Electroboy

by Andy Behrman

  February 1995. Upper West Side.

  Worn out and tired from my experience at Esmor, I’m pained to think that my sentence is not yet over. I still have to serve a five-month term of house arrest. The feds call it home detention, a name that seems much too kind and gentle. It isn’t quite incarceration, but it isn’t freedom either.

  I’m restricted to my one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side for twenty hours each day, with a beeper-sized electronic monitor continuously strapped to my left ankle, for 152 days. On the first day of my house arrest, Mr. Henry, my probation officer (P.O. in prisoner jargon), arrives exactly at 9:00 A.M. He’s a strong black man in his midthirties, perfectly dressed in a jacket and tie. He shakes my hand with a powerful grip. He’s carrying a canvas bag with the equipment—the ankle bracelet and a stationary monitor called a Home Escort, which looks like a simple cable television box. In fact, Mr. Henry’s not too much different from the average cable guy. In a matter of minutes he installs the Home Escort near my front door. It’s connected to a central station in Boulder, Colorado, operated, I like to imagine, by a bunch of middle-aged, female crossing-guard types. The Home Escort tracks my movement and lets “Boulder” know when I’ve gone out of my apartment. I’m asked if I want the bracelet on the right or left ankle. It’s an easy decision. I choose the left, because I want it on the same side as my heart—I think they will work well in unison. Mr. Henry adjusts the bracelet on my left ankle so that it’s comfortable but secure. I feel like he’s a tailor hemming my pants as I stand looking down at him fidgeting with my ankle. It’s a simple procedure, and when he’s finished he takes out a booklet and reads to me. The rules are straightforward and few. I am allowed outside to see my doctors, and, in addition, for four consecutive preestablished hours each day. I can have visitors, as long as they are law-abiding citizens, and I will be allowed time during the day to complete my court-ordered community service. I have chosen to work with dying AIDS patients at St. Clare’s Hospital because it has a well-structured volunteer program, and it turns out to be a welcome relief from being trapped inside, as well as providing me with some real perspective on suffering. Mr. Henry smiles, wishes me good luck, and squeezes my hand again. I’m all wired up and ready to go. I feel like a contestant on some silly British game show that I think I’ve seen before on cable.

  At first the ankle bracelet is a novelty with which I entertain my friends. Soon, though, it makes me feel kind of strange, like a life-sized action figure with a battery pack. Then it feels like a growth. I am forever fiddling with it. Wanting it off. When I’m inside, it reminds me of my confinement and I just want to take it off for a few seconds to hold my naked ankle, and when I’m outside, it reminds me of my curfew.

  The device goes everywhere I do, like a sinus condition. I sleep in it, eat with it, have sex in it. But it is showering that underscores the humiliation of house arrest: even after the last article of clothing is off and I am standing under hot water, there is still a black metal contraption soldered to my body. Even naked I can’t feel completely undressed. My clothes don’t hide the thing. When I go out, people stare, point, and whisper. Some approach me and ask point-blank if I am under house arrest; others ask me if it’s an odometer. It becomes a great conversation piece for my strolls down Broadway and Riverside Drive, almost like a rare breed of dog or a baby carriage with triplets. Strangers ask me out for drinks, coffee, and even dinner. I never thought the ankle bracelet would become a topic of conversation, much less a dating service. A pretty young lawyer from Miami drinking a cup of coffee next to me at Zabar’s is fascinated by it. “Do you mind if I ask you how you earned that piece of equipment?” she says. “Conspiracy to defraud—counterfeiting art,” I say. “Do you want me to get you another cup of coffee?” she asks. “Sure,” I tell her, and we chat for forty minutes.

  Because I am confined to my apartment, my manic world comes inside. I am like a butterfly trapped beneath a glass dome. I devour information, reading newspapers and magazines and watching the news on television for most of the day, keeping myself current in my isolated world, the grown-up version of my childhood spaceship.

  I’m obsessed with masturbating; I spend hours watching videos, looking at pornographic magazines, and talking on phone-sex lines. Sometimes I can actually miss a whole night’s sleep—inducing a tremendous high from the adrenaline rush—only to experience sleeplessness and tremendous depression the following day. The mania is fueling this intense sex drive that I cannot control. Dr. Fried increases my dosage of Risperdal, which seems to help, but, as before, the side effects are unbearable. I start getting day and night confused; they seem to run into each other. I’m a prisoner trapped and paralyzed with a supply of porn and fantasies big enough for an entire fraternity house. Masturbating with the ankle bracelet feels like an invasion of my privacy, as if the ladies in Boulder are watching on a remote camera.

