“I was on the highest dose of an SSRI that a doctor can prescribe, and that did nothing except make me feel dead…A bad day for me now is a million times better than a good day was two years ago.”
David’s journey began as a martial arts champion, but after winning Nationals and Junior Olympics, he lost motivation. Grief and isolation led him into substance abuse—first nicotine, then marijuana, alcohol, and eventually harder drugs. “There wasn’t a day where I was not impaired in some way.”
A harrowing psychedelic experience forced him to confront his downward spiral. Determined to change, he moved home and sought neurofeedback. Unlike therapy and high-dose antidepressants, neurofeedback provided a breakthrough.
“What was going on in my brain was not right. It was that way for a long time.” But with Neurofeedback, “I stopped thinking that way, and I was suddenly able to feel something different, it was very encouraging because again. I felt something very distinctly different and not an emptiness and not a darkness, not an apathy toward things.”
Now, David embraces life fully. “The biggest thing that I’ve gotten out of this is that I like myself now.” No longer lost in escapism, he envisions a future of growth and success. “A bad day for me now is a million times better than a good day was two years ago.”
