Yeah it's one of the most famous graphic novels ever. And one of my most favourite, along with V for Vendetta and Stuck Rubber Baby. I guess I should clarify what I said about Spiegelman, he was born in Sweden because his parents had fled the Nazis to live there. So he's not Swedish at all, you're correct. Just happened to be born there.

What's interesting about Jewish names though, don't know if you're aware, but Jews never had last names until the 1700s I believe it was. Before then, they were just "Jacob son of Abraham" for example. But at that point, they were given German names (or Slavic names, depending on what area of Europe they were in) by the local governments so they could keep better track of them, record them in the census, etc. They were assigned the names based on their occupation or the town they lived in. It kind of reminds me how African Americans were given last names in the US. Anyways, so the names are not reflective of their nationality but rather of their occupation or what part of Europe they were residing in. And during the 1700s, Poland was part of the Prussia, so that would be why Polish Jews have German names as a rule. Jewish history is really interesting to me, obviously. Well, any history actually. :)

Yeah I can imagine. Our family friends are Jewish but very non-religious, their name has been anglicized to Green from Groenberg, and they had a child with Tay-Sachs disease who unfortunately died. I know that's one of the diseases that only occurs in Ashkenazi Jews.

I don't mind answering, I'm just not sure what to say. I know it can be very helpful for some people, in fact I know a girl who has had many treatments because she has psychotic depression, and it's really helped her. However, I was getting it for PTSD, against my will actually, because I was charged with assault and then forcibly committed. I *think* I had about 10 treatments. And this was about 3 years ago? I can't remember precisely now. That was one of my complaints about ECT. They said I would have *minimal* short term memory loss, being the week prior to, during, and possibly the week after a treatment. However, I find I've lost whole huge chunks of time, like about one year of time, where I have no idea what I was doing, where I was living. I never had memory problems like that prior to the ECT.

If I had psychotic depression like Lisa, it might have been worth it to lose that much of my memory, to have relief from the depression. However, they were treating my rage specifically, and it didn't work at all. I continued to have rage problems afterwards. Also, the side effects were bad for me, I had horrible headaches, and I wasn't able to draw at all for several months after the treatments. That's pretty bad considering that I'm an artist and want to make my living that way. Anyways I guess I'm saying, my opinion is ECT is good for some illnesses, like really severe untreatable depression, or Parkinsons disease, but I don't think it's a good option for PTSD.

Yeah that picture was funny. We are currently in Saskatoon, only for a couple more weeks though. I'm wondering where exactly that picture was taken. I've been bugging my uncle to drive me around to look for it. He's not impressed haha. Thanks for the interesting discussions. It keeps my brain active. :)

Hey batgirl,

I just wanted to say I found reading that really good. I think it is marvellous you sat down and wrote it out and if you feel like you need a reminder you just have to go back and read what you wrote. I feel like what you wrote is an important step to getting life back.

Wow thank you. So many compliments about this writing. I guess it was a lot better than I thought originally. Thanks again.

:-) okay I'm impressed with your knowledge in medicine and history. I didn't want to throw al kind of names around like Tay Sachs and Ashkenazi, but I see that I don't have to withhold that from you ;-)

Napoleon liked names: we all had to get names, his orders. So the records (for genealogy research) only start from his time on b/c before him we didn't have names. Now we have indeed names like jacobsonsson. I think the whole of europe has family names because of napoleon. Some people mocked and ridiculed him and as an act of resistance choose stupid names. Like pee and poop. Now hundreds of years later those descendants aren't laughing anymore :-)

Prussia, well, well, again impressed, you know your european history lady!
The borders of the countries in europe have changed over and over again. The spanish invasion, the Turkish invasion al the way to Vienna, napoleon, the double monarchy of Hungary and Austria, Hitler, Tito and what he made of yugoslavia and the USSR.

oops: against?! your will, you got to be kidding me? In this century? In what country? On this planet? That sounds like a violation of human rights to me. Unbelievable. We have extreme strict laws concerning ECT and about all treatments. Forced treatment is against our law, also for the criminal insane mind.
So you were locked up also like me for your PTSD behavior against your will. Me too but they let me go very quickly when they found out that they made a mistake and a judge demanded an inquiry what had happened to me. I'm scared ever since for psychiatrists.
Okay so memory loss and headaches; doesn't sound very useful ;-) and the rage goes on, okay thnx, so useless then for PTSD
Thank you very much for that info.

Do you have pictures of your work somewhere?

Well I know a fair bit about history, names, and geography. I've always been interested in those subjects. I was born in Germany. Lived there and in Scotland, also spent a short time in southeast Asia, before my father was transferred back to Canada. My parents were in the military, hence all the travelling. I did not know about the pee and poop names... lol that's awful! :P

Well I guess the Netherlands is different, I think you and Sweden are 2 of the most progressive countries as far as human rights. We have many rights here too, but there is a mental health act which states that if you are a danger to yourself or others, a judge can order you to be committed, the actual name of it escapes me at the moment. But if you are a compulsory patient, you have to stay in hospital for a minimum of 3 weeks, then a review board will look at your case and decide if you can be released yet or not. During your compulsory time, doctors can force you to take meds or have ECT treatments. Most will not force ECT treatments, but I was "lucky" enough to have a doctor who was a proponent of ECT, hence why I received the treatments. And continuing with the treatment course was a condition of my release back into the community. But that is just my own personal case, ECT may be helpful to others, some people think it's awesome, but none of those people have PTSD.

I'm quite shy about my artwork, but I do have some cartoons on the forum here. Some of the avatars are mine. The one I personally have, my uncle's, my aunt's, I believe bec's... yes, hers is one of mine too. Then there's a section under the avatars called "Evie's collection". Those are all drawn by me.

thank you for sharing, evie. what wonderful insight you have. i have learned much this morning.
cathy

Thanks Cathy, I appreciate it! :)

hi been little bit preoccupied with things lately
therefore my reply took a while, sorry
but I see you've been busy also. Congrats on your job!
I think evie's collection is a good example of your talent. I thought it was a character from a real comic book that I didn't know.

okay back to your response:
being german explains to me your interest and knowledge about europe. We were practical neighbours once :-).
That law you explained to me about being committed by a judge I know that; we have the same law here I was a victim of that too. But not the compulsory treatment that's against our law (but not for long I'm afraid, but that will be only for criminals with life long disorders). They tried to force meds on me but didn't succeed and they had to let me go after 10 days when an investigation was launched. Thank god for that.

I hope you will post your new work here as inker. Btw I saw your work in red somewhere in a thread. Powerful expressions. Keep on drawing girl.

oh and that of being a progressive country, forget about that that's history
since the execution of a politician here and 9/11 all hell broke loose
it's more extreme right and a great concern to europe what is happening in my country lately
but that's a complex political discussion I only want to elaborate on if it interest you

Thank you for the compliments. Actually some of those avatars are real characters from manga, but drawn by me. Fan art you could say.

Well I'm actually not German maus. Are you confused now? ;) I'm Scottish and Irish. My family is from Newfoundland. My parents were stationed at Osnabrück at the time of my birth, and I was born at the U.S. Military hospital in Landstuhl.

Oh I didn't realize the Netherlands was turning more right wing lately. That's too bad. I will have to do some reading up on that, before I feel comfortable enough discussing it with you.

Anyways thanks for your comments, sorry didn't say much in this message, as I am feeling rather ill today. I'll probably go back to bed! Take care.