Shocking

I was curious about the effectiveness of electroshock theory, because frankly it sounded ridiculous to me. Some quick reading taught me a couple of interesting things:

Electroshock therapy is effective about 50% of the time. It works by inducing a seizure to treat depression. Those who respond to the therapy typically relapse within twelve months, so electroshock therapy isn't a long-term solution (if you can call it a solution at all). Electroshock therapy is still used today although it is rarely the first treatment for depression or bipolar disorder. It requires informed consent, which means that if a patient refuses the treatment, it cannot be forced onto them.

The health risks of electroshock therapy are equivalent to that of general anesthesia. When I was reading the book, I assumed that electroshock therapy was doing the opposite of what it was supposed to, but that isn't necessarily true. It's safe to have the treatment when you're pregnant!

It is true that electroshock therapy may have been detrimental for Esther. It is also true that electroshock therapy could have been quite helpful for Esther. No matter what the exact cause of Esther's renewed well-being is, she ends the novel ready to leave the asylum and away from electroshock therapy.

Holden Caulfield and Mental Health

I just wanted to address something that someone said in class a couple weeks ago that I haven't gotten around to responding to until now. The class was discussing how Holden was inconsistent in some of his behaviors; how he was flip-flopping back and forth between feelings and moods. Someone used the phrase "Bipolar Disorder", and everyone agreed that Holden might be suffering from mental health issues.

I just wanted to clarify some errors in that statement. A few years ago, a friend of mine was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, so I did some reading on the subject. The disease is often portrayed in the media and popular culture as someone, who like Holden, flip-flops between emotions " :) >:( :) :(". There are two types of Bipolar Disorder and neither of them is like that. The more common form makes those with the disease have a manic period and a depressive period (especially compared to the manic period). The manic period lasts between six and nine months and the second period is a couple months shorter. During the manic period, the person with the disease feels on top of the world, and my friend described it "as if you could do anything." During the other period the person with the disease feels very let down and can be suicidal during this period.

Now I'm sure this information isn't perfect, and my information about how long each period is may be off by a month or two, but my point still stands that Holden Caulfield's mood swings aren't caused by bipolar disorder, they're caused by a short fuse and hormone shifts. If he has mental health problems, he may have depression or anxiety, but not Bipolar Disorder.

I just wanted to clear that up so that people involved in that discussion don't continue to think false things about mental health. I encourage people to do some reading by themselves on the subject so that they can be better informed when discussing mental health.

Thanks for reading!

Anxiety For the Future

Sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed by how little control I have and how little I know about my future. In Catcher in the Rye, part of Holden's struggles are similar in that it depresses him how formulaic the future is for others, but he just doesn't have it figured out. Esther is very comfortable being a student, but she has no real, concrete plans for the future.

This really resonates with me as a reader and as a young adult because I don't have a clear grasp on what I'm going to do when I grow up. I'm pretty sure I'll be fine, but I have so many different factors pulling me in all directions that I don't know which way to turn permanently. If I were to write a reflective novel as Sylvia Plath and James Joyce did where, the main character portrays events similar to what they experienced, my novel would go something like this:

Picture the scene, a young man sits in his room not doing his homework. He is more of a boy than a man. He is anxious for the next stage of his life but not ready to leave this one. With each assignment completed, he is one step closer to moving onward. What is the next step? Why is there a nagging feeling in his gut?

I have plenty of teenage angst. I feel bad for Holden and Esther because they know less than I do. Holden can't think far enough into the future to see what his poor decisions will lead to, whereas Esther worries too much about the future. I feel somewhere in between those. I try to live life one day at a time and see where it takes me.

The Catholic Church and Their Tales of Fire and Brimstone

I was reading Isabel's post here and I was typing a comment in response that was getting so long that I decided to make it into a blog post. Basically, Isabel remarked that she was horrified by Father Dolan's threats of hell in his sermon during the boys' retreat, and that the descriptions made her feel awful.

The Catholic Doctrine preaches that anyone can be saved as long as they confess their sins and try their best not to sin anymore. Even if someone rapes and murders, as long as they confess their sin, genuinely feel sorry,  and promise to try their hardest not to sin again, they can go to heaven.

Instead of preaching about the evils of hell, the priests could emphasize love and forgiveness and following the church, because according to Catholic Doctrine, anyone who confesses, is sorry, and tries not to sin again will escape hell. In fact, logically the only people who go to hell by this way of thinking are those who don't believe in God. If that is what Father Dolan believes, then he should be emphasizing that the boys should stay with the church so they can be believers and go to heaven.

In the end, Stephen did confess and have his sins forgiven, and everything worked out in the short term, but theoretically if the goal is for him to go to heaven by the rules of the Catholic Church, then being scared of sinning won't work. The fact that everyone sins is an important part of Christianity, and there is no way that Stephen can avoid that. Stephen will sin even if he does everything perfectly, and he can't be "scared" out of that. He has to focus on the love part, and learn to forgive himself as well as letting God forgive him because no one is perfect.

What is Coming of Age?

When a child is around the age of ten, one can say for certain that he is still a child. When someone is around the age of thirty, he or she is an adult. The questions lie in when and how. At one moment did that person become an adult? Was it one particular moment? Did it happen gradually over those twenty years? Exactly when and how did that person come of age?

I don't think there is a specific moment when a person comes of age. I think that it does take place over several years, before which one is a child and after which one is an adult. I feel like I have started to come of age, but that the process isn't over for me yet. I try to think logically and rationally, weighing options, possibilities, and most importantly, the future. I try to think ahead and I think that is a large part of what separates an adult from a child.

The process of Coming of Age takes several years, and a good analogy for that would be height. We are always aging or growing taller, but the Coming of Age is like a growth spurt where you mature quickly over a short period of time (relative to your whole life of course), after which you are significantly taller. You may not have reached your final height yet and you still have some growing to do, but a lot of the growing is out of the way.

This analogy isn't perfect, of course, because an adult can keep growing and reflecting even when they are older, whereas the average human is done growing taller by the age of twenty five. But Coming of Age is a gradual process that can be accelerated. I know that I'm not done with that process, so I will come back to this blog in sixty years and update you on my progress!