I’ve had an awful lot of psychotherapy. I’ve actually talked about it with the psychotherapist. And I think he was the only one that really understood where the past was coming into the future, sort of like causing problems, and whilst people say, Oh you got over it, it didn’t work, move on. It’s the psychological impact I’ve had through having ECT and thinking this is the ultimate treatment you could have.

And I also lost heart. If this is the ultimate treatment and I haven’t responded [claps hands] what is there? And I became more suicidal, which was initially why I was in hospital. And I also, that has a knock on effect, because each time I’m sectioned, it’s usually because I’m highly suicidal and I reach the stage, well nothing’s worked and I’m still in this same place, and with people saying to me, oh, you know, like it might never happen again. How many times have I heard that? And I just sort of brush it off, thinking you don’t really know me. Especially new people who work with me, who don’t really know me. Its sort like seems like a throwaway comment and I think theres very few people that have been with me all those seventeen, eighteen years, I’ve been within the mental health system here, who can actually follow the whole thing.

So what should I know about ECT. I had these ideas of Victorian treatment for those with mental health problems, of frontal lobotomies, of people being held down, because of course they didn’t bring out suitable treatments for a lot of these schizophrenics and sort of bipolar people until the 1950s, and I just felt that it was just the case of, really you were in a prison and this part, this, the ECT was part of that scenario, was part of that old ideas of treatment and things. Why were they bringing it into the modern world?

And I thought how are doctors using something and they don’t know how it works? Would you really do it in any other sort of like, life situation? Wouldn’t you really want to know? And I suppose its individuals that don’t. I’m just very curious. I think that’s why I said, initially before you started sort of recording this, I find it very difficult to understand when people had got a medical problem and they don’t know what, you know, how to describe it, what it really is. They’re just given a name. And you ask them what mediation they’re on and they say I’m on tablets. But they don’t what it is, how it sort of reacts with its contraindications and I just feel generally, not just with ECT today theres still lack of information. I think theres such a lack of information. I think theres the assumption that everyones on the internet and they’ll go find this information out for themselves, and a lot of human beings aren’t, you know, in that sort of state of mind or they don’t really want to know. They just want to take the tablets and hope it all goes away.

You know, people would take her there and bring her back. So we agreed to that. So everything was set up, you know, and I think the first couple of sessions went okay. And then we came up to the sort of National Health haven’t got enough resource tag. So what was happening was ECT then sort of would be left for two or three weeks, and then thered be another session, and there would be two or three weeks, after the course of twelve was it, you know, it was spread over months.

Whereas it should have been short and concise.

And the other thing as well is the local sort of centre where they deliver ECT, was actually in [name of place] and they’d closed it down at the hospital. So there were two other places which was [name of town] and [name of place] and I never knew where I was going to go. And I would be informed to go to [name of place] or wed go to [name of place], so I didn’t know the staff there, you were sort of waiting in the waiting area, and then obviously taken in, as a sort of I’m okay with medical procedures aren’t I?

And I think the other thing which I sort of tried to emphasise is there was no consideration about why I’d ended up in the mental health system. You know, initially the reason why, you know, these things had happened, is this control thing about being manipulated, about being a force to sort of respond to my abuser, being sort of groomed, mentally scarred and I don’t think anyone at the time took that background into response of the whole procedure of ECT and it was like, to me, I’ve used the word abuse it like another, but a mental abuse. I mean you have that anyway with the physical and mental abuse of the childhood but it’s compounded by having, going through that whole procedure.

And it’s very difficult. I find it very difficult to move on from anything like that because it’s formed me as a person. I think because I was very young when it happened, it’s so embedded on my psyche, it’s like branded, and when you brand someone, that’s it, then it’s very difficult to actually, I think even with surgery, you’re always left with some kind of scar.

