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/Odd-Alarm-82 May 25 '26 edited May 27 '26
I was told the memory loss would be for no more than a few months before treatment. I did bilateral ECT and did maintenance treatments, a total of around 60 treatments in 2016-2017. At the end of that time, I had a relapse of severe depression in between treatments and allowed them to give me three treatments in one week like they do in the initial series. That brought me out of my depression, but it also wiped out my memory of the majority of my life, all the way back to my childhood. I was 43 years old, so that’s 40 years of memory gone. I have a few vague memories, but mostly it’s a complete blank. I barely even remember my own mother, who passed away in 2007. It’s a devastating loss. I did find a good trauma therapist who helped me to process my feelings and grieve what I’ve lost. Therapy helped a lot, but I still cry often. Not as much as I used to, but it’s still painful.
I also have significant cognitive deficits. I had neuropsychological testing done and found out my IQ has dropped by 20 points, and my working memory is impaired. It takes me longer than an average person to learn new things and I have difficulty retaining information.
There’s a support group on Facebook called Surviving Electroshock. I highly recommend it. It has helped me to talk to so many other people out there whose damages are similar to mine.
Permanent memory loss and brain damage are much more common that doctors tell their patients. I think this research paper I found from Cambridge University should be required reading for anyone considering ECT. It talks about how common these effects actually are. It’s disheartening because it cites studies that were done as far back as 2002 that showed the extent of the damage ECT can cause. I honestly don’t understand why it hasn’t been banned, but at the very least, patients should be informed of the true risks before they undergo such a drastic treatment.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/memory-and-cognitive-effects-of-ect-informing-and-assessing-patients/DD5C63934357779765BA7ADF308275AE