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Shock treatments left me with a strong aversion to mental hospitals, and you can quote me on that. Unfortunately my aversion did not serve keep me out of them. Shock treatments, when performed against ones will, simply terrorize people.

I believe that the body "thinks" it is going to die and kicks in with a variety of chemical responses to ease the pain. These chemical responses, under the circumstances, elevate one's mood. Unfortunately, they keep giving you the treatments (probably one would be quite sufficient) and you continue to find your self in a mental hospital so your elevated mood is shot all to rat shit. I also believe that the body memory of shock treatments contributes to panic attacks. I haven't had one lately, but used to get them quite regularly.

Liz Thor-Larsen Vancouver, BC

Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2002 5:49 PM Subject: Shock Site Feedback

I would like to give some feedback concerning shock treatment. As I have heard statistics as of late. Shock treatment is done in a more professional kind of environment than when I had them in the early sixties. I don't care when or where it is done. It is a barbaric practice that has no place in our society! The brain is an organ that little is understood. Who thinks that they have a right to play God! It is wrong! It damages many people permanently and forever. I am a survivor. I have alot of bitterness for the use of ECT. I was institutionalized as a teen and given shock therapy. I was treated with no anesthetic or muscle relaxers. I was thrown in with the worst case patients. I was a teen experiencing teen depression. I would not, under any circumstances, condone this practice. I don't care how mentally ill a patient is. This kind of treatment is not a cure for anything. It only instills fear and revulsion. Any of you out there that thinks this is the way, try it for yourself. I live each day with little memory of my past, as well as the inability to retain things that I should be able to remember. For the rest of my days, I will wonder who I could have been. If you need someone to talk with, I recommend the new site called Shock Treatment Survivors. I am sure that they can tell you the same stories. I could make this story long, but what is the point? I just wanted to put my experience into motion. Thanks for reading this and May God Bless You!

Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2002 2:12 PM Subject: Shock Site Feedback

To Whom it May Concern, I don't know how to go about reporting adverse effects of ect's, but I too have suffered a lot since I have had them. I am now 44yo, and on disability due to depression, and now the memory problems which are getting worse and panic attacks. I also suffer from daily severe headaches.

My doctor told me that he cannot say that the ects caused the headaches but that it had never been reported. Well they started 1 week after my last ect, in 1997. I went through testing and when nothing was found was started on pain pills which continued daily for several years, and then I became addicted to the pain medication. I had to go through rehab to get off them. I still have severe headaches to the point that I cannot function, but now since I have the label as being an "addict" I am unable to receive medication for them. I am going to pain management fro "trigger point injections" that is not helping, and now my psychiatrist/addictionologist is sending me back to another neurologist.

I just think it is too much of a coincidence to have been caused by anything other than the ects. My memory is getting progressively worse, to where my husband has to constantly check behind me. I am having visual disturbances and my coordination is off. I have three different types of headaches, frontal/tension; ice pick through right temple (where electrode was placed), but now starting on the other side also, and migraines.

Sorry to carry on so, but would you know if there is anything I can do to get help or who it would be that I would report this to. I think ects are barbaric and I couldn't get paid enough to ever go through them again. I would rather die first.

Sincerely, Elizabeth Podgurski Milton, FL done in Pensacola, FL

I FEEL THEY SHOULD OUTLAW ECT...THE  'T' SHOULD STAND FOR TORTURE.  I UNDERWENT A SERIES OF 10  JUST BEFORE I TURNED 20.  I WASN'T TREATED WITH ANY MEDICATION.  HELL I DIDIN'T THINK I WAS THAT DEPRESSED. 

MY PARENTS WERE JUST TRYING TO ERASE MY SON WHOM THEY MADE ME GIVE UP FOR ADOPTION 3 YEARS BEFORE!!!

I LOST QUITE A BIT OF MY COLLEGE AND AN ART
COURSE I HAD ACED AND TOOK AGAIN SEVERAL YEARS LATER WITH NO RECALL OF THE FIRST COURSE.   A FEW YEARS LATER I FOUND THE NOTEBOOKS FROM EACH ART
COURSE AND THEN REALIZED WHAT HAD HAPPENED. 

THE  NOTEBOOKS WERE ALMOST IDENTICAL EVEN TO THE DOODLES IN THE MARGINS. IT'S ANGERED ME OVER THE
YEARS AS I WONDER WHAT ELSE HAVE I LOST THAT I DON'T EVEN KNOW I LOST.

