Huge missed "poetic justice" opportunity…
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milicentbrovovich — 10 years ago(September 20, 2015 04:31 AM)
Nah. That's way too overboard and "justice porn" I don't like it at all. And I HAAAAAAAAAAAAATE PERCY!! But mental illness is a terrible thing - he got his punishment. There would be no satisfaction in watching a vegetable of a man being subjected to shock treatments, however horrible he was, that's just very sadistic. I know a lot of people who would love your idea but I'm so glad they didn't go there.
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felstein — 10 years ago(September 22, 2015 03:26 AM)
"Justice porn" good expression, I like that!
Look, no one appreciates how horrible mental illness is more than I do. My idea was not to have Percy suffer MORE, but simply to draw parallels regarding the application of electricity. The poetic justice is in having him endure a treatment based on electricity after he has (somewhat joyously) applied a punishment based on electricity, along with all the associated trappings electrodes, pads, straps, convulsions, etc.
BTW, how do you know shock treatments wouldn't have HELPED Percy? Granted, the application of that therapy was very primitive in those days in regards to number of treatments, amount of voltage, etc. But shock treatment, or electroconvulsive therapy to use the proper term, has proven miraculous for a great many people my father included!! -
Captain_Beeble — 10 years ago(September 29, 2015 04:54 PM)
There's no point in kicking somebody that's already down, and has absolutely no chance of getting back up again. So how exactly did shock treatment help your Dad? I've never heard of that practice helping anyone.
"How could a man love anything except a blonde?"
-Captain Phoebus, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' -
felstein — 10 years ago(September 29, 2015 06:54 PM)
I've never heard of that practice helping anyone.
Seriously?? Go online and research the countless case studies that have been done. While ECT is considered a treatment of last resort, it has been shown to have a success rate of around 70 percent in providing fast relief for the most severe depressions. The negative press that it has gotten speaks more to how it was (mis)used in the past (as a form of behavior control), and the fact that people are more likely in general to report negative experiences with something than positive experiences. It is certainly not on the same level as a primitive and destructive "treatment" like lobotomy, with which it is often (unfairly) mentioned in the same breath.
In my father's case, it brought him back from a depression so severe that he was literally on the brink of death. Medications, therapy all were ineffectual. Only ECT worked, and the result was miraculous. -
Captain_Beeble — 10 years ago(September 30, 2015 06:36 PM)
Did it get him out of his depression permanently? I heard shock treatment only temporarily makes you forget about things that are making you feel bad, and then it wears off and you're depressed again. If it actually worked for somebody, that's a newsflash to me.
"How could a man love anything except a blonde?"
-Captain Phoebus, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' -
felstein — 10 years ago(October 01, 2015 02:45 AM)
Sorry, but I can tell you're speaking from a position of ignorance on the subject of depression. True clinical depression has nothing to do with "things that are making you feel bad" like divorce, death of a loved one, job loss, etc. That is "being depressed." Clinical depression (or melancholia, to use a more accurate term) is a biological disease involving a myriad of different chemical components: The HPA axis, neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, the endocrine system, etc. One does not have to have anything in his/her life making him/her feel bad. Clinical depression, like any other physical disease, can strike at any time, even when someone is at their happiest. So it was with my father, and so it is with a great many others. And to answer your question, yes, it was a lasting treatment for him for almost 20 years until he had another attack, but this speaks to the physiological component of depression, as this later episode also occurred when there were no external stressors present. Like before, ECT proved to be an effective treatment.
I don't know why it is so hard for some people to understand that the brain is an organ, just like any other in the human body. And as such, it is subject to disease. Mood states, both happy and sad, are nothing more than interplays of different chemicals in the brain. So imagine if those chemicals got disrupted in some way such that the brain gets stuck in a dysphoric state THAT is clinical depression. Epilepsy is a physical disease of the brain. Schizophrenia is a physical disease of the brain. Alzheimer's is a physical disease of the brain. And clinical depression is, most definitely, a physical disease of the brain. -
Captain_Beeble — 10 years ago(October 01, 2015 04:08 PM)
Wow - I never would've thought a "depression" and simply "being depressed" could be two different things. When I was in my late teens and early 20s it seemed like I was suffering from depressions all the time, but if there really is a difference between clinical depression and the simple fact of being frustrated and unhappy about your life, maybe I've been confusing depression with the normal uncomfortable states most young men and women go through when they're trying to make the adjustment from childhood to adulthood. So maybe shock treatments
can
fix depressions, but they can't fix puberty.
"How could a man love anything except a blonde?"
-Captain Phoebus, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' -
holatKolnoa — 1 year ago(December 20, 2024 12:01 PM)
My mom also got electro shock therapy in 1959. She emerged functional and was never again hospitalized.
When you think of garbage, think of Hakeem!
Folks, calm down! This is not the last chopper outta Saigon! -
felstein — 10 years ago(February 17, 2016 05:28 PM)
Why is that sadistic?? ECT has proven effective for many people, and it may have even "cured" Percy. My thought was not to have him suffer MORE, but to draw parallels with the electrocutions. You know have him experience the same fear of electricity shooting through his head as the condemned men did, show him getting strapped and padded just like they were, etc, etc.
Geez, everyone here totally misunderstood what I was getting at!! -
PoppyTransfusion — 10 years ago(February 18, 2016 12:58 AM)
My thought was not to have him suffer MORE, but to draw parallels with the electrocutions
Why? The only way Percy would be able to appreciate what he did to Del was by having that done to him. That's the logic of your position and I find it sadistic. In fact Percy's fate was "poetic" in its justice. If you still think I'm misunderstanding you then you need to be a lot clearer in what you mean by 'poetic justice' and why Percy's destroyed mind and confinement to the place he thought of working at but of which he is now a patient, was not justice. And how the process by which he gets there - being infect by John - was not poetic. Until then I say you have been infected with the same kind of sadism that inhabited Percy.
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer