Hi - I would love to introduce myself by giving some advice or by helping someone else on this site, but in the state I exist, it would just be hypocritical. I am sorry if my post depresses anyone, I have spent the past few hours trying to find a self-help forum for depression….everyone I have come across requires a subscription or donation.
At the moment I am considering electroconvulsive therapy, hence the title of my discussion. I have been signed off work since the beginning of February; I am currently on the fourth ‘new’ antidepressant drug my GP has prescribed during this short period…..and it isn’t working.
I am on the waiting list to see a psychiatrist; my GP says I could be waiting for up to a year.
Depression rules my life. I am a scientist; I live in a world where psychological flaws are seen as a weakness. My work colleagues all signed a card for me recently….comments included; ‘keep smiling, because I’m not’ and of course, the classic; ‘hope you will be back to your cheery self soon’. I have a colleague who I know suffered from post-natal depression and have tried opening up to her, only for her response to be ‘am I bothered’ in a mock Catherine Tate voice. I know technically employees aren’t allowed to discriminate against mental illness, but I am positive I have ended my career. I am 25.
I have a loving fiancé who is great in general, but deep down is 100% against anti-depressant drugs and whenever I try to open up to him, he tells me of the time he split up with an ex and was miserable for a year…...so he doesn’t quite get it. I could reply with ‘I was diagnosed with clinical depression at 14 and have been on drug after drug ever since, I have tried to kill myself (when I was younger) 5 times, I have no positive memories, I am incapable of enjoyment and my life at the moment is just complete and utter despair. But I don’t, I just sit meekly and don’t say a word.
Sorry for the self-indulgent wallowing. All I’m really after is advice on whether or not I should go ahead with ECT.
Thank you XXX
I have included a list, in chronological order, of the drugs I have been prescribed – if anyone wants my view on them, please feel free to reply.
Age 14- Fluoxetine.
Age 16- Sertraline.
Age 19- Paroxetine.
Age 21- Venlafaxine.
Age 22- Venlafaxine hydrochloride.
Age 25- A higher dose of Venlafaxine hydrochloride.
THEN Clomipramine
THEN Mirtazapine
THEN Escitalopram oxalate
THEN Lofepramine…...

You’re not wallowing or being self indulgent.  You have a great fiance and a great future to look forward to and want to get on with that free of depression.  You are researching a possible treatment for your depression which seems very sensible and productive to me and is the way we should go about all new undertakings.  My husband always talked about (and still does) the 4 Ps:  Preparation prevents poor performance.  In fact he used to add another P for good measure and make it ‘Preparation prevents piss poor performance! 
As you have said, Depression can rule your life and become all encompassing if you don’t take action, and learn what it thrives on so that you can starve it.  My husband always used to call my depression my black dog and said that I could learn to control it and lock it up just like a dog.
You say that you were diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of 14.  Was there an event or situation in your life that could have caused your depression at that time?
Have you suffered from depression constantly since then or has something happened to make it worse now?  You have obviously built a successful career and studied hard to get where you are today.  Have work pressures contributed to your depression or have they provided a distraction from your depression?
Often it helps to know the root of the problem to work on resolving it before you can feel better.  I just wondered if you know the cause.  Please don’t feel obliged to answer?
I too worked in an environment in the City that I thought saw psychological flaws as a weakness.  This perpetuated my depression as I refused to seek treatment for more than a year after my depression started and by the time I did, I had to be admitted to hospital immediately.
The doctors recommended ECT to me as a last resort to lift my depression in 2003.  I was too ill at the time to do any research into side effects and the details of the treatment or to care about them actually.  Rather like yourself, after years of depression, antidepressants, hospitals, doctors, suicidal thoughts and attempts, I was just desperate for anything that could help. 
I was told that the treatment would probably leave me with short term memory loss for a period of about 6 months.  From the title of your post, it sounds like you know this already.  Have you looked at the SHOCK TREATMENT A survey of people’s experiences of Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) by Mind The Mental Health Charity?  I found it very useful although I didn’t discover it until a year after my ECT. 
http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Booklets/Making+sense/ECT.htm
My husband is convinced that ECT saved my life.  I am not so sure.  I did try to kill myself again only a few months after ECT which resulted in me being sectioned.  Besides memory loss, I suffered from paranoia after my treatment.  Whether it was as a result of the ECT I cannot be sure but paranoia has never been part of my personality.  It could however have been part of my depression.  I have since read the survey and found it in the list of possible side effects. My short term memory has never returned (6 years on).  Like all these things some people love ECT and some people hate it but if you can be as informed as you can to make your own mind up then you can proceed with whatever course of action you choose with more certainty.  Please do not hesitate to ask me anything?  I wish you all the best with your decision.  Helen

