In Another Land

Officially, my story starts in late August & early September 1978: I was in the then South African Police Force when I suffered a total nervous breakdown. I ended up in a facility in the east of Pretoria for two weeks. Diagnosis: depression. Treatment consisted of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), a cocktail of very powerful drugs, and counselling sessions (of which I can't remember anything - in fact, I remember very little of those two weeks and the months after it).

If you followed the link for ECT above, you will have read that "common initial adverse effects from ECT include short and long-term memory loss, disorientation and headache". I had them all. Then, and even after 30 years short-term memory is still a bit of a hit-or-miss lottery.

I left that facility with a bagful of drugs, basically a zombie. I went back to work, continued with the drugs (mercifully in lower dosages) and went for counseling sessions with my psychiatrist, both of which tapered off over the next few months.

Less than a year later I was back in another facility

Read more