Edmonton resident Angelika Matson spoke with People First Radio about her experiences receiving electroconvulsive therapy.
“All I heard online about ECT was that there was memory loss, and I was so scared that I was going to lose my memories,” she said. “I remember crying on the phone with my mom saying my memories make up who I am, and I didn’t want to lose that.”
Matson credits the treatment with saving her life.
“My depression has resisted treatment for over a decade now. I’ve tried so many different options for treatment and ECT was one of the only things that worked for me,” she said. “It saved my life numerous times, because my depression was so severe that I didn’t want to be here anymore.”
She says she wishes more people understood that mental illness is not a choice.
“I wish I could telepathically shoot the message into people’s brains that depression is not the person’s fault, and that when I reach the point where I’m getting ECT, I am making a choice to get the treatment, but depression has kind of pushed my hand a little bit.”
“If someone reaches the point where they’re considering ECT for schizophrenia or bipolar or depression, generally, it’s one of the last options that they’re going to try. And that can be really isolating and scary.”
Matson says in light of the controversy that exists around ECT, it’s important to make sure people are opting for the treatment are making an informed decision.
“I’ve heard experiences of people that have received ECT and had severe memory loss or have had their lives severely impacted by it in a negative way. And those experiences are valid, but so are the positive experiences that come out of it too. It’s just one of those treatments that you’re never quite sure how it’s gonna affect the person.” she said.
“I would say that it’s really important that we have a robust patient advocacy system and patient rights system so that way people can’t be coerced into ECT. It needs to be a choice, given the possible negative side effects, and so having patient advisory boards and things like that, that people can appeal if their psychiatrist is really pushing ECT or something like that is really important.”
Matson says a narrative that mental illness is a choice has had direct impacts on her.
“I experienced a lot of that narrative in workplaces, when I would need to take a day off to go get ECT or ketamine infusion, and my coworkers would say things to me like, ‘it’s barbaric, why don’t you just… decide not to be depressed?” She said.
“They did a brain scan for me, and it showed that my brain was severely under active because I had depression and that was so validating for me because I kept hearing people saying, ‘oh, you just need to change your attitude, positive vibes only’ that kind of stuff, and and to see it on the screen that my brain was actually severely under active was very validating for me.”
She says people can support coworkers and family members going through mental illness by supporting them in the same ways as one would someone experiencing a physical illness.
“Offer to cook them meals, get them a nice funny card, send them texts checking in and asking how their day is,” she said.
“I know when I was receiving ECT, you aren’t allowed to drive after, obviously, and I really had a hard time securing rides to and from the hospital. So, if someone was getting dialysis or iron infusions, people would offer them rides, and it would have been nice to have people offer me rides to and from the hospital for ECT, so that was something that I didn’t have to worry about.”
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