Hi – thank you for getting back to me and for your kind words.
The manic street preachers wrote a song called ‘little black dog on my shoulder’ (or something like that), that’s about depression. Thought you might like to know 
People always look at me with big sad eyes when I say I was diagnosed at 14, expecting that something terrible happened, but I can honestly say nothing terrible has ever happened to me. My parents have always been loving and supportive, I was never bullied at school and I have always had a pretty active social life.
I truly believe I was born with depression. One of my earliest childhood memories is having to say goodnight to my mother every night, as she walked down the stairs (the second step down to be precise) after tucking me in. This would drive her mad, as she has an attentive character and would never forgive herself for letting it go, and every night she would come back and ask ‘what did you say’. This went on from as far back as I can remember till I was about 12-ish (12-ish is a bit of a guess, I don’t remember the exact age). I believed with all my heart that if I didn’t say goodnight to her at this particular time, she would die. So there we have obsessive compulsive disorder, paranoia and mania to mention a few.
I don’t remember this, but apparently when I was really young I never played with toys very much. I just ordered them and stored them neatly. I’d play games which involved interaction, or craft-like toys like fuzzy felts. But when on my own, for example with a doll; I’d just undress it, fold the clothes and place them in a neat pile, and just leave the actual doll lying wherever. OCD again at the very least.
I honestly don’t remember a time when I have ever been free of depression.
My depression has ruined my career dreams. I worked incredibly hard and got in to medical school. At the time I got my A-Level results I was going about with a guy who didn’t want me to go to medical school, as all of the universities were quite far away and it meant we would only see each other at weekends at the very best. I thought that if I left him I would never find anyone else. I never really believed he was ‘the one’. Maybe I use this, subconsciously, as an excuse to cover my lack of belief in myself. It’s nice to have someone else to blame, even if you have trouble committing to the idea.
I am a very open person and quite frankly, will answer more or less any question you ask me. I have always been upfront about my depression and have told everyone and anyone who’s ever asked. When my medication is working I am capable of rationally saying ‘it is simply a chemical imbalance’ and not giving a damn what anyone thinks about me. When my medication is not working I question everything and I am convinced that everyone is laughing behind my back.
Thank you for your reading recommendations, I have already read them. Plus 100+ research papers. One of my Aunts was treated with ECT when I was in my early teens and I went with and collected her (along with another Aunt) on several occasions. At this point you’re probably wondering if this was a trigger for me going on anti-depressants. It wasn’t. I know this is going to sound really harsh but I was never that close to my Aunt who was ill, but I was very close to the Aunt that got lumbered with taking her…and with my obsession with all things medical….I actually found the whole experience really interesting more than anything. It’s a very sad story really, turned out after all the ECT (which did absolutely nothing to help her) she had a massive brain tumour and she died about a month after her last treatment.
And so (sorry…getting to the point of telling you this now) my personal experience with ECT is pretty negative. From what I have read, I don’t think there is an ECT patient out there who would say they’re 100% happy with how it turned out. But…I have tried so many drugs, I honestly don’t see counselling working for me, what other option do I have? When my medication isn’t working I have a pretty shocking memory in general anyway and I have yet to find a personality trait/ effect of depression that I haven’t experienced either full-time, or at least when my medication isn’t working.
One thing I have read about ECT patients that is a perception I would hate to be applied to myself; is that when given a placebo (ie; anesthetised, given the muscle relaxant, taken to the ECT suit but just not actually shocked) some patients make a similar recovery to patients who have received the real-deal. The researchers in such cases believe that these patients ‘benefitted from the extra attention they received’. I absolutely hate it when people imply that depression is a form of getting attention. When I am well I am very socially active, when I am ill I don’t want to see or speak to another living soul.
I haven’t discussed this with my fiancé yet. I predict he will think I’m being over-dramatic and try to get me to take St Johns Wart. I understand that you weren’t well at the time you had ECT, what was your husband’s reaction to the Doctors prescribing it? Your husband (and yourself) sound very well educated and respectful of this topic, I wish more people where like this.
Can I also ask; what type of memories do you have problems with? Is it all short term memories or is it a particular type of memory? For example, do you have particular problems with numbers, places, people or sounds? Have you ever tried exercises to improve your memory? Does your memory problem affect your job?
Thank you again for your reply. XXX

