Thank you! Tremendous is a very good word, I felt like I changed the story as much as it changed me.
And yeah, I am interested! I was able to find lots of stuff about shock therapy, and in the old days, it was everywhere, pictures, reports, if it's old, they'll put it on the internet. The effectiveness of this kind of treatment could never be proven in most cases, and in a lot of cases it was involuntary, and nasty and just wrong.
The most I could find for current day was that they still use shock treatment, but mostly for things that they don't feel have been affected by the regular course of therapy, and meds. Like OCD, which the one orderly jokes that Sam has, which he does a little. He'd have to have it a lot worse, of course, for them to even contemplate shock therapy, but Sam doesn't know that, an neither does Dean. Which is my way of being cruel! (Actually, it's lobotomies that they still perform on OCD patients....but the principle is the same - only after all other treatments have proven ineffective.)
But in reality, I imagine for your dad, the muscle relaxers were to keep him from straining muscles when they applied the current, but it still doesn't sound like any fun for him, even if it was voluntary. And how nice that he could say, no more, and walk away. In the old days, noooooooooo, you did it/had it done till they were DONE with you, and your brain was fried. (I have a book on the badness of it...)
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And yeah, I am interested! I was able to find lots of stuff about shock therapy, and in the old days, it was everywhere, pictures, reports, if it's old, they'll put it on the internet. The effectiveness of this kind of treatment could never be proven in most cases, and in a lot of cases it was involuntary, and nasty and just wrong.
The most I could find for current day was that they still use shock treatment, but mostly for things that they don't feel have been affected by the regular course of therapy, and meds. Like OCD, which the one orderly jokes that Sam has, which he does a little. He'd have to have it a lot worse, of course, for them to even contemplate shock therapy, but Sam doesn't know that, an neither does Dean. Which is my way of being cruel! (Actually, it's lobotomies that they still perform on OCD patients....but the principle is the same - only after all other treatments have proven ineffective.)
But in reality, I imagine for your dad, the muscle relaxers were to keep him from straining muscles when they applied the current, but it still doesn't sound like any fun for him, even if it was voluntary. And how nice that he could say, no more, and walk away. In the old days, noooooooooo, you did it/had it done till they were DONE with you, and your brain was fried. (I have a book on the badness of it...)