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Shocked! My Story
by Mariah Warren
The dread and hopelessness of depression and anxiety first hit me at age eighteen, when I started
college, nine months after my father's death. I began therapy and on anti-depressants, and
apart from the occasional need for Xanax when I felt I was breaking down, I managed to live a
fairly normal life, getting my Bachelor's in Music, working for a college, and getting married to
a wonderful, caring man. Everything changed in 2006.
The university I worked for decided to close my campus, and I took that as a signal to move on,
since my workload decreased to nearly nothing. I got a job working as a pre-K teacher's
assistant, thinking I'd use my music skills and allow my creativity to flourish.
Unfortunately, I denied the voice in me that said "You should be doing more with your
life. This isn’t for you," and it took only a few days for the anxiety of this
conflict to rear its head and incapacitate me. I left the job immediately, my spirit
crushed. I decided to get more intense help and entered a partial-hospitalization program
at a local treatment facility. During this time, I tried various medications to ease my
anxiety, and kept up a steady use of Klonopin (a tranquilizer) under my doctor's
supervision. Despite my work in the program, I still felt like a ship with no course, lost
and anxious. My anxiety mounted and so did my dosage of Klonopin. Over Thanksgiving
weekend I reached the breaking point. Unable to do more than shake, pace, and cry, and
wanting to overdose, I felt hopeless. My family took me to a private hospital that weekend
and I was admitted to the acute care unit.
It's so hard to say goodbye to your family, to watch them leaving and knowing how bad off you
are. I know it's just as hard on them. I spent a lot of time crying, still feeling
hopeless, but I knew I was safe. I caught glimpses of light in the friendliness of my
fellow patients, who got me playing ping-pong and singing along to the old piano in our lounge,
and in the caring of the staff members who watched over us. Ever so slowly, hope began to
return to my life. My doctor felt the most immediate aid to my recovery would be ECT,
Electro-Convulsive Therapy. No, this isn't the barbaric torture depicted in "One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest." It's a safe treatment, used in treatment resistant cases (and
with pregnant women and the elderly), by which an electrical current is transmitted into the
brain of a sedated patient, causing a seizure that is thought to reset the brain. After
some nervous consultations with the doctor, my husband, and my mother, I agreed to the procedure,
and began with unilateral treatments (current is only applied to one side of the brain).
Apart from an initial headache, a bit of confusion, and fatigue, I felt no adverse affects from
the treatment. I didn't feel much improvement, either. After several sessions, my
doctor brought up the idea of trying bilateral ECT, applying the current to my entire
brain. I still felt so anxious and at wits' end that I was willing to try anything to
"shock" me out of my depression, so I agreed without really discussing it with my
family, who were none too pleased that I had decided to try something with a higher risk of
memory loss. I didn’t care. I only wanted to be myself again. I stayed nearly a
month at the psychiatric hospital, making friends, participating in group therapy, meeting with
my doctor on a daily basis…. My family visited often, and brought me the well-wishes of
friends and our church family. One of my friends from church knitted me a prayer shawl,
which I keep close by me to this day. Her concern touched my heart. I left the
hospital three days before Christmas, 2006. I was so happy to see my cat, Kitty, and to be
home, but at the same time, I felt scared- what would life be like without the structure of the
hospital? Could I function? How would people treat me?
I returned to church and was welcomed with hugs and kisses. It bothered me that I
recognized my friends but could not remember their names. I was still undergoing ECT three
times a week (a total of two months treatment time) and I entered a different partial
hospitalization program to bring structure back into my days. My husband and I travelled on
the weekends, and I found myself confused, wondering if I'd been certain places before, unable to
remember. I had been told I could lose memory, particularly memories of the year during
which I received my ECT. But I found I'd lost more than that- I could hardly remember trips
we'd taken years before, major events like weddings and other celebrations. As time went
on, after the ECT treatments were complete, I began to lose my memories of the past year- my time
in day treatment and my time in the hospital. I kept in touch with one friend from my
in-patient stay, and when she talked about other friends and things we did, I could not see their
faces or remember our experiences. I only have scattered images of the hospital and some of
the people I met there. I am thankful that I kept a diary and hope that one day I will
recall more of my experiences. Yes, some say it's a good thing that I've forgotten since it
was such a horrible time for me, but I have not forgotten the pain, just the narrative, the who
and the how.
Back home, I became active in my church choir and started to look for work, but the prospect of
holding a job overwhelmed me. Eventually, I asked a friend if I could work in the kitchen
of her camp for the summer. I'd spent a day there as a volunteer, and enjoyed the feeling I
got while serving others. I figured it would be an easy transition into working again, and
it would allow me the freedom to discover what I really wanted to do with my life.
Unfortunately, anxiety hit me again, and this time I went a step too far- I took more of my
medications than I should have, in the hopes of sleeping off my intense emotions and waking up
with a clearer head. Ok, to put it bluntly, I took an overdose. But I didn't put it
that way. My husband came to get me for my second shift at the camp, and I complained-
quite angrily- that my pills didn't work, that I didn't sleep at all. When he pressed me
further, I admitted what I'd done and why, and he began to freak out. I have never seen my
husband so worked up. We wound up going to the ER, where I figured I'd be checked for any
damage to my body and then I'd come home. Instead, I was asked to put on a hospital gown
and was wheeled up to the mental health unit without being asked for my consent. I couldn't
believe I had no say in the matter. I met with a counselor, who advised me rest and relax,
that I would be taken care of and would be able to leave in a few days. I also met with the
psychiatrist on duty, a new doctor and the chair of the Department of Psychiatry. He
treated me like a capable adult, and told me I could take it easy or I could do some homework–
writing him an autobiography. Always the good student, I took up the challenge, writing
several pages on my life, thus giving him a glimpse into my past and how my mind works. He
saw that despite all the treatments I'd tried, I never underwent traditional psychoanalysis, his
specialty. He could tell I would be a great candidate as I had a clear mind and the
capacity for such in-depth exploration. I almost couldn't believe it when he offered to
work with me on an out-patient basis, and I took him up on it.
I spent a little over three days on the unit, and as suggested, I did relax. I met a fellow
musician and she and I have become good friends. And I met my current doctor. Through
my work with him, I have been able to come off of many of the medications I had been on since my
first hospitalization. My anxiety has lessened and I returned to work this past fall, as a
church secretary, a job that works well for me. I enjoy helping others, especially in
relationship to their faith. This fall, I also founded an arts ministry with my pastor, and
we put on our first production, "Godspell," in April.
Right now, I continue to see my doctor for analysis twice a week. I’ve made strides but
it's like an archeological dig- there's always something to uncover, and you have to do a lot of
digging sometimes. I'm trying to find out who I really am and what I want in my heart,
instead of worrying about what others might think. It's not an easy process, and I get
frustrated a lot, but I press on, in the hopes that one day I'll find my buried treasure.
With family, friends, and most importantly, faith, I'm on the road to recovery, and I hope to be
a beacon of hope to others who face the same journey.
When one faces a time of darkness, the question arises: where is God now? Some may choose
to deny the existence or presence of God, for their experiences are so terrible that all hope is
lost. For me, acknowledging God was necessary. If God did not exist, or was not with
me, then I would have nothing, no hope, no life. God had to watch His only Son be tortured
and crucified, and He could do nothing to stop it; He knows our pain and grief, and is there to
hold our hand through the darkness. God did not speak to me directly or work a miracle
like the parting of the Red Sea, but He was there: in the kind words of the people who helped me,
in the friendships I made, in the love of my family and of my church. God came to me in the
sunlight, in each passing day, slowly illuminating the darkness and bringing me back to life.
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