ELECTROCUTION UPDATE Yesterday, Judi Tedlie asked me to write about the electro-convulsive treatments I went through in April. I made the decision to use that therapy after a friend, who had also suffered years of depression, urged me to consider the option. My first response to my friends urging was, No--I already did the frog venom treatment with a shaman here in Mexico, and Im only half-depressed. It was true I had cut the anti-depressants I was using down by half after the shamanic treatment, and thats a story, too, but a different story. I cant remember why I decided to yield to my friends urgings, other than the change I saw in her as a result of the ECT treatments. But I did yield, and I went through five sessions. The neuro-psychiatrist who administered the treatment had two clinics: one in Queretero, and one in Mexico City. This was his specialty, and he explained the risks on my first visit. The electric current surging through my brain would be less than that of an eight volt light bulb. The only risk associated with this treatment would be that it might not work. It worked. I was able to discontinue the antidepressants I had been using for nearly 30 years, which had once been such a blessing in my life, but had now become problematic. Initially I felt a huge surge of euphoria; a feeling of newness and freshness in the world. That euphoria changed, over the weeks since the treatments ended, into a lovely calm. It is not that I do not feel sadness at times. I do. But it is, I think, a more normal sadness than the deep depressions that were my daily life before. For awhile, I forgot whole episodes--I called them anecdotes--of things that happened to me: the time David and I took the Chinese kite out to the presa and flew it, for example. My memory was that we did not fly the kite at all. I still dont remember what he told me happened after we had our picnic by the dam--that I held the kite, and he ran with it, and it was airborne for only a moment before it fell into a bush. I remember the picnic; I remember hiking back through the botanical garden to the car. But that little interaction does not exist in my mind. I believe the forgetting is over, other than the usual forgetfulness that had been in my life for some time, anyway. At least, no one has told me lately about something I did with them that has completely left my mind. I think the change is this: I am calmer and more receptive to things and people around me. I am more able to live within the Dalai Lamas advice to not worry about what one can change because one can change it; and likewise, to not worry about about what one can not change, as one cannot change it. I no longer walk the earth with insecurity and fear of other people, and that is the biggest change and the biggest blessing. This is the report three and one-half months out. I think my therapy was two-fold: the ancient Mexican shamanic approach of the frog venom experience, combined with the electro-convulsive therpy of modern psychiatry. I am glad to have had both available to me, here in Mexico, in this time of my life.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 14:39:36 +0000