ECT the Shocking Truth: How Psychiatry Turns Brain Damage into Treatment with Deborah Schwartzkopff, ECT Justice

Have you ever wondered what really happens during electroconvulsive therapy? Not what's shown in glossy brochures or described in sanitized consent forms, but the raw, unfiltered truth from someone who's experienced it firsthand?

In this eye-opening conversation, we're joined by Deborah Schwartzkopff, a retired level one trauma nurse and the founder of ECT Justice, who pulls back the curtain on the psychiatric treatment that continues to be promoted as safe and effective despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

Deborah takes us through her journey from adverse reactions to psychiatric medications to being prescribed dangerously high doses of multiple drugs, and eventually to receiving electroconvulsive therapy - a treatment she now describes as causing "acquired traumatic brain injury based on mechanism of trauma." With her unique perspective as both a medical professional and a patient, she explains how electrical trauma impacts every cell and system in the body, creating damages that may not be immediately apparent but evolve over time.

What's particularly shocking is the disparity between how accidental electrical injuries are treated in emergency medicine versus how ECT-induced brain injuries are dismissed within psychiatry. While patients with traumatic brain injuries typically receive comprehensive rehabilitation services, ECT patients are often gaslit about the nature of their symptoms and denied access to the same care. This reality is especially concerning given that approximately two-thirds of ECT recipients are women, raising serious questions about gender bias in psychiatric treatment.

Whether you're contemplating ECT, supporting someone who is, or simply interested in understanding the controversies surrounding psychiatric treatments, this conversation provides crucial insights you won't hear in conventional medical settings. Listen now to understand why informed consent matters and how patients are fighting back against a system that too often prioritizes compliance over true healing.

Transcript

Jennifer Schmitz: 0:23

Hey everyone, you have been gaslit into believing that electroconvulsive therapy, ect, is safe and effective. We are your whistleblowing shrinks, dr Teralyn and therapist Jen. We're here to pull back the curtain on what no one else is going to tell you about ECT. And we have a very special guest here this morning Debra Schwarzkopf. Welcome to the show, debra.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 0:45

Thanks very much for having me.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 0:46

Thank you, yeah you're welcome, I do want to add in here that Jen and I did an episode a while ago where she talked about her experience witnessing ECT in her graduate program and we got so many people saying that's not right, that's not how it's done. It's effective, it's safe, it's all these things so. I am stoked to have you on here today to talk about this, because I think there is a lot of misinformation going around about ECT in today's world right?

Jennifer Schmitz: 1:20

Yes, absolutely, and everybody. Deborah is a retired level one trauma nurse and she's actually the former owner of ECT Justice, and we're going to have to talk a little bit about ECT Justice. It's a survivor's website for those who have been through ECT and actually is now owned by an attorney law firm since like 2019. But you started that, and so we are going to talk a little bit about that too, because I think that's a very important thing to talk about as well. So, deborah, welcome to the show.

Jennifer Schmitz: 1:50

It is, like Terry said, great to have you on here, because it was as if my experience of someone who is a graduate student watching patients go through this I wrote a paper on this and it was as if what I saw wasn't real. People were dismissing this, people were dismissing the process of it and that this isn't done in modern day, or I would get the opposite of people saying this is wrong, it's super effective, it helps people. The grotesque way in which you're saying this occurs, what people are going through, that's not how it's done, and blah, blah, blah, blah all this bullshit. So it's really great to have you come on the show, to actually be able to speak as another voice about this as someone who has went through it as well. So, debra, why don't you start by kind of telling us how you got to this space, where electroconvulsive shock therapy was even part of a treatment plan for you?

Dr Teralyn Sell: 2:42

Well, like Teralyn, I had had some experiences with SSRIs and I had a very bad reaction to an SSRI at one point. Prozac was my first issue that I had. I became manic on the drug. I became preoccupied with guns. I became preoccupied with hostages. That's not my baseline at all. The psychiatrist that was seeing me had seen me for a couple of years and realized that this was not my baseline, that this was the first drug she was trying with me me and when this incident involved a SWAT team outside my hotel room, at one point she withdrew the drug immediately, and those thoughts left my mind completely.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 3:33

I happened to be in an abusive marriage. I didn't realize fully at the time what was going on in the marriage. It was narcissistic abuse, and so I've been gaslit a lot, and so I became the problem which is not uncommon in abusive situations for women a lot of times to seek help when they're in a vulnerable position like that, and often it's a result of childhood trauma to the choices that you make later, of course, and so there are multiple factors going on, and so when the drug was withdrawn, we moved and I started seeing another psychiatrist and she again wanted me to try a new SSRI that was on the market and again a similar situation happened, and so, instead of the drug being stopped, this time I was given a list of DSM codes. I was given a list of drugs, and because this involved my personal feelings, because this involved a threat to a psychiatrist that I was punished for years to follow, and I think that's why my experience had some of the outcomes that it did, because I feel that the psychiatrist may have been quite vindictive and understandably, I mean, it was a threat for her and so she did not tie it to the SSRI drug, however, and so that's how I ended up getting electroshock too. That was recommended, and so I was in Barry Maletsky's ECT research program, so I would get several ECT a day in his research program and a day, yeah, and, and he, that was his research, and later most of my electroshock was done at Kaiser Permanente. And yeah, yeah, and a lot of people don't realize. People don't realize these, these big HMOs and these hospitals in your community are using electroshock, and we would do protests over at Kaiser Permanente and we would try to hit lunchtime hours for staff to come out and see this and they would say why are you doing these protests here. Kaiser doesn't do electroshock and you did let them know. Yes, in fact, they do do electroshock.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 5:57