  I compulsively vacuum every square inch of my apartment to see what collects in the vacuum bag. I fantasize about big globs of hair, paper, pins, pills, rubber bands, toenails, paper clips, eyelashes, and dead skin. I start my mission in the bedroom and use the hose to suck up the dust in the corners and edges of the room first, then under the bed, where I find the largest dustballs. I move on to the kitchen where I come across onion skins, crumbs, rice, and wilted lettuce. When I get to the living room, I sweep the floors with a broom first, suck up the neat pile of dirt in the center of the room, and then work the corners and edges. The entire process feels sexually gratifying; it’s an act with a purpose and an end result. Once my apartment is officially dust-free, I’m ready to take on the apartment next door. Would it be inappropriate to ask neighbors or friends if I could do some vacuuming for them? I have to think about the ethical issues here. It wouldn’t be a sexual thing or anything. Purely a friendly gesture, of course. I open the vacuum bag over the garbage. Out comes a big wad of junk, mostly gray matter, with some colorful speckles, and my pulse races with glee. I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.

  I’m having difficulty even going to my job at CASES because I don’t seem to understand my job responsibilities and can’t focus on what it is they want me to do there. So, I pass as much time as possible pretending that I am working, reading lists of potential contributors, and the rest of the time talking on the phone to friends, reading the newspaper, and going out with my office mates for lunch.

  February 6, 1995.

  I visit Dr. Fried because of my depression and suicidal thinking. She starts treating me with Effexor. I’ll give it a chance.

  March 6, 1995.

  Effexor is helpful in terms of my suicidal thinking but destructive in terms of the total loss of my libido, so I drop the Effexor and the lithium after a month. I start taking Luvox for depression and obsessional thinking.

  March 13, 1995.

  Luvox causes me to have retrograde orgasms (an orgasm in which the semen moves backward and is not released), which scare me to death, and I stop taking it.

  March 20, 1995.

  I mix alcohol and about ten Ambien and Klonopin to relax, not the safest combination, fill the bathtub with hot water, and fantasize about killing myself by floating beneath the surface—hoping that I’ll be too drowsy to resist drowning. I spend hours in the tub. I can’t give up this pleasure because it relieves so much of my pain. I tell Dr. Fried about these fantasies, and she prescribes Paxil for depression, but I become anorgasmic and refuse to continue taking it.

  April 3, 1995.

  I start getting confused, and my thinking becomes psychotic. When I speak to Dr. Fried, I use numbers for words—five translates to “happy;” seven translates to “tired.” I start threatening both of my doctors that I’m going to commit suicide and begin to curse uncontrollably to myself—shit, fuck, cock, pussy. I urinate on the kitchen floor because “it’s the thing to do,” I tell Dr. Fried. I ask her about trying some more medications. “We’ve been through all of it,” she says. She is clearly becoming frustrated about not being a
ble to find the right combination of medications for me. The last few weeks have been particularly difficult, because I’m experiencing mixed moods, extreme highs and lows that literally change from hour to hour. She has experimented with more than twenty-five medications—mood stabilizers, antidepressants, antipsychotics, sedatives, and sleeping pills—but no combinations seem to work. Because she is growing more and more concerned about my condition, she sees me twice a week and speaks with me sometimes two or three times a day by telephone. At this point I’m embarrassed that nothing is working, feeling like the bad patient, paranoid that I am somehow sabotaging my recovery. During one office visit I discuss suicide as a serious option with her. I talk to her about my feelings of despair. I believe that I will never improve and that I will live like this forever. I leave feeling dejected. She tells me to call her that night. I walk through the park toward the Dublin House on 79th Street and Broadway. I get an Amstel Light from the bartender and some quarters for the jukebox and play some Billy Joel songs that put me in the suicide frame of mind. The bar is empty. It’s about 4:30 P.M., and the more I drink the easier I feel like it’s going to be to die. I just don’t have any hope that anyone can help me straighten out my brain. I thought it would be Dr. Fried. And how many more doctors can I see? I can’t keep going like this. It hurts too bad. I’m not going to slit my wrists. I think I’m just going to swallow an entire bottle of Ambien and Klonopin and mix them with alcohol. I’m thinking about my parents and Nancy and her family and my friends, but in the end I’m the one suffering, and I can’t go on. I walk out of the bar with a beer in my hand and stumble home two blocks. The police are at my apartment looking for me. They’ve gotten in through the fire escape via my neighbor’s apartment. Of course, I’m frightened to find them there. Dr. Fried tried to call me at home but became worried when she couldn’t reach me, so she sent the police to look for me. She is relieved that I’m alive, and I feel very special that she cared so much. I talk to her at home after the police leave, and later we spend a lot of time during my sessions talking about my suicidal thinking.

  Madison Avenue Meltdown

  April 9, 1995.

