Berliner Tageszeitung - Ted Scheinman’s Journey Through Depression and Electroconvulsive Therapy

Ted Scheinman can pinpoint the origin of his depression with precise clarity. It occurred on a day when he was three years old, visiting a fair in upstate New York. He returned home clutching a Batman action figure he had won, carrying it into the bathroom to add dramatic sound effects by turning on the tap. When water landed on the toy’s pristine boot, creating a darkening spot, young Scheinman experienced a cascade of rapid thoughts that concluded with the conviction: "I am going to die."

That moment marked the beginning of what Scheinman now describes as his "life as a depressive." Now 41, the senior editor at Smithsonian magazine has chronicled this decades-long struggle in his new memoir, "Jolt: My Electric Journey Out of Darkness." The book traces his path from that childhood incident to May 2021, when he referred himself for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) at age 35. By that time, he had sunk into what he calls a "much darker place" than ever before, viewing himself as "the lowest piece of dirt on the Earth." For Scheinman, ECT was not merely a last resort but his "only hope."

"Jolt" serves as a travelogue from the other side of that darkness, documenting a journey toward an experience that remains taboo for many. The treatment involves passing an electric current through the brain to trigger a brief seizure, causing affected neurons to fire simultaneously and release neurohormones such as dopamine. While ECT is often depicted in horror in popular culture, including films like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest" and Sylvia Plath’s "The Bell Jar," Scheinman’s primary fear was not the procedure itself but that it simply would not work.

Literary references permeate Scheinman’s life and his memoir. His mother, who assumed he would be a girl, had planned to name him Jane after the novelist Jane Austen; his younger sister eventually acquired that name. His mother, a professor of English literature at Colgate University who specialized in 18th-century works, instilled a deep bookishness in him. Before Scheinman was admitted to the psychiatric ward of Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington DC for treatment, she told him, "Write this down! This is great material." Scheinman acknowledges that while these words might sound clinical or heartless, they were intended differently. His mother understood his identity and believed that if he could make meaning out of his illness, he would gain a sense of agency over it.

Scheinman’s familiarity with ECT began early, influenced by his mother’s friends who had benefited from the treatment and her correspondence with author Alan Bennett. In 2006, Bennett described the effects of ECT on his own mother as "a miracle." This background prepared Scheinman for his first treatment at dawn on May 12, 2021. Although attaching electrodes to his temples was scary, he felt a distant fear replaced by an intense sense of need. He was attracted to the extremity of the treatment, hoping it would provide the dramatic ending and solution his life had lacked.

Scheinman recalls lying on the hospital bed as the blood-pressure cuff tightened around his ankle and the needle administered general anesthesia. He remembers a sense of relaxation bordering on euphoria as he tried to count down from 100, exclaiming "Oh boy!" before waking with a headache. The actual "jolt" remains a black box for him; unlike cinematic portrayals of arching backs, his experience involved only a twitch of his left big toe.

Over five months of mostly outpatient treatments—comprising 11 unilateral and 14 bilateral sessions where electrodes were applied to both temples—his illness began to improve. His friends noticed the change before he did. For about 18 months after the ECT ended, he felt "much better than I realised I could," and the following year was even better. Five years later, Scheinman states that he feels more like himself than he has in years, with most days passing without depression.

He qualifies this recovery by noting that he still considers himself a depressive. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, he is diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Prior to ECT, he had been diagnosed with agitated depression with bipolar characteristics. However, as he moves further from the worst periods of 2020 and 2021, he feels happier and more settled. In May of this year, he married Tara Ganapathy, an attorney specializing in congressional investigations.

"Jolt" reads partly as a coming-of-age story with a zany timeline. Scheinman was a precocious intellect who reached graduate-level discourse by age six while waiting for his body and emotions to catch up. He describes feeling "marooned between being a tiny adult gentleman and the big feelings of a child." The book contains descriptions of young Scheinman dressed in his grandfather’s hand-me-downs, appearing old before his time. Today, although he wears casual clothing like a Patagonia fleece, his assertion that he has gone "full hippy" retains a tweedy quality.

Some of the memoir’s most comedic and disturbing moments arise from the dissonance between his biological age and his mother’s parenting. When Scheinman entered a germaphobe phase in elementary school, she warned him he would have a "very disappointing sex life" if he continued. Another time, she soothed his tears by saying, "A lot of sensitive and creative people have a period of depression." Six-year-old Scheinman protested in anguish, calling it a cliché, thinking of consumptive Romantic poets rather than first-graders.

Scheinman reflects that having a more childlike childhood would have been nice and might have made life smoother. He vows to give any future children a "properly delineated childhood" without hinting at expectations of precocity. However, the boundaries between Scheinman and his mother vanished as the memoir progressed and their parents’ marriage declined. They separated while he was in college, after which his mother’s phone calls intensified. Scheinman writes that she often seemed more interested in talking and confirming her martyrdom than listening, so he confirmed it.

His father is portrayed as a more classic villain who had an affair, though his blithe optimism also grated on both mother and son. Scheinman professes less tolerance for his father’s shortcomings than his mother’s overcomings. In one of the book’s most moving scenes, he shares a heartfelt, peacemaking boat ride with his father. He describes getting "goosebumps" just talking about it, noting that while they were never estranged, they did not have a true, frank relationship until recently. His father has read "Jolt" four times and is described as a big fan.

Despite his depression, Scheinman was functional and successful. He excelled academically, won parts in plays, attended Yale University to study English and classics, earned a PhD, worked in academia, and pivoted to journalism. He wrote his first book, "Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan," in his early 30s. He suggests that overachieving was bound up with his mental disorder, driven by a desperate attempt to do the right things to gain internal forgiveness or peace.

Before ECT, Scheinman tried many treatments. He had his first talking therapy at age eight, followed by further courses over decades. He used prescription and recreational drugs, self-administered alcohol, and ran cross-country. While he views ECT as a last resort, he now wonders if it is necessary to wait so long for people in severe straits.

The exact mechanism of ECT is unknown; it is unclear whether the shock or its aftermath causes the "reset" effect. In 2023, the Royal College of Psychiatrists reported that 68% of 1,835 patients who received ECT in the preceding 12 months were found to be "much improved" or "very much improved." The American Psychiatric Association states that 70-80% of patients experience substantial improvement after ECT.

However, the treatment can cause memory loss. Scheinman struggles to access stretches of memories during his ECT course and significant periods of the six months leading up to it. These gaps challenge a person’s sense of continuous selfhood. When asked if his treatment restored or changed him, he initially replied that "restored is probably closer to the mark." He later emailed to clarify that writing the book, which involved interviews with friends and relatives and scouring medical records dating back to age five, helped profoundly.

"I’m still myself!" he wrote. "I just feel less trapped by myself."

About a year ago, Scheinman unpacked his hospital "go-bag." He states that he stands ready to go under the electrodes again if necessary and would do it quicker this time. He is keenly aware, especially because of his wife’s well-being, that he might need ECT again. He does not try to evangelize for it but admits one thing surprises people: he wishes he had gotten it sooner, believing he would have lost fewer memories.

Scheinman has informally coached people considering ECT and is volunteering through the National Alliance on Mental Illness as a contact person. He has belatedly begun meditation and maintains a strict regimen of exertion and movement, playing music "as though it is a prescription." "I try to live very, very fully," he says. "I feel like my sense of adventure is back."

"Jolt: Depression, Memory and My Electric Journey Out of Darkness" by Ted Scheinman is published by Wildfire.

B. Semjonow--BTZ