I'm going to get away from my story because I'm more of an activist on this issue than I want to go on about my story, because my story is so similarpractice suit, and the very next one required a psychiatric medical malpractice suit as well, and the next one after that required reporting to the board. Something is going on that is documentable and that that a legal court would hold up, and so this is not just my story. And these drugs that are prescribed land people in such precarious positions sometimes and not warned that coming off. These drugs is very difficult to come off of and patients should have the right to know that. But I ended up getting a lot of electroshock Again, being in an abusive marriage.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 7:05

My husband was all for this, because when you have electroshock you're receiving an acquired traumatic brain injury based on mechanism of trauma, and these brain injuries dumb you down, they shut you up, they quiet you, they make you complicit and compliant, and you don't always see your damages right away. And so a lot of people say, oh, ect saved my life, or or, you know, it was my only option. And I say to them that initially the euphoria you feel you are very suggestible given your neurocompromise. You are you, you're. You look to your psychiatrist as your savior on some level and you don't want to disappoint that psychiatrist and the nurses are saying, oh, you look so much better and giving all this positive reinforcement. And your family says, oh, you look so much better because you're shut down, you're not complaining, you've forgotten what brought you into the hospital. You've forgotten your shitty marriage that you're in. You've forgotten that you're being abused and you're trying to leave and your husband's creating all these problems for you. So you turn your psychiatrist and you say this is what's going on. And they label you with all these labels instead of giving you the appropriate help that you need and shutting you further down with these drugs and this electroshock.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 8:20

And then these people that have electroshock I'm getting hoarse. These people that have electroshock because of their many brain injuries. They can't get the resources that all other TBI patients have access to to suicide because they're gaslit into thinking they don't have a brain injury and they have a change up in their psychiatric medications or they're given more ECT. I have peers that are terrified to go see a psychiatrist to reach out for help, because electrocution or electroshock is used as torture in some societies and so they're afraid to go for help. And if you're in an abusive situation, that man will use this against help. And if you're in an abusive situation, that man will use this against you. And if you have a child, he will threaten to take that child and see you as an unfit parent.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 9:14

And I lost a peer, nina, to suicide because she was in a marriage that was abusive and she had electroshock and she couldn't remember how to take care of her child and all her family members.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 9:26

Most of her family members were in the medical profession A mother who was a nurse, a brother who was a doctor, who all kept telling her to have more electroshock instead of getting her the appropriate help that she needed.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 9:38

I talked to her almost daily because she was afraid to see a psychiatrist or anybody in mental health care. At that point I tried to fix her up with a friend of mine that lived close to her to give her added support, and she called my friend, called me and said that Nina had hung herself, and the day before Nina hung herself she sent me a picture of her holding her dog, and so this is not uncommon to happen to people who are gaslit around their brain injuries. You look at these NFL players who become violent or commit suicide because of their two or three concussions. Who was the pathologist who identified CTE and the NFL head injuries was also speaking on behalf of ECT plaintiffs in a court case that went to the California Supreme Court. He spoke on behalf of ECT patients and to me that says a great deal on what is missing from consent.

Jennifer Schmitz: 11:42

Consent. Can you talk a little bit Debra about and I know that you don't want to make it just your story, but I think there's a lot of truth that's helpful for people to hear, because you went through this what was consent for you when it came to the discussion around ECT? What were you told?

Dr Teralyn Sell: 12:01

Okay, when I was in this system and after this incident had taken place with this psychiatrist, I came under the care of a psychiatrist that over-medicated me. That resulted in a psychiatric medical malpractice. I was prescribed benzos at a van at 25 milligrams a day. At a van it's usually 1 to 6 milligrams a day. I was prescribed 25 milligrams. Sarah Queller is taken at 1,200 milligrams a day At advantage, usually one to six milligrams a day. I was prescribed 25 milligrams. Seroquel is taken at 1200 milligrams a day. I was on Ambien. Ambien's five to 10. At bedtime I was prescribed 10 milligrams four times a day.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 12:40

That's not the only hypnotic, that was not the only benzos. Because of all the amnesia effects I was having, all these overdoses. You know, I'm sure there were times I did try to commit suicide because my life was shit during all this time and because of the paradoxical response. Because of all the benzos you don't sleep and so I would go days without sleeping, to the point of vomiting and hallucinating, and they would say, oh, she's manic, when they knew full well it was a paradoxical response to these benzos and so what would happen is is I would overdose and I was always in the emergency room On average. When I brought this lawsuit it showed that I was in the hospital studying on average every 15 days for one thing or another, and when I'd OD, I'd OD'd on everything you know my heart medicine, my thyroid, I mean. You know, my husband said I would just fill a candy dish and just scarf it down, not thinking you know. And then, when you can't sleep, I was trying to self-medicate with alcohol and so I was drinking a bottle of 151 Bacardi every other day with all these drugs, trying to sleep, and nobody would assist me. I was so out of it I couldn't assist myself. And so and so and when.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 13:58

