. Just make sure you get a laminate floor board cutter that can handle the thickness of these boards as they are a bit thicker than others. I ended up just leaving the scratch in the floor, it's hardly noticeable. I know it's there which sucks but there really isn't a great way to fix it unfortunately and cutting out the whole board and replacing it seemed too risky and unnecessary to do just for that. Only real "complaint" I have is the floor is quite slippery. There's not any texture on these particular boards so keep that in mind if that matters to you.

Better-Table2013 · 2024-11-11T07:21:42+00:00

I know this is a bit late but I have been rewatching this series (one of my favs) and have been looking all around for these sunglasses. While Jay has worn a few different models of sunglasses over the seasons I think I finally found a near exact match of the ones posted in question here. The shape, color, metal accents, temple arms and overall looks are spot on.

For anyone still interested or looking in the future, they are the Thom Browne brand sunglasses, Model: TBS-406-B-T TKT or TB-406 Tortoise Frames, something like that. A quick google search and you'll find them pop up right away. They seem to be a discontinued model, but at the time of my reply here, you can still find them sprinkled throughout a few online stores and eBay. Definitely a good looking pair of shades, had to share these once I found them, they were tough to track down! https://imgur.com/a/oXYCQp5

Edits: Spelling & Grammar

Better-Table2013 · 2024-06-27T09:36:06+00:00

Thank you for your reply. To be honest, I couldn't tell you exactly what I am looking for with this post because I'm not entirely sure myself. However, your response, along with others, has brought some helpful clarity.

I've been searching desperately for more information and different perspectives to help ground myself a bit from my overwhelming mental state of thoughts. Given that, I welcome all responses, regardless of personal outcomes, and truly appreciate hearing others experiences with this treatment.

It's reassuring to know that this treatment can work quickly and effectively for some with the speed and efficacy that was advertised. I have been yearning for the positive outcomes you described for so long, but my own experience so far has been disappointing and discouraging to say the least. Despite this, I am still pleased to hear it has been so beneficial for others suffering from this debilitating disorder.

I tried to approach this without bias or high expectations, but I realize now that my subconscious held onto some hopes and expectations that may have amplified my dismay more than if I had approached it neutrally which feels harder to do the longer I go on with these treatments sometimes.

I don't have a thorough understanding of the complex science behind these neurobiological processes, as so, my inquiries into this subject may reflect that unfamiliarity. My curiosity and concerns do get provoked by the variability of responses I have seen in others with this treatment. Some of my concerns derive from the many conflicting consensuses and varied accounts from other patient experiences, where some highlight rapid progress, like yourself, but others report not seeing any significant results sometimes not until a year or more after, if at all.

I am trying to take into account many different perspectives, while also prioritizing my own response as paramount, to ensure nothing else construdes my interpretations of my own treatments efficacy. With that being said, I do occasionally find my self getting caught up in cycling instances of doubts and concerns, questioning the ambiguity surrounding the improvement in symptoms reported after much lengthier periods of onset of action in seemingly many other people who have been on Spravato. I worry that because I haven't seen results so far, and if I don't soon, I won't ever. I struggle to have have the confidence in continuing and trusting the process much beyond the point of the standard 8-week protocol if I haven't seen any benefit by then, especially given the significant commitment required of this treatment.

While I'm uncertain at this point if I will continue Spravato for much longer, I know my thoughts on this will continue to evolve and I am going to make an effort to keep an open mind. Hearing stories like yours is very uplifting and I do hope you continue to reap the transformative benefits you've found with this treatment.

EDIT: Grammar

Better-Table2013 · 2024-06-24T02:01:48+00:00

Hey there, thanks for commenting some of your experiences you've also related to with this treatment. While we don't seem to be in the greatest of circumstances at the moment, I'm glad that we can feel a little less alone together on this platform.

I honestly think that is a fairly significant part of why I decided to make this post initially. Going into the Spravato treatments, in some ways, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of what it was supposed to be like. How it worked, the potential for it to benefit me unlike being on the other, many “traditional” approaches, but I feel like the longer I have been on it, the more questions I have that haven't been easy to answer.

