Young black man jailed since April for alleged $5 theft found dead in cell

Yes to the memory loss. I can't really remember the two months prior to my treatment, or the month after. It's more or less a blank spot in my memory -- I can remember going through the treatments, but I don't remember the area immediately surrounding it, besides a few select memories. Granted, I wasn't doing much at the time either. As I stated above, I slept 18 hours a day and was in a near catatonic state. There simply wasn't much to remember. In some ways, not remembering this time period is actually a blessing -- those were the darkest months of my life.

I can empathize with your fear of cognitive side effects. I too identified greatly with my intellect. At times it seemed like it was the one part of me that remained while depressed. In particular I was haunted by a quote from Ernest Hemingway, who himself had ECT. After his treatment he said something like "it was a beautiful cure but we lost the patient" -- he felt the treatment was effective but at the cost of his mind, which as a writer was his livelihood. He killed himself shortly after.

Despite this I decided to go through with the treatment for two reasons. One, I was located near an extremely prestigious university hospital. I did a lot of research on ECT before committing to it and I saw that many of the more recent papers in the field were by doctors who worked at this hospital. I don't know if I still would have gone through with it at a different hospital. I would post the name of the hospital here but I'm afraid of being identified, so please PM if you'd like to know. The second and more simple reason: I was going to kill myself. It was no longer a question of if, but when. Being smart means nothing if I am dead, so why not try ECT? I reasoned that the worst that could happen is I would become an idiot, and then I would just kill myself after anyway. You have to understand that at this point I was pretty resigned to suicide.

Ultimately, the cognitive effects were negligible. Perhaps I learn a bit slower now, or perhaps not. It's impossible to know objectively. I certainly don't notice any difference. And even if there was a difference, the small loss of memory is greatly outweighed by the huge increase in motivation. At a certain point hard work matters more than intelligence, and I am infinitely more motivated now than I was while depressed. I'd much rather be a little slower and ambitious than a genius that can't get out of bed in the morning. FWIW, I am now a graduate student at a top 10 school according to US News rankings (which are bs but you get my point).

Honestly, after being freed of the weight of depression, I see now that I would have gladly traded all my intelligence and been a Walmart door greeter for the rest of my life and it still would have been worth it. I can't explain how amazing life is now. I was going to kill myself -- every minute I live now feels like time that I was gifted, time I didn't think I would have. Every glass of water, every smile from a girl, every conversation with a friend, every song I listen to...everything is just so beautiful. I am constantly overwhelmed with gratitude that ECT exists and that I did not kill myself. You see, the treatment didn't just stop me from killing myself. It did much more than that: it allowed me to see how absolutely incredible life is, something I had forgotten for so many years. Something I never thought I'd remember. I'll never be able to fully explain how grateful I am for such a gift...

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