And I think that was such, a such a hard realization when I, when I came off of all these drugs to realize in retrospect and reading all these records that I was the kind of ER nurse that if I saw a patient come in with a list of drugs like that repeated overdoses after the second time in a month, you know I would be following. I mean I was the type of nurse I would follow you outside the ER. I mean that's crossing boundaries, I'm sure. But if I knew that situation was that critical I would have done it. And in one month alone I had six ICU admits, so people knew what was going on. And then what would happen is I'd be brought into Kaiser Permanente, dropped down to one milligram every six hours of Ativan, shamed for the drugs that I was taking, you know, discharged with the same amount of drugs I was prescribed when I came in after another overdose. And this went on for seven years. And what finally happened? Oh and then they would bring me in and they would electroshock me.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 15:02

Benzos are given to stop seizures and so my levels were so toxic it makes me ill to think how high they had to crank that ect machine up to override the level of benzos in my system. They had to crank that thing way high to get me to seize. I know they did. And so consent basically says you'll have a headache, you'll have some jaw pain, you'll'll have memory loss for the time around procedure expected to return. You may have some long-term memory loss, but that is rare. You'll have your anesthesia risk. That's pretty much it. Electrical trauma low voltage. Electrical trauma impacts every cell, every system in the human body.

Jennifer Schmitz: 15:47

Tell us about what that actually is. For some people listening, I don't know if they have a good understanding of the basic description of what ECT actually is.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 15:56

So yeah, can you?

Jennifer Schmitz: 15:57

share that, Deborah yeah.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 15:59

As an ER nurse, I know, if this happened in any other incident one time to a patient that resulted in unresponsiveness and seizures how it would be seen and treated Initially. You would know that an acquired traumatic brain injury would occur. You can get an acquired traumatic brain injury from low voltage electrical trauma hitting your arm, never mind your head, and so you would have an acquired traumatic brain injury. You would also anticipate cardiac issues. That person would be on a cardiac monitor at least 24 hours. You would be drawing a variety of labs following electrical trauma. Every cell, every system, the body runs on electricity. That's how the body generates, and every cell, every system and every organ is impacted by electrical trauma. There was actually a psychiatrist. This is how ill-informed psychiatry is around this procedure that they use. There was actually a psychiatrist on. I'm throwing off redheads, so that's out of the question. Oh, it was Cora Cora. I've been throwing off so many platforms you don't know I love it who?

Dr Teralyn Sell: 17:05

I've been throwing off so many platforms you don't know, but anyway this psychiatrist was telling his pregnant woman that because she wanted to have more like he was suggesting she had more electric shock, that this wouldn't impact the baby, that it just goes to the head Like from here down nothing happens. So I had to educate this psychiatrist I think I was thrown off after that for a while but educate him about electrical trauma, how it impacts every cell, every system and people. It's so frustrating that people that have had this you know some of these people defend this because they don't realize that electrical trauma evolves over time and damages. You may think you're a-okay now because of your brain injury. You don't see because of the anosognosia where you don't recognize the severity of your incurred damages again because of your brain injury. So you're punch drunk. You're punch drunk.

Jennifer Schmitz: 18:01

It's just like psychiatric meds. Debra, it's that same thing. When we're talking about anosognosia, it's the same thing. Right, like you're spellbound, not realizing what's going to happen, and then, over time, this is when this starts to occur, just like psychiatric meds, and the common denominator here is psychiatry.

Jennifer Schmitz: 18:28

Just so that everybody knows when you're listening, here too, electroconvulsive shock therapy is not done by a medical doctor, guys. Ect is not something that this could be performed by psychiatry. This is where this actually started was by psychiatrists trying to get their name in the field and trying to make a name for themselves within the field. They were at the bottom totem pole of what medical recognition was. So, for those of you that maybe don't have a lot of knowledge on this, you can go back and look at the etiology of this, and part of this was coming from these individuals trying to make a name for themselves in the field. So they are. They are performing. Psychiatrists are the ones that are performing these electrical brain injuries, which is what is happening, everybody. When you are doing ECT, you are actually stimulating an electrical injury to the brain, right?

Dr Teralyn Sell: 19:20

And the whole body.

Jennifer Schmitz: 19:22

Simplify yeah, I'm in the body. I'm simplifying this, debra, because I think some people don't have as much knowledge on what all of this is. I don't want to cut you off and minimize what you're saying, and that's not my intent. It's more about giving general information. Here we are creating injuries to the brain. We need to get to a point of seizing and that's what we're doing. So everybody, when she was saying that that's what's happening, that is the function of ECT is to get somebody to a point where they are having a seizure to the brain. That is happening, that's going to generate through the entire body.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 19:56

Then yeah, this is what they say. And just because it's clean looking, just because you're using a paralytic and the anesthesia you know, the force of these seizures is so strong that if the paralytics were not used, you would break your long bones, which take a great deal of trauma to fracture.

