Street Roots • August 11-17, 2017
Commentary
BY RACHEL POST
HowECT
T
led me
out of the
dark world
of depression
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST
Rachel Post is a licensed clinical social worker
in Portland.
he suicide epidemic we face deeply
saddens me so I offer my experience
to give others hope. It was like a
switch had been flicked off. There I am, my work over the last 16 years in Portland
and Denver. But I wasn’t at all sure I could
one day smiling happily with my then
keep myself alive. I took leave from work to
6-year-old daughter on New Year’s day,
2015 at a playground, and the next memory lay in bed with a bottle of benzodiazepines
I have was crying in my friend’s arms, still
and a bottle of rum, contemplating the
January, saying “I’m scared, something’s
deadly mix, but I guess I was too scared to
try it. I enrolled in an outpatient treatment
wrong with me.” I’d battled depression
before, the last time resulting from a series
program five afternoons a week, its only
of suicides at work involving me as the first
purpose as far as I was concerned was to
get me out of bed, out of the house and
responder. While I had to take a leave from
work, it was more rapidly responsive to a
away from the potential of suicide during
those hours.
combination of medications and therapy.
This time was different. Nothing was
I can’t express in words how unbearable
working.
and exhausting simple things were; getting
The first time my doctor talked to me
out of bed and fulfilling my responsibilities
about ECT - Electroconvulsive Therapy - I as a mother. The worst were the weekends
dismissed it. I had too many images in my
when I had to find ways to keep my
head of shock therapy as it used to be
daughter occupied. My entire day revolved
known in the movies: traumatized,
around getting to the end of it when I could
lobotomized, broken patients like in One
go to bed and shut down my consciousness.
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I didn’t stop
That was my only peace.
to think the movie was 41 years old; I
After a year of this existence, I realized
didn’t realize that today’s treatment no
my daughter and I had suffered enough.
more resembles what happened to Jack
Family and friends expressed their grave
Nicholson’s character than today’s
concerns and even my colleague shared, “I
miss you” one day when I spoke about my
computers resemble ones from the same
era.
condition. What he meant was that the
Rachel he knew to be driven and focused
While I kept telling everyone closest to
me that “I can’t think my way out of a box,” was gone, replaced by a vacuous stranger.
The doctor gave me the odds: 50
my anxiety remained Herculeanly strong. I
percent of ECT patients experience no
imagined I would have to quit my job, lose
re
lie f b u t I h ad re a c h e d m y b o tto m an d felt
my h o u se an d m ove in w ith family. A t le a s t
I couldn’t subject my daughter to my
I was rich in that regard; my family would
debilitating depression any longer. I had
take us in, while thousands of tragic souls
already lost my self-respect, my
sleeping on our streets were not so lucky.
intelligence, my fight and my joy for life.
I’d seen so many of their stories unfold in
ROLE MODELS, fro m page 10
having black women be there to talk to our
young men, to help them grow. We are also
trying to get to the point where women are
mentors too, because this is an open
invitation to everyone who wants to mentor
youth, but also who have youth they would
like to be mentored.
E.G.: Israel, can you tell me about a role
model that’s made a difference in your life?
Israel H am mond, 21, is one o f two dozen
youth p u ttin g on Saturdaw y’s event.
"1 lee! life® m®»toKhIp Isn't
fast w ith words? ll*s w ith
actions? and deeds? and so
being able to do that for oth®
ers Is soniotblng that 1 enjoy
d o la f/ '
- ISRAEL HAM M 0W O
y o u t h o r g a n iz e r . ap o r t l a n d b l a c k
I.H.: For me, my biggest role model has
been my father. I was born and raised in
Charlotte, N.C., and so a lot of the
experiences that I’m having here in
Portland, as someone from the South, I see
my father going through the same thing,
and so with that it’s been a pleasure for me
to be able to live with him and see how he
interacts with this city and things of that
nature.