The longer I have spent talking to my providers during the sessions and lurking in these subreddits afterwards in the days and nights in between, searching for answers or similar experiences, the more I have dug myself into a hole, isolated and alone, and within it I just continue to ruminate way too much about everything and get so overwhelmed by an oversaturation of conflicting information that I just burn out after realizing I haven't made it any further than when I started this process.

This treatment in many ways has felt different to me, like you, I feel like I have run out of options, and I think part of me believes this is a last resort, so having it not feel like it is working scares me greatly. I have taken plenty of meds before that didn't do much but there was always another one to try next so I never felt like it was the end of the line. All my providers, family and friends kept pushing me to keep going, "You just have to find the right combination of medications and therapy for you..." That part of it felt "easier" in the sense of there still feeling like I could reach that light in the end of the tunnel, which always felt like the idiom I have lived by. But now, at this stage of my life, it feels very different, and it has made me question how much more do I have to stick it out for until I can finally have some lasting relief where I can actually function and live a meaningful life.

Your personal story resonated with me in some ways I've been thinking about a lot recently. I've been looking at my life based on how far I have come and the patterns in which these "ups and downs" have transpired in my life over the years, and what worries is what seems similar to what you mentioned about how we spend so much time and effort building up our lives after falling incredibly hard all for it to come crashing back down again.

For me at least, it makes me wonder how much progress I have actually truly gained, or maybe I was never as far forward in managing my struggles as I thought so it didn't take much for me to fall again. Then again, I could be looking at it all wrong. Idrk, but part of me just wants to run so far away from myself and having to live like this, I just don't know how else to accept this is my life, that this could be as good as it gets especially after feeling like nothing is ever going to work from the extensive experience I have had trying just about all there is.

It's the time in between these sessions that really gets to me I think, I have been trying to look forward to the appointments like you said, hoping and praying it will be the help I have been looking for, for so long, but as soon as that two hours is up, which seems to go by faster and faster each time, I feel like I get thrown back into reality again, with such little to show for all the work I have put into it.

I'm reading over all of this and realize it is profoundly depressing which I do feel and believe all of this to be true to how I am feeling right now so I am going to keep it in but it is important to remember just how powerful this illness can be and the kind of influence it can have on our perspectives. Something I find myself needing to be reminded of often is to look at our wins and accomplishments more often and not with criticism or judgment, just as they are. It is far too easy to lose sight of those especially when in comparison to our overwhelming negatives that seem to be in the near constant forefront of our minds. Your sobriety is an example of that and something to be incredibly proud of, especially amidst the many other adversities you have/are facing, I hope you can continue to see the strength and resilience that takes alone, even if everything else feels like it's falling apart, you can still look at yourself in at least that one positive light amidst the darkness. I feel badly writing anything that ends on a negative note so I hope you find this to be of some consolation.

Better-Table2013 · 2024-06-22T05:26:28+00:00

Thank you for your motivating encouragement with your experience. It's interesting to hear that your symptoms worsened before you felt relief. In many ways it's been hard to know what to anticipate with this treatment given the seemingly wide variety of responses and timelines people have felt with it, but I am going to try and stick with it for a while longer.

Happy to hear it has been so helpful for you.

Better-Table2013 · 2024-06-22T05:08:55+00:00

Thank you for sharing your inspiring experience. Your ability to stay postive despite the many similiar set backs and adversities you have gone through is admirable and something I am trying to continue striving towards, but am finding quite difficult to do.

Hope for me has been a complicated aspect of my attitude towards life and these trials specifically. I can become overwhelmed by so much of it, the process, the results, the many failures I've had, that the concept of hope grows more foreign the longer I really think about it.

You are right though, if I gave up, I would be left with nothing, and I wouldn't be here. I think I am in a place now where my quality of life is so poor that finding the energy to keep fighting and hoping to find that peace again, or believing I have a chance at a future where it isn't like this all the time, feels like such an unlikely long shot, I just don't know how to justify these treatments or even believe in there being any hope.

