Has anyone tried modern methods of electroshock therapy for treatment resistant depresion? If so, what was it like and did you find it at all effective?
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Im in the Uk on a mental health ward, one of the ladies here has ECT, she said it made her throw up but apart from that she was anethatised. From what ive seen of her over the last month its not worked, she still thinks shes not safe anywhere, cries alot and is generally still stressed. I have no idea what she was like prior to a month ago so maybe what i see now is an improvement
Caustic Cardinals
Enlightened
- Sep 1, 2018
- 1,339
I have received both unilateral and bilateral ECT. Cognitive damage that it caused is not worth it
Fucking loving it
Specialist
- Sep 3, 2018
- 378
The dr wants me to do ect. I said no. I've had my own seizures wipe me out. I don't need more.
That's scary! Not at all what my psychiatrist described. Good thing I can't afford it anyway.
Suicideisnirvana
Specialist
- Aug 4, 2018
- 312
It's a medieval barbarian device that don't work for the majority of people.
Dogsbody
Odo
- Oct 22, 2018
- 55
Yes, and it bought me 6 months of relief. Only memory loss was the day if the procedure.
Radaghest
Member
- Oct 11, 2018
- 79
Ive really wanted to try it but its not offered near me.
Made4TV
A hopeless hope junkie
- Sep 17, 2018
- 574
Some people really swear by it. I had it although it was unwarranted in my case. I did experience memory loss of the days immediately around treatment. Personally...I would give it a chance if someone thought it could help with what I'm experiencing now. But that's me. Always a damn shred of hope. Ha.
starcrossedfate
Passenger
- Sep 24, 2018
- 240
Same. I have nothing to lose at this point.
couldntthinkofaname
Mage
- Aug 31, 2018
- 565
it doesnt work permanent i heard
so whats the point
im sick of treatment...PERMANENT CURE OR GTFO
so whats the point
im sick of treatment...PERMANENT CURE OR GTFO
Dogsbody
Odo
- Oct 22, 2018
- 55
worldexploder
Visionary
- Sep 19, 2018
- 2,821
It has been offered to me before. As well as deep brain simulation and CBT. No to all 3. It's easier just to die.
couldntthinkofaname
Mage
- Aug 31, 2018
- 565
what does it do?
i think the the only drugs ill check out are nembutal and sodium nitrite
Ketamine is gaining a growing following in treating depression.
WinterIsComing
Fragile...
- May 27, 2019
- 256
My doctor suggest it, he said he mejor loss was temporal... He said with a smirk on his face...
Oh and a doctor told me she would do it to her daughter if she was feeling bad.
Oh and a doctor told me she would do it to her daughter if she was feeling bad.
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LastFlowers
the haru that can read
- Apr 27, 2019
- 2,170
No and I never would.
Nothing was working for me (and why would it? I'm in a hell situation that my mind is reacting appropriately to imo) so one of the times I was in the psych ward, I was brought into a room. I sat at the end of the table, opposite a group of staff and doctors (including the guy who runs the ECT
department).
This was the same time they stripped me of the meds I was assigned to take, cold turkey. And then put me on new ones immediately.
I was a mess. I was in withdrawal and they said that was impossible with antipsychotics, anti depressants, etc.
They said psych meds don't do that.
LMAO. I didn't know any better.
What wasn't funny was the fact that I could not sleep yet was relentlessly restless. I couldn't even manage to walk. Something weird was going on with my body. I couldn't eat nor sleep, nor hardly drink.
My mother and grandmother came (the fact that I allowed my grandmother to come meant I was really out of it), and they said it was the worst they'd ever seen Me. I could barely interact. Some of the other patients colored pictures for me and gave them to me, which I didn't even realize until afterwards. They saw how the staff were treating my zombie like self.
I dropped a tissue on the ground in my room and was told to stop making everything into a pig sty. I was told I was a "master manipulator" just because I called my parents on the ward phone and told them I was doing poorly and to please get me out of there. When I could not get up and move, I was told it was my own fault and yelled at to get up and walk around the ward. They basically said I was full of shit. I had the opposite experience in the same building but on the other side, previously, so this was really shocking.
