Posted by utopizen on October 26, 2008, at 20:24:45
In reply to Re: Exotic Meds for Treatment Resistant Depression » greywolf, posted by Bob on October 24, 2008, at 21:09:56
sometimes, it's important to remember, the benefits outweighs the risks when the risk is doing nothing.
It's helpful to keep in mind some of ECT's greatest opponents (not tying you in here personally) perhaps owe their great means to be such vocal opponents to it, and have the energy to do it, partly due to their very experience with ECT.
Moreover, those with mood disorders (again, you excluded personally) may be more likely to reflect on past events with relatively poor perspective than many others.
So it's tough to argue where perspective is in relation to one's past, when the fact remains that the argument is about a treatment that's very purpose is to grant perspective in cases where none presently stand.
So if you personally stand today, and regret ECT, perhaps you do so with balanced perspective. And you regret that you did not have such balanced perspective going into things, because you might not have taken ECT otherwise, had you had a more balanced perspective at the time.
So even if you presently do have a perspective balanced enough and healthy enough to weight in ECT objectively as anyone else, even as a former user of it, it remains impossible to argue the mere chance such a perspective is not in some fashion ultimately derived from the very thing that is being argued against ECT itself.
A perfect example is a chief beneficiary of ECT, Thomas Eagleton. Yes, his personal ambitions for entering the White House were stifled directly due to ECT use. Yet the guy's life was undoubtedly helped by it and his life wasn't over because of the VP controversy... he remained in the Senate until the 80's, before retiring on his own accord. Yet he donated to Scientology, convinced he was a victim of the thing that rescued him from the throws of despair. (I'm not him, but by his own accounts, he was in remission and led a productive life well beyond his three treatments).
Ultimately, nothing is a magic bullet, and time, and other factors, all play a role. These are just some candid reflections.
poster:utopizen
thread:854329
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20081016/msgs/859413.html