Shock Therapy
For my dear friend,
Last night I talked to a friend, who used to be a mother, a doctoral student, a part-time lecturer and a full-time employee all at the same time. Now she is only a mother of two daughters. She said, “For the last couple of years, I have lived quite different a life from the past. Too many things happened beyond my control. Now, even registering for a yoga class is too difficult for me. Nothing is easy.” Her second daughter, who just passed her second birthday, was seriously ill right after she was born. Her mother-in-law died suddenly. Her father has been ill for ten years and fell unconscious a couple of times in the past few months. She has been so busy caring others that until recently she couldn’t even think about how busy she was. Now looking at herself, she feels helpless.
To everyone, there is a period of time with flood of misfortunes. It happened to me in the end of last year. I felt extremely vulnerable. Security was so alarming that even walking on the street was challenging. I was afraid that I might be mugged at any moment and added a latch in my apartment door. In the middle of October 2007, my office at the University of Chicago was robbed in the middle of a day while I was out. There was a fierce fight in my residence building, which ended with a gun shot. A sharp contrast in opinions about gun control, which was dormant in peaceful days, surfaced up so vividly. An argument about the incident with my neighbor left me injured like a unexpected bloody paper cut. A graduate student at the University of Chicago was murdered for a few dollars. When I found a note, “Remove the bike now,” on my bike, I felt physically threatened and hated. I had kept my bike in the same spot in the building for a couple of years. Let’s not argue. My safety comes first, I thought. I moved the bike to my neighbor’s building. A couple of weeks later, my coworker suddenly got fired... I felt choked by one overwhelming wave of shock after another. I thought I was in need of a therapy.
About half a century ago, Donald Ewen Cameron (1901-1967), a Scottish-American psychiatrist, experimented human mind control with paralytic drugs, electroshocks, controlled isolation, and message inculcation. According to him, the insane would regress into an infant stage after the experiment, and then become so tamed that they would be receptive to any messages. Cameron thought that in this regressed stage, the insane would finally become sane and good citizens if they were given only good messages. He tried to manipulate one's mind with external forces. It is a shock therapy. A French movie, “La femme fatale Nikita” (directed by Luc Besson, 1990), shows the triumph and the failure of a shock therapy. Nikita, who committed a violent crime, is saved from death penalty and trained to become a killing machine in an entirely closed environment with absolutely no option for her to choose. In spite of her impeccable mission accomplishment, she chooses to escape herself from the chain of command and obeisance. she was not perfectly reborn as intended after all and looked for the freedom to control her own life.
Let alone bringing the patients sanity, Cameron’s experiment left them both physically and mentally damaged. What it tells me, though, is that one becomes helpless and scared when a series of shocks deluges one’s life. Problems, which could be solved rather easily in a normal situation, may no longer be easy to cope with. In my case, I lost axes and balance in my everyday life. My life seemed to be totally dependent on random external forces.
I sought professional counseling, which I had never done before. Sitting in front of a stranger and talking about the inner most feeling was not easy. Not surprisingly, I didn't feel being helped from the session. So I didn't see her again. But at the same session, I talked to the counselor about another problem which had troubled me in my work for a while, and she incited me to take an action immediately and gave me some suggestions. So, I made an appointment with another counselor who specialized in labor relations. After meeting with the counselor, I rationalized the situation and had enough courage to talk to my supervisor. Soon, I solved the problem. Looking back, it was the beginning of my healing process. I started to take care of myself and faced the problem actively. Nevertheless, I was still helpless with regard to the security problem. I canceled my flight to Mexico that I had planned for my vacation in the following month. I usually take a long backpacking trip overseas during my vacation, but last year I simply wasn't strong enough to carry my backpack in a foreign country. So I booked a flight to Korea. While counting down for the leaving date, I sermoned myself that I would be fine once I arrived in Korea. In December, I stayed with my family in Korea without stepping out for a week or so. My anxiety slowly calmed down. Then, my resolution about what to do once I would come back to Chicago became clearer. I was healing myself... What could Cameron have done to me if I had been his patient? I would have become entirely dependent on him. It would mean a total loss of control of my own life. What a threatening thought!
I feel sympathy toward my friend, but have no solution for her. I think she should begin with something she can control over entirely no matter how trivial it is. She can perhaps volunteer or have a couple of guilt-free hours only for herself every week. I don't know. It might take a while for her to become confident again in her life, but she should walk on her own. Socrates said that real education comes through dramatic and painful experience, like coming out of a cave and turning your eyes toward the sun. But the pains themselves don't necessarily bring maturity to those have gone through. What to get from the painful experience depends on one’s own reflection, decision and action taken upon the agony. I trust that my dear friend will continue to struggle against flooding adversity and gradually regain her strength. Cheers!
