Give me emotional support with my ECT - electroconvulsive therapy?!

Give me emotional support with my ECT - electroconvulsive therapy?

I guess I consider ECT my final chance at life, and I'm scared because the treatment terrifies me. Coming out of the anesthesia after the treatment, I feel like I've glimpsed a level of Hell, and I panic, even with a shot of ativan. I skipped yesterday's treatment, but am determined to go tomorrow. That will be my 6th treatment, the minimum the doctor wants me to have. I know I probably need more, but the emergence from the anesthesia is so scary that I am non-functional for at least a day.

Please, anyone who can give me advice on the following will be greatly appreciated: How to control my terror coming out of the anesthesia; how to recognize whether the treatments are really working; how to deal with my life at home between treatments, since I am doing it as an outpatient. I know that I need this very badly, but wish that I could see more improvement after the 5 treatments I've had. My husband is very positive. But I don't feel normal, I don't feel like a person..

Do you need more hope that ECT will work? I've seen it work in my brother-in-law, who was terribly depressed, so much so he wouldn't leave his bedroom most days. He couldn't face guests my sister had. He lost weight down to about 130 pounds for a man who's about 6 feet tall. Several antidepressants didn't help, but ECT brought him completely out of it, with no side effects. Then he needed it again a few years later.

I take it your doctor can give you enough Ativan to take away the physical sense of terror, but you still feel a mental terror? Otherwise I'm sure they can give you enough Ativan to do that. But the mental sense of terror is more about how you perceive the event than your physiology. Ativan can't change that short of keeping you asleep.

Why is it Hell? What do you think you're being punished for? Just because you need ECT to break your depression doesn't mean you don't also need psychotherapy to change the way you think about things to something more healthy. Have you tried cognitive behavioral therapy? If you've been too depressed to work at that, the ECT will probably let you feel more energy so you can now, so you can perceive yourself and the world around you more realistically.

All sorts of people get stuck thinking it's up to them to manage their lives. It's not. I'm sure there are many people you can trust. Let them help you. They may be able to see how the treatments are working before you can. It will take more than ECT for you to feel normal again. You'll need to work to get your life back to where you want it. You have time and other people so you can do that.