Why I Created The Shocked! ECT Website

Written by Juli Lawrence

Welcome to Shocked! ECT. Even though I sometimes take a lighthearted approach to the issue of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), I consider it a serious issue, often shrouded in misinformation.

You will find information that is pro and con on the topic of ECT. I leave it to you to weed through the materials and choose for yourself. I hope that you find this information useful, and if you are considering ECT, you will have made an informed choice. As an ECT survivor, I wish you the best, and a full recovery from the beast known as mental illness.

I created Shocked! ECT in 1995 after having had ECT myself the year before and having a very bad result. It started simply, a way of sharing information with others who were searching for answers. It's grown into an extensive website with what I hope is comprehensive information that will offer support and provide some of the answers to many of your questions.

I receive a lot of email every day, from persons considering ECT, loved ones, and persons who have had ECT and don't understand what happened. They were given promises, and those promises were broken. Yet it never fails to astound me when I receive email full of the lies the industry continues to tell. I absolutely swear that out in the field, in modern day civilization, psychiatrists are telling their patients that ECT is the miracle cure, it will cure your mental illness, your migraines, and even Alzheimer's Disease. (That was even testified as fact in a court of law, and swallowed by a US judge, who then ordered forced ECT on a woman in her 80s.)

I am called many things by the ECT industry and proponents - a Scientologist, a nut case, anti-psychiatry zealot.

I am none of the above. I am a woman who was severely depressed (re-diagnosed as bipolar disorder during the ECT treatments) and had ECT in 1994. The ECT, according to my mother, lifted me from a depression into a brief silliness (the euphoric high that typically follows ECT), quickly followed by an even worse depression than before. And it left me with severe memory loss, and I believe some cognitive damage.

I'm interested in the people who say "But you're so articulate now, how could it have possibly been destructive?" My answer: You do not know me. You do not know what I was like before I had the ECT, and you do not know what I am like now. Do not pretend that you know what I feel, what I think or who I am. A few words on a website does not give you a picture of me, other than the picture I *choose* to present in public. Most people who know me, other than those EXTREMELY close to me never even knew I was depressed. I have a public face, and a private face, and the two are very different. I work very hard at maintaining the public face, and I have worked hard to recover from a very low point. I have never said I was brain dead, simply that there was damage.

It took me a year to emerge from the fog that resulted from the ECT. And it's taken six years to recover to the point that I am able to fully articulate what has happened. I have spent the last years reading the research, including the studies that ECT experts use to promote the treatment. Day by day, I grow more convinced that ECT is not an effective treatment, and that it does little more than provide a brief respite from depression, followed by despair and hopelessness.....and potential damage to the brain.

This website is not an attempt to dissuade anyone from having ECT. If you have chosen to have the treatment, I support your decision and wish you well. If you've come looking for information, I sincerely hope that you will find genuine sources of information presenting all sides of ECT, not just the public face that the industry presents. However, you will find plenty of pro-ECT information here, because I think it's important to look at this from every angle.

Yes, there are anecdotal stories that ECT is a miracle cure. And those are trotted out continually when proponents of the treatment try to deflect any negative information. Yet, when former patients come to the forefront to discuss their bad experiences, the proponents say their concerns aren't valid, that anecdotal information isn't worthy of recognition. Well, folks, you can't have it both ways. I believe that if you're going to listen to anecdotal information, you must listen to both sides, not just the "ECT saved my life" viewpoint. On the other hand, I do believe it's important to hear the happy endings as well. They are important. All of the voices of ECT are important, and should be heard...including mine.

I have been threatened and I have been harassed because of my views. I have had emails from fanatics that included viruses; pictures of mutilated animals with threats that I'm next; name calling (Scientologist, as well as words that are offensive to women); gifs saying f*** you wh***; and "orders" telling me to stop what I'm doing. People are now on notice that, from this point on, all emails like these will be publicly posted. You will see various threats of lawsuits posted around the site, and I will post all emails containing legal and any other kind of threat.

I will not submit to the powers that be, and I will be heard. I am continually called a Scientologist, and it makes me angry. I don't believe that my religious beliefs are anyone's business but my own, but for the record....I was raised a good Presbyterian and if I went to church today, that is the church I would choose.