Rachel Starr, Starr Starr Starr Starr Starr Starr Starr I am Rachel Starr and I'm about to take you on the journey with me through me getting electro-convulsive therapy or ECT or electro shock therapy. I'm 20 years old. I am a, well, testing said, a schizophrenic, my current doctor say bipolar or schizophrenia effective disorder. But either way, I have very bad depression and usually you put someone through ECT after they have not responded to medication. And no medication I've been on the past two years has helped me with my depression. And I'm, I'm ready for this. I'm, I hope it works. I'm a little scared. Um, it's not what people think. What happens is they put a little bit of electricity, we'll go right through the middle of my brain right here. And that will cause me to have a seizure and it's a seizure that helps not the electricity. But lots of people think it's a misconception that I think it's electricity. It's helped me, it's actually the seizure that's being induced. It helps the electricity is just to induce the seizure. So yeah, the most common thing people have told me like I, like when I tell people like yeah, I'm getting ready for electro shock therapy, most people are like, oh my gosh, I didn't know they still did that. I've even had doctors say, my family doctor was like, really, they still do that? I went to the sleep center because I happened to have me. And they were like, what? They still do that? And I'm like, okay, yeah, this would make me feel very, very assured when the doctors don't even know. But anyway, so yeah, it is a common misconception that, you know, it's no longer done, but it isn't. It's very safe. Um, I will be giving muscle relaxers so my body won't actually be like shaking during the seizure. It would, I'll just be letting there. I don't. Thanks for coming along with me on this journey. And um, I hope to, a point of making this is to help people understand more about mental illness. All right, thanks. Let's go. So uh, night before we start the electro shock therapy. And yeah, I'm, I'm pretty nervous. The main side effect of electro shock therapy is um, memory loss. You can lose short term, long term, anything. It just depends on the person. So I'm very nervous about the memory loss. And so what I've done is I've actually made a DVD that um, if I come home and I don't, I'm kind of mixed up and confused. I can watch this DVD and it'll kind of catch me up to speed on who I am and what I do, just kind of the general basics about me. So yeah, let's go. I'm Rachel Starwither's. I'm 22 years old. I'm a full-time college student. I'm studying sports entertainment events management. I just had my first treatment. Um, surprisingly the memory loss wasn't so bad for it. I just didn't remember really what took place in the hospital. It's kind of zoned out for that. But um, had the worst headache I've ever had in my life. It was just like someone took an axe to my head and was just chopping away. But uh, yeah. So I'm really glad, unfortunately, I found out that I can't be driving while I'm doing the treatments. So that puts a major hamper on my social life and my uh, pretty mistress of my life in general with my socks. So we'll see. But anyway, yeah. So the first one went okay. Hey, uh, just had a lecture shock therapy today. My hands are all bruised from where they tried to keep sticking me for the IVs because they couldn't get a good vein. And this has been my first day. I really had trouble with memory. Uh, just forgetting everything kind of had to go through my life and my head and everything feels very like far away kind of um, but you know what I mean. It's not that bad. So I have two more lecture shock treatments. I have one coming up in one in two days, days two's day. I have another one on Thursday and then I have one on Monday and I'll be done. So we're on the home stretch. I'm almost done. All right. Um, yeah. One more treatment left. I had one today and I'll be having one on Monday and um, that's it. And so far things have been going really well. Um, I've been having some little memory problems like what day is it? Um, trying to remember just, yeah, mostly what day it is and um, different things. But I mean, other than that, I'm doing pretty good. So I think if anything, this video takes out a lot of the stigma of a lecture shock there because it's just this crazy horrible thing and really it's not. It's been you know, an okay practice and I think it's something that to go into, you don't really know what to expect. But I mean so far it's been really good. So um, my mom says that she can see so far I haven't really noticed a difference in me. But um, I mean, I guess I'm doing okay. So we'll see. Have you seen the difference in me? Big difference. Bear, we're very pleased with the difference. You're much more, you see much more happier. You're walkin' taller and straighter. You're so pleasant to be around. You and your brother are getting along great even when he's, you know, makes fun of you or something or you know, wants to jab you a certain way. You just roll, roll with the punches. And we'd feel, we don't have to be so sensitive about what we say now. We were walking on ice before our own glass I should say. And we see a very big difference and we're very pleased so far with what's going on. And you do have short-term memory loss. You don't remember any movies we've gone to see, you know, like in the last week or so. But that's something that will pass. And we're just praying that this will last a long time and maybe possibly go off all medications. I don't know, we're lookin' into that. But we're real pleased and you just seem, you just seem so much happier than you've been in a very long time and you're so mellow about it and you're a joy to be around. So anyways, we love you.