4 ms·

The DeepMind researcher's letter elsewhere in this thread suggests to me that ECT is infinitely worse than suicide.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Aurornis 2y ago
When it comes to anything depression related, you should never rely on anecdotes alone. The world is a big place. Many people have tried depression treatments. You can always find someone who had a very negative experience with something. For a counter-anecdote: I know someone whose mother was deeply suicidal and unable to function for years. Eventually they tried ECT and it was the turning point in her depression. This was decades ago and she’s still doing okay today. Do not let internet anecdotes steer depression treatment. ECT is an extreme example. I’ve seen countless people who avoided any depression medications for years because the internet told them SSRIs were evil drugs, only to experience life changing results for the better when they finally listened to their doctor and accepted treatment.
- thirdtruck 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - randomcarbloke 2y ago
    you know personal pronouns are ungendered right, serious attention-seeking energy coming off your comments.
    - thirdtruck 2y ago
      And this unsolicited, off-topic comment doesn't do that as well? :3
      - pixelpoet 2y ago
        It doesn't give off attention-seeking energy to me; seems about as plainly as you can express it, and I agree. I'm as liberal as they come and everyone is free to call themselves what they like, but you can't use such contrived language and not expect the responses you'll guaranteed get everytime. Hell, a little part of me wonders if it's a conservative poster ragebaiting / sockpuppeting as "woke" liberal. Unfortunately I've seen plenty of that around...
  - MisterTea 2y ago
    Is xe/xir referring to yourself in third party? Very hard to grok this style of writing.
    - thirdtruck 2y ago
      In the third person? Yes. It's a quirk of xir plurality and even more confusing from the inside, let xe tell you!
  - fourthttuck 2y ago
    xe identify as a meat popsicle?
  - amyames 2y ago
    [dead]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
H8crilA 2y ago
I don't think he really blames ECT for what has happened to him. It's more like "ECT didn't fix it either", which is a possibility - ECT isn't a guaranteed cure. For example: > They [the NHS] couldn’t prevent this. Hundreds of hours of therapy couldn’t prevent this. A large network of friends and family checking in with me constantly over the last year didn’t prevent this. Psychiatric hospitals certainly couldn’t prevent this. ECT couldn’t prevent this. The only person who could have prevented this was me. And the memory loss he's talking about (which is indeed a common side effect of ECT) doesn't seem to be as severe as he claims to be. For one he is actually able to recall the events of his life well enough to write this letter. For another he has abused ketamine to the point of having a month long psychosis episode that ended in involuntary stay in a mental hospital, which could have had its own effects. For yet another depression itself slowly erases memories.
- colanderman 2y ago
  Someone close to me did ECT for half a year after ketamine (in a clinical setting) became less effective. The memory loss was worse than they were led to believe: near-dementia levels of short-term memory loss during treatment, and still now a year of missing memories from around the time of treatment. The treatment itself left them without time or energy to do anything whatsoever on the days of treatment, and still weakened on the days off treatment. And, it did seemingly nothing to address their depression. So, YMMV.
kennyloginz 2y ago
I’m not sure what this means, but it’s not true. I have met people that are happy to be alive after ECT

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

When it comes to anything depression related, you should never rely on anecdotes alone. The world is a big place. Many people have tried depression treatments. You can always find someone who had a very negative experience with something. For a counter-anecdote: I know someone whose mother was deeply suicidal and unable to function for years. Eventually they tried ECT and it was the turning point in her depression. This was decades ago and she’s still doing okay today. Do not let internet anecdotes steer depression treatment. ECT is an extreme example. I’ve seen countless people who avoided any depression medications for years because the internet told them SSRIs were evil drugs, only to experience life changing results for the better when they finally listened to their doctor and accepted treatment.

thirdtruck 2y ago
[flagged]
- randomcarbloke 2y ago
  you know personal pronouns are ungendered right, serious attention-seeking energy coming off your comments.
  - thirdtruck 2y ago
    And this unsolicited, off-topic comment doesn't do that as well? :3
    - pixelpoet 2y ago
      It doesn't give off attention-seeking energy to me; seems about as plainly as you can express it, and I agree. I'm as liberal as they come and everyone is free to call themselves what they like, but you can't use such contrived language and not expect the responses you'll guaranteed get everytime. Hell, a little part of me wonders if it's a conservative poster ragebaiting / sockpuppeting as "woke" liberal. Unfortunately I've seen plenty of that around...
- MisterTea 2y ago
  Is xe/xir referring to yourself in third party? Very hard to grok this style of writing.
  - thirdtruck 2y ago
    In the third person? Yes. It's a quirk of xir plurality and even more confusing from the inside, let xe tell you!
- fourthttuck 2y ago
  xe identify as a meat popsicle?
- amyames 2y ago
  [dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

H8crilA 2y ago

I don't think he really blames ECT for what has happened to him. It's more like "ECT didn't fix it either", which is a possibility - ECT isn't a guaranteed cure. For example: > They [the NHS] couldn’t prevent this. Hundreds of hours of therapy couldn’t prevent this. A large network of friends and family checking in with me constantly over the last year didn’t prevent this. Psychiatric hospitals certainly couldn’t prevent this. ECT couldn’t prevent this. The only person who could have prevented this was me. And the memory loss he's talking about (which is indeed a common side effect of ECT) doesn't seem to be as severe as he claims to be. For one he is actually able to recall the events of his life well enough to write this letter. For another he has abused ketamine to the point of having a month long psychosis episode that ended in involuntary stay in a mental hospital, which could have had its own effects. For yet another depression itself slowly erases memories.

colanderman 2y ago
Someone close to me did ECT for half a year after ketamine (in a clinical setting) became less effective. The memory loss was worse than they were led to believe: near-dementia levels of short-term memory loss during treatment, and still now a year of missing memories from around the time of treatment. The treatment itself left them without time or energy to do anything whatsoever on the days of treatment, and still weakened on the days off treatment. And, it did seemingly nothing to address their depression. So, YMMV.

kennyloginz 2y ago

I’m not sure what this means, but it’s not true. I have met people that are happy to be alive after ECT