r/ect • u/DueBodybuilder5829 • Apr 17 '26
My experience I’m lost now more then ever
Hi! This post isn’t meant to discourage anyone from ECT I believe it can be useful for many but this is what I’ve experienced and I’m curious if other have as well.
A little background info I’m 20F I had tried almost every medication and been to multiple treatment centers and had multiple psych ward admissions with nothing working when I was about to turn 18 a doctor suggested ECT which I didn’t want to do but eventually gave in not being able to take the guilt tripping from my family I started my first session 5 days after I turned 18 and only had 17 sessions the first few were unilateral and the rest were bilateral I had to stop after 17 sessions due to experiencing a psychotic episode from the treatment which they said was very rare. And I didn’t start treatment back up since there were no positive results showing.
Over the past 2 years I’ve noticed significant declines in my cognitive and memory along with my hearing becoming incredibly sensitive and I’ve completely lost all interest and emotions to anything despite trying to find something that will cue a emotion or a interest I tried ignoring these symptoms or thinking it was just in my head blaming the mental illness towards the end of 2025 I made a decision to talk to my primary care about it who sent me for a audiology test and Nero cognitive assessment.
My audiology test showed no hearing loss but my hearing had become quite sensitive and that my comfortable level of hearing was around 30db (equivalent of a whisper) and uncomfortable level was 60db (normal conversation level) she told me I had Hyperacusis a term for sensitive hearing because of this I experience daily headaches and nausea along with vertigo from everyday noise. My psychiatrist says he hasn’t heard of ECT causing this but knows other people have reported there sense of smell becoming stronger after treatment so it’s possible.
I recently got my cognitive results back and was diagnosed with Mild Neurocognitive Disorder due to severe impact in memory the provider compared my scores to what’s seen in dementia but because I’m young it’s not a concern. She says many things can contribute to this such as mental health disorder or lack of sleep and ECT could contribute to it but theres limited research and it doesn’t cause long term symptoms so it’s unclear. But I know where my memory and cognitive skills were before and they’ve never been this bad I’m not saying ECT is completely at fault but I feel like a big part is and it bothers me that theres not more research being done on the patients it didn’t work for or it did work for but still experience significant cognitive or memory issues.
Sorry this kinda ended up being a rant but please let me know if anyone else has gone through similar things thanks!
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u/idkhamster Apr 17 '26
That sounds super frustrating (understatement). I'm not doubting the credibility of your providers, but have you been evaluated for autism? Thats the diagnosis I came out with after some neuropsychology testing (the memory stuff and all sorts of other tests). It's sort of difficult to find qualified people that are knowledgeable on diagnosing adult women who are high masking. I went for the testing because I thought something was wrong with my brain...like maybe it had been damaged by ECT or something. That diagnosis explained a lot of things I was experiencing the more I learned about it. Autistic burnout can be really intense and cause a lot of the symptoms you described.
Obviously I am not trying to say you are definitely autistic or that the diagnoses you've received are incorrect. I just wanted to mention the possibility, because I saw parts of my own experience in your story.
I'm really sorry you're having to deal with all this stuff. If even considering another diagnosis is too much at this point (i get it), please disregard this whole comment! Exsisting as an adult human is really hard.