TikTok’s mental health content has become so prevalent that it’s cropping up in local therapists’ meetings with clients. P. Joseph Resignato, a psychiatrist in Center City, has been watching TikTok for mental health trends, and while “social media has proven staying power in helping to mainstream mental illness,” not every video is useful or constructive, he adds.
read this real-life experience
“My bipolar depression became so severe a few years ago that I was hospitalized. While there I met a psychiatrist and his group of med students. After meeting with me he strongly recommended that I should receive ECT.
That’s Electro Convulsion Therapy. Three times a week I was put to sleep (I hated the feeling right before I was knocked out. It made me have the strong feeling of falling.) And then I had this treatment.
I had ECT so often the doctor ordered me to have a port be surgically placed in my chest. My veins were shot by then so it was easier to get the IV into me. After I’d be profoundly tired and sleep for the rest of the day.
My memory was shot. I numbly sat around in a daze. I wasn’t acting as depressed. I wasn’t crying and feeling helpless and hopeless. I wasn’t feeling ANYTHING.
Everyone, especially my doctor there at the hospital and even my husband thought I was doing great and was so much better! In reality, I became easier to deal with because I became a zombie.
Well, I must be getting so much better. They were so wrong. I was eventually sent home to continue ECT on an outpatient basis. Someone in my family would have to bring me there and then back home and then stay with me all day.
I couldn’t be alone. This happened three times a week to eventually two times a week and then once a week. This process took a long time though. I received ECT for 8 months! I finally said that’s enough!
It has left me with terrible permanent damage. I’ve totally lost so much of my memories. I can’t remember long periods of time of being a mom to my sons. Their childhoods are just a blur. My Childhood memories are very spotty.
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I’ve always been a big gardener. I can’t remember any of my plant’s names. I always used to know their botanical and common names. All that knowledge is just gone! I run into people I used to know and do not know how I know them.
Did we work together? Did our children play and go to school together? I am so embarrassed. It’s actually scary. This is permanent memory loss. I worry I will develop dementia because of this.
I already feel like I have it! I’m going to have to try and cope with this for the rest of my life. I am sure others have had different experiences with ECT. Maybe it really helped them. All I can say is that it was horrible for me.
I wish I had been stronger at the time. I would have put a stop to it a lot sooner. I have a wonderful psychiatrist now who works with me very well to find the best combo of drugs for me.
I am very fortunate to have an excellent therapist who I see weekly too. These wonderful doctors have helped me more in the last couple of years than all that ECT ever did.”