Jennifer Schmitz: 20:14

I don't want to cut you off here, but as somebody who watched this happening multiple times to patients I, I, I wouldn't I would say that that is such a like the world will glamorize ECD. Like you go to these boutique type like places where I'm just going to go in, I'm just going to get my brain zapped, I'm just going to have an electrical like trauma happen to my brain and then I'm going to come out and be fine. When you're in it, though and if there are people that will disagree with me on this but I watched this happen multiple times there is nothing beautiful about this, and you are not incorrect. The way people are medicated, the way that people are strapped down, devices are put in your mouth so that you don't bite your tongue off or chew holes in the insides of your mouths this is what it looks like when it's being done. It's not beautiful people at all.

Jennifer Schmitz: 21:08

So this idea that there's some kind of glam behind this or that it's not a horrific trauma this is what I watched as a student, watching this happen to people. It was horrific. That's what you see. So I'm not sure how that has become glamorized. You know what I mean and I know you're the one that's actually been there and had this done to you. But when you came out of this Debra, like was it just like? There you were sitting and life was fine and you were unstrapped and you were sitting in the chair, all nice and life was good. Is that what happens when you wake up from this?

Dr Teralyn Sell: 21:50

What happens when you wake up from this is that you usually don't remember the immediate time after. You usually don't remember for a period of time. It's in kind of a retrospect. You do know that you have headaches. I do know that I had a sense of confusion, that I had to be guided, that I was so confused. I do recall one time that I was caught going into somebody else's bathroom trying to climb into their bed because I was grossly confused, and I remember later in a group meeting that I was being shamed for that because of boundaries or something like that, not.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 22:30

And now it makes me angry because I've seen this is my third TBI this week who wouldn't be stumbling around in somebody else's room. And so this procedure is misrepresented and medical malpractice attorneys now find cause around consent and they find cause around medical battery to bring lawsuits around this issue. And so people that want to continue with ECT or consider ECT my feeling is that that is your free choice to do what you like, but my point is is that you deserve to have the full information to give true, informed consent. When I consented I was so impaired with all the benzodiazepines I was not in a legal situation to be consenting for anything, and so that was an illegal consent obtained. When you're emotionally distraught, you know you're not in a position to be agreeing to something that's going to impact you the rest of your life.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 23:38

Once you start consenting to this, a lot of consents are done in a series format. So that means like between one and 12, you sign one consent. Not all hospitals do this and they screw up because right behind them doing the series format for the ECT, anesthesia comes along and they consent for every procedure. So illegally, they're setting themselves up for suit by doing that If anesthesia is going to consent, they better consent for series two and then, once the series has started and you're having brain injuries and your memory is gone, you can't withdraw that consent.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 24:16

You know what I'm saying. So you're caught up for that whole 12 and they get their insurance payout. You know, because this pays big money. People don't know the amount of money that this one, the ECT device, generates for a hospital, and the FDA has never tested this for safety or effectiveness In decades. They failed to meet their obligations around this practice and the procedure and the devices. The devices have never had pre-market approval. They don't test my feelings because I know full well that this is brain injury with systemic risks, short and long term. Cte, als, cardiac issue visual issues.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 24:56

I wanted to talk about the CTE part because if you guys don't know what CTE is, I'm going to read what it is and it gets publicity with athletes and multiple concussions.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 25:09

And that's why Dr O'Malley was the expert at the ECT device suit. He was the expert for ECT patients?

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 25:16

Yes, because how is this any different? It's a different mechanism. You feel better. We have to electric shock your brain, which, as you were talking about before, you would never get struck by a lightning bolt and they would let you be right. You would have multiple testing, all these things, but you're not. It's interesting because I used to. I knew this MD and he was an incredible human, super smart. He would talk about psychiatry as if this is the only surgical procedure that a psychiatrist can do. So if you are a psychiatrist that does ECT, you're like a surgeon, right. It brings a certain level of expertise and a different surgical procedure that you can now do aside from just prescribing medication. So it gives them a little bit more ego in that. And I also wanted to bring in this idea that any procedure that a psychiatrist does, from prescribing to ECT, has brain injury. Like that is like the desired outcome is a injury to your brain.

Jennifer Schmitz: 26:37

It's either a synthetic brain injury or a structural brain injury. This is the bottom line.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 26:44

There's brain injuries happening.

Jennifer Schmitz: 26:45

Don't forget to read what you're going to read, so people understand where you were going with that.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 26:49

I'm sorry. I could tell you were starting and I want you to bring this into play because it's important.

