In the tradition of Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire and Hadley Freeman’s Good Girls, this is an intimate, deeply researched story of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) by the celebrated Smithsonian editor, memoirist, and essayist.
Before I can tell you about the shock treatment, I should tell you about the horse tranquilizer.
Ted Scheinman struggled with depression his whole life, but never like this. At thirty-five years old, he’d tried nearly everything. As antidepressants, therapy and powerful sedatives like ketamine proved ineffective, his mental health continued to deteriorate, along with his relationships and any hope of a happy life. Only one medical option remained: electroconvulsive therapy.
Like most people, Ted felt a shiver down his spine. ECT occupies a singular place in our cultural memory. For decades, many patients were famously subjected to it against their will – and even today, many associate it with horrifying images of convulsing bodies. But Ted had a bigger fear: if ECT didn’t work, he might be lost forever.
Jolt: My Electric Journey Out of Darkness follows Ted’s descent into and emergence from major depression as he undergoes ECT. The electricity proved remarkably successful, but at great cost: Ted’s memory began failing him, and he was now missing major episodes from his life. In order to understand the relationship between memory and mental health, he investigates the history of this most controversial of treatments – which he credits with saving his life, and which, he discovers, saves tens of thousands of lives each year. But if ECT is so effective, why do doctors only recommend it as a treatment of last resort?
What emerges is both an inquest into the nature of mental health and a beautiful, funny, and philosophical memoir about what we’re willing to sacrifice to have a chance at life.
Before I can tell you about the shock treatment, I should tell you about the horse tranquilizer.
Ted Scheinman struggled with depression his whole life, but never like this. At thirty-five years old, he’d tried nearly everything. As antidepressants, therapy and powerful sedatives like ketamine proved ineffective, his mental health continued to deteriorate, along with his relationships and any hope of a happy life. Only one medical option remained: electroconvulsive therapy.
Like most people, Ted felt a shiver down his spine. ECT occupies a singular place in our cultural memory. For decades, many patients were famously subjected to it against their will – and even today, many associate it with horrifying images of convulsing bodies. But Ted had a bigger fear: if ECT didn’t work, he might be lost forever.
Jolt: My Electric Journey Out of Darkness follows Ted’s descent into and emergence from major depression as he undergoes ECT. The electricity proved remarkably successful, but at great cost: Ted’s memory began failing him, and he was now missing major episodes from his life. In order to understand the relationship between memory and mental health, he investigates the history of this most controversial of treatments – which he credits with saving his life, and which, he discovers, saves tens of thousands of lives each year. But if ECT is so effective, why do doctors only recommend it as a treatment of last resort?
What emerges is both an inquest into the nature of mental health and a beautiful, funny, and philosophical memoir about what we’re willing to sacrifice to have a chance at life.
Reviews
Like some cockeyed modern version of Dante's Virgil, Ted Scheinman takes the reader on a vivid journey through his descent into a depressive inferno and his ascent back out of it. Only Scheinman's a lot funnier-imagine Virgil with the self-lacerating wit of Carrie Fisher or Augusten Burroughs. A fascinating and hopeful consideration of a controversial treatment, as well as a brilliant meditation on memory and identity, Jolt belongs on the same shelf as classics by Donald Antrim and William Styron.
A beautifully written chronicle of what it's like to manage life-long depression and the hard choices mental illness forces on its sufferers. In this generous and deeply compelling memoir, Scheinman probes his family history with compassion and insight-without a whiff of victimhood. His most impressive artistic feat is that he has written a book about devastating depression that is warm, hopeful, and threaded with humor.
Profoundly moving. An expertly narrated coming-of-age story, wrenchingly poignant, but also keenly comedic in showing how absurdity and sorrow live side by side. Though depression is often called a disease of silence, Scheinman has illuminated the crevices that the illness strains to hide. By taking up the urgent work of demystifying ECT, he combats decades of stigma about a treatment that saves lives.
Sometimes the most personal narratives reveal the deepest universal truths. Jolt is such a story. Told with kindness, insight, and grace-as well as with a unique sense of humor-this book has enriched me. To read it is to become a more thoughtful friend, parent, and person in the world. Even in moments of complex struggle, the quiet wisdom coursing through the story inspires and changes you.
How rare to find a writer as gifted as Ted Scheinman who is willing to take readers into the deepest and darkest corners of his life and emerge with such hope. This gorgeous, generous book is a celebration of the human spirit. You are in for a great treat.