Posted by Jay_Bravest_Face on July 15, 2007, at 20:25:08
In reply to Does ECT help with grief?, posted by sandyann on July 4, 2007, at 13:50:46
> I have had sevier anxiety and depression most of my life. I stay under the care of a psycharist.
>
> I have one brother and many times I have worried over him and thought I could not live if anything ever happened to him.
> I have a husband and a grown daughter. My brother was divorced and not children so I am his only survivor. We talked every day or two on the phone we lived in different states.
> I got a call last Aug that he had not showed up for work for three days. I started praying so hard. They were sending someone over to his house. He had worked for the same company for almost 25 years and never missed work.
> When the found him he had been dead for three days and the cornor told my husband it looked like a heart attack. When I heard this I screamed for a couple of hours and I could not cry because crying was not deep enough to cover the hurt. I take klonpin so I had to add some extra. Then the next day I got to his house and never expected to see what I saw there was blood where he had died and it was just a print of his body. I can't get this out of my mind and the house smelled. I cleaned the blood before I left.
> I can't say in any words what this feeling was like. I looked into EMDR and went to a therapist that is trained in it and she would not treat me unless I was in a hospital.
> My psycharist is now talking about ECT.
> I am really wanting to do it because I need to forget. I want to hear from anyone that can comment I take enough medicine and went to some grief support meetings so I have done all I know about.
> I am so desperate this is like having the worst nightmare come true.
> sandyannHi Sandyann...
I am so very sorry you had to go through what you did with your brother. There is some belief out there that, the kind of depression that you're experiencing and others, is very treatment resistant and so complicated that some psychiatrists don't care to bother with us who are dealing with life-long grief.(But, I still don't believe that.( Personally, I would have to say my bias would be not to have ECT. I lost my only child and her Mom in a car accident almost 10 years ago, and I didn't have to see the horror that you did (the police, or the coroner, or someone from the public health dept. should have looked after that all.)
I've been through loads of group therapy, and most meds in the books, but I would be concerned about ECT. It could create a 'dis-association', where you still have the feeling even if the memory seems out of reach. I am most terrible in the morning. When I get out of bed, it's like lifting a 12 thousand ton piece of metal. I finally got a good doctor, and he said with those symptoms, it (ECT) would be like having so much pain, and not knowing why.
I know that one of the meds that have helped me seems to also have some effect on memory. That is clonazepam and Xanax, but I've certainly never forgot about my past. They've helped me still have the memories, but I can now talk or think about them, and do it in a way that doesn't make my memory and my entire body just shut down and want to go crawl under a rock.(I am also on Prozac, Risperdal, Nortriptyline and Zyprexa.) The other way they have helped is to actually *let* me cry when I was feeling numb. But I think if you take way too much of them, without something for depression, you really become more depressed. I've read about this in many places too, in particular with PTSD.
ECT seems to help some people, but I certainly have never heard or read of it being helpful, in particular, for tied-in depression and grief. You want to hold on to what you have...it may be precious little, but it's STILL precious. I'd honestly say, group work is *the* best, as I tend to socially hibernate when under pressure with tons of raw painful memories. Number one, you don't feel so alone, and that is a MASSIVE relief. Plus, it takes me out of myself, even for a bit, to find some kind of bond with others. Just after my losses, my doctor suggested group, and I freaked out and went and hid at home for a month, just sleeping and barely waking. I knew I HAD to do something, or else I just couldn't carry on.
So, that is pretty much where I am. I go to group now back at once every two weeks. I have had to have a lot of medication, and that messed me up a bit too. We just changed two meds this past Friday because I went to a job interview last week, and was so totally mentally jumbled, I stuttered (which I normally never do), said things that made no sense, and thought after it was the end of the world. So, we are reviewing everything now. This may also seem wacky, but (this took me almost 10 years to be able to do), I look at the wonderful times and effects they had on me with my loved ones.
But...anyways...sorry if I sound too preachy. I still deal with this day by day. I will have to say...even if it seems like totally bleak, you will live through the moment, and might be surprised what happens. Regardless, please try to make contact with some type of support system, outside your family. That is a MAJOR plus.
Best...and Hope and Peace..
Jay
poster:Jay_Bravest_Face
thread:767611
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/grief/20070414/msgs/769775.html