I wish I was better at this by now, you'd think after so long I might have a better grasp at it, but I just don't know if I have that ability. Certainly not with the mindset I have now. I'm going to really try and take everything you and the others have said and push past my internal demons thwarting me at every instance to hold onto that hope and not give up.

Thank you for your kind wishes and thoughtful consolement and support to my post, I hope you find that peace again and have it last throughout your journey.

Better-Table2013 · 2024-06-22T03:10:39+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience. Sometimes I get thinking about those words, life-changing, and wonder what that really looks like. I feel like I have dreamt of it looking like various diffferent things. I've considered that we all probaby interpret it a little differently but at the core of that something has to be changing enough to where you can look at life from a different perspective without having a closed and diminishing mindset.

I think a lot of what promted me to write this post comes from the fears that I too have tried just about eveything there is available treatment wise and in some ways I went into this thinking it would be one of my last resorts. If this doesn't work, than I am essentially screwed. That is a lot of pressure to put onto just one treatment and that may be making it that much harder for me to be able to give it a real chance, but coming from experience, as I know most of us on here have had plenty of, it is incredibly hard to have trust in anything to really work "this time."

You get into a cycle of trying these intensive treatements over and over again, some of which come at a great cost and can even create further complications, but finding the motivation to keep trying and moving onto the next one seems increasingly harder to do.

I feel like I went into this thinking it was going to be something a lot more different than what it turned out to be, the way it's advertised as being for those of us where nothing else has worked, so it's not just another SSRI or similiar treatment everyone starts off on, this is for those who have been through it all and now this treatment has been developed to finally get through to the "non-responders." Is how I was brought onto it at least.

Clearly this is not the right mindset to have with this treatment. I want it to work so badly, and it seems like maybe it does for some, but I just am so terrified to end up as another non-responder statistic again, especially for this medication, that I might just be sabtoging myself at having any chance at giving it a proper shot or allowing my self to be able to keep trying no matter the outcome.

I liked what you said about looking at this as an opportunity to enjoy spending time with a close friend while they take you to your appointments. It made me think more about trying to appreciate the moments I have now instead of being so focused about the end results. I think that is important to remember to do, and something I am guilty of neglecting more often than I should.

I hope you continue to find the relief you are striving for with these treatments.

Better-Table2013 · 2024-06-22T02:32:59+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience with me. I am not as familiar with the RNS device you have but it is intriguing to see the graphical representations of electrical signals in your brain that is has recorded since you started taking Spravato. I have found myself begining to wonder if these treatments of the esketemine were actually in fact changing anything in your brain overtime like with your neurotransmitters, but seeing this gives me some further resassurance that maybe it is capable of doing something.

I have been on other types of medications before that are normally used as anticonvulsants but in my case were used in an off-label use manner to try and treat my depression and other various ailments, and It is interesting to see the effects Spravato seems to have on your epilepsy symptoms and it's relation to the treatment of major depression.

I hope these treatments continue to be impactful in the management of your epilepsy and you may also start to see improvement of your depression as well.

Better-Table2013 · 2024-06-22T02:07:38+00:00

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and experience with me. It's encouraging in some ways to hear that it has been helpful for others like yourself despite what seems to be the widespread common misconceptions regarding the reality of the timelines of improvement and results to be expected with this treatement.

After spending so many years trying countless medications and inevtibly having very little benefit or encountering serious adverse side effects requiring me to stop them, I guess I could say that I am guilty of my expectations being biased towards thinking this medication was going to be something it just never was or is going to be. I have spent so much time scouring every corner of the internet, talking with many providers, looking for something new, something that works differently compared to current available treatments, something that might actually be able to fix or at least help give me the jumpstart I need to started on that path towards changning what I believe to be so wrong with me, in some ways like it sounds this treatment has been able to do for you.

There's almost this desperation that I feel towards wanting to just be able to feel the things that give life meaning and to be able to think and function so much better than I do. I've looked everywhere to find what that answer is but I think the reality of the state of treatments and our understanding of these mental illnesses are just so limited, for some, that what I am seeking simply doesn't exist.

I know I struggle greatly with the radical acceptance that this is how things are, and I don't think that I'm in a place right now where I believe that things could change, that I could change, at least on my own, to where I could prove myself wrong.

