natashavc:

madmenfootnotes:

Finally! A chance to talk about my favorite cocktail party topics: BIPOLAR DEPRESSION and ELECTROCONVUSLIVE THERAPY!

Here are some talking points for you:

*Electroconvulsive therapy has benefits (rarely though)! It’s most often used for schizophrenics or those with severe major depression, the sort that includes periods of catatonic paralysis. Did you see Melancholia (it’s on netflix!)? It’s like how Kirsten Dunst was when her sister tried to giver her bath. Poor Kiki. Poor Beth.

*Did you catch what Beth’s brute husband said? How she spreads her legs for the first chump that comes along? Between that comment and Beth’s post-coital musings on death and the feeling of DOOM after looking at pictures of earth from space, it’s safe to assume that she’s bipolar. Especially since it sounds like she’s fucked around before, meaning, perhaps, HYPOMANIA! A distinguishing characteristic of bipolar disorder :

 Excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g., the person engages in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments)

* Bipolar didn’t even have a name in 1966, psychiatrists were still using DSM 1 from 1952! The DSM wasn’t updated until 1968. That means thirty six years where severe, manic, major, bipolar, unipolar, schizophrenia, were all lumped into one category under  as some sort of organic brain disorder. Thus, treatment was as blunt as the diagnosis.

*The memory loss issue with ECT is very real! A 1986 study on ECT interviewed 41 recipients of the treatment. 83 percent of women said they had experienced short and long term memory loss. Many of them had treatment in the mid sixties. Here are some quotes from the study:

• “”I can’t remember my 20-year Marine Corps career…or daughter’s birth or childhood…”]
• “Turned me into a walking zombie, killing all emotions and feelings for several months…” 
• “It’s like a bomb being set off inside your head…literally a mind-blowing torture…”
• “I couldn’t remember people’s names, but it gradually came back…with some prompting…”

• “Doctor stopped returning my phone calls when I said ‘memory’s not returning…’”

Temporary bandages on permanent wounds and such. :(

ASK ME ABOUT MOOD DISORDERS!!! 

my dad went through an EMT trial almost 10 years ago.

he doesn’t remember big chunks of my brother and i’s childhood now…