Will be getting ECT and need to know your experience

[schrodingers_cat_lives]

I've been in a deep crippling depression for over 3 months. I've had about 3 hospitalizations this yr. with one suicide attempt. I've had some mania in between, but i returned to yet another depressive episode with a lot of anxiety that has been worsening for over the past 3 months. I'm completely withdrawn socially, fearful of leaving the house, can barely function, experiencing a lot of anxiety, cry a lot and feel completely helpless and hopeless.

In the past, meds have eventually worked to pull me out of past depressions, but now nothing is working. Though i've been seeing my dr. every week and tried a variety of meds, still nothing has worked. I'm desperate to try anything and my dr suggested ECT. I know it's nothing like what it was like in the 50's and have heard it to be a successful procedure from my dr., i'm still nervous about it and would like to know if anyone here has ever undergone this procedure and what the results were. Did it work? What should i expect? What does it feel like afterwards and did you experience memory loss.

Any info. and personal experience would be helpful to me as i'm pretty scared something might go wrong. Thanx

 

[Noxot]

if no one can tell you anything you could try youtube I suppose.. i'm guessing you have already read up on it. I don't know how different it is from the more natural plasticity the brain has but I think micro seizures might happen when you meditate anyways. I think that the brain can naturally break down and reconnect itself in different manners. I wonder how much accuracy ECT has nowadays? I know the brain is a very complex organ but if it does work then obviously any depressed and suffering person would want it. sorry I can not help you with personal experience but if you do go through it maybe you can help others with personal experience. I hope that whatever happens that you get better...

 

[Jeshu]

Yeah E.C.T, is a real mixture in my experiences.

I've had 18 session of it and experienced it as something positive as well as something negative.

At the time I had evil voices and major depression for years, I was very sick and desperate to get some relief, medication hadn't been helpful.

Did E.C.T help?

After 18 sessions I couldn't even remember how many kids I had. Luckily for me this loss of memory was very helpful for I was plagued by bad memories and my evil voices capitalised on that. After the memory loss the evil voices stopped pestering me with the past which made my depression a whole lot better to deal with.

So for me E.C.T was the beginning of my healing, it took the worst of my depression away. Over the years a lot of my memory has returned, though the time period I had the treatment done is like a black hole for I can remember nothing of it - apart of the last session that seems to be burned into my mind - I hated the treatment.

After all it did impair me to some degree. I used to have an excellent memory but now it is shocking. I do get an awful lot of blanks - where I can't remember what I was talking, doing or thinking about. Especially at first this was really bad.

I have talked with more people who had E.C.T treatment done. They all complained about memory loss but only a few people seemed to have been helped by it. Personally I think that a bad past plaguing is the best criteria that E.C.T might benefit your depression.

I don't believe that E.C.T is a permanent solution. Some people have a few sessions every 6 months or so and find great benefit, but most people didn't seem to get much out of it.

I advise you to have just 3 or 4 sessions and see if it has benefited you, if not seek help elsewhere. Regardless of E.C.T helps or not you will still have to learn different ways of digesting life information to be able to get out of your crippling depression. I found that a God loving and trusting attitude has helped me the most to fight against my depression. Where I fight the negativity of my depression with the promises of Christ and make my internal truth comply with the truth of the bible and not directed any longer by the lies of my depression. Loading my psyche up with God's goodness healed me more than any other treatment that I have gotten over the years.

All the best making a decision.