Today I saw the brain zapping technician that was my favorite, always the gentlest, most uplifting soul, at the pharmacy when I was picking up my meds. I got to tell her that I was doing better, that I was figuring it out. She smiled and asked for a hug and said “That’s why we do this.” I did tell her that ECT hadn’t been a good choice for me, that I didn’t have the adequate coping skills or experience with being happy or the inevitable huge difference that the eventual crash felt like compared to a depression when you were used to no more than “meh” normally. I told her that after my first suicide attempt, when they tried ECT again I lost 8 months of memory. She told me it wasn’t uncommon, and a number of patients coming out of depression feel weird and unable to tell if they’ll ever feel normal. We talked about institutionalization and crime and how we as a nation feel 4 years at a state hospital is too mean but we are totally okay with the resulting homelessness and prisons full of mentally ill. She made me promise that if I ever lost this hope again, that I’d “let them fight for me, because we’ve done it. We’ve made people better.”
I said, “yeah, hope is not the winning. Hope is the battle.”
“And we’ve already won the war. Anyways, I gotta get goin.”

I do not like that I noticed that the only thing in her hand was a fifth. I do not like that I worry about the drinking habits of people I haven’t seen in nearly a decade.