NAMI 2007 Convention: An Interview with Kitty Dukakis

RC: What were your depressive episodes like?

KD: Well looking back, which was a long period of time to reflect on, I certainly do remember the feeling. My level of frustration was much worse. It was clinical depression. It would cycle about the same amount of time as it does now. I would take to my bed. And I am a very energetic, active person.... But I had no energy or interest in anything in my life. We're about to have our seventh grandchild in another two weeks and my relationship to my grandkids is something that is very precious and important in my life. And at those times, I didn't care. I had no interest in my young grandchildren. I had no interest in anything. The periods would last up to four months and then I would start to drink. Not everybody with depression has an alcohol problem, but many do. I would break the cycle with alcohol, which is a rather strange way of putting it. But that's what my husband believes happened.

I'd come out of the depression and go for another nine or ten months and be okay. Then it would hit again. It still does. The joy of today is I know that something works. When the feelings return, I call my physician as quickly as possible and get myself in... It just worked for me, from the beginning... For some people, it takes four to six treatments.

RC: Do you still take medication for depression?

KD: I don't take antidepressants anymore. I haven't since a month after my first treatment and don't need to. They didn't help me before. I was, as was Michael, rather convinced that I wasn't going to need them afterwards. Some people do.

RC: Your story really is amazing. It's seems strange because I think that public opinion about ECT and prefrontal lobotomies have been all mixed together.

KD: Well, it has. After "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with Jack Nicholson, that's when the initial stigma [about ECT] really started.

RC: I would think that going public and telling the story about your experience with ECT could help address the stigma surrounding it.

KD: I feel so strongly about my hope that at some period in the not too distant future, the stigma attached to mental illness and, in particular to ECT, is going to fade. That people will have this as an option especially those who are in particular categories such as suicide, pregnancy, and older patients where this treatment works faster than antidepressants and more successfully.

RC: I have a good friend who has very serious clinical depression about every four years. She's tried every medication and the only thing that's helped her is ECT. She's never talked about the details. But your book explains the procedure and what researchers have been doing to improve techniques for administering ECT treatment.

KD: I'm so grateful to the researchers who have done so much to make this a clinically safe procedure. It's pretty benign. I go into the hospital at 7:30 in the morning... I'm out oftentimes by quarter to nine and on my way home... And it's a short procedure. It's not without risks because we have anesthesia. But they are so careful about how the body is treated before getting any kind of shock. Before the muscle relaxant is given. I have an EKG every time, my temperature is taken, and other levels are checked. And before I have that first shot, those things are taken care of. I'm given oxygen during the whole process. That was not the case when ECT started and into the ‘40s and ‘50s.