I have been happily married for 19 years, have a terrific 17-year-old son, am a college graduate, have worked more than 20 years and have had 21 electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) treatments to combat severe bouts of depression. I have suffered, as did my father and his mother before him, from depression on and off for most of my adult life, but it had never been severe enough that I missed more than a few weeks of work or attempted suicide. The combination of medication and/or the depression simply running its course always occurred first.Until February 1998.

The strange things about my depressions are that they always start when everything is going well: No sad or stressed-filled event ever triggers them. So one day in February 1998, I just woke up, for no reason at all, completely depressed. It literally took hours to get out of bed, and I was barely able to make it to appointments with my psychiatrist and therapist. After about six weeks without any change, I knew I was in deep trouble. For some reason this depression was different, worse than any before. Suicidal thoughts started coming and I started to cut myself on purpose with a razor blade, knowing the physical pain would actually feel better than the emotional pain, at least for a few moments.

After everything, including medication, failed, my psychiatrist mentioned ECT. I was against it at first (I've seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), but my wife Valerie encouraged me to at least research it. We obtained 17 articles on the subject, all of which pointed out the safety in today's procedure. The only major problems concerned patients who were in extremely poor physical health to begin with and should not have been given the treatment in the first place. The rate of death possibly related to the procedure was six out of 10,000, or 6/100 of 1%; a statistic we felt comfortable with. We also discovered that ECT is the treatment of choice for pregnant women who can't take anti-depressant medications because of the possible damage to the fetus.The one major side effect was a small chance of partial memory loss, but considering the point I was at, my wife and I concluded that the risks were worth taking. The worst part was the waiting prior to the procedure.

The actual ECT, if I can be so cavalier, was a piece of cake. I was given an intravenous anesthetic and fell asleep within five seconds. I woke up feeling a little groggy, but was none the worse for the wear. It was done on an out-patient basis, so 30 minutes after I woke up, my wife and I were able to go home. I did lose some memories that day, but they all returned the next. The treatment did not make me feel any less depressed, but I knew from the articles that it usually takes from three to five treatments before any substantial improvements might be felt. Sure enough, sometime after the fourth treatment, the suicidal thoughts lessened considerably and I stopped cutting myself.

After a few more treatments, I was close to feeling normal again, and was scheduled to go on once-a-month maintenance treatments for the next six months. At that point, before finishing the maintenance treatments, I figured I was doing pretty well and that I wouldn't need any more treatments. I was starting to fear the possibility of memory loss, even though I had not had a problem with any permanent loss with any prior treatments. Big mistake.

Within two weeks I was back in bed, thinking of the best way to commit suicide and cutting myself again. Realizing the severity of the situation, I immediately began the treatments again, and was almost back to normal within a few weeks.

My current status is that I finished all my treatments this time and am now working on a part-time basis and enjoying my family and life in general again. I believe, in my case, that ECT actually saved my life and should always be considered in cases of severe, life-threatening depression.

For more information on ECT, read Electroshock--Restoring the Mind by Max Fink, M.D., which NAMI's Advocate described as "a thorough and excellent discussion of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a valuable treatment for a variety of brain disorders."