I DID LOSE A LOT OF MUSIC MEMORY.  I LOCATED ONE OF MY DOCTORS AND ASKED FOR MY RECORDS AND SHE SAID, "WE DESTROY THOSE KIND AFTER 7 YEARS."  SHE IS
NOW A CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST IN TAMPA AREA.  

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE RESEARCED ECT. IT IS PRETTY BARBARIC! THANX FOR LETTING ME VOICE MY
OPINION,

KATY O. ISHEE

Testimony of Terry Adamchick,
15 March 1995, in support of a ban on electric shock, HB 2452

Key Points to Ms. Adamchick’s Testimony:

Shocked in December, 1994 in Austin, Texas
Severe memory loss as a result of electric shock
Brain scans show damage as a result of the procedure
EEG’s (electroencephalogram reading to show changes in brain electrical potential) show seizure activities induced by electric shock Having tremendous difficulty functioning as a mother because of severe memory problems

In December of 1994, I received 6 shock treatments. Up until that time I had been on medication, and was actually improving, from what I’ve been told. I have no memory. But I have a few people in my life that were with me, that stayed with me, and told me that I was getting better.
They also told me they didn’t know why I was having shock treatments before I had it. I don’t remember that. That part of my memory is gone. I know that after the 6th shock treatment, something happened, I don’t know what happened in my head, but I knew I wanted to die. I wanted to drive off a cliff and just die (crying). My family was gone, I didn’t know why. My daughter, when I woke up on the 20th of December had been a runaway for 5 months, and I didn’t even know it anymore. My ability to focus on things, I have a real difficult, focusing on things, and you’ll have to forgive me, because my memory is gone. I had an MRI (brain scan) done on January the 14th that shows recent, I now have seizure activity in the brain, and the medication they need to give me, they can’t because of seizure activity. I don’t have a chronological memory at all. I remember what I say, but I don’t remember when I say it anymore. It’s not OK. I’m trying to raise a 14 year old daughter that has problems of her own, and it’s a real mixed mess, because it’s caused some real problems. Because one day I’ll say something, and not remember, and the next day, you know, I’ll say something else. It’s been extremely difficult, and I’m extremely angry that this was allowed to continue. I don’t understand how people can do this. They are damaging the brain. One of my doctors has told me that I have had a brain injury. And I will get better to a degree within 6 months, but that after that that’s about as good as I can expect it to be. They need to stop it.


They can’t give me back my life, they can’t give me back my memory.

Margaret Nunley

My name is Margaret Nunley, I live at 2113 West 10th Street, Austin Texas. I would like to share my experiences with Electroconvulsive shock treatment at the hands of a psychiatrist when I was a young girl. I feel that ECT is a horrible, traumatic thing to do to anyone, and it should not be allowed to be done to people. I feel that ECT has depleted my innate abilities, and overshadowed my life with fear, and mistrust.


When I was 14 or 15 years old, in about 1956, I freaked out in my chemistry class, and started crying for no reason, so my parents took me to the family doctor, Dr. Weaver of Coleman, Texas. Dr. Weaver didn’t ask me any questions, or examine me physically. He referred my parents to Dr. Winkleman, a psychiatrist, of San Angelo, Texas. I was taken to a nursing home in San Angelo to stay. I was taken every other day to Dr. Winkleman’s office for Electroconvulsive shock treatment for an entire summer. I was given sodium pentathol shots by his anesthesiologist each time, and would later wake up in a recovery room. I would usually wake up alone, and be terrified, and real confused. It was just a horrible experience, which kept happening over and over. I wouldn’t then be able to remember anything. Nobody ever talked to me or told me why it was being done, I got the idea that I was being punished, and that the idea was to torture me into better behavior. After I got out, there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about it, and felt the terror of the possibility of that happening again.


I now have a lack of self confidence, and terror and distrust of people, especially doctors and authority figures. I can’t even talk to people like teachers and preachers, or any kind of person like that. I can’t remember people’s names, and I can’t remember what I’m supposed to be doing a lot of times, and can’t remember sometimes what I was doing after I started a task. I have difficulty reading, and spelling, and remembering words. Despite the fact I have a degree in Sociology from North Texas State University, I have been unable to hold a job in that field because of my disabilities. It took me 11 years to graduate from college because of the difficulties from the trauma, the mistrust, and so forth.


I later developed a drinking problem which lasted about 30 years, because of my inability to confront the terror of the treatments. I couldn’t develop ways to cope, because I couldn’t receive counsel from people as I didn’t trust them, and I was forced to continue to resort to drinking. I have suffered in relationships, because I have a hard time relating to people, and have trouble holding jobs. I have not been able to enjoy reading, and have been limited in employment possibilities because of my inability to read. I have not done a lot of things in life, because of my fear, and lack of trust.


