My Lobotomy by Al Kolessar

The Podcast

ak993543 — 2024-04-25 16:07:37 UTC

The podcast Howard Dully worked on in 2005 to get his, and others' stories out.

ak993543 — 2024-04-25 16:10:11 UTC

Pictures such as these were shared at conferences or in newspapers with their captions to encourage the usefulness of the procedure.

ak993543 — 2024-04-25 18:36:09 UTC

Several before and after images were used to state how helpful the lobotomies had been, but they neglected to discuss the horrible side effects.

Novel Summary

ak993543 — 2024-04-25 18:39:15 UTC

The novel follows the extremely distressing journey of Howard Dully, who received an ice-pick lobotomy at the age of only 12. As a young boy, his mother loved him unconditionally, so the loss of his mother at a young age destroyed him. He was moved around frequently as a child, and his father worked to make ends meet. Eventually, his father remarried a woman by the name of Lou, and everything started to get worse. Lou was not affectionate, had children from a previous marriage, and was very strict. Not only was she strict, she was especially horrible to Howard Dully. He got punished for things he didn't do, yelled at constantly for wanting more to eat, sent to his room often, and beat physically by both Lou and his father. Howard Dully started to act out at school and explains it perfectly when he says, "maybe that's part of why I behaved badly. I was being treated like a bad boy, so I acted like a bad boy. The rules weren't fair, so I broke the rules" (38). Lou continued to punish him, but Howard Dully was growing larger and naturally had a very large stature at a young age. Lou decided she needed to find another way to punish him since the beatings didn't work, and that was to get him a lobotomy. She went to six, SIX, doctors who said he was a normal kid and four even said it was a problem with her, but she kept going until she met Dr. Freeman, the man specialized in and did lobotomies. She lied in what she told him to make Howard Dully seem worse than he was in order for him to get accepted for a lobotomy. On his 12th birthday, the lobotomy was approved and signed off by both his stepmother and father without him knowing before the operation. After the lobotomy, Howard Dully states that he lost a lot of his memory of the healing period. After he healed from the operation, he hadn't changed enough as Lou wanted him to, so she once again was trying to get him out of the house. Lying about what he had been doing at home, he was set to an asylum, then youth detention centers, and went around for most of his life to different places where he felt he wasn't needed. In the years when he should have been learning his place in the world, he was living in halfway houses or other institutions with no hope of returning home. Due to this, he never learned a lot of skills he needed. He became addicted to drugs and alcohol as he committed rather intense crimes to try and get somewhere in his life. Eventually everything started to find its place once he found his wife and they both needed to quit doing drugs because they could not afford it. Then, he started to reflect more on his lobotomy and wanted to know why it was done to him. He started to research the procedure to try and find more about it, and eventually he found a group of people creating a documentary on Dr. Freeman, the man who gave him a lobotomy. Once he shared his story, the documentary became about him and the impact the lobotomy had on his life. He traveled around despite his fear of flying to get answers and talk to others who were impacted by lobotomies. Howard Dully even interviewed his father, who was very casual and seemed not to realize the impact on his son's life that the lobotomy made. The novel ended with Howard Dully discussing how he wrote the book and through the podcast and everything he had been through, he finally found peace with it. He has a loving wife, children, a job as a bus driver, and the satisfaction that he helped so many people by sharing his story.

Reflection

ak993543 — 2024-04-25 18:40:38 UTC

I can admit that I originally decided to read the book due to its very striking title. After finishing it, I am so glad I did. The book at times was hard to read and made me feel sick to my stomach due to the treatment Howard Dully received from his family and doctors. Several times I did have to put the book down and step away since it made me feel nauseous. No person, especially no child, deserved to go through something so difficult. Howard Dully writes about how he spent 40 years wondering what he did to deserve the lobotomy, and there was no good answer, since he didn't deserve it. I cannot believe such a practice was normalized and completely okay for all ages of people. Even with all the deaths and horrible effects of it exposed, it still continued. Part of the novel discusses how Dully's stepmother went to 6 doctors, who all refused to say he needed a lobotomy before he got one. The stepmother was so persistent to make him cooperate and easy that she just kept going until she met with Freeman. That made me feel so frustrated with the stepmother. She wanted that little boy to suffer so bad that nothing stopped her. Overall, the book made me so upset, frustrated, and sick at the treatment Howard Dully received. At the end, I was so glad he could live in peace with what happened to him and helped others with it as well.

