Of course I’d still like to write a novel, but ECT has really messed up my memory, particularly things like vocabulary, some cognitive abilities, and teaching different writing styles. Know that feeling of having a word on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t think what it is? Well, that’s how it is for me all the fucking time. And if I can’t fucking teach writing, let alone remember words, how the hell am I supposed to write? I don’t mean blogging, but like, specific writing genres like personal essays, research writing, poetry, and so on.
At least the ECT procedure is much more humane and refined in this century, and unlike Hemingway, I had ECT voluntarily (well, there wasn’t much left for me try in terms of meds). In fact, I’ve had more treatments than he did, but he ended up committing suicide because of them. I know I’ve quoted this here before, but I feel that it needs to be mentioned again.
According to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights:
Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway was tricked into admitting himself to a psychiatric institution. He was given more than 20 electroshock treatments. The result devastated him. Shortly afterwards, he told a friend, “Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient….” In July 1961, days after being released from the Mayo psychiatric clinic, Hemingway committed suicide.
By the way, according to Neil A. Grauer, in the article “Remembering Papa” published in the July/August 1999 issue of Cigar Aficionado, Hemingway supposedly bought the gun he used to off himself from Abercrombie. I shop there sometimes. How fucked up is that? At least they don’t sell weapons anymore.
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I had 11 ECT’s in 2004 and I’m still having a lot of trouble with my memory. It has only been recently that my husband stopped prefacing sentences with “you probably don’t remember, BUT…”. Regarding movies — I ask him if, first, if I’ve seen the movie and second, did I like it. I just started VNS therapy in January.
Carrie, welcome! Thanks for sharing your experience. I had 15 treatments last year and it was only about a month or so ago that I finally began remembering much of what I’d forgotten. Now I’m struggling to remember things again, but even though I’ll have to have ECT once every four weeks this time around, at least they’ll be more spread out than last year.
Like you, I also have to ask my husband if I’ve seen a movie and whether or not I liked it! It’s incredibly frustrating, but at least now I know that I’m not the only one experiencing that very same thing.
I admire your bravery for going through with VNS (vagus nerve stimulation). Honestly, I don’t know if I’d be able to do that. Good luck, and I hope you keep your blog updated as to your progress and experience with it.
I learn something new everyday.
Sorry it was such a downer, though.