Friday, October 31, 2014

In Another Time

I'm watching this show that is set back in the early 60's and it's depicting these horrible images of ECT and transorbital lobotomies and I am thinking how lucky I am, if I must have a mental illness, to live today, not 60 years ago. ECT is still used today, but it's done in a much more humane way.  I've had ECT.  Not sure I'd recommend it, I wouldn't do it again myself, but it's not like you see in the movies. And transorbital lobotomies, fortunately, have not been done in a very long time. It's scary to think of where I might be and what might have happened if I'd simply had the misfortune to be me in another time.

2 comments:

  1. Have you shared your experience with ECT before? I'd like to know how it is done, and why you don't recommend it.

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    1. I'm not sure I've written much about it here. I had it done on an outpatient basis, because I was fortunate enough that my psychiatrist agreed I did not need to be hospitalized and I was fortunate enough that my partner at the time was working from home so he could drive me to the hospital three times a week for ECT. The hospital where I had it done was a little over an hour from my house. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for several weeks, I had to be there at 9 am. I was done by lunch time. They start an IV and they sedate you with something fast-acting so you are asleep for the actual procedure. You wake up very soon afterward. It was not painful at all and, after I'd had it done a couple times and knew what to expect, it was not scary.

      I said I wasn't sure I'd recommend it, but I'm not sure I'd recommend against it, either. Statistically, it is highly effective for the treatment of depression, for most people. I did not have the results I'd hoped for, though. Very minor improvement. Which I guess was still good, since I was in a very, very bad place when I had it done, but not nearly as good as I'd hoped for and expected.

      I experienced really severe memory loss from the procedure. Memory loss is a known side effect. It's short term memory that suffers, generally. There are many things I don't remember from during that time in my life and from the period shortly before the ECT. For instance, shortly before I had ECT, my cat Cayenne was treated for cancer. I forgot about that until quite some time after the ECT when my sister mentioned it and I had no idea what she was talking about. I also forgot things like how to get to places that I was quite familiar with. For instance, I'd been seeing my psychiatrist for several years before I had ECT in the same office, just a few minutes from my home. I forgot how to get there. Weird stuff like that. The memory loss was pretty debilitating and it really disturbed me.

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