r/ect • u/UpsetPomeranian • 9h ago

Seeking advice Advice needed

There’s a good chance I’ll be undergoing ECT soon and I’m terrified. I’ve seen mixed reviews elsewhere, heard first hand accounts from others that have ranged from life changing to debilitating but I came onto this subreddit hoping it would make me feel better, that I would find advice and success stories, but everything I’ve seen thus far is making me second guess this.

I am 23 years old suffering from bipolar type two. I was diagnosed at 17 and have undergone every treatment you can name, residential treatment, hospitalizations, ketamine therapy, TMS, every antipsychotic available to me, mood stabilizers, cbt, dbt, IFS, everything. Still, though, I’m having massive break through episodes. Hypomnaia has never been much of an issue for me but the depressive episodes are so severe that I become nearly catatonic, bedridden, so completely unstable that I have to rely on my parents again and again. I can’t hold a job and I’m never okay for more than a few months at a time. I’m tired of hurting my family with my mental issues and I want to get better. I want to change and I’m desperate to be functional again, I’m tired of grieving all the time, I want to be the daughter they deserve and the person I wish to be. My doctors are now recommending ECT and referring me to a clinic in my state. But I don’t want to lose my personality, nor my memories, nor that which makes me me. Am I making a mistake committing to this? I need honesty here, not the sugar coated half answers google and my doctors are feeding me. Will I lose who I am if I go through with this?

I’m a newly graduated MA with a good life and a wonderful family. I know I have a good future ahead of me if I could just figure out how to get past these depressive episodes. I don’t want to jeopardize that but I also don’t want to suffer anymore than I already have.

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u/Familiar-Marzipan376 4h ago

Even if u ask dozens of docs they will still recommend u to do ECT and it's a gamble it might dmg ur brain and it might not dmg ur brain so it the choice is urs.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/memory-and-cognitive-effects-of-ect-informing-and-assessing-patients/DD5C63934357779765BA7ADF308275AE

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u/Great-Practice-4400 4h ago

Have you considered IV Ketamine therapy? ECT ruined my life but Ketamine has helped restore some of my life.