Paris Jackson opens up about ‘painful’ electroconvulsive therapy. She’s not alone - USA Today

Lisa Morrison was only 19 when she received her first dose of electroconvulsive therapy. She was in South Africa, restrained on a treatment table in what was then-called an asylum.

Morrison, now 52, says she was over-medicated, frightened and felt “choiceless.” She’s now the co-author of a study published on Aug. 10 in Health Care for Women International that investigated the risks and aftermath of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

The international study, involving 858 participants from 44 countries, found that women patients were less likely than men to report improved mood following ECT treatment, and reported worse outcomes than men across the board, including short- and long-term memory loss.

After Morrison’s second course of ECT, administered alongside talk therapy and medications this time, her depression “temporarily lifted.” She moved to Northern Ireland and married her husband. But over the next seven years, from 2009 to 2016, she underwent six series of ECT treatments. She was experiencing severe depression after being raped at the age of 14, and says ECT was misused and her “significant history of childhood trauma ” was not addressed by it.

She also didn’t know the side effects that would continue to affect her after treatment had ended. When her son was 2, she took a break from work to look after him. But to this day, she has no memory of that year of her life.

The published study shows that her experience was not uncommon – and celebrities like Paris Jackson have also opened up about the reality of receiving electroconvulsive therapy.

What is electroconvulsive therapy? Paris Jackson has done it, too.

Paris Jackson, daughter of Michael Jackson, opened up in a recent interview with Page Six about her “painful” experience receiving nine ECT treatments in three weeks after being “very, very close” to attempting suicide.

“You go in, you get your hospital gown, they knock you out, strap you down, put a bite guard on your mouth (and) electrocute you,” Jackson said of the treatment. “The first time I woke up, and it was the most sharp pain I have ever experienced inside of my head. It’s soreness from getting electrocuted.”

ECT is a procedure that passes small electrical currents through the brain to cause a brief seizure to improve symptoms of mental health conditions like treatment-resistent depression, severe mania (associated with bipolar disorder) and aggression in people with dementia. ECT is safer today than decades ago, when early treatments used high doses of electricity without administering general anesthesia.

It is still offered as a treatment for some cases because, according to Cleveland Clinic, it can provide relief when other treatments like medications or therapy haven't worked and can work relatively quickly. Makesha Joyner, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist at Kaiser Permanente, wrote that many of her patients reported an improved mood and decreased symptom severity within just a couple of weeks.

However, the treatment can still cause significant side effects, per the Mayo Clinic, including confusion, which can last for a few minutes to several days; memory loss; nausea; headaches; jaw pain and medical complications like temporarily increased heart rate and blood pressure during the procedure.

Jackson said friends visited her during this time, but she has no recollection of their conversations, citing amnesia as one of her side effects. Memory loss associated with ECT treatment can include retrograde amnesia, in which the patient forgets events in the weeks or months – sometimes, though rarely, even the years – prior to treatment. While the treatment “was working” for Jackson, she said that “getting shocked once a month” for the rest of her life was not a sustainable option.