Writing personal essays-final project
Last night I talked to a friend, who used to be a mother, a doctoral student, a part-time lecturer and a full-time employee all at the same time. Now she is only a mother of two daughters. She said, “For the last couple of years, I have lived quite different a life from the past. Too many things happened beyond my control. Now, even registering for a yoga class is too difficult for me. Nothing is easy.” Her second daughter, who just passed her second birthday, was seriously ill right after she was born. Her mother-in-law died suddenly. Her father has been ill for ten years and fell unconscious a couple of times in the past few months. She has been so busy caring others that until recently she couldn’t even think about how busy she was. Now looking at herself, she feels helpless.
To everyone, there is a period of time with flood of misfortunes. It happened to me in the end of last year. I felt extremely vulnerable. Security was so alarming that even walking on the street was challenging. I was afraid that I might be mugged at any moment and added a latch in my apartment door. In the middle of October 2007, my office at the University of Chicago was robbed in the middle of a day while I was out. There was a fierce fight in my residence building, which ended with a gun shot. A sharp contrast in opinions about gun control, which was dormant in peaceful days, surfaced up so vividly. An argument about the incident with my neighbor left me injured like a unexpected bloody paper cut. A graduate student at the University of Chicago was murdered for a few dollars. When I found a note, “Remove the bike now,” on my bike, I felt physically threatened and hated. I had kept my bike in the same spot in the building for a couple of years. Let’s not argue. My safety comes first, I thought. I moved the bike to my neighbor’s building. A couple of weeks later, my coworker suddenly got fired... I felt choked by one overwhelming wave of shock after another. I thought I was in need of a therapy.
About half a century ago, Donald Ewen Cameron (1901-1967), a Scottish-American psychiatrist, experimented human mind control with paralytic drugs, electroshocks, controlled isolation, and message inculcation. According to him, the insane would regress into an infant stage after the experiment, and then become so tamed that they would be receptive to any messages. Cameron thought that in this regressed stage, the insane would finally become sane and good citizens if they were given only good messages. He tried to manipulate one's mind with external forces. It is a shock therapy. A French movie, “La femme fatale Nikita” (directed by Luc Besson, 1990), shows the triumph and the failure of a shock therapy. Nikita, who committed a violent crime, is saved from death penalty and trained to become a killing machine in an entirely closed environment with absolutely no option for her to choose. In spite of her impeccable mission accomplishment, she chooses to escape herself from the chain of command and obeisance. she was not perfectly reborn as intended after all and looked for the freedom to control her own life.
Let alone bringing the patients sanity, Cameron’s experiment left them both physically and mentally damaged. What it tells me, though, is that one becomes helpless and scared when a series of shocks deluges one’s life. Problems, which could be solved rather easily in a normal situation, may no longer be easy to cope with. In my case, I lost axes and balance in my everyday life. My life seemed to be totally dependent on random external forces.
I sought professional counseling, which I had never done before. Sitting in front of a stranger and talking about the inner most feeling was not easy. Not surprisingly, I didn't feel being helped from the session. So I didn't see her again. But at the same session, I talked to the counselor about another problem which had troubled me in my work for a while, and she incited me to take an action immediately and gave me some suggestions. So, I made an appointment with another counselor who specialized in labor relations. After meeting with the counselor, I rationalized the situation and had enough courage to talk to my supervisor. Soon, I solved the problem. Looking back, it was the beginning of my healing process. I started to take care of myself and faced the problem actively. Nevertheless, I was still helpless with regard to the security problem. I canceled my flight to Mexico that I had planned for my vacation in the following month. I usually take a long backpacking trip overseas during my vacation, but last year I simply wasn't strong enough to carry my backpack in a foreign country. So I booked a flight to Korea. While counting down for the leaving date, I sermoned myself that I would be fine once I arrived in Korea. In December, I stayed with my family in Korea without stepping out for a week or so. My anxiety slowly calmed down. Then, my resolution about what to do once I would come back to Chicago became clearer. I was healing myself... What could Cameron have done to me if I had been his patient? I would have become entirely dependent on him. It would mean a total loss of control of my own life. What a threatening thought!
I feel sympathy toward my friend, but have no solution for her. I think she should begin with something she can control over entirely no matter how trivial it is. She can perhaps volunteer or have a couple of guilt-free hours only for herself every week. I don't know. It might take a while for her to become confident again in her life, but she should walk on her own. Socrates said that real education comes through dramatic and painful experience, like coming out of a cave and turning your eyes toward the sun. But the pains themselves don't necessarily bring maturity to those have gone through. What to get from the painful experience depends on one’s own reflection, decision and action taken upon the agony. I trust that my dear friend will continue to struggle against flooding adversity and gradually regain her strength. Cheers!
Writing personal essays-final project
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