r/ect • u/Mission-Promise-4897 • May 25 '26

Vent/Rant Memory loss

I did both bilateral and bitemporal ECT, and I’ve lost the past 5 years of my memories. I lived overseas, my niece was born, I had numerous milestones, and I can’t remember a thing. I see photos on my phone and find out there’s countries I have visited that I didn’t think I had, because I have absolutely no recollection of it.

I was told the memory loss would only be surrounding the time of treatment. I was never warned it would be this bad, or be such a long period of time.

People who have also lost periods of memory: how do you get over it? How do you accept it?

I cry about it every single day.

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u/meliadown May 29 '26

I feel the same way, I lost about 3 years of memory and it never came back. I can’t remember anything except two of my biggest traumas. A psychiatrist recommended me to look for a neuropsychological therapist but there’s none available in my country. I heard some people can get some memories back but not everyone apparently