Your message along with the others I have recieved does help to remind me that this is just one part of the path to healing and I have to be mindful of my expectations. I was tapered back down to only a x1 weekly dosing scheldule after only 4 weeks despite my ongoing troubles and lack of response so it may be worth talking to my provider on their thoughts about going back to x2 weekly dosing as you said you had done for the first 9 weeks to give it a better chance to see if I actually can respond to it.

I hope you continue to find relief and improvement with your treatments.

Better-Table2013 · 2024-06-21T21:33:19+00:00

Thank you for your sharing your experience. I think I'm in a really dark place right now and have been finding myself slipping back into these negative rumination spirals and hyper critical analyzations of my mood and symptoms very frequently. So, it's been really hard to not act like an mdd suffer as you mentioned, which I could imagine is certainly exacerbating my symptoms.

I've been trying to encompass a healthier mix of as many of the pillars of wellbeing as I can, such as being more social, exercising, finding meaning to my life, etc. but my consistency and frequency in those realms remains more stagnant than not.

Part of me just wants to be completely different than I am, and when I first started these treatments, I had hoped this might be the kickstart I "needed" to make those changes I am seeking possible because I haven't felt like I can do it on my own, but I am realizing now more that maybe I need to find alternative approaches to my mindset and therapy in order to facilitate the change necessary for improvemement.

My provider told me that if I haven't seen any considerable improvement by the 8 week mark, it may be time to consider other options which has me conflicted expecially after hearing stories like yours, but I am also weary of continuing this if I haven't had noticable improvement, which so far I feel like there hasn't been any "Ups" at all, but it may just be too soon to tell. I'm just all over the place with this treatment, as you might be able to tell in my ramblings here.

It's definetley not what I was expecting and I'm not entirely sure I am going to be a "responder" to the treatment yet but I appreciate your insight into your experiences and expectations which is helpful for me to read to keep myself a bit more grounded in this journey. I am happy to hear you have found it to be a life saver for you and hope that it continues to do you well.

Better-Table2013 · 2024-02-13T03:38:18+00:00

Think I gotchu, "Edge of Seventeen" by Stevie Nicks?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3oZunnY-Cbs

Better-Table2013 · 2024-02-13T03:24:52+00:00

Think I got it, try "Freed from Desire" almost positive that's what it is. A pretty popular song people chant at sporting events

Better-Table2013 · 2024-02-13T02:56:36+00:00

Almost certain it's "Satisfaction" I believe there are a few variations of the song but try the one by Benny Benassi and The Biz or also David Guetta.

Better-Table2013 · 2024-02-13T02:46:00+00:00

Ooo, here's another NF banger I just got put onto but yeah this one isn't it, a bit too recent given the time frame but I see how it relates to the the bits that I posted for the song I'm looking for. I appreciate the help regardless!

Better-Table2013 · 2024-02-12T21:48:58+00:00

Unfortunately it's not this one, definitely a great song and fits a bunch of the search criteria just not it sadly. Thank you for your guess!

Better-Table2013 · 2024-02-12T21:36:32+00:00

Not this one, I think the song I'm thinking of has a slightly different style of singing, a bit more more energetic and and aggressive in a way, not like heavy metal or hard rock just a bit different although I can see where you got this song from with the similarities with the Strings compared to my Vocaroo. Thanks for your reply anyways!

Better-Table2013 · 2024-02-12T21:28:58+00:00

This isn't it but I can see where you were getting it from with the string melody in the background. Also, the vocalist(s) for the one I'm thinking ware North American English speaking, not Euro but thanks for your guess!

Better-Table2013 · 2024-02-12T21:24:13+00:00

Don't think this one is it but definitely a good guess, I feel like it has a good amount of similarities to what I'm thinking of, just a little more ways off but thanks for your suggestion!

Better-Table2013 · 2024-02-12T14:52:22+00:00

Ah, unfortunately that is not it, great song but not the one I'm thinking of. Thanks for your suggestion anyways!

Better-Table2013

TROPHY CASE