Please don't take this too seriously.

[Lorizael]

Isn't ECT kinda snake oily?

ECT has been shown to be effective for severe cases of treatment-resistant depression.

Well, then again so are most SSRIs I guess, since they're barely more effective than placebos.

This isn't strictly speaking true. SSRIs have a very mild benefit for mild depression, and their value seems to increase with the severity of the depression. There's probably no good reason to prescribe anti-depressants for people who are just going through a period of low mood, but anti-depressants do appear to have value for some.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

It depends on brain chemistry and the basis of depression.


ECT is dicey as hell, traditionally, but we DO know a lot more about all relevant fields than the Victorians. I just wouldn't let them work out the bugs on me.

[Ben Kenobi]

Well, for what it's worth I've been on a fairly low dose of SSRI's for about 2 years now. It's really a combination treatment - sleep, sufficient exercise, change in diet and with greater social interaction has really helped me. I'm not where I need to be yet - but I'm slowly getting there. Right now I'm struggling a bit with other health issues that have nothing to do with my depression - but they make it harder to do the other things.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

That's life, though. It never gets easy, but the game is still winnable.

Who plays on easy without getting bored anyway?

[Ben Kenobi]

Personally, given that I started with extra conducts, I could use easy mode.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Well, I like to win, so I'm prone to not seek a challenge ... but it does get boring eventually,

[Ben Kenobi]

It's not like you get extra lives, and you're already playing hardcore.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I'm a builder.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

BTW, my last two tries at drawing existential horror await approval...

[Lorizael]

I forget--what are the winning conditions of this game?

[Aeson]

I was treated with ECT. I won't say it "worked" (I think my docs would have said it didn't work at it's intended purpose), but it definitely isn't a placebo effect. I lost most of my memory of events before the treatment for several months before it started gradually coming back. A lot of my long term memory is still somewhat weird, as if viewing from a 3rd person or through a picture rather than remembering an experience. (This is different than I remember things that happened afterwards, and different than I remember remembering things before.) I still do not remember much of anything about the time surrounding the treatment. I remember going in for treatment, being very hungry sitting on a bench waiting, and then a weird feeling that it had all happened before as the anesthesiologist had me count down from 3. Nothing else about that stay at the hospital.

I ended up much more afraid of the dark for several months afterwards, and fear of heights as well. Fear of the dark is something I've always had to an extent, but fear of heights was not something I had ever experienced before. My insomnia went away completely right after (lucky, given the extreme fear of the dark ...), but gradually came back and became worse than ever. I was more proactive than I had been before (always very passive outside of sports) and asked my psychiatrist to take me off all meds.

It did give me a chance to develop new thoughts and tendencies, and comparing those new ones with old ones that kept popping up was a big part of what lead me to a philosophical conclusion that did help me tremendously. It didn't have any immediate effect on my emotional state. Years of having a better view of myself and other people, and spending lots of time relaxing and in warmer climates has had a great effect on my emotional state. I think a big part of my problem was triggered by not enough sunlight. Strangely enough, SAD is one of the few things I was never diagnosed as.

My experience seems to have been more extreme than most of the people who I knew who were treated with ECT. Though most of those people I knew around the time I was treated, so my memory of them is spotty at best.

I'd say it's a last resort measure. Basically rolling dice on who you'll end up as. (Though any medications are also the same thing.) In my case I was suicidal, medicated with horrible side effects, in a mental institution ... with the docs saying I might be a lifer. So there wasn't much to lose.

[Sava]

I saw a guy who just was zapped (ECT). I didn't know him before, but he seemed really messed up. Groggy... absent minded... basically, like a pod person.

[Lorizael]

I'd say it's a last resort measure. Basically rolling dice on who you'll end up as. (Though any medications are also the same thing.) In my case I was suicidal, medicated with horrible side effects, in a mental institution ... with the docs saying I might be a lifer. So there wasn't much to lose.

I'm not at the point of needing last resorts. I kind of wish I were, ridiculous as that sounds, but I'm not. I'm mostly functional. I have a job, a place to live. I pay my bills and all that jazz. But if you look a little deeper, I'm barely holding on to all of this. It feels like a little push in the wrong direction could send me spiraling into last resorts. It's never happened, though. Even when I've lost jobs in the past, I've never hit rock bottom. I had savings to live off of, or unemployment checks to keep me going. Sigh. It's so hard to really lose it.

[molly bloom]

I suspect you care a great deal more about your sister than you do me.

At which point Lorizael turned into Mr. FRICKING OBVIOUS.

Perhaps a little ECT will snap Lori out of his funk.

To get him exercising and off the self-pity treadmill, I think a cattle prod might work better.

[molly bloom]

I was treated with ECT. I won't say it "worked" (I think my docs would have said it didn't work at it's intended purpose), but it definitely isn't a placebo effect. I lost most of my memory of events before the treatment for several months before it started gradually coming back.

I think you would be interested in the autobiography of Janet Frame, who was incorrectly diagnosed with schizophrenia, had multiple shock treatments and was scheduled for a leucotomy.

http://www.academia.edu/2778883/Electroconvulsive_Therapy_in_the_Writings_of_Janet_Frame_and_Sylvia_Plath

'An Angel At My Table' :

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099040/