Experience with ECT

Experience with ECT

My name is pam; I am a 58 year old mother of four and grandmother of seven.

I was the only child of a very dysfunctional alcoholic home and began my efforts to escape from that home at age 14. My acting out consisted of refusal to go to school, and minor cutting on my arms in an attempt to be taken to a doctor. I was not a delinquent in any way really and the only place to put a kid like me was in a mental hospital. It started with two months in a private psychiatric hospital where i was given a series of 20 shock treatments. When my father had spent $20,000 on my treatment and could no longer afford the private facility it was suggested by the Dr. there, that they send me to the children’s ward of Camarillo State Hospital, which they did. The Dr. told my parents that in order to get me admitted to the state hospital he would need to give me a diagnosis of "something", so he tagged me with "schizophrenic reaction chronic undifferentiated type", which he assured my parents I didn't have but would need to be diagnosed to be put away. To me the hospital was somehow better than home, and whenever i was released i did something to get returned. I spent my teenage years in and out of (mostly in) that state hospital. During that time I had 2 more series of ECT, again, at that time a series was 20...so all in all, i had around 60 ECT treatments as a teenager. All three series were given as a means of controlling my behavior, not because i was seriously mentally ill. I never was! Yes, I was a disturbed, acting out kid, but it was obvious to anyone who had anything to do with me that I was not psychotic in any way, nor was i seriously depressed clinically. I was a self mutilator, behavior learned from other kids at the hospital. We taught each other how to get attention, how to deal with our anger, how to survive. I remember one girl was given a series of 20 shock treatments because she would not wear her hair the way her psychiatrist wanted her to.

This experience has haunted me and colored my existence for 45 years. It has been my hidden shame. I have never even told a treating doctor, not even the neurologist seeking the reason for the onset of uncinate seizures at 38. I did not want to be labeled as a "mental patient". It has only been very recently that I have come to realize that experience was something that was done "to me", not something I did that i needed to be ashamed of....but arriving at that place has not been easy as evidenced by the fact it took me 45 years to begin to really integrate that part of my life into a whole that was "ok".

I had no idea that there were people out there like yourself, or even others who share my experience that might have been interested in, or somehow benefited by what happened to me. The shear number of assaults to my developing brain would probably have been of interest to someone :-)....i was probably quite bright at one time. Surprisingly, i didn't really associate my memory problems or my difficulty with concentration and focusing with my old ECT experience. I lost my childhood for the most part, and have had to use photographs to trigger things for me. That has been a problem for me because i could not really remember incidents and things that would have caused me to choose the confines of a state mental hospital over living in my nice comfortable home with my nice comfortable parents. My years of therapy yielded up some things but left others kept in secret. Both my parents are deceased and have been since i was in my 20's...long before i made my peace with them, and came to a place of compassion and understanding for us all. I have no brothers or sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins...only one girlfriend that i have known since we were both 3 years old who sheds a little light on things for me occasionally but she has a worse memory than me.

I cannot remember things like jokes, song lyrics, movies or trivia. My ex husband could tell the same joke in my presence a dozen times and the punch line would continue most of the time, to be a revelation to me, over and over again.

My ability to focus and concentrate is terrible. I always just figured these things were just the way i am. I have an excellent memory in some areas and in others it’s extremely poor. I read, but need to re-read paragraphs several times so it takes me longer to get thru a novel than most. I was just tested a couple weeks ago at an assessment center because i am a qualified injured worker and am being re-trained thru workers compensation. My math skills were average, actually they suck horribly so my being "average" doesn't bode well for the rest of the population...scary thought really. My vocabulary was above average, and my reading comprehension lagged a little behind. My overall English scores put me at a 12.2 grade point level with my comprehension at an 11.4 level. For a 58 year old woman who has only had 3 years of work experience as a Psychiatrist Assistant, never walked the halls of a high school, never attended a football game or a prom, has no high school diploma and is working with a brain that underwent 60 forced convulsions, has obvious memory and concentration difficulties...i think i did great and was satisfied with my performance.

It might also be noted that I suffer from severe and debilitating migraine headaches where i am unable to keep even a teaspoon of water down. I did have one grandfather that had severe migraines like me and i have suffered from them in a milder form since childhood, but I'm sure all the ECT contributed to the frequency and intensity of them.. the blood vessels in my brain swell so badly which is why i vomit none stop.

Well i realize this is long and probably boring to you but i'm sure you understand that it is necessary for me to do this, it is part of my healing and my embracing of my totality and my wholeness. It has taken me 45 years to come to a place where I can speak openly about this and really realize, really, that it was not my fault and that it was done to me, not something i did to be ashamed of....no easy task for me who was already wearing a cloak of shame & guilt which allowed me to choose that "family scapegoat position”. It’s a violation like rape and like most women who are raped they feel the shame and guilt and blame themselves.

One of the main things that I wonder about is that i am a very childlike person, my "essence" you might say seems to be arrested in time at about 14. That’s not to say I am not a mature woman in many ways and I have certainly grown emotionally and spiritually thru the years...but "me" stayed 14 and my behavior, the persona i project is very young and teenage acting. Try as I may i cannot shed that playful, emotional, open, naive way of being....i run and skip rather than walk, use a "stripper pole" for exercise and dance, relate to most everyone in an open and vulnerable manner, and require a lot of direction, guidance, and assistance from my spouse who is extremely understanding and patient with the areas where i am childlike. I'll attach a picture for you and you can see what i mean. Remember you are looking at a woman who will be 59 in December. I can't help but wonder if all those ECT treatments to my developing teenage brain somehow arrested part of "me" forever in that 14 year old time....cause a very big part of me is still there :-) even though she’s living in an aging vessel :-)

Anyway I hope that something i have said will be of interest or at least entertaining for you as I know this is long but its difficult to condense the experience that has altered and colored your whole life....i am becoming free, and this is one of my last big hurdles...to lay aside my shame and to know really know, its ok.

Thanks for being there, and I would love to hear back form you if you have time to acknowledge receipt of this most personal account of my experience with ECT.

Sincerely,
pam

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