Thank you for the head’s up on the song. 
My husband was convinced that my depression was inherited but I fought very hard with him about that.  I always felt that my depression was circumstancial.  If I had inherited depression, I felt that I would have suffered sooner than I did which was when I was 30 and very stressed at work. 
I read a lot about genetic depression.  The consensus about genetic depression seems to be that some people can be more to prone to depression but that most depression is learned behaviour.  Because depression has to do with styles of thinking, behaviour and interpersonal relationships, it is understood to be likely that Depression styles are passed down in families by learning.  There is a lot of debate about a depressive gene as such as far as I understand it.
Do you ever remember living in a ‘playful state’ when life was fun and you had fun?  Have you ever had counselling that you think has helped?  And have you ever heard of ‘positive therapy’?  There were only a couple of positive therapists in the UK when I was being treated for depression.  There may be more now.  The treatment is popular in the US.  It is a very focused therapy and there is a positive emphasis on finding a solution to current problems and focusing on future wellness rather than on the past.  The past is not ignored but the emphasis is on teaching new skills and keeping ther therapy brief and focused.  It is an extremely hopeful and motivational form of therapy.
A good therapist will use a combination of cognitive, behavioural and interpersonal therapy in the way that they think will benefit the individual the most.  If ther therapy also includes the understanding of how dreaming figures in Depression, it has proven to be even more effective.
My loss of memory includes memories of events and names and places before my depression.  I still cannot remember who people are in my diary (and believe me people’s names don’t make it into my diary easily!).  I was very concerned about it and did lots of memory courses and exercises and IQ tests and memory tests.  I wanted to get back to my job in the city but didn’t feel that my memory or concentration were good enough any more to take all my trading exams again that had lapsed.
My concentration was probably as much to do with the depression as the ECT but I found it so frustrating that I used to be able to read the FT cover to cover on the way to work and after depression and ECT, I couldn’t read one page without re-reading it over and over before the information went in. 
I had 13 sessions of ECT and remember it as a terrible experience and procedure that seems very far removed from the world of 21st century medicine that we live in.  The fact that it is still not known exactly how it works apart from to shock your brain out of it’s pattern goes against everything I have ever believed about medicine, but I guess that it must work for some people for the medical profession to still recommend it, even if it is as a last resort. 
I am very lucky that my husband was never anything other than supportive during my depression and he was the one who had to convince me to take the antidepressants and that I could learn to control my depression if I listened to what the therapists were trying to tell me.  We discussed ECT together and decided that it was worth trying given that we had tried everything else and after 5 years I didn’t feel that we could go on as we were.
Have you ever heard of ‘Filisa’ as a herbal remedy for depression?  Someone recommended it on the positive suggestions actually.  I have heard great reviews about the product and a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist friend of mine recommends it to her clients who suffer with depression with great results.  I am actually going to do an article about it on the site but in the meantime maybe you could look it up on the web.  I hope that I have answered your questions.  If not, don’t hestitate to say so.  In the meantime, I wish you all the very best in your decision.  Helen

