ECT Therapy for wife with BPD and Depression - Feeling anxious.

Hi all,

I am a new member here (have commented on some other threads) and wanted to hear anyone's experience with a loved one undergoing ECT Therapy.

My wife (18 years) has a diagnoses of BPD and major depression.
In recent months has trialed a few new medications after being on the same medication for a number of years. (Initial change was due to pregnancy and breast feeding, further changes after weaning)

Unfortunately the new medication has not been very successful and we are currently going through a particularity difficult time. In the last week her doctor has suggested ECT therapy which she immediately wanted to try. This has left me exceedingly anxious for a number of reasons.

I will start with an explanation and ask some questions at the end. If you cant follow my explanation please scroll to the end and see the questions as I really need some feedback at the moment.
Thanks heaps.

Firstly being is this is all very sudden for me and I was not included in the discussion regarding risk vs benefit or even simply had the procedure explained to me. (Darling came out with a booklet and said, here read this so you don't have to be scared). She would have happily been admitted to hospital the the next day except she wanted to be their for our children's first week back to school.

This is amplified by the fact that we have discussed this option together before on numerous occasions and decided together (mostly my darlings decision but I happily supported her) that it was not suitable due to some of the risk involved (particularly memory loss). So a sudden change of heart.

This treatment was first suggested a number of years ago by a different dr when our first child was quite young and we were told one of the risks (small risk) was that she may have difficulty with memory and given we had a baby that may be a problem for her. This time around we have another baby of a similar age. One of my anxieties is that there is a chance she may come home and not even know who he is 😞

Another anxiety is that when we have discussed this previously I have always promised my wife that if I though she was being coerced into receiving this treatment, based on her reluctance I would do everything in my power to prevent it. While she is definitely not being coerced into this at the moment (she is desperate to try it) I cant help but wonder if she is able to think it through properly given the pain she is currently in. And I cant help but wonder if she is secretly hoping to have the last 2 years erased due to some poor choices she has made under the influence of a nasty person pretending to be a friend (she mentioned the 2 year time frame not me) thus affecting her objectivity.

So my problem is that I want to support her in this even though I have significant reservations
(it is ultimately her decision) but I feel as though I am not protecting her as I had promised.
If I raised this however it would be seen as controlling not protecting so I just have to stay quiet and deal with my thoughts and feelings.

I also cant help but be sceptical about the process of informed consent when the patient is not concerned about risk as they are already in pain and wanting to not be here anyway. (Has said nothing could be worse than how I am feeling now so why not try).

We are at the moment making some changes with our GP around stopping birth control and looking at blood tests and looking at diet and other changes that I believe may at least help (for reason I cant discuss here) so I am desperately hoping that she may agree to at least delay treatment by a month or two to allow the changes to take effect. (Is that being selfish ?)

She was doing so well until recently and I cant help but feel partly responsible for our current situation as things started to go poorly for us when I took on some additional workload (university studies) and was not coping with it. (When I am not happy and smiling her world falls apart). This difficulty on my behalf is due to burnout related issues from trying to remain employment in a high pressure and toxic work environment while trying to also be a full time carer (hard wired in my DNA to be a provider for my family), I took on the additional load against doctors advice as I was feeling insignificant and useless for not doing more and wanted to prove mostly to myself that I could - my fault not my darlings).

So anyway I have been doing some research around the ECT therapy and have been even more alarmed about some of the recorded risks that medical professionals providing treatment downplay. I know that with any topic there will always be polar views around risk and benefit etc so have tried really hard to look at balanced opinions, the comment most concernign to me was someone who found that even though it had made an amazing difference to their quality they considered that the cost had been far too great .

After all that I finally get to my question.

More than anything else I want to see my wife well again and able to do life, the last thing I ever want is for any unreasonable anxiety on my behalf to discourage her from receiving a treatment that may make such a huge difference not only to her life but our family. Especially as she is at a point where she feels she cant go on like this anymore.

I would really appreciate some balanced feedback from anyone who's loved one has received this treatment,

How successfull was it

How soon did it take effect/ how long did it last- was there a relapse

What problems did you (you loved one) experience during / after the treatment

Was this short term / long term/ permanent

***How did you cope with the process, were you scared or anxious about the risk if so how did you manage this.

For my darlings sake I really want to have some peace about this process and be better able to support her, not just pretend to be happy. (I will support her no matter what, I just have to find a way to deal with it).

Anything else that you think may help me with this

Thank you so much to anyone who may be able to provide some feedback regarding this.