In her own words, this is Susan’s experience of electroshock (ECT) [name changed to protect privacy].
“The only good thing about it was looking forward to the anaesthetic when I would float away into oblivion and escape.”
“In the early 1970s, I was in my early 20s. I had just started a Medical Secretarial course at a college about half an hour drive away. I would get up early to drive there in time for class and sometimes stay a bit late to play sports in the college gym. I was doing well and finding typing and shorthand fine as it was then easy enough to manage.
Home life was a bit difficult at the time. My parent’s health was not good and all of my siblings had left home. I was seeing my GP for a few physical problems but nothing major.
During one appointment, my doctor started to talk about my driving speed. I lived in a small village where everyone knew everyone. I believe he may have asked about my mood and I think I told him about things being difficult at home – which he knew anyway. Back then the GP was a family doctor.
The next thing was a suggestion that I was unwell and that I should go into hospital. Miraculously and right on cue, another doctor appeared and said that if I didn’t agree to a voluntary admission, I would be sectioned!!
I was very confused especially as I had worked in Social Services for a short time and understood what a Section meant. It meant a mental hospital and I really didn’t know what was happening. I was told to go home and think about it which was even more confusing.
The next week a consultant psychiatrist came from the nearest city to see me at the GP surgery. He told me I should go to the hospital and so the next day, I drove to Barrow Hospital in Bristol followed by my mother in her car. I was told I couldn’t keep my car while incarcerated but I was well enough to drive there!
I was settled into a house which was part of the hospital with what seemed a lot of other young people. One was there because of exam stress, one with work stress, another because of her sexuality and to this day, I do not know why I was there. I was visited by my college tutor who was equally confused and wanted to know when I would be back.
I was in the hospital for 5 months. While there I was given uppers, downers, antipsychotics and six rounds of ECT which I do not remember giving permission for. I was also sexually abused by two male nurses.
The ECT gave me the most horrendous headaches and I was given a drug called Largactil.
When I was told I could leave as “we can’t do any more for you” I really was ill. I self-harmed, took overdoses, and drank in the morning to forget the rest of the day.
My GPs? They didn’t want to know. Eventually my father had me sent to a private clinic near Regents Park in London where I was given another six rounds of ECT. The only good thing about that was looking forward to the anaesthetic when I would float away into oblivion and escape.
I got married which I thought would change everything. It didn’t change anything, but I had two beautiful boys now grown up who know nothing of all this.
Over the years, I have struggled with bulimia and anorexia and my coping tools have been alcohol and nicotine and just keeping busy. I was on the same antidepressants for about 30 years with no reviews and no psychiatric intervention.
After my mother died in 2005 it all started again. A new doctor at the practice said my meds were dangerous! What!!
I had bereavement therapy which just opened up an enormous can of worms. I had never talked about my days in hospital or what had happened there.
I was told my meds were dangerous; my mum had died; we had to get out of the house and my ex-husband left all in a very short space of time. It was just me and my boys. I stopped drinking (functioning alcoholic) and I stopped the meds as my mind was spaghetti and I was holding on by my fingertips.
With all that going on, I ended up back under the mental health system again. I told them I wanted to see my old hospital notes to find out why, why, why?
A friend, who I met there and keep in touch with, had obtained her notes in the 90s. Mine? Lost, missing, unaccounted for!
Getting the notes was meant to be all about closure and understanding. In my mind I cannot prove it happened, that any of it happened. Even the GP notes do not mention being admitted or discharged. I would even consider legal action but have no proof of anything.
I have a huge mistrust of the mental health system and I feel a great deal of anger towards my GPs and the system. People tell me it was “different back then” and I was suffering from a “chemical imbalance” but whatever it was, it messed me up badly.
I learnt to smile and say I was fine, which I was not. I had an odd idea that if I had ECT again it would reset me to how I was before it all happened, strange but just desperation.
I am now trying to come off Venlafaxine which is an evil drug. I get “electric shocks” in my head which takes me back to ECT days. I believe that ECT really messed my brain and I was never the same after it.”
________________
We would like to thank Susan for sharing her experience with ECT and the mental health system.
For more information about Electroconvulsive Therapy view the section on this website about ECT.
If you have your own story to tell about damage from ECT please fill in the ECT report form.