  It’s the middle of the day. Perfect weather. I’m taking a walk up Madison Avenue. I’m in front of Barneys. My skin starts tingling, and I feel as if my insides are spilling onto the sidewalk. Everything moves in slow motion. I can’t hear. The taxis driving by are a blur of yellow. I rush home and curl up in my empty bathtub in my jeans and black turtleneck. I lie still for hours. I’m cold. Barefoot. Nothing seems to be working for me. Not the lithium, not the Depakote, not the Wellbutrin. I’m ashamed and frightened that the manic depression is growing wildly out of control. It feels like someone is pouring cement into my skull. Nobody can help me. The next episode is going to kill me. I can’t make it go away. I’m trying to ease the pain from the most recent plunge. The bathtub is too small and hard for me, but I feel safe here. I call Dr. Fried and explain that I’m in serious trouble and need help. I need relief from the pain. She tells me to be at her office at 5:00 P.M. and to ask my parents to come with me. I call my parents and wait for them to pick me up.

  We arrive at Dr. Fried’s office early and sit in the waiting room until she finishes with her last patient. We’re all scared to death. Dr. Fried brings us into her office and begins by telling us that we have tried every possible combination of medication available and my condition has still not been stabilized; I have reached a critical stage. So I ask the question about the last resort—electroconvulsive therapy, or electroshock therapy, as it is more commonly called. Dr. Fried has mentioned ECT before, but she has always been very much against treating me with it because of the side effects, particularly memory loss. There is an odd silence, and Dr. Fried looks at my parents. It’s as if I’ve asked the wrong thing. But we’ve all known all along that it could come to this, and we all know that that’s why we’re here. Dr. Fried explains that ECT is used to treat depression, manic depression, mania, and schizophrenia and that it causes a seizure in the brain by passing a mild electric current through the head. She tells us one of the main criticisms is that there is no convincing scientific explanation of how it works, only a number of unsubstantiated theories. I’m not too worried about the memory loss, I tell her, and I’m not that interested in hearing these theories, but she explains them to us anyway. According to the neurotransmitter theory, ECT has effects similar to those of antidepressant medications, altering levels of important mood-related chemicals in the brain, such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Proponents of the anticonvulsant theory contend that the seizures induced by ECT actually condition the brain to become seizure-resistant. The neuroendocrine theory holds that ECT-induced seizures affect the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that regulates important functions such as sleep and body temperature, prompting it to release a chemical that stabilizes mood. Finally, there’s the controversial brain-damage theory, which postulates that the shock from ECT literally causes brain damage, creating for the patient the illusion of mental stability. Brain damage scares the shit out of me. Am I going to become a permanent zombie, forced to return to the suburbs to live with my parents? After listening to Dr. Fried talk, I wonder if I shouldn’t just try to administer the shock myself at home, possibly using my hair dryer in the bathtub. I don’t like the sound of the brain-damage theory, but what other choice do I have? My situation has become so critical that I have nothing left to consider. ECT is really my only possibility. I say I’m so desperate that I’ll do it because I have nothing to lose at this point.

  Dr. Fried refers us to a well-respected specialist, Dr. Charles Wallenstein. I feel if I make the decision to go ahead and have the ECT, I will no longer be responsible for having the manic depression—that I will have chosen the most barbaric treatment and in return will be relieved of the burden of responsibility for having this illness. Hopefully, all of the guilt and shame I have about bringing this illness on myself from all my neuroses, compulsions, and obsessions will fade away.

  The next afternoon we meet Dr. Wallenstein in his Park Avenue office. He’s a tall, lanky man in his sixties with a soothing voice. He reminds me of my childhood pediatrician, and I feel at ease with him right away. He tells us he has reviewed my case with Dr. Fried and he feels strongly that I am a good candidate for electroshock therapy and that it will improve my condition. He tells me that my manic depression would be difficult to control with medication alone. These strike me as being stock lines, but I’ll try anything. There’s almost no discussion about the actual process, but Dr. Fried has filled us in enough. He just tells us where to show up and that I’ll be in the hospital for seven to ten days (I’ll have to have this approved by probation). There is something about ECT that sounds adventurous, like a scary ride at an amusement park, and even glamorous—I am reminded of celebrities like Vivien Leigh, Gene Tierney, Frances Farmer, and Ernest Hemingway, who were locked up in insane asylums and jolted. My parents seem calm and allow me to do the talking, but I can see that they realize the severity of the situation. We’re about to make a decision together about my having electroshock therapy the next day at Gracie Square Hospital, and we know very little about it. It’s as if I’m being asked something as simple as how much milk I want in my coffee. Just a drop, please. I’m so dulled that I can’t even feel how frightened I really am.

  Electroboy

  April 11, 1995. 8:00 A.M.

