EST and my old neighbor

EST and my old neighbor

I ran into somebody that I had not seen or talked to for three years in my neighborhood. We ended up talking about all the people we knew in common back in those days and very surprised to discover how many couples had broken off despite of how tight they seemed to be stuck to each other. Among of all, though, the shocker was D's news. She was a woman that I used to know closely. She did not seem to be an exception to split with her husband even though they appeared to stay together forever, not because of their love for each other but because of her uncompromising control over her husband S. You have not reached the shocking part yet, though.

She broke up with her husband now and she got caught by this severe depression she never seemed to shake off. What she resorted to was to get an Electric Shock Treatment.

I was very alarmed to hear that. I know lots of people who go through stubborn depression, which almost surmounts to the cliche. This seems to be what North American people are doomed to experience as the consequence of their highly individualized and 'civilized' life style that is based upon sacrifices others', minority and/or foreigner's, mostly, make. However, it is not so common to see somebody go for EST. All the association that I have with the method might be biased and old fashioned, such horrible cases  that I have seen in movies like Magdalene Sisters or An Angel at my table.

D was known as a typical case of JAP (Jewish American Princess) in New York added to the arrested development partly because she was spoiled and partly bacause of her heroine and other substance abuse developed in her early teenage years. She managed to clean all the habit owing to the terrible car accident that almost put her in the eternal paralysis at the age of 20, which left some deformation in of her legs that we could still see after more than ten years. After all, though, she survived the accident and even thrived.

When I befriended with her, she finally put herself together and started to play in a band she formed with her professional base player husband. Since I had so much trouble with her, I was happiest when I could finally get rid of her when she moved out of the guttery neighborhood for a co-op bought by her parents for her.

I would rather not go into the details but she was busybodying, prying and trying so hard to matchmake as a typical married woman, who felt insecure as seeing unwed people, because she had to question the validity of her own decision in her life. All in all, she was somebody who could have relationships only if she was controlling others. She even had no experience of working nor made money by herself. Fortunately or unfortunately, she had all the people who were grateful and/or could appreciate if only she was alive. If she could move and make a sandwitch on her own in future, which was predicted to be impossible when she was run over by a car, that would have been a triumph of her life. What the doctors warned was that she would be paralysed or would function in a very limited range at het best. Now that she could bitch and control others, it could not be any more pleasing for her family.

Well, the fabulous story is through. She is alone and suffering for her depression to the extent that she needed EST to release herself from the paralysis of her mind. I figure how much suffering she had gone through. But that does not make me want to go back to her and pick up where we left off. Chances are she is getting only worse than ever and actually that was what R (the one that I actually saw and talked to) described. She had her rough time and all the more she became unmanagable. She had acquired another justice of being a bitch.

At least, her father was a psychiatrist, so the decision she made to take EST might be the result of what was thought through and well examined envolving the professional figure close to her. This is another cliched JAP story in NY. She has got all the pampering staffs in her life so that she can make herself unhappy till her heart's content.