Jennifer Schmitz: 26:51

Oh, but I lost it. I'm sorry. I could tell you were starting and I want you to bring this into play because I think it's important.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 26:55

Oh, but I lost it. I lost this. Oh no, there it is. There it is.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 26:58

Multiple concussions can lead to a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy CTE, a progressive degenerative brain disease associated with long-term exposure to repeated head impacts. While not all individuals with multiple concussions develop CTE, the risk increases with the number and severity of concussions. Other potential long-term effects of multiple concussions include post-concussion syndrome and cognitive impairments. And so we see that in athletes. We see that in football, players and boxers are like the two biggest that they talk about and the only way that they can diagnose that is post-mortem. So when they look at the brain in a post-mortem way, and so there'd be no way to diagnose this with ECT unless someone who went through ECT said, hey, post-mortem, I want you to look at my brain, I want you to be able to do that.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 27:56

But this is also the CTE causes a lot of, I'll say, impulsivity and also suicidality. And so that's when they look at these young athletes who are like going off to college and they're doing great and suddenly they take their own lives, and they're like what is the matter here? And it's because they endured multiple concussions and they have CTE. So when you talk about this, made you want to end your life and you did things to do. To me that all makes sense. Because it doesn't make sense, it didn't make logical sense for you to have that type of an impulse until after the ECT. And I just want to bring in one more thing, and you may not know anything about this, because this isn't exactly the same thing, but TMS, transmagnetic stimulation that's got to be the next thing. I mean, it's the next brain injury thing, correct? I mean you can't stick magnets on your brain and expect nothing to happen.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 28:53

Well I'll, you can't stick magnets on your brain and expect nothing to happen. Well, I'll tell you something interesting. I decided to see a brain injury specialist here in Oregon and he happened to own a TMS clinic. But I sought him out they're like boutiques, yeah.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 29:09

But I wanted to see him because I was trying to document for this device suit that was coming up and I was trying to get my damages documented and tied to ECT and my medical records, because that's very difficult to do. And so I went in to talk to him and he had just gotten back from an APA conference in New York where they were protesting ECT outside the APA conference and we had this lengthy discussion and his person that was dictating all of this, all my damages. I had one page of just visual damages from my brain injury, nystagmus, I mean, I had just dazed deficits, the VNG was abnormal, my gait was abnormal, my cerebellum, I had brain stem damages that he found. So all this stuff he was dictating to this person sitting there and we were talking at length and I think, oh my God, I finally have an ally you know this is great, he's going to document this in my chart.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 30:10

And so he's saying oh, I agree, this is electrical trauma. And blah, blah, blah, and I'm like hot diggity dog, I'll take these notes today. And he, and then something. And I should have listened to my instincts, but I did it once again. And so he said let me doctor these up and put the final on them and then you can come get them tomorrow or the next day so I sleep. But anyway, he had some time to think and talk to his partners and they had that TMS thing going on. And so I tell you I could not get my records from that man for almost a month. I had to threaten him to go to the Office of Civil Rights, like I did with Kaiser, to get my records because he wouldn't turn them over. And so what I finally did is I told him I recorded our conversation and those records better not deviate from that conversation you and I had around my damages. Yeah.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 31:03

Because I was. I was going to say. His next thing out of his mouth was probably like um, so here's a membership that you can buy to the team.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 31:12

So I got the record. It didn't go in at length like he did in the conversation, but it showed my damages and I got them tied in my records. Finally and that's very hard to do but these brain injury programs that patients need referrals to are tied to these hospitals often that do electroshock and so once they start addressing their damages then it puts the hospitals and the psychiatrists at risk for lawsuit and so that's why these patients often, I feel, can't get referrals and plus it will shut down a very lucrative practice and all these other things like TMS might come under question. And all these other things like TMS might come under question and these electrical nerve vagus stimulators and other products that people have a lot of money invested into and research might be called into question if the damages.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 32:07

About electroshock in my damages is that I have an abnormal MRI that is progressively worsening, with lesions in my brain that are atypical for MS and are atypical for your normal white patches that I think are probably like Tau from the NFL damages. I also have an abnormal EEG. He called it normal but there was a feature in it. He said that was so abnormal he's never seen it before. So I call it abnormal.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 32:40

Um I have abnormal, yeah, and I have, uh, abnormal, progressively abnormal neurocognitive reports and I carry a label, a major neurocognitive disorder now based on my brain injuries. Um but um. And another point is is that I used to have a photographic memory and now I have aphantasia, meaning I cannot visualize in my mind at all, I cannot use my imagination at all. So to try to manifest, to try to manifest, to try to visual imagery for like meditation is lost to me. And another feature of aphantasia is that I don't dream, or I rarely dream, because that's a part of aphantasia as well, and so when I go to bed at night, I go to bed to blackness and I wake up and it's like nothing happened, and so I feel unresolved a lot of times because we solve so much in our dreams and so that was taken from me.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 33:43

And another thing that patients experience, given the many brain injuries, is that when you lose much of your autobiographical history and you lose the treasured memories and you lose the learned life experience, you cannot draw on those learned life experiences, so you fail to grasp over time lessons that you should have learned or experiences that you should have garnered better given this, and so there's deficits and brain injury. You walk around and you don't appear harmed, but you navigate daily the stress of it. And one thing about electrical trauma is that electrical trauma also causes PTSD, anxiety and depression, and so they keep a constant patient pool going through their program. Given all of this, Forever.

Jennifer Schmitz: 34:38

You're really the forever consumer you need more.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 34:41

You need more. It's not working. You need more. You started as a consumer.

