I had the best evening on Wednesday, Tucker and I met up at our favorite Middle Eastern place for dinner. It was perfect. Great food, delightful give and take, and most importantly, that easy, cozy, completely free feeling you get with someone who’s known you forever, who knows all your ins and outs.
I am told that in two days I will begin to lose my memory of this night. You see, Friday morning I’m starting treatment with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for severe, drug-resistant, bipolar depression. The further I continue with treatment, the fainter and more foreign the memory will become, until I will be capable of reading my own words about it and not recognizing a single part of them as familiar. This is what I am told.
That dinner got me thinking, what is a memory worth? My life has consisted of far more bad experiences lately than good, so shouldn’t the former outweigh the latter? How many terrible memories equal a single perfect one?
I’ve been turning this problem over and over again in my head, and no matter how I try, I can’t get the equals sign in the right place in the equation. What, indeed, is one single memory worth? Is it worth the past four years I have spent in deep depression? How about adding on an additional four like those that I have just struggled through?
The answer seems obvious. But the scales continue to tip up and down, never quite finding equilibrium.
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January 28, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Is the memory lost permanent or are the memories just scrambled?
January 28, 2010 at 11:15 pm
From what I’ve learned, it varies from case to case, but certain types of memory loss are consistent in the general population of those treated with ECT.
Some memories are permanently lost, these are generally the ones for events about two weeks prior to treatment. The theory is that these memories are still short-term and haven’t had a chance to “set” in your long-term memory. Other memories may also be lost, but studies have shown that they generally return after discontinuation of treatment.
Some cases have been reported of permanent memory loss for random, isolated events or information in one’s past. There doesn’t appear to be any real explanation for this.
January 28, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Does ECT treatment only effect your short term memories, or are all of your memories at risk?
January 28, 2010 at 11:22 pm
The consensus is that only short-term memory is affected. However, some people report losing other, more permanent memories in a seemingly random fashion. These people are the exception, not the rule.
You might also be interested to know that the memory loss that is most prevalent is in your operational memory – phone numbers, passwords, directions, things like that. My doctor has assured me that you don’t lose basic biographical information, like your name, who your parents are, or where you were born.
January 31, 2010 at 4:41 pm
I just ask that you not forget those fun days at in Middle School with Mr. Smith…
January 31, 2010 at 8:10 pm
The horror! The horror!
If only memories could be targeted, specifically, and zapped away with the precision of a skilled surgeon’s knife!
August 30, 2011 at 9:24 pm
[...] here: What Is A Memory Worth? and read on from that point (forwards in time, backwards in post order), if you would, [...]