I don’t mean to mock ECT because I know that sometimes it saves lives. I just think there needs to be more openness about the long term effects.

Anyway, this man wanted me to have ECT and I didn’t want to because of people I’d seen in one particular hospital where one of my loved ones was dying. Between those zombie-looking people who scared my 20 year old self and “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” I was scared to death of shock treatments. (Not to mention one of my favorite movies, but scary to someone back in that time with mental/emotional health issues, “Suddenly Last Summer” with Elizabeth Taylor, Katherine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift.) I refused time and again until finally I was so desperate to get back to normal I was thinking about it. Therefore at my next appointment I asked him how it worked — what did it actually do to the brain that removed depression, since he had misdiagnosed me with severe clinical depression and promised the shock treatments would make me normal again. He frowned, shook his head and stated, “We don’t know how it works or why it works.” Yet during a previous visit as he was urging me to do this, he said if any of his family — wife, children — were as depressed as I was and had such difficulty with medication (he never used the term you mentioned and with which I would later be classified: treatment resistant) he wouldn’t hesitate to give them shock treatments.

Like you, all that was mentioned as a side-effect was memory problems for a few days prior to and just after the treatment. I also assumed from the word “treatment” and not “treatments” that it meant one time. Later I learned “treatment” meant a series of shocks, depending upon various reasons for each person. Also like you, I later learned from others that they were missing huge chunks of time from their memories — not just during the time surround the treatment(s). In fact oner person couldn’t remember a single thing that happened before the series of shocks she underwent.

Later, when I had to quit my job, sell my home and give up my normal life not knowing it would never come back, I had no insurance and had to go to a state-run (and paid for) facility. They had a complete turnover one time of all employees and it was in the news who the new director would be, and who became my doctor. It was the partner to my previous psychiatrist. Both men were sanctioned publicly by the state and by the psychiatric association for using way too many ECTs as treatment instead of meds, counseling, etc. It was their first go-to response. The doctor I had seen left town and this doctor was “downgraded” to work for the state. I was surprised they were able to keep their medical licenses. It was such a big deal, there was a four-page spread about it in our newspaper.

I realize for some people they think, believe and/or swear by ECTs as the only thing that has ever helped them. That’s fine for them. As for me, it still scares the daylights out of me and I will not go there unless I am completely out of my mind and someone else makes that decision for me. The doctor at the state-run facility used me as a guinea pig for all new meds that came out, jerking me off one chemical and immediately putting me on another. It wasn’t until I had a good doctor that I discovered you are to be weaned off one med before starting another. I will tell you that during the time I was seen by this man and used as his chemical guinea pig, I have chunks of memory loss anyway.

Great post, Cate!! I wish others would follow suit. Carrie Fisher, actress, author, daughter of Debbie Reynolds, is quite open about her ECTs. Maybe one day when I am able to read again, I’ll buy her book. I’ll bet it’s fascinating.