Thank you so much for your honest and informative reply.
I truly don’t ever remember being in the playful state you describe. I have heard of positive therapy and would be willing to give it a go…...it’s just a matter of sitting on a waiting list for who knows how many months before I get to see anyone.
I have never heard of Filisa and will be going on a shopping trip tomorrow to buy some. I am willing to try anything!
The memory loss you describe is more or less what I expected, and to be honest, is comparable to my current memory state.
I wish you all the best for the future and promise to post my experiences if my GP decides ECT is the way to go.
Thank you again. XXX

Hi people—I’m Ginny and I wrote about Filisa on the ‘Positive suggestions’ page. To answer your questions (as best I can) about Filisa, I have a fair few friends who I have recommended it to and who have all had brilliant positive results from it. I had one friend who was virtually suicidal after suffering from depression for years after a long marriage broke up (husbands infidelity and leaving for a 20 yr old—long story, but she felt as if her life had ended) She is now a voluntary part time teaching assistant at a primary school and is SOOO happy and full of new found confidence. She says that Filisa saved her and I believe it.  You know it’s just a plant but it works and the people at the Little Herbal Company are brilliant and very very supportive. You can ring them any time and they always listen. I’m so glad that I found this fantastic product and, if writing here helps one person, I’m a happy bunny. I’m also so glad that I found this great web site.

Thank you Ginny :0) I am going to buy some Filisa and spread the word to friends, this is the first time I have heard of it. Warm regards Chloe

Hello,
I’m a new one at this site but I seen the struggling frustration in your post, I had to join just to let you know I hear you about some of these sites and how you can only join by donation or payment, Yes it is sad and very aggravating for many of us that needs the comfort of others to get threw a day or to help make a decision that is imposable to make alone.
I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Depression, I have my many faces of health issues that make it possible for me to almost loose my mind on occasion, The Illnesses and now being Disabled and can’t work has thrown me in this lovely spiral downward to the point I have to see a Therapist or I was going to loose my will with life. I was told by my therapist that I was going threw the same type of depression men get when they become disabled and can’t work or do things they enjoyed anymore, it had me a little confused at his meaning till my last visit, he explained to me it is just that I have worked so hard for so long only to have my whole life jerked out from under me and it is a very deep depression to climb out of.

I do know I am in a Mourning Faze, it is the same thing as if you lost someone you love, well I lost ME and who I was and my life I enjoyed so much.

I know your situation is totally different than mine but I just wanted to share a little about me and let you know I hear you, and I have read the other posters to you and you do have support, I like to find things for others like web sites for what ever. If I can help please fill free to let me know. ((HUGS)) to you!

It’s a really a good and healthy discussion.One of my friend is also a victim of depression and I often talked to him and tried to make some changes in his attitude but I have spent approximately four years in this exercise and I felt he have still can not recovered I think it’s very easy for a person to recover from depression if he have a strong will.

ThankYou Alican,
  I have been threw so much since 2000, and in 2005 I lost my Father to Pancreatic Cancer and in 1 1/2 years later his wife they were both in there eirley 60’s and a month after her passing I started the spirel after loosing a great job close to home due to back problems and finding out I am allergic to Aleive which had me sick for 3 days and the place I had just started working let me go,  and it still kept going because I never got better only worse, I am in pain every day all day and the levels go up and down, I also have head and torso tremors which is very imbarrassing and meds don’t work for these.( My dr.‘s and theripest are working together and know my health issues don’t all stem from my depression Thank Goodness)
Your friend sounds very strong headed and won’t admit to his situation or problems, he has to see it for himself first and I do hope it is soon for his sake, he has to let go of what ever it is that put him in his depression and get back on track with your help and outhers. Many Good wishes to you and your friend!!!

