I'm bumping this thread to ask for some advice. I hope you can help.

My wife finished 9 courses of ECT this week. We were told that for the majority of patients, although they may never regain memories from events that occurred around the treatments, her longer-term memories should almost all come back. But my wife is experiencing side effects we weren’t informed about. She’s profoundly afraid and fearful most of the time because she doesn’t feel like the life she’s living is hers. She says she has the “heebie jeebies” all the time wherever she goes and whoever she’s with, including her family. She’s even uncertain about me, her husband of 26 years, but even so she wants me to be in the same room as her at all times.

Our psychiatrist says this is related to her temporary memory loss but I can’t find much information about this behaviour online, and the thought of this personality disruption being permanent is terrifying. In your experience, has anyone experienced this post-ECT behaviour before and is it typical? What can I do to make this better for her? What are the latest stats about permanent post-ECT memory loss and how long recovery might take? What are the chances that she’ll never regain her long-term memories over time and that the fear she’s feeling will never fade?