How Electro Convulsive Therapy Saved My Life.

It's nuts that I'm nuts, suffering from a disorder of the psyche. I had always been what my husband refers to as a "Fruit Loop". I've always been impulsive, manic at times, severely depressed at others. I've hallucinated thanks to Mania and maybe due to the odd illicit drug, I've experienced what life has to throw in the most joyful way and have experienced deep, dark depression to the point where I have tried to kill myself. It's exhausting feeling like I'm living life to its' maximum potential one moment and then wondering why I'm a burden on society and my family, experiencing extreme guilt over things I haven't done yet and catastrophising my way through life.

I am excited over the littlest things, motivated by unusual things and equally demotivated by not very much at all. I am an all or nothing kind of girl, if I'm not able to give it my 100%, I'm not going to do it. So if I drink alcohol, I drink a lot, I finish all the food on my plate, will always give you my full and undivided attention, have to watch movies from start to finish, will see a job through from start to finish. I'm empathetic, sympathetic, often times pathetic. I'm a fighter of causes, a champion for the under dog, deeply loyal, mostly optimistic and highly enthusiastic.

Yet, I am also deeply depressed. I feel extraordinary amounts of guilt as I never seem to meet my expectations. I feel like I could do better as a Mother, be a better wife, be a harder working employee, a better cook, cleaner... the list is endless. Daily I fall short of my expectations yet I maintain a façade of overwhelming love and joy, friendship and loyalty.

At times I feel like I am a burden to my family. I am also a Type 1 Diabetic as well as having Bipolar 2 disorder. The endless medical expenses in seeing GPs, Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Diabetes Educators and Endocrinologists makes me believe I'm a financial burden to my family and a poor example to my children.

I often believe people just put up with me because they feel sorry for me or it's in vogue to know someone who is well, a Fruit Loop.

I was not diagnosed with Bipolar until early 2010, by a Bosnian Psychiatrist who to be fair, may have come from the same box of Fruit Loops I was spawned from. I knew something was horrendously wrong because all I could think about was how to either seriously hurt myself in a fashion that did not look deliberate so I could have time out in hospital or, kill myself.

My youngest was not yet six months old, the middle child was four and the oldest was just about to turn or did turn ten.

I lost my Mother just before my third birthday and was brought up my Step Mother. She comes from an Asian culture, and brought myself and my brother up in a manner that was heavily influenced by her culture as well as the very white British / Australian cultures I originated from. My father was an airline Captain, working insane rosters where we didn’t see him for weeks, sometimes it felt like months, at a time.

As soon as I could, I left home, started smoking and drinking excessively and then started using illicit drugs. I had an absolute whale of a time, lived in various overseas locations and partied like the world was going to end. In my early twenties, I was a watersports instructor, a water taxi skipper, Ist Mate on a 120 foot luxury yacht in the Mediterranean, and then finally a Yacht Instructor in the Caribbean which is where I met my now husband and fell pregnant with my first child.

Moving back to the UK to have the baby and start my life afresh, things started going downhill quite quickly. I no longer saw the fun in life, despised being a mother yet to all appearances, was the best one going. I was finally diagnosed with a Hyperactive Thyroid Gland, was spoken to about Post Natal Depression but was expected to get on with life as I did after all have a beautiful baby girl, a loving partner, a cute little house and was just kicking off a new career in Recruitment.

So I stuck it through by drinking away my weekends and falling into my new career with everything I had. I had new friends (my partner's), had a new way of life, new family, a new car (also my first), a steady full time, nine to five job, I was attractive, had a figure, was fun to be with... what was there to be miserable about?

My partner and I got engaged and I was thrown into not only organising a wedding but also planning a permanent move to Australia. Any allusions to depression were distracted through planning our next adventures. We were married in February 2004 and finally emigrated to Perth, Western Australia in January 2005. I gave birth to my second child in April 2006 and then things started going down hill again. I felt guilty for having had a second child, guilty for having a career break to have a second child, felt in adequate as a mother, a wife. I felt selfish for having uprooted my family to Australia, for finding and connecting with my Australian family whilst my Husband had left all of his close knit family back in the UK.

I spoke to my GP about how I was feeling as again, suicide was becoming quite an attractive option. She put me in touch with a Psychologist who put me in touch with a GP who specialised in Mental Health and I started on mild antidepressants and life became reasonably bearable again, with mild attempts at self harm along the way.

I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in early 2008, started a new job then six months later, started another new job which I was made redundant from in early 2009. I had my third and final baby in 2010 and then, pardon my French, the shit really started to hit the fan! I started seeing a new Psychiatrist, the Bosnian, who started me on a course of anti psychotics ( I was witnessing vampires in the back garden), mood stabilisers and anti depressants. I actually stayed in a Psychiatric facility for two weeks, was discharged and then went back in for another two weeks. The depression was painful and I could no longer keep up a happy façade.

On my second visit, with the depression not easing up, and with no amount of psychological therapy helping, my Psychiatrist casually suggested I try ECT or Electro Convulsive Therapy. I was absolutely devastated, I thought maybe he must despise me for even suggesting such a thing. The movie, ''One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" reverberated through my mind. The good doctor gave me a video to watch and some material to read through and with my mind finally at ease, I consented to being a voluntary inpatient at another Psychiatric Facility to undergo twelve sessions of ECT in four weeks.

I would be lying if I claimed it was a painless process. The procedure is done under general anesthetic but coming out from having been electrocuted, I suffered from intense headaches and muscle aches from the full on body convulsions which are induced. I also lost a fair amount of memory, I had no recollection of what I did the day before and could not remember meeting and making friends with other inpatients. My mood did not start to pick up until we went from unilateral to bifrontal treatments which was around the eighth session. I had committed to twelve sessions though so stuck through it and I am so glad I did.

Life became fun again, I loved my children and husband once more. I wanted to see friends, go places, do things.

Since my first ECT treatments back in 2011, I have since had four more intense treatments as a voluntary inpatient and I am now on Maintenance ECT which means I get zapped once every six weeks. My reliance on psychiatric medication has been reduced, I have been able to hold down a reasonably stressful, full time job for the last four years and my quality of life has significantly improved.

I cannot even begin to understand the science behind Electro Convulsive Therapy, all I know is that it works for me and just as daily injections of Insulin keep me alive, ECT has driven me out of my deepest and darkest depressive states and has helped me live. Not only that but I have once more come to love being alive.