So it turns out that they have been treating me like a classic depressive when I am bipolar for 25 years now. There was one clinician in NC 16 years ago who thought this was the case, but he was drowned out by a chorus of dipthongs and dillweeds who insisted on misdiagnosis.

The confusion was that I don't go manic for as long as most. I kept answering (honestly) with 'no' when they would ask about not sleeping for 3-4 days at a time when it's really more like I go for something between a few hours and 1.5 days.

At least this explains why antidepressants work about like square-shaped wheels on a wheelbarrow. And it also means that I responded to lithium when everything else was falling flat. So yeah, no buzzing electric current; just pills and talk and more talk (I had eluded to the possibility of ECT in a previous post).

Oh yeah, and I'm out now. When I was waiting on a ride home after being done at the laughing academy; I was saying goodbye to new friends and singing Dylan with "I shall be released".

I'm a depressive but medication has always helped me. For depression where the meds are no longer effective it works. Kitty Dukakis had ECT and I think wrote a book about her experiences. A psychiatrist I knew rather jauntily referred to it as "buzzing" the patients. Good luck to you.

That seems quite extreme. Are there not other meds you can try? Other therapies? Even nutritional therapies may help.

ECT seems really invasive and unpredictable...

Thankfully, I do not deal with depression, anxiety and other suchz conditions. If I did, I would try psychedelics or marijuana before I would try being shocked.

I can’t think of any jokes, but I can say unequivocally as a non-expert that I oppose both drugs and shock treatment. I realize that you know yourself better than anyone else knows you, and what other people do might not be right for you.

Consider that your unhappiness might be caused entirely by repetitive untrue negative thoughts, and that if you learned to identify and analyze those thoughts that your life might take a sudden u-turn for the better. “Help Yourself to Happiness” by Dr. Maxie Maultsby is a book that can guide you.

The current paradigm seems to be that depression is caused by a defective brain, and that someone needs to get in there and “fix” that brain. An alternate opinion is that there’s nothing wrong with your brain. What is wrong is the way you are using your brain. As an analogy, think of yourself as playing a piano. You become very frustrated and unhappy because you keep hitting discordant notes. One solution might be to hire a psychiatrist to come with a pair of wire cutters and clip out the troublesome strings. Your frustration would abate for awhile, but deep down you’d know that you had lost something very valuable. What might well occur is that when you realized what you had lost, your frustration would be replaced with murderous rage because of the damage to your fine piano.

A different solution would be to pay close attention to the discordant notes, and experiment with hitting the correct notes instead. One such session would raise your spirits tremendously!

It’s your body, your decision. You asked for advice and I gave my opinion.

[m.huffpost.com]

I had it but also had my meds adjusted before and after. It can make a big difference.

ECT for what?

I had to research it before responding and from the anecdotal responses and empirical studies it works. If your doctor recommends it I say do it.