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In my experience, these memory lapses are the major -- and most serious – side-effect of ECT.
根据我的经验，这些记忆缺失是ECT的主要--也是最严重的--副作用。
You’re told that they’re temporary, that your memory will come back, that at most the loss will only last as long as the treatment period, but it’s not true.
你被告知它们是暂时的，你的记忆力会恢复的，最多只会治疗期间持续缺失，但是并不是这样的。
I’m writing these words three years after the fact, and my memory is still a field of ruins.
我在三年后写下了这些话，而我的记忆仍然是一片废墟。
It often happens to me that I talk to a friend without remembering what we said the day before, or even that we spoke the day before.
我经常和朋友聊天，不记得我们前一天说了什么，甚至不记得我们前一天说过什么。
I’m constantly afraid that the people I love will think I’m either neglectful or inattentive, or that I have the beginnings of Alzheimer’s -- which wouldn’t be unlikely, because the risk of Alzheimer’s is much higher than average among people with bipolar disorder.
我一直担心我爱的人会认为我粗心大意或注意力不集中，或者认为我是阿尔茨海默氏症的早期症状--这不是不可能的，因为患有双相情感障碍的人患阿尔茨海默氏症的风险比平均水平高得多。
There is, however, a silver lining to all this, because if memory loss is the collateral damage of electroshocks, they also had a totally unexpected collateral benefit.
然而，这一切也有一线希望，因为如果记忆力丧失是电击的附带损害，那么它们也有完全意想不到的附带好处。
One day, in the cafeteria of Sainte-Anne where he’d come to join me for a hot chocolate, I complained about these memory problems to my friend Olivier Rubinstein.
有一天，在圣安妮的自助餐厅里，他和我一起喝了一杯热巧克力，我向我的朋友奥利维尔·鲁宾斯坦抱怨这些记忆问题。
He said: “You should memorise poetry, that’ll take the rust off your neurons.”
他说：“你应该背诵诗歌，这会去除你的神经元的锈迹。
And in this horribly difficult time, it made my life more bearable.
在这个可怕的困难时期，它让我的生活变得更容易忍受。
I’m discharged from Sainte-Anne at the end of April, and the report ends with this observation: “Good transient recovery but frequent relapses.”
我4月底从圣安妮医院出院，报告的结尾是这样一句话：“短暂恢复良好，但经常复发。
The fact is that for at least three months I’ve been doing better, much better even.
事实是，至少三个月以来，我越来越好，好多了。
The medication seems to be working.
这种药物似乎起作用了。
Lithium is an alkali metal, an element in the periodic table, and, when administered as lithium salt, has proved surprisingly effective in treating mood disorders since the 1970s.
锂是一种碱金属，是元素周期表中的一种元素，自20世纪70年代以来，当作为锂盐服用时，它被证明在治疗情绪障碍方面有出人意料地效果。
I take it every day now, and when I take it I think of the melancholy reflection by the American poet Robert Lowell,
我现在每天都服用，当我服用时，我会想起美国诗人罗伯特·洛厄尔的忧郁思考，
who suffered from manic depressive psychosis in its most acute form until he started taking it: “It’s terrible to think that all I’ve suffered, and all the suffering I’ve caused,
在服用此药之前，洛厄尔一直患有最严重的躁狂抑郁症：“想到我所遭受的一切，以及我所造成的一切痛苦，
might have arisen from the lack of a little salt in my brain, and that if the effects of that salt had been known earlier, if I’d been given it earlier, I might have had a happy or at least a normal life, instead of this long nightmare.”
可能都是因为我的大脑中缺乏一点盐，这太可怕了。如果早一点知道盐的影响，早一点给我盐，我可能会有一个快乐的，或者至少是一个正常的生活，而不是这个漫长的噩梦。”
I wouldn’t say anything so radical, because even though I sometimes think it was, my life hasn’t been one long nightmare.
我不会说这么激进的话，因为尽管我有时会这么想，但我的生活并不是一场漫长的噩梦。
Still, I too belong to the group of bipolar patients who respond well to lithium.
尽管如此，我也属于对锂离子反应良好的躁郁症患者。
It makes my highs less high, my lows less low, and I’m so afraid to find myself once again back at the Sainte-Anne psychiatric hospital that I’m ready to take it, obediently, for the rest of my life.
它让我的兴奋感不那么高，低谷也不那么低，我非常害怕再次回到圣安妮精神病院，我准备乖乖地接受它，度过我的余生。
