When I first told my friends I was going home for a few months to get electrocuted, they thought I was insane. I think some of them wondered if I was literally insane, given that electrocution-related therapies are often associated with psychiatric institutions. These days when I see my friends, they often eye me sideways. Is Siddhi mad? Is the electrocution helping? What’s wrong with her, anyway? But given that for me, the treatment was a last-ditch effort at treating an incurable condition, I wasn’t bothered by how extreme it seemed to some people.

Since I was a teenager, I’ve struggled with chronic pain — the result of repeated shoulder dislocations from my earlier years in gymnastics. I was also a double bassist, and though my injuries had never been particularly debilitating