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Shockaholic

It turns out that the Italians are the unsung heroes electroconvulsive therapy–wise. It is these brilliant wise guys who gave us ECT, or as it was formerly and less respectably known, SHOCK TREATMENT. Actually, it was really one Italian in particular, though I like to think of all Italians banding together and coming up with one of the finest alternative treatments for depression and mania.

The particular Italian who brought it to us (and when I say “us” I mean “me”) was a very thoughtful neurologist named Ugo Cerletti. Dr. Cerletti was a specialist in epilepsy and, as such, had done extensive experiments on the effects of repeated seizures over time in animals.

Well, we all know how crazy cats and dogs can get, and who among us hasn’t had to cope with our share of nutty pigs? I can’t count how many nights I’ve spent haunted by terrifying images of pet pigs in the throes of a seizure. Many of us are familiar with the expression, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” Well, perhaps a lesser known saying (but certainly just as apt) is, “What’s good for the anesthetized pig prior to slaughter is also effective in treating a devastated human susceptible to suicide!”

Over time, Dr. Cerletti managed to convince several other bold colleagues with sufficient spare time to assist him in developing an apparatus able to deliver brief electric jolts—at first merely to the odd crestfallen cat but eventually to actual psychotic human beings.

It was in April of 1938 that Dr. Cerletti began delivering, on alternate days, to some of the more psychotic and suicidally depressed patients, between ten and twenty ECT shocks. And you’ll be happy to hear that the results were nothing short of miraculous. For example: 90 percent of the gang with everything from your wilted-garden-variety depression to hopeless catatonia showed everything from moderate to tremendous improvement! (The unhelped 10 percent were probably the agents of the improved 90.) And of course the other handy upside was that, for the most part, these patients wouldn’t remember much from right before to a few weeks after their treatment, so it was rare that patients complained about the experience.

Not that, in the beginning, there weren’t complaint-worthy aspects of the procedure. In the earliest days, the ECT seizures could be so violent your bones might break, especially those that were commonly referred to as the “long bones.” But it wasn’t long before doctors discovered a medication that could not only prevent the previously unavoidable convulsions but would also protect the longer bones of the formerly vulnerable arms and legs. Soon after, the administering of a short-term anesthesia ensured that the patients no longer even had to be conscious during those miraculously healing seizures.

Of course, ECT is rarely considered as treatment until all other valuable medications and talk therapies have failed. Then, and only then, do they suggest that you light up the dark and gloomy skies behind your forehead.

To say the least, this treatment has anything but good PR. You won’t be stunned to hear that “shock” turns out to be one of those words that is almost impossible to put a positive spin on, which I’m sure is why they’ve done all they could to phase it out of the current official term. (Not that “convulsive” sounds all that great, or even “electro,” for that matter.) I mean, come on, whenever you see ECT depicted in a movie it’s pretty much always a terrifying event, like pushing someone out a window or under a train. Now, I have long been someone whose TV is on twenty-four hours a day tuned to movie channels old and new—my television is a bit like complicated wallpaper, eager to entertain but all too frequently unable to oblige. So, given the relentlessness with which I’m exposed to both the classic films and the more current offerings, I think it’s safe to say I’ve seen pretty much all of the available mental hospital movie fare: everything from The Snake Pit to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, to Frances, and all the way up to Changeling.

Yes, even in the 2008 film Changeling, ECT was portrayed as the undisputed finest method available to both control and render mute the more problematically uncooperative patients in the ward. So, when doctors first proposed that I might find this treatment beneficial, there was absolutely no way on God’s less-and-less-green Earth that I was going to subject myself to its reputed horrors. I, like most others, thought you had to be completely insane to consider it, or have it considered for you, and up to then I guess I didn’t feel completely insane.

I mean, clearly no one would vote for volts until everything else had failed. It’s reserved for those languishing in the suicidal ideation lounge, and I had never been truly suicidal. Not that I haven’t, on occasion, thought it might be an improvement over the all-too-painful present if I could be deadish for maybe just a teeny little bit of it. You know, like a really good sleep, after which I’d wake refreshed and equal to whatever the problem had been, that problem would have now vanished.

In my first novel, Postcards from the Edge, my main character, Suzanne Vale, who many have pointed out bore an uncanny resemblance to me, was asked if her drug overdose had been a suicide attempt. Suzanne dismissed this notion as absurd, to which the doctor then pointed out, “Well, some might find your behavior very suicidal,” to which I—excuse me, Suzanne—responded, “Well, the behavior might be, but I’m certainly not.” You might even find that, with my particular combination of poor judgment and recklessness, it could be seen as being a very good impression of suicidal. It really does convince people, particularly doctor-types, and it’s almost impossible to unconvince them.

My emotional difficulties were exacerbated during the period following the death of my friend Greg Stevens, whose name almost never appeared in print without the identifying phrase “gay Republican political operative.” So why break tradition here? My gay republican political operative friend had only recently died, and try as I might, I couldn’t help but blame myself for not having saved him. I did this largely because he died sleeping next to me (though not, technically, with me—see “gay”) from a combination of OxyContin use and sleep apnea. But because it happened on my watch, I subsequently had a very difficult time putting it safely behind me. And, over time, I hope you won’t find it entirely preposterous that I came to believe that my house was haunted. Specifically, of course, by Greg’s gay Republican political operative ghost.

I’d heard that my home was the scene of a few spectral sightings prior to my having moved in. For example, the woman who’d lived there the longest, eight-time Academy Award–winning costume designer Edith Head, was said to roam the property on the weekends wearing a yellow nightgown. Why a woman so involved with the creation of a large number of cinema’s most memorable costumes worn in some of Hollywood’s treasured films, would choose to wear something so unadorned as a nightgown—and a yellow one at that—is beyond me. Maybe she was tired of fashion and chose to wear something she could nap in for a very bland eternity. Perhaps she wore a nightgown for haunting at night! That would be a practical solution, no? But whatever the reason, if Edith did happen to roam her once-beloved home, she never floated past me. Nor did I spot any visions of Bette Davis, who sold the property to Edith, or Robert Armstrong, King Kong’s captor in the original film, who built the house and sold it to Bette. No, my house was blissfully apparition-free until my gay Republican political operative (GRPO) friend Greg died in it.