Back in the late 1980's I was given 22 treatments of ECT. Nowadays I wouldn't be given that number of them. I was told I might lose some short term memory but I actually lost bits and pieces of memories and some huge blocks from as early as 9 years before the treatment . I remember up until my daughters were 5 weeks and 3 years old, then there's very little about them or life in general for the next 7 years.
Over the years I've looked at photographs and my family have described the events around the times of the photographs and I can now recall those conversations but no amount of prompting has triggered the memories back. Apparently in 1982 I learned to drive and took a
holiday in Newquay, I have no recollection of either and as far as I'm concerned I don't know how to drive. I'm told that I had to have ECT because I was depressed, and I'm told that ECT broke the depression and helped me to get better. I don't agree, I think I started to heal when I was finally allowed help from a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist. I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and needed to
open up and talk about it with someone who didn't want to fill me with pills and shoot electricity through my brain.  I believe I will continue to heal from the effects of the abuse by being open and talking about it but will my brain ever heal from the effects of 22 ECT treatments? It's been nearly 20years since I had them so I have my doubts.

Sue

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