I feel I have been deprived of a normal, happy, productive life because of these treatments, and the disabilities they left me with. I would like to encourage legislation against ECT being administered to anyone ever again. I can’t possibly see the benefit anyone could ever get from this treatment.
I affirm this is true to the best of my ability.


Margaret Nunley
2113 West 10th Street
Austin, Texas

Ruth Reed Price


Testimony of Ruth Reed Price,
January 1995, in support of a ban on electric shock, HB 2452
Key points to Mrs. Price’s testimony:
Shocked in Austin, Texas, in 1965
Was incorrectly diagnosed as schizophrenic, actually had a thyroid imbalance
Lost much of her long term and short term memory
Has had to live by notes for 30 years
Adversely affected her ability to carry out her duties as a Teacher

My name is Ruth Reed Price, and I am writing this to relate the horrors of the Electric Shock treatments I was given by a Psychiatrist, the damage that the treatments have done to my life, and the details of how I was given this treatment because of a mis-diagnosis on the part of the Psychiatrist involved.


In May to June, 1965, I had a nervous breakdown, and was seen by doctors at Austin State Hospital. I was diagnosed at the time as suffering from schizophrenia, and was administered electric shock treatments to my brain about once a day for the next six weeks. These electric shock sessions lasted several minutes each, and were the worst experience of my life. I can’t even begin to describe how horrible it was. Electric shocks go all over your body, and it’s just a terrible experience.


The electric shock treatments affected my memory. I can’t remember things in the past, and sometimes even in the present, my abilities to recall incidents and do my best in meeting the public were impaired. I live by notes, I have to write myself notes exactly about what I’m supposed to do from day to day.
These impairments as a result of the electric shock treatments adversely effected my ability to carry out my job as a schoolteacher. I was handicapped in my ability to follow a curriculum, and during the first semester back at school, I was a nervous wreck.
In 1966 or 1967, Dr. Neil Baxter of San Antonio discovered what the staff at Austin State Hospital had failed to investigate in 1965, the fact that I had a thyroid imbalance. Because of the failure of the staff at Austin State Hospital to run routine physical and medical exams prior to diagnosing me as schizophrenic and shocking me for the ensuing 6 weeks, they missed the thyroid imbalance altogether, a medical condition that would have explained my nervous problems. Thyroid imbalances are fairly common, and can be treated with non-psychiatric medication. Instead of trying to really discover what was wrong, the Austin State Hospital staff made a wrong assumption, and proceeded to damage my brain and impair my memory with their violent electric shock therapy.
Reports show that the highest percentage of Electric Shock patients are women over the age of 65. I feel this statistic points out the problems with informed consent laws in the case of Electric Shock. Older women, especially those who have lost their husbands and are alone, are too easily coerced into treatments, just as in my case. The side effects and adverse reactions to the Electric Shock are too destructive to allow even one person to be given the treatment without full knowledge and understanding of what they stand to lose in terms of memory, personality, and the ability to experience pleasure. They are too destructive to allow even one person to receive Electric Shock because of a misdiagnosis, as in my case.
As a result of what occurred in my case, I believe electric shock should be banned. I urge the Texas Legislature to do all it can to outlaw it’s use in our State. I urge our Senators, Representatives and Governor to send a strong warning to Medical professionals in Texas with this ban.
I appreciate your attention to this matter.


Sincerely,
Ruth Reed Price
Cameron, Texas

Sent: Monday, December 03, 2001 9:10 PM
Subject: Re: Shock Site Feedback

I recieved it at Allegheny General hospital in Pittsburgh, PA. Lately my ability to learn and retain something is getting harder. It is very frustrating, I have to be shown over and over again. And if I do not do it for a couple days I have to be shown again. I thought I was going crazy or getting alzheimers at a early age. It is so good to hear it is a side affect. Hope to hear more from you, and would like to know if there is a penpal sight to be able to talk to other people who know what I am going through?
Deb

Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 6:55 PM
Subject: Shock Site Feedback


I recieved ECT twice in the last six years. Both series was about 12 to 16 treatments. I have lost major parts of my memory, and find it difficult to learn nwe things. I can have something explained to me and in five minutes can not comprehend what I was just told. Making it harder to hold down a job.I have some consulence in learning I am not alone. Has anyone recieved SSI for such dissability caused by ECT.
Deb

Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2001
Subject: Feedback

Hi, I am a 53 year old single male. A survivor of a facility that used shock treatment primarily as a form of behavior modification. At age 16 through 17, I received over 100 of these alleged treatments and very large doses of a thorazine like drug.