  The light is streaming in through the dirty windows on the terrace floor of Gracie Square Hospital on the Upper East Side. I’m waiting in a hallway outside of the operating room wearing just a light blue hospital gown with a group of about ten or so other depressed souls, schizophrenic crackups, manic-depressive freaks, and confused Alzheimer’s patients who come in an assortment of colors, shapes, and sizes. Some of them are talking to themselves, some are talking to each other, some are busy reading old magazines without covers, and some are just sitting nervously staring. The hallway is shabby—the paint is peeling, the early-six
ties furniture is dingy, and there are long black scuff marks on the floor. I’m trying to assign a person and date to each scuff mark. A woman in her late sixties sitting next to me tells me that this is her fifteenth electroshock treatment in four months. It’s an impressive number. For some reason I’m staring at the two gold chains around her neck while I’m talking to her. One has a tiny heart hanging from it; the other has a cross. Her name is Lena, and she tells me that she was diagnosed with depression more than ten years ago. She has dark circles under her eyes. She claims that ECT has saved her life. This is one of her worst bouts in the last few years, but I don’t really care too much about her psychiatric history; I only want to know if I’m going to feel any pain. “You have no reason to worry,” she assures me. “You won’t feel a thing.” “Easier than root canal?” I ask. “No comparison.” She smiles. I look down at the palms of my hands. My skin looks gray and pale, and I can only focus on the blue and green veins crisscrossing the inside of my forearms and wrists. My mouth is dry and I ask one of the nurses for something to drink, but she tells me that I can’t drink until after the treatment. The doctors and nurses keep using the term “treatment” as if we’re at Georgette Klinger. It sounds so pleasant—could it be? That would be nice. Could it be as relaxing as a massage? As refreshing as a facial? What am I getting so worked-up about? I’m not usually this scared going to the dentist. But I’m not getting my teeth cleaned. I’m in a hospital about to get electroshock. I never imagined this illness would land me in a mental hospital. I hope they call me toward the end of this morning’s group. This way I’ll be able to see if the first few survive the treatment. It looks like they’ve already processed another group before us because I see a man in his forties stumbling out of the recovery room, clinging to two nurses for support. He doesn’t seem like he’s in such good shape—he looks like a lifeless rag doll, utterly confused and lost. Oh, my God. Am I going to be permanently damaged by ECT? Am I sure this was a wise choice? Dr. Wallenstein told me there was really no other alternative. ECT is a last resort in my case. There is no more medication to try—we have been through the endless combinations—Depakote, Neurontin, Wellbutrin, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Trazodone, Effexor, Klonopin, Zoloft, Paxil, Serzone, Tegretol, Artane, Ativan. The heaviest of the many Jamaican nurses comes around and takes my blood pressure and then puts a sticky round “tag” on my chest to monitor my heartbeat. It gets connected to some wires in the operating room later. Amanda, who is no older than twenty-two and is bandaged from wrist to elbow because she has sliced up her arms with a knife, is the first one called. She whistles “Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho” as she lies down on the gurney closest to the operating room and is wheeled away by two male attendants, through the swinging doors and into the operating room. She waves good-bye to the group. As the doors open, I can see down the hall into the O.R. and recognize Dr. Wallenstein, and feel reassured that he showed up for work today. Everything is okay for a moment. Dr. Wallenstein is here. He must be treating all of us. I ask Lena. She tells me Dr. Wallenstein is her doctor, too. He is wonderful and I should calm down. I am in good hands. He has been doing this for twenty-five years. Pressing a button for twenty-five years. Michael, a guy roughly my age, leans toward us and tells me that this is his fifth treatment and that “Dr. Wallenstein is a pro. Trust me, you won’t feel a thing. It’s actually kind of cool,” he says. I thank him and try to imagine how fucking cool it’s going to be. He looks down at my leg. “What’s that thing around your ankle?” he asks me. I tell him that it’s a monitoring device and that I’m under house arrest. “Cool,” he responds. “Mr. Behrman,” calls one of the nurses. I’m saved from telling the saga of the art fraud. I stand up and hop onto the next gurney in line, lying down on my back and resting on my elbows. I ask the nurse how long I’ll be in the operating room. About ten minutes. In recovery? About an hour. She asks me if this is my first time. Yes. You’ll be just fine. Now I realize I can’t stop talking. I have a million questions about what’s going to happen. She holds my hand with her chubby hand. I signal back to Lena, giving her the okay sign, and she whispers something to me that I can’t quite make out. I shrug. She crosses herself. Exactly what I need to see before I’m wheeled into an operating room. I wait to be rolled past the swinging doors. I feel as if I’m waiting for either the scariest roller-coaster ride of my life or my own execution. I’m convinced that if I live, my brain will be reduced to a blank Rolodex. I look down at my bare feet. A flawless loafer tan line.