E.G.: How do you think your life might
have been different i f you didn’t have your
father as your role model growing up?
I.H.: It would have been immensely
different. I feel like, whenever you have a
role model, it’s not just someone that you
look up to, it’s someone that you actively
emulate and learn from. So for me, had I
actively emulated someone who wasn t a
role model to me, or someone who just
wasn’t that I felt was influential toward me,
I would then be led into whichever direction
that’s unbeknownst to me and I don’t feel
like I would be as developed as I am had I
not had a mentor, had I not had someone
who is in my life feeding me information,
pushing to a higher level, and things of that
nature.
E.G.: Since you’ve been in the Sum m er
Youth Experience program, have you found
yourself reaching out to others to mentor?
I.H.: What (CJ and Walter) have really
started to open my eyes to is the fact that
this is my program, this is the youth’s
program, and so why not do what we are
trying to preach which is being mentors? I
am one of the oldest that’s in the group, so
that falls on my shoulders, so I feel like I’ve
really been able to speak into their lives and
live out what it means. I feel like mentorship
isn’t just with words, it’s with actions, and
deeds, and so being able to do that for
others is something that I enjoy doing. I’m
going back to school early at George Fox
because I’m going to be a mentor on
campus for the incoming freshmen. It goes
way beyond my personal circle, pushing into
different areas. I think it’s really what’s
needed in order to reach those who are
marginalized.
E.G.: What does it take to be a mentor and
what does that look like?
CJ.R: For me, mentoring goes a lot
Page 11
My family and employer stood by in full
support. My brother flew in for the first
treatment and one loving friend from afar
jokingly texted me that morning, “Don’t
forget me!” I texted back, “We’ll see.”
It worked. I noticed within the first
month of treatments that I was improving
and by the end of the second, my family,
friends and colleagues noticed my return.
I’ve been free of depression for over a year
and a half! Now, the highlight of my day is
getting out of bed in the morning, kissing
my daughter and the thrill I get from my
work each day. Last summer my work
included presenting at a Congressional
Briefing, attending a White House
presentation by the Surgeon General, and
meeting with members of Congress. Over
the past year I have hosted a couple of
great fundraisers (one for the Affordable
Housing Bond and the other for a
candidate for the Portland Public School
Board) and my daughter’s birthday party.
My doctor tells me that if ECT works,
the odds are that it will always work. You
can’t develop a resistance to it the way you
can with medications. My only regret is
that I didn’t have someone like me post-
ECT, on the other side of the deep, dark,
terrifying depression to talk to me so that
my daughter and I didn’t have to endure 12
months of misery before trying it.
ECT is not a first resort for treating
depression and can’t help everybody. But if
you or someone you know is suffering from
d e p re ss io n , d o n ’t b e afraid of it. E d u c a te
yourself. Talk to your doctors; talk to
someone who’s had it. And never give up.
ECT saved my life and it could save you or
someone you love.
further than just the formal efforts. I think
that’s what their event is a recognition of; if
it’s just the formal efforts, you are going to
have young men who are saying, “I don’t
have any role models” because they are
going to have to have some level of
connection with a system to be able to
access that. Let’s look at all the resources
that we have in our community, in the broad
community of Portland, and bring them to
bear on mentoring, and that means that we
have to tap into informal mentoring as well.
That looks like the barbershops, street
corners, the classroom, the hallways at the
school - anywhere that there’s a need.
For black men and boys, it has to have
some level of cultural specificity to it. In
other words, how does this person that I’m
connecting with identify, and how do I enter
into that space and gain the trust of that
person to get a deeper understanding of
who they are so that I can be a part of
lifting them up and be a part of helping
them grow, and within that, I can grow
within myself.
W.R.II: I think that in order to empower
someone, you have to be able to actively
listen to hear how you can empower them.
If you are truly wanting to be a mentor,
understand that you have someone else’s
life in your hands to a certain extent, and
they are trusting and counting on you.
emily@streetroots. org