Jennifer Schmitz: 34:45

We put interventions on you, such as psychiatric medications and ECT, but that then keeps you forever, because now we just took and we have now created the injuries, but now we've also created anxiety, depression, more trauma. Right, you're like the dog that will always chase its tail. It's the forever and you will forever be in it, and so money, money, money, money forever.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 35:13

Until you can escape it. And see, you know I had a near death experience and that's what really saved my life. Was that near death experience? You know it got. I was, I cleared all those drugs I was. So I'm so grateful.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 35:28

Even to this day, that near death experience impacts me daily and it saved me. It rescued me from this very corrupt system that I found myself in and it got me out of it. It brought me a lawsuit, it gave me enough money to get out of an abusive marriage and start over again and I'm very grateful for everything that's happened to me. I'm even grateful for the electric shock because of what it's given me in my activism and my purpose, and I'm grateful for even all the hard times because of the knowledge and the wisdom that it's given me. And I think in our trials that it raises us sometimes where we may not have raised ourselves, and I heard you say that sometimes God puts you in prison to set you free and people out there that are losing hope. Don't lose hope, Because your story, your redeeming story, is what God can do for you and God saved my life and spared my life. Daily. I feel redeeming story is what God can do for you and God saved my life and spared my life daily.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 36:37

I feel I know that, so I don't know how we've gotten to this place where traumatizing our brains is the solution to mental health, Like I, really, I'm having such a difficult time reconciling this, whether it's psychiatric medications, ECT, TMS have you seen the ones where they're shooting some type of I, some type of I think anesthetic into? Your nerve or something like that, and I'm thinking that's going to come back and haunt you, like there's gotta be. I don't know how we got to this place.

Jennifer Schmitz: 37:17

It literally, when you talk about it this way and Deborah listening to you and just what you just said, terry, it takes me back to uh, I gotta give a shout out to Robert Whitaker here and his Mad in America publication and his book in the first, like you know. Third of that book is all about the history of this iatrogenic care and it's interesting to hear people talking about this. And we're going to electrocute the brain. Okay, we're talking about ECT. We're talking about TMS. We're going to inject substances into somebody's nerves or into their main veins in their body, like this is just all the crazy ass shit that was done in the late 1800s, early 1900s, early 1920s, like the way. Like what, what, what are we? We're? I don't, I don't, I don't know what we're doing.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 38:06

I don't know, I can't even.

Jennifer Schmitz: 38:11

It's getting me so, like just listening to what you've been through, deborah, I don't know what the fuck we're doing. Like when, when did it become OK? I'm totally taking what you were trying to say, terry. I'm like fucking going on a high horse here. I'm sorry, but when did the solution become to harm the most important organ of the body?

Dr Teralyn Sell: 38:27

Right. Well, I think it's power, and I think it's power and control, and I think I think women are most at risk for this, this type of abuse that can occur. If you're a strong woman, you know, if you're got a big mouth on you and you're opinionated, you know. I had all these DSM codes and, and my feeling now is that I was neurodivergent, that I'm autistic on the spectrum and ADHD, and my communication is very direct when I'm not clouded with a bunch of drugs and and I can push people wrong and that's not my intention at all and and, and, and and. I think that. Think that if you have a problem with a psychiatrist and you get caught in this system, you'll pay. You know, and you'll pay dearly.

Jennifer Schmitz: 39:15

You know, Dr Yosef was on our show and he coined this term. And now, for the life of me, I can't remember what it was called. Do you remember Terry?

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 39:23

I don't remember, but I do have to bring this. I want to bring this up because I just was curious. How many men versus women do ECT? Oh, approximately two-thirds of the patients receiving ECT are women. The remaining third are men. Now, this is the interesting part to me, because this is the gas-eating part. This gender disparity in ECT use is likely related to the higher prevalence of depression in women, and I'm like that is the biggest gaslighting statement of the planet, because women have historically been looked at as the psychiatric patient or the depressed patient, or the anxious patient, and so we are the cash cow of psychiatry, really, because we and women and women need to get really angry that this is happening.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 40:14

I mean, you can lose your career from this, you can become financially dependent on an abusive situation, you're easier to gaslight, you're easier to coerce and control and you can't protect your children if you're highly impaired by brain injury and all these drugs. And so women really need to take a rise up against this practice and see it for what it is social media platforms and have conversations. These psychiatrists, I think, would become very anxious and scared that their game of inflicting these brain injuries and misrepresenting this for what it truly is would maybe reconsider these hospitals. And that's what it would take is just coming forward and saying look, let's have a conversation. You know, brain injury programs recognize mechanism of injury, like ER trauma medicine does, and this is a brain injury, and the courts even said this is a brain injury. So you better be calling it what it is and addressing that.

Jennifer Schmitz: 41:15

And none of those medical model things are followed. I think it's very interesting what you said, Debra, before about if you had somebody that would come in and had a brain injury right, there would be a succession of tests and assessments that would be done on that individual.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 41:33

Not just that, but there'd be PT, OT, there'd be all types of therapies offered.

