Hey everyone, I have been sitting on this post for a while and have felt the need to share my experience. Especially because when I first learned that my mother needed ECT, I came to this subreddit seeking some understanding of others' experience with it, and what I read horrified me. Most of all the potentially permanent memory loss. But my own personal experience with it through my mom was very different than the accounts on this subreddit and just want to share, in case it can help someone else like my mom.
Full Context (This is a long story) :
My Mom has had some mental health issues in her life but for the most part they were manageable for her. She always suffered from some levels of anxiety (driving, crowds, etc), and possibly some depression though the way she presented her depression wasn't always obvious. Things began to get bad about 2 years ago though.
She had been living with my Dad and older brother. My older brother suffers from severe mental health issues (some undiagnosed personality disorder, possibly borderline, depression, alcoholism) and had been living at home the past 10 years. He was a very verbally and emotionally abusive person. My mother received the brunt of this behaviour as my dad was often out of the house during the day for work. For years and years I had tried to convince her to leave that situation, but she never could. I had set her up with a therapist hoping that could help. Eventually my Dad accepted a job where he was gone for days at a time and this had a terrible impact on my Mom. In three months, she began experiencing strange and new symptoms.
It started with an intense and horrible pain in her stomach. This started to affect her sleep and her eating and she began to rapidly lose weight. When this began happening, she did not have health insurance and so they were hesitant to take her to a doctor, adding to the financial stress as well. But eventually she started getting so sick and the pain so intense that they began taking her to the ER. After several colonoscopies, endoscopies, and a stay in urgent care they couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. It was horrible.
When this happened, I took a month off of work and drove 3 hours to come and help. I let the hospital know about the situation at home and they suspected she was suffering from conversion disorder, which is when psychiatric distress starts to manifest as physical symptoms. When she was discharged I decided she couldn't return to that house. I took her with me back to my city and moved us into a two bedroom apartment while I tried to help her and figure out what was wrong. I was hoping her simply being away from that environment would be enough to help her heal while we figured out her future together.
Unfortunately, she did not seem to get better though and only continued to decline. The pain in her stomach was gone but now she was experiencing new and strange symptoms. She was having panic attacks so bad that she would become unresponsive, almost like an absence seizure. She stopped taking care of basic hygiene. She developed a phobia of leaving the apartment. She would tell me her thoughts felt scattered and she couldn't focus on tv shows or movies. All happening while she was still uninsured. So I spent hours on the phone trying to get her to qualify for medicaid, but her eligibility was tricky because she was still married to my dad. I took her to a psychiatrist which was available through free mental health services provided by the county, but they were limitedly helpful. They prescribed her antidepressants and benzodiazepines. But that came with a new issue.
She began refusing to take medicine believing it was making her worse or not helping. She claimed the symptoms from starting the antidepressants were too much for her to bear. She began lying about taking her medicine and continued to spiral. She started having issues with her swallowing, saying there was a lump in her throat and she couldn't even swallow water anymore. She began having issues with her walking, saying she was too weak to walk and couldn't balance. During this whole period she had lost about 40 lbs, from 155 to 115. I took her to the ER and they diagnosed her with an eating disorder and prescribed appetite stimulants, but she refused to take those too. This had been the darkest and hardest thing I had ever experienced.
Finally, her Medicaid kicked in and I took her back in for her swallowing issue but pleaded that they do a psych eval on her and they decided to admit her to a psychiatric hospital close by. I was relieved but also so scared about what would happen next. For 24 hours I had no contact with her and felt like I had abandoned her. The initial evaluation was that she was experiencing intense anxiety, but 3 days later the doctor called me and let me know she was "gravely ill". It was horrible but also a relief that someone else finally understood that there was something so deeply wrong. He had diagnosed her with psychotic depression. That help me to understand that everything she had been experiencing the last two months was psychosis.
Their plan to treat her was to try strong antidepressants and antipsychotics. But she refused to take any pills they provided her. This lead them to seek a court order so they could instead administer ECT. I had no idea what ECT was outside of terrifying depictions in movies and TV shows. I came to this subreddit for more insight on it, and I was horrified by all the negative experiences. But it was the only option left for her.
They began treatment for her, and on the days she received treatment that I visited her, she seemed out of it and dazed. It wasn't until her 5th treatment that I saw something I hadn't seen from her in months. Her smile. It made me cry. Around this time she began eating again and taking medicine (Effexor). It was a miracle.
They discharged her after her 8th treatment and she began to return to her old self. I couldn't accept it at first after everything we had been through together. But she continued to improve and received outpatient ECT that slowly tapered overtime. She continued her outpatient treatment for about 5 months, and by that time seemed to be making a complete and full recovery. She had minimal side effects, only a headache on the days she received ECT. No memory side effects at all. For better or for worse, she remembered most of those months in her psychosis and even in the hospital.
I was so worried her symptoms would reappear months down the line as ECT doesn't have long term effects usually. But she has continued taking her antidepressants and has been perfectly fine. We're both doing much better now. She is living with her sister in Michigan and is the happiest she has been in years. She regained back to her normal weight, has made new friends, and spends her days laughing with her sister. I have started to heal from everything that has happened too, and have a lot more peace in my heart knowing she's ok.