My Lobotomy

This book is amazing! It only took me one week to read and I literally could not put the book down. My Lobotomy was written by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming. It is Howard Dully's memoir of his life leading up to and after receiving an "ice pick" lobotomy.

Howard's mother died when he was young and his father remarried a woman who was nothing like the loving mother Howard vaguely remembers. The step-mother tolerated Howard for a short period of time and then began a violent vengeance against him, that existed until the day she died. By all accounts, Howard was an energetic young boy who got into some trouble here and there. Nothing that would make someone want to discard him or even medically disable him. Since the story is written from Howard's point of view, there is no telling what may have really happened in his childhood home. But his father worked to make ends meet and was never at home, and the angry step-mother berated and beat poor Howard.

The step-mother, Lou, then began trying to pawn Howard off onto neighbors who took in unwanted children. When that no longer worked, Lou conviced Howard's father to look for some other place to take Howard in, citing financial burden as the reason. Lou was not satisfied, so she began visiting psychiatrists and therapists, seeking a cure for Howard's problems. The "problems" were non-existent so most doctors blamed Lou for what was happening and even went so far as to suggest she needed help. That was the last straw. Lou finally found a doctor that was willing to listen and work with her, his name was Dr. Walter Freeman, famous for the invention of the "ice pick" lobotomy that was shunned by others in the medical profession.

In the end, Lou got what she wanted. Howard's father consented and paid $200 for Howard's outpatient lobotomy. It was administerd by electroshocking the patient into a comatose state and then lifting the eye lid and forcing an ice pick like instrument between the eye and the ocular cavity. It was often unsuccessful and even cause death for many patients. Howard was lucky in that he didn't die, but he spend the next 20 years of his life in and out of asylums and juvenile detention facilities. In some cases he was sent to schools for "special" children.

But, a lobotomy is never the cure for normal child like behavior. Howard finally ended up on the streets, drug addicted and an alcoholic. He was constantly burdened with the thought that he may have been a terrible person or committed some heinous crime in order to deserve a lobotomy at the age of 12. He then spent the next 10 or so years trying to find out what happened and why he was given a transorbital lobotomy. The rest of the book is devoted to Howard's pursuit of the truth before all the people involved in his life as a child died. It is terribly sad, but somehow uplifting. It is a must read for those of you that are interested in memoirs and the life histories of troubled people, or vicitims of ignorance.