Jennifer Schmitz: 41:38

So it's not as though when you got done with this, an MRI was done and a you know, an MRI was done and a CT scan of your brain was done and blood tests were done. We're going to look at all of your levels. Then you're going to be referred to PT so that you can work through I don't know, not accidentally showing up in somebody's bathroom or going through a window in their house right. Like none of that. That. None of that is part of this picture, which is very fascinating.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 42:06

Yeah and you can't. You can't get the help and and, because if you address the brain injury, then you're calling out what this really is if you're getting services for it. So when I was trying to get neurocognitive rehab or even to get a neurologist to evaluate this, I tell you, knowing what I know from ER medicine or trauma medicine, I was literally thrown out of. I went from this doctor that identified me with the brain injury and didn't want to put all my damages down. I went to see a neuro-ophthalmologist. This neuro-ophthalmologist, when I asked him to put my damages in my records, tied to ECT, like this other doctor did, he would not do it. He started calling me manipulative and all these other things, and he had a medical student in the room. I feel so bad for this medical student, all these other things and I. He had a medical student in the room. I feel so bad for this medical student. But I called this guy out. I said you're just protecting his practice and I let him have it. He literally kicked me out of his office.

Jennifer Schmitz: 42:54

I told that medical. I told that medical. Don't you forget that.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 43:00

I was so ticked off. But so, yeah, you can, you can let them do that. So, uh, where was my point at? But you, you get, you've got to get the help. Um, oh, the neurocognitive um problem. You gotta, you gotta, get the neurocognitive rehab done and and don't let them gaslight. You, you know, bring the information with you. You know that this is recognized you to cause brain injury, and they know it.

Jennifer Schmitz: 43:30

So and the other issue? The other issue is that NAMI, you know, everybody knows.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 43:34

NAMI, bring it. Bring it, debra. We want to hear it. Nami supports this. You know I go to NAMI, walk and pass out leaflets. They don't want to hear about it, you know. Oh, brain injuries. We're happy with that. We don't care what's going on with people in our organization and I sent them all snail mail letters because my email gets interrupted and so they all got letters. They won't pass on information that I want to help their members do these doctors. They won't share this. And if I was in NAMI and I had an opportunity to see the benefits that I have now for life and the leadership didn't let me I would be ticked and so NAMI supports this. And but we all know NAMI supported 75% by big pharma. And if you go in there trying to disparage what psychiatry says, what big pharma says, you're an outcast and they won't listen to you for the most part.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 44:26

Yeah, no, we're not.

Jennifer Schmitz: 44:30

Oh wait, she, she froze on us.

Jennifer Schmitz: 44:34

I think what she was going to say is we are not fans of NAMI, and actually we have called a couple of times on the show, and because of this, they support the very things that actually cause significant harm to people, and you're not wrong. Now NAMI claims that they are not taking any types of kickbacks from Big Pharma, but for a very long time, and a good chunk of NAMI's foundation, they were. So we are not a big fan. So, terry, I just tried to finish your sentence because you paused there. So I think I got it. I think I got you.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 45:18

I think you did it. I think I got you because I used to work for a traumatic brain injury rehab center many, many, many years ago and it was very cutting edge and it was for people who had, like they would get into bicycle accidents and they literally had to learn to feed themselves. They literally had to learn to do these things all over again.

Jennifer Schmitz: 45:45

And it might need to be there you're cutting it out.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 45:49

You're cutting it out, it's okay, but anyways, they had to wait themselves yeah, they, but they were offered every single, no matter the degree of the tbi. They're offered every single intervention that a person could possibly have. And now you are literally going in. If, if the doctor would say, listen, you're going in, you're going to come out with a traumatic brain injury, if that were part of the informed consent, would you do it? You know, would you. And you're going to do it nine times. You're going to have a TB. We're going to give you nine TBIs in a row, sometimes for you twice a day. A TBI two times a day. I'm like are you kidding? No, I don't want to do that Absolutely not.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 46:32

The list would be too long for all the damages that electrical trauma causes to be in consent to be adequate. And when you're addressing getting help and I lost my train of thought when I was talking earlier, I can go off sometimes. And when you're addressing getting help and I lost my train of thought when I was talking earlier, I can go off sometimes, but when I was trying to get help and I couldn't get the appropriate help, what I finally thought to do was I was really compromised Because when I came back from getting off all these drugs, you know, and I had to sue my psychiatrist and I started ECT Justice at that time too, I didn't even have a Gmail account. I didn't even know what YouTube account. I didn't even know what YouTube was. I really did not. I was just so out of it. I recall my son having to set up a Gmail account. That's how compromised I was.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 47:15

And so when I came back and I knew what a hard time I was having, I decided to volunteer in an elementary school classroom because I knew working with third graders. I should have started with first graders. I'd learn that later, but they're screwing poor kids up with their math. But I would volunteer in the classrooms with his kids because they helped me with art. You know, because I've gone deficits with my spatial perception and stuff. Helped with art, with reading, word identifying issues. Um, math was a problem for me and so working with these kids was helping me, so that's how I got my early neurocognitive workouts in um, but rehab, yeah, yeah yeah, but uh, yes, you need the resources to have some assistance.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 48:04

And when these poor patients, you know, are going to their family members saying, look, you know, something's really wrong with me and the family's oh, your doctor says it's your depression, you need more shock or maybe you need to dial your medications, you know. And these people are going, what's going on? They get, they get really scared and I mean I've had such depersonalization or derealization, whatever you want to call it. I've had such depersonalization or derealization, whatever you want to call it, where I was in Portland and I didn't know I was in the city. It's like the city melted away from me. I was just like in space and it was terrifying and I knew my brain was causing me a problem. So I was trying not to panic, but it was like a glitch. And I'm not the only one that has this.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 48:43

