Plus-sized model Emme has always been open about life as a heavy person, but now she and her husband have written a book about his struggle with depression—what the couple calls "the two-year abyss."

She was reluctant to co-write the book, an idea her husband came up with. She told the Hackensack Record's Virgina Rohan, "I was kicking and screaming going into it. It was too soon, and post-depression, there was a whole adjustment period ... about eight or nine months for Phil ... a lot of tough, difficult times for him. Imagine being out of it for 2½ years, not being in control of what was going on around you, [feeling like you] couldn't even get out of the house if the house was burning."

Ultimately, Phil tried ECT. "There are still some people on the side of the fence that it works [for], and others that it doesn't. It worked for me."

Emme described dealing with Phil's ECT-related memory loss: "When Phil came back from the hospital, he couldn't drive, because he didn't know where the supermarket was. He had to relearn, and then it would slowly come back."

Hmm. That sounds familiar.

But Phil's experience is why, though I'm generally opposed to ECT, I don't favor an outright ban on it, as some activists do. It really does seem to work for some small number of people, and it wouldn't be fair to deny them a treatment solution.

One Couple's Climb to Hope