Back to the room full of doctors, the topic of ECT was brought up. I didn't know why I was alone with so many people in a conference room. But uh-one can make a pretty educated guess.
I got a really bad gut feeling and said "well I'm not going to have that done." And then the ECT director leered at me and told me coldly that he could actually have a judge court order me to have it done and I would have no choice. That it's not my decision, my permission unnecessary.
That was beyond frightening. I had already lost control of my body, my face, I was not going to lose control of my brain and who I was.
I said No way in Hell. "No way In hell am I doing that, my parents would never allow it." I was a teenager at the time.
Despite how problematic my parents were, I somehow knew they would protect me from this. Even if that was the only thing they ever did.
The guy said I shouldn't be so sure about that and that it didn't matter anyhow. He was pissed the more I told him it would never happen. Even in my state, there was no way this was happening. I was so scared but tried to act just as calm and cold as he did. I was half dead so that helped.
I already saw the aftermath of the people who got it done on the other side of the ward. I had spoken to them during previous "visits."
The most chilling thing they said was when I asked if they were being forced to do it.
One woman said "No, not after the first time." Not after the first time!?
She acted like the walking dead when she came back from ECT and voluntarily went downstairs with them. But only after they forcibly fried her brain the first time. She even laughed and said something along the lines of "actually, I think I even put up a fight the first time."
Jesus.
There was no way I was ever getting that done.
The meds and the psych holds were bad enough on their own.
But yea, anyway. Thank the god damn universe, it never happened. (Never thought I'd say that).
I learned afterward that my aunts, mother, and grandmother were determined to plant themselves on the bottom floor, the only way out to the ECT building, and physically stop anyone from taking me there.
I have a lot of issues with my family but I must commend them on that.
That ECT director didn't get his piece of the paycheck nor his little piece of control over my brain and my rights to bodily autonomy. My right to my own damn personhood. My memories, my everything. I don't beleive in literal souls, so for me, my brain is the soul. That is the real me.
And the only way anyone is going to strap me down and send electricity through it is if I am dead.
This is a topic that really makes me heated. I remember a Reddit discussion where a nurse or doctor who advocated for it attempted to describe it with euphemisms and bold faced lies. When presented with the fact that it was not always voluntary (which she previously claimed it was) she pretty much followed with the idea that it will only happen that way for the patient's own good and if they don't agree, well they don't know what's good for them.
Makes me sick.
A woman I spoke to briefly who caught the bus, her spouse told me about an in law of his who had the ECT treatments and now he barely even speaks. And was previously an extremely intelligent and I beleive-well spoken man.
It's fine if other people think this helps them, but I am wholeheartedly against it and any manipulation of the term "voluntary" when putting it into practice on a human being.
Nothing was working for me (and why would it? I'm in a hell situation that my mind is reacting appropriately to imo) so one of the times I was in the psych ward, I was brought into a room. I sat at the end of the table, opposite a group of staff and doctors (including the guy who runs the ECT
department).
This was the same time they stripped me of the meds I was assigned to take, cold turkey. And then put me on new ones immediately.
I was a mess. I was in withdrawal and they said that was impossible with antipsychotics, anti depressants, etc.
They said psych meds don't do that.
LMAO. I didn't know any better.
What wasn't funny was the fact that I could not sleep yet was relentlessly restless. I couldn't even manage to walk. Something weird was going on with my body. I couldn't eat nor sleep, nor hardly drink.
My mother and grandmother came (the fact that I allowed my grandmother to come meant I was really out of it), and they said it was the worst they'd ever seen Me. I could barely interact. Some of the other patients colored pictures for me and gave them to me, which I didn't even realize until afterwards. They saw how the staff were treating my zombie like self.