And one other thing I need to address and I don't want to talk too much, but these are such important topics is that the betrayal that patients feel around when they finally start to step out of things or become realized what's transpired and how their lives have been devastated by this down the road, if not now down the road, what their psychiatrist did to them, what they promoted for them and a lot of times family will support the psychiatrist in wanting them to have ECT and the many conversations that I've had with people that report.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 49:18

They can't even talk to their family members about their distress because they don't want their family members feeling responsible or feeling that they hurt their loved one by suggesting this if they told the full truth of what goes on for them on a daily basis. And that is their concern. Their concern is to protect their psychiatrist, often to protect their loved ones, and meanwhile you know they're contemplating suicide because they can't access the services and family members are not warned and family NAMI groups need to know that their loved one is really struggling with these brain injury outcomes and anything else in the body that may come up now or down the road.

Jennifer Schmitz: 49:57

Yeah, yeah, deborah, tell us about ECT justice. Tell us a little bit, oh God.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 50:03

Well, that's, that's kind of a miracle for me because, like I said, I just came back from detoxing all these drugs. I can't tell you much about it. It's kind of what weirdly happened. I had no computer skills and so when I got back, I knew that number one. I wanted to see the psychiatrist. Number two I think I started in 2011, 2012. I can't even tell you the date now, but I think I started 2011, 2012. I can't even tell you the date now, but I knew I wanted an advocacy site because I knew that this was brain injury. When I cleared, my trauma nurse kicked back in and I realized what the F you know, you know are they doing to patients, you know, and there's going to be commonalities. My story is not the only story out there and so I wanted to find damages because I knew right from the get-go.

Jennifer Schmitz: 50:47

I'm good at bringing lawsuits.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 50:48

I'm good at finding attorneys. Sooner or later I find them. I'm thinking about a business for that, actually. But anyway, I decided I wanted to sue my psychiatrist and I wanted to eventually sue something around electroshock somebody around electroshock map lawsuit and so that's when I started ECT Justice. Somehow I found a person that knew how to do websites.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 51:11

I don't know how I found them, can't tell you and I have to attribute source in my life that my inspiration comes from source often, that when I speak, often I'm inspired to speak and I'm not any more special than anybody else. Everybody has access to source. But I don't take full humanly credit for ECT justice or for my advocacy work, because there's advocates and activists around the world working on this issue that see how harmful, either through lived experience, or they have a loved ones that has had this, and they how harmful either through lived experience or they have a loved ones that has had this, and they want to see this stop and they want to see a better way for mental health care other than drugging them and and electrocuting patients, and find another humanity again. So that that's that's, that's all source. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 52:02

I'm telling you if I ever decide to build an advocacy platform bigger than what we're doing. You're, you're in deborah, you're in.

Jennifer Schmitz: 52:10

Thank you very much. Thank you, you're hired. Your job is going to get us kicked off of reddit at least 150 times hired.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 52:20

I'm talking 12 hours. Yes, oh, my god, I going to say, yeah, get us kicked off, it's been less than 60 seconds.

Jennifer Schmitz: 52:27

Oh, it's been really. Uh, it's been an honor to have you come on this show.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 52:35

Thank you so much, I appreciate you.

Jennifer Schmitz: 52:37

Your, your advocacy is. It's really cool. We've had, we've had a lot of people on this show that are here to tell, yes, their story, but their story is so big, it's so much bigger than them, and they want to come on and talk about how they are trying to change the world. Change the game, change the narrative, call the bullshit out. That's happening and that's what you're doing.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 53:03

We're all doing it. We're all doing it together.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 53:05

Yes, yeah, I know when I happened to run across your TikTok, I was like she needs to be on Immediately.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 53:15

I have to pay to promote those darn TikToks. It's costing me a fortune. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all the way I get views. Yeah, they shut it down. They don't like it.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 53:27

Oh my gosh.

Jennifer Schmitz: 53:27

See, that's not right?

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 53:30

No, I know, thank you.

Jennifer Schmitz: 53:31

Debra for being here.

Deborah Schwartzkopff: 53:33

Thank you.

Jennifer Schmitz: 53:34

We are in your corner supporting you and if everybody, if you stay to the end. Here we are the Guess the Truth podcast and you can find us anywhere that you listen to podcasts. We and you can find us anywhere that you listen to podcasts. We are on all the socials as well. So make sure you hit us up and make sure that you hit Debra up, even though she's probably on her fourth or fifth account at that point, and that's fine. So if it looks like there's not a lot of content, it's because she had to fucking start over and that grand find. But thank you guys, please, please, make sure that if you have stories you want to tell, send us your gaslit truth stories at the gaslit truth podcast at gmailcom, and you'll have to check out ECT justice and if you ever do, knowing that the founder of that and that was that was Debra, and out of all of the pain comes this big silver lining of changing the world. So thanks, debra.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 54:22

Thank you very much. See ya Bye.