Electro-Convulsive Therapy: Treatment or Torture?
Have any of you thought about what it is like inside today’s psychiatric hospitals? Many of you may see them portrayed on TV as peaceful places where people do arts and crafts, walk around beautiful gardens, or have talk therapy sessions with a doctor. Well, I have been on the inside and this is far from the truth.
One winter, in my freshman year of college, I started dating what was my first boyfriend. I was a late bloomer in terms of the dating world; I had been a “nerd” in high school. Well, one night, not long after our first date, we were in his dorm room, kissing. Clothes somehow got taken off, and I started panicking. I wasn’t very religious but I still wanted to take it slow in terms of venturing into sexuality. I recieved a rude awakening. Suddenly I found myself forced into performing a sex act upon this boy that I did not want to do. I panicked, and ran. But I still kept seeing this boy, desperate for the attention I was not recieving elsewhere.
By the end of the school year, I was a mess. Gone was the boy and any shred of emotional stability I had in my life. Despondant, and not knowing what to do, my parents were forced to place me in a mental hospital. But instead of being a happy, comforting place, a little vacation from the outside world, I entered a Medieval torture chamber. No one on one talk therapy with a doctor to get me back to myself, instead I was heavily doped up with powerful psychiatric “medicines.” Then came the fun part-Electro-Convulsive Therapy, also known as Shock Therapy.
A nurse would come into my room early in the morning and start the IV drip that contained the drugs that had to be in my system for the prodcedure. A couple hours later, after enough had entered my bloodstream, someone from the OR would come to my room and wheel me away. Then, with eyes clenched shut, I was taken into a room where I could hear the hum of “the machine.” To this day, I don’t know what it looked like, I was too terrified to look. Then a mask was put over my mouth, and I went to sleep, during which time, the electricity was sent ripping through my body.
Then came the fun part. After just over twelve of these procedures, instead of feeling well and recovered, the nightmare was just beginning. I was told that temporary memory loss was common with ECT’s, but I lost a whole summer, including the knowledge that I had gained in the previous school year. I had lost my mind. My eyes went so out of focus that even with a new prescription, I found it impossible to read, my favorite activity, without them hurting tremendously. The worst part was the loss of bodily function. I began to lose control of my bladder and bowels as a side effect from the procedure and the drugs used in it. Like an elderly person, I began buying Depends at the age of 19.
That was seven years ago. I have been back to that hospital, and I am still on medication, but I have refused any further electro-shock treatments. Slowly I have begun to recover from my ordeal with the help of my family and friends, some of which truely understood what I have been through, as I later met a girl who had had the same experience.
If any of you reading this ever find yourself sick enough to be placed in a mental hospital, and I hope you don’t, think twice about agreeing to this procedure. And don’t ever give consent for a loved one to go through ECT’s either. I really don’t know how losing control of one’s memory or body is supposed to treat depression. Mine just got worse.