Oh no, it didn’t. That wasn’t the cause, that wasn’t the cause. It was just an effect that should have been linked to my past and was that actually suitable treatment for me? When you think about the physical part of it, it would very relate to what I’d been put through as a child, having been held down, whether is psychologically or physically, and being put in a position where by losing consciousness, I was having this treatment, and how would I respond and what were people doing to me

It’s not necessarily a fear of hospitals, is it? It’s a fear of being in a situation where I have no control. And I think as human beings we need to feel we have some sort of control over our destiny and what were going through. Okay sometimes you can’t, or it’s very difficult to make decisions for yourself and be able to follow through with them. But in a situation like that, where you sectioned under the Mental Health Act, it sort of strips you really of any power.

I mean when you think about it, psychiatrists in some ways have more power than the legal system. Because at least you can go to court and sort of present your case, but with the section. Though really if a psychiatrist has recommended it, then it’s very rare that you don’t get sectioned, and because you’re required to stay you can’t really put your point of view across. And it was all these past experiences and experience at the time, and subsequent sort of like reaction to it that’s just led to a mess, and I still feel theres a mess now. And theres ultimate fear that it will happen again because they’ve not, it still goes ahead. Even though I’ve asked and it’s on my well-being plan not to do it, and I just re-iterate theres other things in the well-being plan that are just railroaded. So will they rail road that.

Plus I’ve got to be honest at the time, I was using the excuse of going there to try put myself in a position where I could commit suicide and he felt I was using that as an excuse, which was perfectly true, perfectly true. I certainly tried two attempts to try and get away from the unit. And he blocked my exit on one occasion. He was very intuitive. And the two members of staff, excuse me, like she took me there, I disappeared somewhere and of course they were chastised about that because they’re supposed to be available at all times. But because I’m not violent in any way of course, I didn’t try pushing them out the way or anything. And he just blocked by his physical presence really and he asked someone to go and find the two members of staff. Then they complained about the two members of staff not being there, and I think it was quite a frosty sort of reaction from staff towards me then, and they became quite, what am I looking for, their attitude towards me? It sort of degenerated didn’t it?

Because I feel like I’ve been, I think abused is a strong word. But I feel I was put in a position where I didn’t really have much choice. I mean the anaesthetic was sort of like an emotional way of holding me down. And of controlling me, which put me in mind of what happened in the past.

And I really, I didn’t feel as if I had much control about the situation, once it has been initiated and I think because Ian agreed to it, I thought well he must think it’s good, and having read the leaflets I thought well I suppose I’ll give it a go. But I didn’t feel like I had much control about the whole situation. And because they just kept slapping different sections on me and I thought how long am I going to be here and what’s going to happen. And also I didn’t know an awful lot about the Mental Health Act then and the different types of sections and I knew that can insist on you having treatment. And they can actually, essentially, not force you to have it, but suggest it in a legal sense as long as they get another doctor in to sort it out, if it’s going to save your life, not eating, not drinking, which I wasn’t, and if they thought that it was having a huge negative effect not having, doing these things then for health reasons they could sort of like force you to have it.

Again I think force is a strong, strong, strong word, but they were the fears that I had, as I had to go along with it anyway.

And I have strong control issues as well. Well it was very distressing, and I think there was a huge impact on our relationship. There was a lot of I felt like Ian and I were drawing apart and then I also blamed him for agreeing for me to have the ECT. You know, a certain amount of, you know, if you hadn’t agreed I wouldn’t have been in this position.

Yeah, I’ll start with the sort of background of my mental health problems. I was sexually abused as a child, from the age of 8 to 13 and then I had major trauma when my grandfather died when I was 15 and that seems to have been the onset of my mental health problems. It was pretty evident I had a mood disorder at that age.

I also had quite a lot of psychological problems. I think because I couldn’t deal with the whole situation, because you have to hold it all in, you can’t really talk to anyone. And I felt the person who was actually conducting the abuse, because he was a family friend knew exactly how to manipulate me, and frighten me, which is what he did, by sayings things like, You’ll end up in children’s home and If you don’t cooperate I’ll have to go to your sister. And things like that.

So I think that impact still continued for the rest of my life and I find it, that I constantly, I just cannot leave it behind.