Yes, it definitely is! I don't know yet how many treatments I'll need, but I'm hopeful it won't be twenty (which is the upper bound they gave me) and that I won't need bilateral treatment. They say some people are better by treatment number six. Right now I'm already noticing improvements and I'm kind of able to sleep without benzos or Seroquel again, so who knows, maybe I'll be one of those people.

That is AMAZING! Good for you, for following your intuition about needing ECT.

It's strange, but as I'm starting to improve a bit, I'm only now truly starting to notice how bad it was. I guess I had forgotten what normal was like and I didn't really believe that things could be better anymore. Sometimes I still don't, but now there are also times that I do believe that things can be better and I can actually feel it. I think maybe I was so afraid to exaggerate my depression that I was actually underestimating it.

I understand so well, except with meds that have actually worked for me. In the midst of it you really wonder...Is this just 'me', am I exaggerating, and so on and on. But then there you are, feeling an immense improvement, saying I really was suffering from severe depression!

You have to feel so proud of yourself, FluffyD, for making it through AND for persisting in reaching out for and obtaining help when you were struggling so mightily.

I'm kind of on the fence about whether I should pursue a complaint at the first hospital, where they kept me in the dark for months and then declined to treat me when I got angry at them and the lack of information because they claimed that my anger showed that I had "personality issues" and that therefore "ECT wouldn't work." Their impression of me was completely wrong because they never took more than a few minutes to talk to me and didn't listen to the information provided by my own Pdoc. So when I didn't immediately fit into their stereotype of what a depressed person should look like, they just wrote me off. I think that's bad practice. I don't think it was unreasonable at all to get angry after I waited for months, was refused any information, had to submit to a whole bunch of "examinations" without knowing the reason, and never heard back from them when they promised to call.

On the one hand I think it would be bad for my recovery to waste more time and energy on those people, especially since they're likely too arrogant to listen, but on the other hand I now have proof that the ECT is working and that the depression is real and they did delay my treatment by nearly four months for no good reason. It's hard to just set all that anger aside. I'm not sure what's the best thing to do.

Filing a complaint is a strong consideration. Maybe give your treatments a bit of time, then decide? Just so you don't stress yourself so early on in the treatments. Just a thought. But my God, what they put you through...absolutely unethical. Inhumane.

I also find that I'm still really grieving about all the time I've lost to depression these past few years, and all the damage it has caused. But grief is different and a lot more manageable than depression. I think that's something I can work with and honestly I'm looking forward to it, to begin moving on, hopefully.

I have grief about huge pieces of my life given over to mental illness, too. I suppose we all do. But you're correct...grief can be managed, worked with. Whereas depression only needs immediate treatment.

The bottom line is that you've hung in there and now you know what you were facing, the courage it took!

I'm so very happy for you!