Tag Archives: ECT

Becoming

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My mother often jokes about the crayon marks on the wall- you’d think that in a 150 year old house, with a husband that does custom paint jobs on cars, my artwork would have been painted over in the last twenty years. However, it perseveres, abstract renderings that my mother claims will make the house worth more when I’m famous. I think of this sometimes when I traipse through the living room… What will these be worth when I’m successful? That phrase then sticks in my head, wandering over and over, taking laps through the same worn paths. Half the time I can’t tell whether the thought “when I’m successful” boils down to “when I’ve achieved something of significance in my life” or “when I’ve done it right while attempting suicide.” I’m sure both would add value to the scribbles on the wall, entirely different kinds, but still, something.

I’ve attempted suicide twice in the last two months. Maybe this is too honest, maybe I shouldn’t be sharing this. But things don’t change by letting them sit in silence. When I get chastised for joking about another attempt(as I do), I’ll often reply “I’ll try harder next time.” How this becomes a joke for me can be unclear to others, I know, but I can’t help it. I’ve wanted to die for as long as I can remember. It’s all I know. I think it’d be evidence of being more unbalanced if I COULDN’T joke about it.

Cognitive distortions. I’m told these are the things that tell me I am worthless. I currently only see them as truth. That is the way it will be until I put in the very, very difficult work of training myself otherwise.

Someone once told me, “If you could see yourself through other people, you’d know you are worthwhile.”
My reply was “If I could see myself through other people, those people would need to go to the hospital.” Snark is a defense.

The hospital is a place I’ve been several times. It doesn’t seem to help for very long. Therapy is a place I‘ve been several times, through several programs. It doesn’t seem to help for very long. Hey, I’ve even had an exorcism. That sure as hell didn’t help.

A last ditch effort was ECT, electro convulsive therapy. The phrase makes most people immediately jump to a Cuckoo conclusion, but things are very different now than were portrayed in that film. It’s highly civilized and ultimately very hopeful. I got several weeks of what may have been normalcy out of it. I’ve also gotten a fair amount of damage to both my long and short term memory systems, some of which may shake out, some of which is permanent. However, once again it didn’t seem to help for very long. I did more damage to myself than I ever have before, after having been normal and happy for awhile.

Now I’m starting DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which is all about teaching people to respond to stress, harmful impulses, bad thoughts, etc. in healthier ways. I’ve just started, but I’m feeling very hopeful. I’ve already gotten a bit of practice with one of the techniques. It’s an intense program, and a commitment. A patient signs up for an entire year of the program, which, for me, meets an hour away and twice a week. It will be worth it if I can achieve healthier mannerisms through this process, naturally, but if this also fails me, then I have run out of options.

I am determined to make this year mean something.
I will learn.
I will learn to believe, believe the good things that people tell me that I am.
Because I am stronger than I can see.
I am more than I believe.
I am above the sum of my faults.
And I am worthwhile.
I am creative.
I am kind.
I am talented.
I am loved.
I am smart.
I am funny.
I am giving.
And I am capable of changing the way I think about myself.
I am capable of becoming what I am.
I can’t think of anything that would make me more successful.
Wish me luck this year.

Youthful hopes.

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The rubber strap wraps around my arm.

“This will be tight, I’ll loosen it as soon as I can…”

I’ve heard Melissa use that exact sentence probably dozens of times as she starts an IV on someone in the prep room. Melissa is tall and slim, with chin length wavy silver hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. I can’t help but ask- “So how many times do you think you’ve said that?”

She smiles. “That’s something that I’m gonna ask God when I see him. My husband wants to ask what’s the closest he’s ever been in proximity to buried treasure.”

I smile and take a deep breath as she warns me “Little poke…”

She fiddles with the tape and looks at me before she asks “If you could ask God one question, and he had to give you a straight answer, no comparisons, no parables, just something you could completely understand, what would it be?”

I try to come up with something clever but the phrase “Why me?” pounds through my head over and over, eventually leaking out my tear ducts and my lips.

Her face melts with empathy. “You mean with the struggles you’ve had to deal with?” She asks me my age and tells me that when she was my age she struggled a lot too. “You know, a friend once told me something that I found to be true. There’s people that struggle when they are young, and there’s people that experience their struggles when they get older. You’re just getting yours out of the way. Things will get better.”

Saline drips down my arm. “I sure hope so.”

“I wouldn’t have believed me when I was your age either. But know that there’s hope.”

They wheeled me into the treatment room for my weekly seizure, the ones that feel like hope.

Forgetting

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My father called me, from inside the house. Asking if I knew of any zip ties. I reassured him that his guess what as good as mine. He asked me what I was up to. I said I was watching a show on Netflix with my husband. He replied “well that’s a priority.” before I hung up.

He called me back, a while later. Said that I was not to be forgiven for taking something as pure and light as thanksgiving and turning it into resentment. I had made it very clear that I needed to stay home and mourn Grandma in my own way. And then I went with my husband to the nursing home where his grandma stays, and endured the pain and vague atmospheric contamination of human feces to be, for a few moments, a member of a human family.

He called me again later and told me that he and my mother cried and stayed up at night, worrying about me and how I abuse them. That I should look for alternative housing solutions.

Which might be true. I used to think this place was all I ever wanted. But now it’s empty, and it exists as a pure vessel for pain.

He made an ultimatum during this last call. That I should come down there and talk.

He and I talk best during action. Neither of us are great at eye contact, and a helluva lot worse at seeing eye to eye. So I let him work on plumbing while I stacked wood. The only words he said to me during the half hour that I sweated? Asking where the air compressor was.

I left. I went upstairs. I tooled around.

I made a decision.

I heard him start to vacuum. I went out to my car and loaded my gun.

Today is the last night before my most hopeful treatment for depression, ECT. And I was ready to make it my last night.

I cried. And waited. And watched as his headlights flicked on and left.

It was the closest I have ever been to shooting myself.

If there’s any hope out there, it involves forgetting my family. I see that now.