Connection to the Class

ak993543 — 2024-04-25 18:42:09 UTC

This book connects to the class as Howard Dully underwent an operation to give him a traumatic brain injury. In addition, it is possible that he had something like ADHD before the lobotomy. He states it himself throughout the book that he had trouble paying attention, often did bad in classes he didn't care about, and would act without much thought before doing something. Despite the possibility of him maybe having ADHD, that in no way means he needed the lobotomy to "fix" him. In addition, we talk a lot about not judging students or anyone for their behavior, and Howard Dully was definitely one of those cases. He acted out, but no one at school attempted to talk to him or see why he acted the way he did. While I cannot say he might not have gotten the lobotomy if someone did talk to him and try to understand, it may have helped him a lot. He felt very unloved by his stepmother and craved that comfort and someone supplying that would have most likely meant so much to him.

Media Connection

ak993543 — 2024-04-25 18:57:21 UTC

A personal connection I have seen in media is one in a game titled Psychonauts. While the story of the game is unrealistic, it often talks about difficult topics, such as mental health and addiction, very respectfully. The game follows a group of psychics, but the main antagonist of the first game is an unlicensed doctor and also unlicensed dentist by the name of Dr. Caligosto Loboto. The name tells enough about what happened to him. When he was a child, his parents realized he was a psychic and sent him to have an ice-pick lobotomy to "fix" him and rid him of the powers. While the operation seemed to cure him of the psychic powers, he completely lost his mind since the operation damaged his brain. As an adult, he went on to be an unlicensed dentist before being sent to an asylum after hurting his patients. The asylum was destroyed, so he went to work as a scientist for hire, working odd jobs such as removing psychic children's brains for them to operate brain tanks (much like his lobotomy may have felt for him). Again, the game isn't very serious nor realistic in some aspects. Especially with the first game coming out in 2005, it isn't as careful with some of his story. There are some offensive comments, but the second game released in 2021 is much nicer to him. The characters are more gentle and understanding of him. Dr. Loboto is very isolated and gets manipulated throughout the games from people who swear they "want the best for him." Throughout the series, those playing can feel real sympathy for what happened to him as a result of his lobotomy. While the representation may not be the best, it was another time I saw lobotomies discussed.

Main Ideas

ak993543 — 2024-04-25 19:03:52 UTC

The novel follows the coming-of-age memoir of Howard Dully throughout his life and the turmoil that went with it until he finally came to peace with it after the age of 50. The book is a very eye-opening, in depth look at the horrifying truth behind lobotomies and their impact on people who they were given to. Especially as Howard Dully tells in the novel, the time period showed a lot of the "successful" lobotomies which made people shells of what they once were. His novel and his story on the podcast show the terrifying truth about the procedure which completely flipped his life upside down. I think another large main idea of the book is centered around a need for more empathy. Howard Dully struggled so hard even from a young age and acted out due to it, but so few people showed him empathy or care. He lost his mother at a young age, was being abused at home, and beat, but no one was told to reach out to him and try to help. No matter how someone acts, they deserve understanding. Other lobotomy patients, including Howard Dully himself, were often given the operation to make them easier to control and not to deal with what issues they may have. The novel also expresses the importance of taking care of one's self and especially their mental health. Mental health issues are a large topic in the book, as Howard Dully himself struggles and goes to different asylums with other people struggling. These people who struggle have their own mental health conditions and no matter what, they deserve the same empathy as discussed above. A harshness only makes a lot of conditions worse.

Video with Real Lobotomy Patients (1944)

ak993543 — 2024-04-25 19:09:25 UTC

This video is honestly sickening to watch, but it features real film of real lobotomy patients. It is so sad to see these people almost all become basically zombies after the operation.

ak993543 — 2024-04-25 19:51:52 UTC

Dr. Freeman often liked to take pictures before, during, and after the lobotomies, and this is a picture of him doing one with several people watching.

Traumatic Brain Injury

ak993543 — 2024-04-29 15:34:35 UTC

A quick overview about Traumatic Brain Injuries and their impacts on learning, life, and how to help people with them