Mental health from both sides
Bipolar disorder is a rather all or nothing term, which can, at times, be quite misleading. It implies that you are either delving the depths of misery or riding a wave of elation – or maybe entirely normal, if you take your treatment like a good patient. Except it quite frequently doesn’t work like that.…
The experience of having ECT has always been frightening for me, though – going through that door - repeatedly - to a place I can never really remember.
I have always written fairly confidently that ECT has not caused me any brain damage. I have had around 70 treatments in total, over nearly 30 years, and during that time I have – mostly – lived a full life, sitting professional exams and postgraduate degrees, and working as a psychiatrist. I have nothing to…
I try not to think about ECT too much, but I have been quite open about having had it, and, given that I work as a psychiatrist, there are inevitable reminders. I don’t think that I will ever be able to dwell on it without a degree of inquietude, and there are various reasons for…