My name is Todd Baggaley. I’m a 42 year old husband, father of four, pediatric dentist, and business owner. I am also one who has experienced mental health difficulties throughout my entire life.
As a child, though I was quick to learn, I was also quick to frustration. My erratic and aggressive behavior earned me the following:
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- Kicked out of 3 preschools
- Kindergarten teacher required I be medicated with Ritalin to attend her class(mid-80’s)
- Dismissed from Sunday School for a 6 month period
- Spent the last 3 months of my fourth grade year in a lone desk adjacent to the principal’s office for disrespectful actions towards my teacher and classmates.
From 5th grade on, my behavior became more manageable, incidents of impulsivity became less common, and the social problems I did have now fell within the normal realm of pre-teen/teen behavior.
Then, at age 15, major depression and social anxiety started setting in. They have been a part of my life ever since.
Because of courageous parents who were willing to admit I was having difficulties, I was able to address the issue with therapies, and eventually, medications that enabled me to accomplish things I would have not been able to do otherwise.
For me, such therapies and medications were never wholly effective. But they gave me enough of an edge to get by. With effort, I was able to get married, be an acceptable father and husband, complete my education, and adequately provide for my family.
In early 2018, all medications I was taking suddenly became completely ineffective. I began experiencing severe panic attacks on a level I had previously not experienced and my depression felt insurmountable. In working with my doctors to address the onset of these extreme symptoms it was concluded my condition had moved to a new level. My depression was now termed treatment-resistant. From this point, I engaged in treatment modalities previously unfamiliar to me. A few examples here:
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- 18 sessions of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) – commonly known as shock therapy.
- 8 sessions of Ketamine IV infusions.
- New medications from different classes; antipsychotics, MAOI inhibitors, atypical antidepressants.
- Eventually, weaning off of all medications.
All treatments were under the watch and guidance of my doctors and were specific to my condition at the given time.
Each treatment received provided some relief (everyone reacts individually to any given treatment), but for me, no treatment, or combination of treatments, was fully effective at restoring me to an acceptable level for longer than 2-3 days. I eventually became despondent, and mentally migrated to an area of darkness of which I had previously been ignorant.
In January of 2019, I began working with a therapist who dove deep into my history of previous mental health successes. She noted that I had, over the past 20 years, achieved substantial, though temporary, success with supplementations I had researched for my condition. She recommended I use my knowledge of these pathways and supplements to evaluate them collectively/synergistically, not simply looking for a singular silver bullet.
This set me on a path to a slow recovery. Over a year later, I crept out of my hole a transformed individual. From the depths of suicidal depression, I returned an unapologetic voice for the sacredness of suffering.
