Okay, as many of you might already
know, I've had mental trouble throughout my entire life. I'd already
settled in quite nicely with my bipolar disorder -we were getting
awfully chummy- and then the Universe decided that my life was
getting far too easy and slapped me with the worst and longest and
HEAVIEST depression of my life (and that's saying a lot). It seems to
be somehow separate from my bipo, but the details are not that
important - the depression remains like a heavy, gray blanket
pressing me down, reeking of disappointment and broken dreams (THEY
REEK, I'M TELLING YOU). This delightful phase has been going on for
almost one and a half years now, and it's very close to destroying
everything I hold dear. My career, my marriage, my motherhood, my
studies, my friendships, my self-image, all of it.
We tried everything, my doctors,
therapists and I. Every imaginable medication, no matter the side
effects, which included, by extension, a bust-up ankle with torn
ligaments which took eight months to heal, and hands that shook so
badly that I couldn't even grab a pen and write an intelligible
sentence. In addition to this and all the other side effects like
constant nausea, dizziness and pain, the meds did absolutely nothing.
Now, I'm not against medication; I've had good experiences with it in
the past when I was diagnosed with my bipolar disorder. This
particular depression just seemed to be too much for even the
strongest knock-out meds, so my doctor introduced me to another
treatment: ECT or electroconvulsive therapy, also colloquially known
as shock treatment.
Sounds radical, right? Well, it kind of
is. It's an old treatment, invented in its modern form in 1938, and
probably familiar from such classical documentary films as One
Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Other forms of electrotherapy have
been used from the 18th century onwards. ECT is used to treat a wide
assortment of mental disorders ranging from schizophrenia and
catatonia to mania and, yes, severe depression. It's usually used
only after other treatments have been found ineffective and it
requires, among other things, a good healthy heart (which, amazingly
enough, I have). The treatment has a bad rap because of its rather
bleak history and some famous cases such as Ernest Hemingway's
suicide right after receiving ECT, but nowadays it's conducted under
general anesthesia, so the actual convulsions are mercifully
experienced while fast asleep. In most countries it's also strictly
voluntary.
It's not exactly harmless though, which
is why it's never the first go-to form of therapy in this civilized
day and age: side effects include short-term memory loss, in some
cases long-term memory loss (both retrograde and anterograde,
affecting memories from before the treatment and after the
treatment), muscle soreness, coordination difficulties, confusion and
so on. ECT is usually administered while staying in the hospital, but
I was lucky enough to get the permission to visit the basement of the
main psychiatric hospital in my hometown (I'm not even kidding,
that's where they put the ECT ward) a few times per week for the next
two to four weeks and let them fry my brain.
So, real Arkham Asylum shit, am I
right? I can't decide whether I'm more excited or terrified over this
treatment. I'm having it, though, whatever happens - life such as it
is now is not really worth living. If I have to get electrocuted to
get better, that's exactly what I will do. And hey, there are a
number of things I'd rather not remember, so memory loss might not be
such a bad thing after all. Now if there was a way to pick which
memories to lose... Hmmm.
Anyway, I thought it might be a small
favor for medical science and my friends who might want to know what
the hell is going on to record my subjective adventures with
electrocution. I might not have as extensive an audience as Mr.
Hemingway, but if this blog helps even one person to fry their demons
alongside their brain (or not think of me as a complete idiot for not
answering text messages), it's worth it. FOR SCIENCE!
