GOOD NEWS

well done with finishing up the treatment and gettign through the side effects! Congratulations, im glad that it has helped and there's been some improvements! Instead of champas you could get a good ol bottle of apple isle (lol my fav special treat!)

LJ

Thanks for sharing your experience @kenny66. And congrats for persevering and seeing some gains. I think many people find ECT quite a frightening concept so it's interesting to hear how it was for you

Yes, before I started, and like a lot of people, I thought it was like a type of shock therapy.

I had visions of being tied down with a bit in my mouth and getting a great big volt of electricity through my body.

Its nothing like that. Its actually a quite gentle process. Its really just having seizures induced, a bit like you have with mild epilepsy seizures.

I would do it again if I had to

Congrats. Any big event or conclusion of a "course" should be celebrated. Also thank you @kenny66 as it helps to relieve my worry if it were to be recommended again for my son.

One of the only "real" conversations my mother had with me was a a year ago when discussing the possible effects of shock treatment on him. She had had shock treatment in the 60s and it had always been a verboten subject, which I respected. So when she did finally speak of it to me and say that it helped get rid of her depression, and that she thought it worth it, she was trying to reassure me if my boy also needed it. However it took 50 years before she could have even a five minute interaction and be calm about it.

The 50s and 60s I understand had a quite primitive type of ECT, which I believe was quite brutal.

I was reading about a film star in that time called Frances Farmer who was put through it against her wishes with terrible consequences.

From what I have read a lot of treatment in those days was based on ignorance and in America at least was full of crackpots practicing psychiatry. (although there were also many professional ones).

There was the famous case of some supposed Dr running around insane asylums for years practicing dozens of lobotomies per day to treat MI people by accessing the brain with a hook through the nose, who turned out to be a crank.

It may be your mother had a harsher regime than today and from what I know I wouldn't want to talk about it either.

However the treatment has become very modern and non intrusive, with large potential benefits.

generally the effect of it has been very positive on me.

During mental health week there was a segment on it that was very informative.

I hear you @kenny66 about the history of ECT and the experimental types in the states.

That was one of the good things about my marriage. We discussed all those things and were in agreement about most MI issues. He had a degree in biol and psych and I was finishing my BA and full of Foucault, Lacan and Irigaray.

Dialogue is important and still necessary in this area so I just responded to your post with my experiences.I have read many of your posts and been impressed by your choices, courage and optimism in how you manage your situation.

I dont want to be interpreted as implying mental illness does not exist or is not a serious challenge when I try and be light-hearted.

I understood and respected my mother very well, but the tragedy became that she could not get over her pride about her breakdown. If she could have had a few quiet private conversations in our family kitchen when my younger brother and sister brought up questions of being in foster homes in the early 80s we may have averted tragedy. She was so defensive and a strong authoritarian type and loved to perform and show off her playing skills believed that children should OBEY absolutley all the time. I got in trouble if I was enthusiastic about the return of my siblings from state care. Yet she had courage, worked hard and I loved her .. it was a mixed bag.

The problem being that her manner of denial has ensured that future generations suffer. I do not see that as genetic but as caused by environment. Suicides hang over people in a varied and difficult manner.

That is the reason I decided to go all out and contribute in this forum. Conversation matters.

Hope your feeling state settles and the benefits of your ECT course remain.

After discharge he went off medication a bit suddenly for my liking (dose and variety was excessive) for 4 months. Then voluntarily went back on one pill per day only. I respect my son's decisions and management and he has been stable for a year.

Your story is inspiring in many ways .. in the big and small picture.

Well done @kenny66 *high fives* you should be proud of yourself ... well done

I'm so glad that you can reflect on and feel the benefits, even unexpected ones

Great for you to post a positive story

I think that the evolution of our MI has both positive and negative sides.

It seems to me that the negative stories seem to be given more air play than the positive ones.

I have had some really shocking experiences but in spite of that I am pretty upbeat.

I sort of go with the flow with treatment options and seem to end up in an alright place eventually.

I can even see a positive side to being confined to a MH clinic 3 days a week with the change of scenery and meeting different, somewhat unsusal people.

Sometimes I wish that some of my clinic friends would see the world as I do. Its all pretty uncomplicated for me, which is probably a feature of the SchizoA, now I come to think of it.

Yes the tendency to detach in schizoaffective disorder can be a stress reducer as one doesnt sweat the small stuff as much.

I dont really know what my diagnosis would be .. I used to think I was schizoaffective when I first came across the concept in my mid 20s. I did a lot of work on feelings and intensity and family so I cant say that anymore.

I probably have an attachment disorder. My anxiety is greater now than my depression. When kids were small and most of the deaths happened I was close to catatonia emotionally, which was not good for them. I took me and then the whole family to family therapy regularly and never was hospitalised. I am not sure that was the best as I have been made into a monstermommy and not a person deserving of help and compassion or support with discipline of the kids I then got into a mode where I could not stop crying for about 10 years. So for me things have largely been related to my position in my life cycle.

Maybe you can do good for your more depressed clinic friends by your laidback approach.

A lot of my friends at the clinic cant see a light at the end of the tunnel so its difficult for them to lift out of depression.

My depression and mood disorder with my SchizoA comes infrequently but when I get it it lasts for a bit.

The medication used to be the only relief when that happened. The ECT has helped a great deal on that front and it is probably now an essential part of my treatment.

Diagnosis I find is a fleeting butterfly. DID-BP2-schizophrenia all were diagnosed on the way to the schizoA diagnosis. Maybe all were right at the time.

Part of the problem with MI is that it can be comorbid with other things like epilepsy which clouds the diagnosis.

For example the memory loss from epileptic seizures gives me memory loss which is one of the symptoms of DID amongst others.

So correct diagnosis is difficult. I don't worry so much about the diagnosis but rather the treatment.

The only thing I would say about schizoA is that it needs a very aggressive approach to treatment. So for me that correct diagnosis has allowed for a very targeted medication and psychotherapy regime