I don't know how common people lose so much of their memories, I only know this because of a video I saw of a woman talking about her experiences with ECT. I don't know if it was 20+ years but she basically lost a huge portion of herself.
Heres a comment posted on another video she posted a few months later.
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They're going to tell you what you want to hear. If this is your last resort and you don't care about memories that much, by all means, but I'm telling you this so you know going in.
I had a discussion with quite a few people in the chat about ECT the other day, I seemed to be the only one really against it, which was surprising.
I suppose my mental distress is but a symptom of physical and permanent situational factors, so maybe they thought of the dilemma of fucking with one's brain differently than I.
I have personally been threatened with the procedure when I was in a psych ward.
It came about after I was going through withdrawal over a cluster of medications that they took me off of cold turkey.
It was so bad that I could not even walk, I was so tired yet so restless, I'm not even sure how to describe the feeling..but they told me that it was impossible to experience withdrawal symptoms from psych meds (lmaoo), I actually half-believed them, and at that age I didn't even know what withdrawal entailed so I had no way of accurately faking it, I was a "straight" teen so no experience with drugs really.
Anyway, the way I was treated during this stay (much worse than some previous stays..haven't been to one for years now, thank god) was unacceptable.
I would even have talks with them (the staff), speaking on their level, questioning, doubting, inquiring..they hated that.
I didn't treat them like they were superior to me, and I was not yet a zombie, nor a fool, they did not like that I didn't take what they said at face value, or that I stood up for myself.
They even tried to turn my parents against me, told them I was a master manipulator just because I called them and told them I wanted to leave and wasn't sure what was happening.
They were the manipulative ones.
All this to say, I believe their dislike of me led to my suddenly being taken to an empty conference room where I was surrounded by way too many people on the opposite end of the table..who then proceeded to tell me I would be getting ECT.
I grew cold. I was remembering what ECT was-if I recall-and I was terrified.
But I was so tired, so out of it, if felt like a dream..a nightmare.
I told them that was not going to be happening.
No way in hell.
They told me "we can get a court order, you don't have to agree"...I was disturbed.
I told them my family (parents) would never allow it (at this time I was bluffing, because I really wasn't entirely sure they would stop this from happening) and I think this gave them pause, I remember repeating it, I remember being firm, trying to hide my terror. They were going to take my mind, the one thing I was able to escape to and even somewhat cherish (strange to say, to think-as someone in a psych unit, but I've never considered my brain to be the root of my problems). I was prepared to physically fight them if need be. I'm telling you, I would have fought to the death.
I had previously seen what ECT had done to patients on the other wing of the hospital, they came up in a state of blank nothingness, just gone, I know I've told this story before, and earlier versions are probably more accurate, but one woman..I think the first, when she came up in that way, I remember asking her where she was this whole time, and she said ECT.
And I was like "What's ECT?", and when she told me, through her half-lidded hazy state, I was mortified and baffled.
I asked her, "You got that done willingly!?"
And she said "Not the first time."
Interpret that as you will, but at the time, all the way up until now..that haunted me.
"
Not the first time."...so depending on how you look at it, she either liked the treatment so much that she finally submitted to it...OR..the treatment fried her brain to the degree that she knows no other way than to be submissive, docile, in a similar fashion as was the case with lobotomized patients.
Their "problems" were solved via making them lose the wits they had to even recognize said problems.
Years after this incident, and my own (I was able to avoid ECT by the skin of my teeth, a psychiatrist from the other wing that I had a brief history with also helped to stop it from happening, even though she was pals with the ECT director who threatened me..she was not against the treatment of ECT, but she
was for my wishes, and for that I am grateful, her and I had some arguments here and there but she did the right thing, which I can rarely say for people in this profession. My parents also said No, another rare instance that I could possibly thank them for. Although my father later decided that ECT isn't all that bad...scary thought if I should end up back inside), I came to know someone who had a relative (not blood) that had the "treatment" done several times over, and by the end of it he was supposedly in not much better a condition than those who are "vegetative", he barely spoke, couldn't do anything on his own or even move much, I think he was in a wheelchair but I'm not 100%, he couldn't even interact with his own child properly, and I was told he was once a very intelligent man, now just gone. More gone than I had seen anyone appear at the ward.
It was very tragic.
I don't think people realize that all of the posted information and euphemistic language used revolving around ECT, is almost always being shared from a biased source, those who profit from the procedure or are involved with administering it.
And then this information and "language" is passed onto the public and the patients, who then pass it onward to other patients.
These people in charge get paid the more beds they fill.
From my research, it has come to my understanding that those involved in the practice (and study of it) cannot even describe the exact mechanism in how it "works"...they cannot even tell us what is happening, they have no idea themselves.
There are theories but nothing much more than that, so essentially they are "winging" it in a way, just hooking you up and seeing what happens.
There are claims that it improves symptoms but what is considered an improvement?
Being too 'out of it' to care?
Forgetting to focus on your issues because you literally forgot them? Along with your language and writing skills? (another side effect I've heard and read people lament over)
Lobotomies were said to "improve symptoms" "treat and cure" as well, but by whose definition? And in what state?
Not to mention it's known to lose effectiveness the longer you go without getting secondary treatments.
In other words, the "cure" doesn't last, but the damage sure does.
All ECT is, to me, is the closest thing we have to a modern day equivalent of the Lobotomy.
Obviously a lobotomy is far fucking worse, and modern day ECT is no longer as terrible as it was in "The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" days,
but I still consider it pretty barbaric, and in the least-unsafe and unethical, especially without further understanding of what exactly is taking place, both "helpful" and harmful.
Searching for experiences like this woman's^ is NECESSARY so that one is informed on all counts, sees all possible losses, so that they can be absolutely certain that having a medically induced seizure via electric shock is something they want to fuck with.
It's no joke, it's taken way too lightly and the rhetoric surrounding it-pushed by some other patients and their doctors alike-is alluring and lulls one into a false sense of security, like it's just a day at the spa, nothing lost forever, just peace.
But for a lot of people, this is far from the case, and it was never a good idea, just a desperate (or coerced) one.
So to anyone seriously considering this, LOOK for the bad, before you believe the good. Negative reviews (of anything) can often be buried, science that runs to the contrary of the benefits is also going to need to be sought out, under the heaps of new age enthusiasm for this procedure.
It's all there though, and much of it is perfectly authentic and honest.
The biggest problem I have with ECT, is that for such a serious "treatment", it is still forced on patients, it is still administered involuntarily (no matter what anyone says otherwise) and that is horrific to me..this is something that should NEVER be done to someone who is unwilling. Never. Yet it is.
Both voluntarily-and far from it.
NO.