I dropped a tissue on the ground in my room and was told to stop making everything into a pig sty. I was told I was a "master manipulator" just because I called my parents on the ward phone and told them I was doing poorly and to please get me out of there. When I could not get up and move, I was told it was my own fault and yelled at to get up and walk around the ward. They basically said I was full of shit. I had the opposite experience in the same building but on the other side, previously, so this was really shocking.
Back to the room full of doctors, the topic of ECT was brought up. I didn't know why I was alone with so many people in a conference room. But uh-one can make a pretty educated guess.
I got a really bad gut feeling and said "well I'm not going to have that done." And then the ECT director leered at me and told me coldly that he could actually have a judge court order me to have it done and I would have no choice. That it's not my decision, my permission unnecessary.
That was beyond frightening. I had already lost control of my body, my face, I was not going to lose control of my brain and who I was.
I said No way in Hell. "No way In hell am I doing that, my parents would never allow it." I was a teenager at the time.
Despite how problematic my parents were, I somehow knew they would protect me from this. Even if that was the only thing they ever did.
The guy said I shouldn't be so sure about that and that it didn't matter anyhow. He was pissed the more I told him it would never happen. Even in my state, there was no way this was happening. I was so scared but tried to act just as calm and cold as he did. I was half dead so that helped.
I already saw the aftermath of the people who got it done on the other side of the ward. I had spoken to them during previous "visits."
The most chilling thing they said was when I asked if they were being forced to do it.
One woman said "No, not after the first time." Not after the first time!?
She acted like the walking dead when she came back from ECT and voluntarily went downstairs with them. But only after they forcibly fried her brain the first time. She even laughed and said something along the lines of "actually, I think I even put up a fight the first time."
Jesus.
There was no way I was ever getting that done.
The meds and the psych holds were bad enough on their own.
But yea, anyway. Thank the god damn universe, it never happened. (Never thought I'd say that).
I learned afterward that my aunts, mother, and grandmother were determined to plant themselves on the bottom floor, the only way out to the ECT building, and physically stop anyone from taking me there.
I have a lot of issues with my family but I must commend them on that.
That ECT director didn't get his piece of the paycheck nor his little piece of control over my brain and my rights to bodily autonomy. My right to my own damn personhood. My memories, my everything. I don't beleive in literal souls, so for me, my brain is the soul. That is the real me.
And the only way anyone is going to strap me down and send electricity through it is if I am dead.
This is a topic that really makes me heated. I remember a Reddit discussion where a nurse or doctor who advocated for it attempted to describe it with euphemisms and bold faced lies. When presented with the fact that it was not always voluntary (which she previously claimed it was) she pretty much followed with the idea that it will only happen that way for the patient's own good and if they don't agree, well they don't know what's good for them.
Makes me sick.
A woman I spoke to briefly who caught the bus, her spouse told me about an in law of his who had the ECT treatments and now he barely even speaks. And was previously an extremely intelligent and I beleive-well spoken man.
It's fine if other people think this helps them, but I am wholeheartedly against it and any manipulation of the term "voluntary" when putting it into practice on a human being.
lululoo
Mage
- Dec 15, 2018
- 558
I've never had it but I am also whole-heartedly against it. It is barbaric.
crimea_river
Experienced
- May 27, 2019
- 210
A close relative of mine (now deceased) who suffered from a myriad of mental health issues had ect. When I learned that they were considering it, I carried out a lot of research on the process. They weren't in the position to do that themselves.
It seemed to me they were coerced in to having it done and I attempted make them aware of the pitfalls of the procedure(s).
Following having it done, which I believe was on a number of occasions, they just became very vacant, only able to hold coversations for a little while, in their own world most of the time I suppose. The array of medications that they were taking before the ect remained the same and the only 'improvement' I saw was their inability to communicate their problems like they had before.
It seemed to me they were coerced in to having it done and I attempted make them aware of the pitfalls of the procedure(s).
Following having it done, which I believe was on a number of occasions, they just became very vacant, only able to hold coversations for a little while, in their own world most of the time I suppose. The array of medications that they were taking before the ect remained the same and the only 'improvement' I saw was their inability to communicate their problems like they had before.
