Originally posted by Lorizael
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Please don't take this too seriously.
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The human brain is an intricate system; minor damage to that setup can discombobulate the coherence of various parts functioning as that system. And the cerebral functions, last part added to the brain, are most likely to suffer.
Screwing around with the physical structure of the brain is indeed a last resort.
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Don't tell anybody.Click here if you're having trouble sleeping.
"We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones." - François de La Rochefoucauld
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Heh. Don't tell anybody I'm in a somewhat better mood today.Click here if you're having trouble sleeping.
"We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones." - François de La Rochefoucauld
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Originally posted by molly bloom View PostI 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.
'An Angel At My Table' :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099040/
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was a good read afterwards. ECT is a lot less intense than it once was.
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Originally posted by Aeson View PostI 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.
Holy ****ing ****.
I will never feel sorry for myself again. I'm glad things are working out these days for you, Aeson. I had no idea that electroconvulsive therapy did that.
Holy ****.
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