I am an intelligent, creative person who was worried about the side side effects of ECT but finally chose to have it this year. First I had 6 unilateral ECT's and had few side effects including almost no memory loss. This lifted me out if depression for about a month then I fell back in and was planning suicide. This led my doctor to recommend bilateral ECT, which I agreed to. This had much worse side effects, mostly memory loss. The memory loss was only around the weeks of my treatment. I struggled to store short term memory. I would forget people visited me, conversations I had and places I went. When I checked out of the hospital I was shocked I had been there a month as I thought it was only a couple of weeks. My long term memory and skills were not touched and I am doing really well now, although it has only been 7 weeks. Hope this helps. Feel free to ask more questions if you need to.

I forgot to mention I was at university while having the second round of ECT. Only one unit but I still managed to ace it despite being very ill for two months and having ECT. I actually wrote a draft of a story (I'm studying writing) while in hospital and forgot I'd done it. It was great and should get me an excellent mark.