Ray's story

Posted at 2:43 PM on December 15, 2008 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Health

Lorna Benson's story today about Ray Sandford is one of the most compelling -- and sad -- stories about mental illness we've heard in a long time.

He wants to stop the court-ordered electroshock treatments for his psychotic episodes, but it's not his choice. Lutheran Social Services is his guardian.

His mother thought the sessions would help, but she thought they'd stop after a few treatments. They didn't.

"I don't care if he forgets the birthday of his nieces and nephews, although it's very important to him to remember that and probably more important to him that it is to anybody else in the family. But I do care that he can remember the names and know that they're born and remember what he did last Christmas if it was a happy memory, remember the good times. It's too bad to take away that."

Ray will be in court tomorrow for a hearing on this.

Be sure to read Lorna's story. What do you think is the proper course of action here?

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Comments (7)

As horrible as the shock treatments are, I have trouble not deferring to the doctors. It seems like he is really the only one that can decide whether he would rather live in a group home with the shock treatments or live in a hospital without them, but if he can’t then who else but the doctors could make the most informed decision? I think he definitely should be able to request a change in who decides for him and that that person should take his wishes heavily into account. But I don’t think we have enough information to pass judgment on the whole process.

Posted by brian | December 15, 2008 4:09 PM

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And then we've got Carrie Fischer going around saying "everyone should try it!" After watching her talk with Craig Ferguson I was thinking - maybe not a good idea.

Posted by Jim!!! | December 15, 2008 4:10 PM

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If the symptoms have abated, which his mother seems to believe they have, I have trouble understanding why they continue during a good period. Of course I'm not a clinician, but my understanding of the process was to undergo say 3 to 6 treatments, wait and see, etc.
He sounds coherent in his argument. At the very least I would think "they" could wait until his symptoms come back, when and if they do, unless the information we don't have is his "inhibition" with "toileting" has not abated.

Posted by Minn Whaler | December 15, 2008 6:09 PM

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Mindfreedom.org posted an alert/story on the Twin Cities Indymedia website last November. Some here may find the article and the debate it provoked interesting. http://tc.indymedia.org/2008/nov/involuntary-electroshock-mn

Posted by Paul | December 16, 2008 7:52 AM

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@Jim
I heard Carrie Fischer talking about electroshock on KQ the other morning. She did mention the memory loss, but she said something to the effect - "I my opinion the memory loss was worth the mental stability"

Posted by brian hanf | December 16, 2008 9:32 AM

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It looks like Ray's getting what we used to call "maintenance" ECT treatments. It is interesting that these don't seem to be identified as such, and this is kinda strange from an involuntary treatment perspective. Maintenance can go on indefinitely, the idea of indefinite involuntary treatment is kinda spooky, especially when your not talking about sex offenders. It looks like this the first attempt to deal with Ray's illness with ECT, I would think a reasonable course of action would be a regular course of 8-12 treatments. If he decompensates they could begin treatments again. They may have to go back to court to do it, but given his side effects that may be the only option. MN has what's called a "least restrictive treatment option" law which mandates minimal coercion. If he is currently not in a psychiatric emergency, I would think the court would not allow forced maintenance ECT at this point since less restrictive options have not been exhausted. Give it break and see what happens. If they push this too far they may drive him into more extreme resistance behavior.

Posted by Paul | December 16, 2008 12:36 PM

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Stop the treatments, stop them now.
ECT was never meant to be used this way.

Posted by Lily | December 18, 2008 12:07 PM

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