In the second decade of the 21st century I had 17 ECT treatments to bring me out of a severe depression. ECT is shock therapy. Dr. Milton had to turn the power to max to get me to convulse. He stopped after 17 because it was not working.
Within a few days of the last treatment, though, I began to wake. I started to discover what being awake is. I realized that I had actually been awake since my birth. Mostly not very awake. Sometimes, though, very awake. Sometimes.
This is the story of what I found, created, carried, and threw or let slip away as I travel to this moment, no, this moment, no, this....
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Nota bene: Everything you read here is true, though, sometimes, facts are scattered, rearranged, amended, and created from whole cloth.
Virginia Woolf wrote, In a Room of One's Own, that 'Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact." (this in the first paragraph of the story. To understand the quote, it is helpful to read the context to see what she means by "here.")
Tim O'Brien discusses the truth of fiction and the emptiness of accuracy in the The Things they Carried. The section, "Good Form," is especially compelling.
Caveat lector: I review and alter this memoir to bring it closer to the truth. And you know what that means.