I ,like many others were subjected to this on a forced basis. Sodium pentathol as anesthetic and anectine as a musle relaxer were given together, giving the patient a feeling of drowning as you went under. Anectine causes cessation of lung muscles to work. You cannot breathe.

This alleged treatment was a humiliating and dergrading experience that as I have aged I equate to what rape must be like. Totally helpless and repeatedly violated against my will. The aftermath being nightmares, total loss of memory prior to age sixteen. Grandparents,friends etc. everything, gone. Decreased ability to learn, cannot read or comprehend very well. Total destruction of my parental family as a family.

Rage in my heart over this abuse that will never leave! To this day I have no idea what all was done to me at this place. My parents weren't told and had no idea of how we were treated there. I could go on and on. I won't. I realize my story is somewhat unique.

However, I have heard recently things like this still go on. Psychiatists have a license to do as they like. They go unchecked in this industry and if you have problems as a result of their behavior thats just your problem.

Please be careful. Please do not let this happen or anything close to this happen to someone you love or you. Look at alternatives. Kindness would have gone a long way in my world back then. Be kind to yourself. Find help that is kind. They are out there.

Thanks,
John

Sent: Thu, 31 May 2001
Subject: Banshock.org

Hi,
I support this web site. I live in a socio-economically disadvantaged suburb in Adelaide. I know lots of people he receive psychiatric treatment. I've never seen any beneficial results from psychiatry. People who take psychiatric drugs generally take them for much the same reasons that people take illicit drugs such as speed or herion, that is, out of a sense of hopelessness. I am sure that if the psychiatrists weren't there to prescribe them these people would be much more likely to come to terms with their problems.
Regards,
Daron Ryan. 

Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 11:14 PM
Subject: ECT

Hi: I'm at the point, in my depression treatment where nothing seems to work. ECT has been suggested as an effective treatment for my condition. I have been collecting facts about it so I may make an informed decision. I want to thank you for having a site that will make that decision easier.

I believe that the best thing ECT has going is hope to those of us so locked up in depression that we have no life and would take the risk for a chance at a normal life. I now can see that ECT could make my life worse than it already is. Thanks for the heads up.

RB

10/31/2000

To Whom it may concern,

My father was diagnosed 10 years ago with severe depression as a result of two nervous breakdowns due to a work related injury. He was placed into a psychiatric hospital of his own free will. We all believed that the doctors would help him to become better and not have suicidal thoughts and the severe mood swings he was having, we could not have been further away from what was actually going to happen.

Over a period of 3-5 years the people my mother and I trusted used my father as a 'guinea pig' for there various new drug treatments and trials. We were told that eventually they would find a drug that would help him become more stable. They were wrong. They tried him on every single tricyclic anti-depressant, psychiatric and benzodiazepine drug I can remember from Prozac, Lithium, Clomipramine, Diazepam, Doxepin and Sinequan through to Prothiaden, Rohypnol, Chlorpromazine and nearly every other Psychiatric drug on the market. Nothing worked, at one stage we counted that my father was taking up to 50 tablets a day. He was like a zombie he didn't know where he was or who his family was.

This was a particularly stressful time for my mother and I as we were told by many different psychiatrist that My father didn't mean to be angry with us, and take his mood swings out on us that is was his way of dealing with things. My mother and I were at wits end. My father had spent 11 straight months in hospital only allowed out one day over the weekend. After this went on for some time the option of my father having Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) was bought up we were promised that it would cure him and he would have no need for psychiatric drugs any more. As you can probably guess my mother and I were desperate for things to go back to some semblance of normalness.

My father agreed to having ECT and things were set in progress. Looking back at the 18 week period my father had ECT during he was subjected to this torturous barbaric treatment 3 times a week this equates to 54 ECT treatments in around 4 and a half months. If my mother and I were to have know the out comes and repercussions this would have we would never ever have taken this option. My father has a significant memory loss, his mood swings have become more severe and happen more often he is still taking large amounts of Psychiatric drugs and over the past three years has been in hospital more times that he has been home.

He has also lost teeth as a result of the treatment not being administered properly. I feel partly responsible for what my father now has to deal with because I never questioned the doctors on the effects this treatment would have long term, my mother and I were so hopeful that this would solve all the problems he was having, we were wrong. I am writing this letter in the hope that it may have an impact however small it is on stopping this cruel treatment from happening anymore, I know that if I could turn back the clock my father would never have had to suffer what he has.

