I have gone through two courses of ECT for severe depression. I hold a bipolar and a PTSD diagnosis.

I had very minimal short term memory loss for the period surrounding my treatments the first time, but the memory problems were not for everything and were resolved very soon after my treatments were over. The second time through I had no memory problems at all. Both times my depression was relieved significantly and pretty quickly. All of my treatments were done unilaterally.

My husband also went through ECT. He had more problems with memory loss and disorientation during the treatments, but he went into the treatments nearly catatonic and they did bilateral treatments which do tend to cause greater memory problems. That said, even is memory issues resolved quickly after treatments concluded.

I work with a friend who also went through ECT. Her experience was much like mine.

We all returned to our jobs fairly quickly following treatment.