Book: Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
Authors: Sean A Spence
Journal: BMJ (2003)

In the expanding vocabulary of manic depression, bipolar 1 disorder denotes episodes of depression alternating with mania (which may be psychotic); bipolar 2 describes depression alternating with hypomania (essentially a milder form of mania); bipolar 3 describes a first episode of mania precipitated by antidepressant medication; and bipolar 4 describes depression in someone who has been previously hyperthymic (expansive or “larger than life”). Readers of Andy Behrman's memoir may ask themselves which of these syndromes are being described. The press reviews cited on the book's cover suggest that psychiatrists will question Behrman's account. “Don't listen to them,” warns the Times.​.




Figure 1



Andy Behrman

Penguin, £7.99, pp 277 ISBN 0 140 28885 6

Rating: ★★




Although these sources seem to find Behrman's book terribly exciting, it is hard to locate the source of their enthusiasm. Granted, the author spends an inordinate number of pages referring to sex, and his masturbatory habits, alone or in company, but presumably even reviewers tire of this. Perhaps it is the demi-monde of New York that appeals: “Miss Joanna, the dominatrix, greets me at her door with a small child. Her nanny takes the child to another room, and we talk about a program of wellness. I discuss my illness, and she seems to have a real understanding of manic depression. She suggests nipple piercing and spanking for $150 an hour” (p 250).

Otherwise, Behrman's is a rather pale account of a colourful condition. For a book about mania, it expresses little emotion. It is hard to know whether this is a consequence of Behrman's illness (or its treatment) or whether his detachment is intrinsic to his personality. However, what comes across strongly is the protracted wandering of a disturbed individual between many, many psychiatrists and therapists in New York, and the elaborate medication regimens to which he is exposed.

Several of these (if accurately described) are potentially dangerous. It seems incongruous that a man sufficiently “ill” as to require five or more psychotropic drugs concurrently is admitted to hospital only towards the end of the book and otherwise veers between extreme polypharmacy (often receiving multiple serotonergic antidepressants) and drug-free psychotherapy (cold turkey). The ability of antidepressants to destabilise bipolar disorder is implicit throughout the book. All the while, the author self medicates with copious illicit substances, drinks too much, uses his prescription medication in multiple doses as a pick me up, or else abandons it entirely. Eventually he receives maintenance ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), the latter lending the book its garish title.

Whether or not one believes Behrman's final diagnosis, his regret at his transient recovery is all too familiar: “I take all the pills at all the right times. I monitor my mood and behaviour. I go to sleep on time. I eat well. I avoid stress. I play the good patient. And I don't like any of it. I miss the planes, the trips, the money, the dinners, the alcohol, the drugs, and the sex. My recovery represents a tremendous loss” (p 261).