Kirsty McPherson

Sent: Saturday, Oct 28, 2000
Subject: Shock Site Feedback

Hi,

I received ects in 93 or94. I haven't really realized how it has affected me until recently. I guess it is because I didn't think there were others who were going through the same things that i am. Right now i don't really know what to say except that I am outraged! I am 30 years old. Since my ect's I have a hard time getting along with people, My short-term memory is gone. I can't hold a job. I use to be a avid book reader, but now I have to read things over and over again and I still don't absorb the material. Things that used to come so easy don't hardly come at all anymore. Also I wanted to say that my body is numb-I mean i don't feel things like i used too. Well i hope other people respond to this page amanda MN

Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2000 11:27 AM
Subject: 36 Shock treatments, 2 times a day.


To who it may consern,
My name is Tom when i was 15 years old my
parents had me put in a Mental Instatution. I would not follow the rules
and every time i got into trouble they would threten me with E.C.T. Well i
kept on rebbeling and after all the threats hade been played out they finealy Zapped me. For punishment not for a illness, they gave me 36 Shock Treatments. Two ( 2 ) a day 1 at 9:00 am and 1 at 11:am.

I rember them comeing to get me in the padded room. Tieing me down on the girney injecting a med. into my vain.I could see & here but could not move my muscels, then they shaved the sides of my head.Put some kind of gell on my temples, then like a set of Head phones on that. An ( S ) shaped tube was put down my throat then the Dr. walked around in back of me & thats all i rember.
Still tryin to come to terms with that.
Yours,Tom A. --

Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2000 3:05 PM
Subject: Shock Site Feedback

I am a woman of 50 years and I had 38 Shock Treatments and ever since them I have stuttered, not to mentioned I have poor memory loss , learning skills. I did not have my menstration period for about 2years. Also, I was 18 years old. Some of this stuff I never knew until now. I could write a book about it and I still contemplate doing so. Ever since ECT I have wondered why I can't learn things . I am very slow at learning .
My father was a General Practioner in a small , Texas town.

He had been inWW2 and from what I was told he was never the same. I detested him and he is cold in his grave and I now know that I should not have been living with such an evil and sadistical man.

I had to endure so much from him, and my mother was completely brained washed herself, like "Under his Spell" almost. He had me in and out of mental hospitals and started taking me to see a "shrink" when I was about 9 years old for depression, putting me on Valium when it first came out. He was taking it also, only more. He was also an alcoholic and he prescribed himself drugs. Milltown was one of his favorites. I could go and on .

He made my whole family disfunctional and each tried to cope the best they knew how. I, though was the one that became the victim and to this day I live in fear everyday of having terminal illnesses and other disorders . As I write this, I feel like I may gain some control in at least knowing that their are people like myself that I can relate too.

I have been told that I was a sweet and kind person before the ECT Treatments and now I have a problem getting along with people , including my immediate family and my inlaws. I blame my parents for letting this "barbaric treatment" happen to me. My husband, I have to tell you has supported me throughout our 28 years of marriage, but we have contemplated divorce at times. It isn't fair to him but he has his substanced abuses too, alcohol.

I sometimes feel he drinks because of me and the way I act. I have been on medication , mostly anti-depression drugs since the ECT which was in about 1964, entering adolescents. I now have OCD and take Paxil everyday. It seems like it makes me worse. I have a hard time dealing with Somatic Systems and Drs.mostly GP's don't want to treat me for anything because I take Anti-depression drugs.

Mostly I try to cope on my own. but I can't hold down a job because of the OCD ,the horrible anxiety, ever since ECT .

If there is anyone out there who can relate to what I have
just written please write in the feedback, like I did.
Marilla S.

Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2000 8:31 PM
Subject: Electric Shock Treatment

My mother received electric shock treatment in Denver in 1974 at the age of 42. She has lived in a nursing home for the last 26 years!!! No one ever acknowledged the fact that they "fried" her brain. The official medical diagnosis was encephalytis and by the time her children were old enough to question this, the statue of limiations had expired and we were never able to do much of anything about it. We've just moved her to a new program in Ft Collins Colorado. I would welcome hearing from others who have had similar situations or can provide information.

Thank you!

Sent: Friday, August 25, 2000 11:01 AM

This sounds just like my father. I have just found out that my father received ect in the military back in 1958 - 1959. He has always performed as a subhuman with no emotions, and a blank look on his face. The strange part that I find is he was going to engineering classes in the military and became a forklift driver for 33 years and never moved up or got one promotion. For an intellegient man to a unmotivated can't remember his childhood or take responsibility for himself.

Thanks for listening,

Jennifer