Yes having a strong will I believe is the best cure. My husband says to me don’t let the ship sink you’ll drown all the passangers who need you. It’s great to feel needed. We all need you, we need you on this web site to be part of our community XX I saw the changelling the other night with angelina joe lee and the hospital were giving woman ECT and it was horrid. Please do not have ECT, helen said it encouraged her to have bi polar. After watching that film I just needed to say I was thinking of you and had to mention it Xx HUGS Xx Hope you are feeling better. I read your post and felt so sad I did not know what to say. You are a very strong person who I think is amazing. Have you tried distraction for the pain. I read that a mother distracted a boy while having surgery creating the story snow white. Is there any way you could distract yourself, you probably know what to do already. I love watching movies, I get so stuck in my mind is on nothing else but the plot and I feel like I have given my old worry wart head a rest. Sadly the changelling upset me and I would not recommend it to a friend who was feeling a bit low. The lake house is more my film Xx

Hi there I have just found this website, I have been sufering with depression for the past five months and have tried various medication which have not helped, I am now taking venlaflaxine 150mg and I have come to he conclusion that this is not working either, I wonder if the herbal remedy filisa could be taken as well as medication, as I dont want to stop this medication provided by my gp has anyone else tried taking it as well as medication
Thanks

Dear Sue,  so sorry for the delayed reply.  You can absolutely take Filisa alongside your antidepressants.  I know that because I have spoken to the owner of the company and had that confirmed as someone else asked me the same question.  That’s another thing that is so great about Filisa.  It is the only herbal remedy that I know of that you can take while you are taking your prescribed antidepressants.  You cannot take St John’s Wort with any other antidepressants.  Lots of people feel the same way as you and want to try something alternative and herbal but do not want to or dare not stop their prescribed antidepressants.  This way you can do both.  You say that your Venlafaxine isn’t helping so when you start to feel better when you start taking Filisa, you’ll know it’s the Filisa that’s making the difference.  Several people have said on the site how amazing Filisa is even for the most suicidal of depression.  Someone recommended it as a positive suggestion on the site and other people have spoken about it on the forum.  Take a look at the accolades on their website too,Click here. It’s very highly praised by the public and celebrities alike.  You can call the company and speak to anyone there and they are always willing to help.  I hope this helps.  Do let us know how you get on.  Best wishes, Helen

Dear Helen
Thank you so much for that information, I think I will give it a try, it can’t make me feel worse than I do right now,my gp suggested councelling today but there is a six month waiting list but I don’t want to feel like this for six months as I have already been off work for 5 months and I still don’t feel any different, this is one of the worst illnesses I have had. It has been helpfull to know that I am not alone, although it feels like it at times, is there really life after depression?
Kind regards
Sue

Dear Sue, depression can indeed be very isolating and it makes you feel very alone and as if no-one understands you and when people try to tell you that there is light at the end of the tunnel you simply don’t believe them and tell yourself that they dont’ know what they are talking about and cannot possibly understand.  In truth, they probably can’t understand as it’s very diffucult to understand anything unless you’ve experienced it yourself.  All these words of advise are well meaning but often don’t help when you are feeling in the depth of hopelessness and despair.
While you are waiting for some therapy through your GP, would you consider going along to group therapy?  The Depression Alliance is an excellent organization that holds weekly group sessions run by sufferers themselves.  They are country wide in larger towns and cities.  You don’t need to call.  You can just turn up. http://www.depressionalliance.org/docs/what_we_offer/self_help_groups.html.
Also, there are many local groups that have often been set up by charities or individuals.  You can find information of these at GP surgeries and libraries.  I am building up a directory on the site as people send them in.  You will find a list of help groups if you look on the ‘I am depressed’ page and click on the heading in the left hand margin ’ Helplines and Support Groups’.  I do hope that this helps.
Sue, I can only imagine how you are feeling and it’s not much consolation to hear that others have been there too but I felt the same way as you do and I promise that there is life after depression.  Time is a great healer Sue.  Be patient and kind to yourself.  Thinking of you.  Helen

I read this in The guardian tuesday 5 Jan 2010 - Mindfulnesss Three minute exercise
mindfulness is described as a way of paying attention to feelings ans emotions so that they can be managed. It involves meditation , yoga and breathing techniques.
’ three minute breathing space’
1. ask yourself what is my experience right now ? and notice any body sensation, thoughts or feelings you are having without judging them.
2. place your attention on your breathing following the in-and-out breath as it naturally occurs.
3. Expand your awareness to the whole of your body continuing to notice any thoughts feelings or physical sensations that occur without judgemant.
Hope this helps :0) xx