Andy Wore Same Socks For Two Years, While Sue Forgot Her Kids – The Nhs Therapy That ‘erased Their Memories’

AFTER three months of feeling suicidal, mum-of-two Sue Cunliffe was offered a last lifeline.

Little did she know that the therapy offered to her on the NHS is deemed controversial, saving some patients from stubborn depression, bipolar and psychosis, but devastating the lives of others.

fpnw.co.uk©2025Mum-of-two Sue Cunliffe received electric shock therapy after months of feeling suicidal, but reveals it ‘robbed’ her of her life[/caption] Andy Luff, 66, couldn’t remember his own name and was left bedbound after ECTSupplied

The 59-year-old, from Worcester, underwent electric shock therapy – with devastating consequences.

She tells Sun Health: “They told me it might cause a few hours of memory problems and a headache. That was a lie.

“It has utterly devastated my life. I lost who I was, my job, and precious years with my children.

“I’d go into the playground and people would come up talking as if they knew me – and I had no idea who they were.”

ECT ‘robbed’ Sue of her life after she says it stripped her brain of the ability to read and write.

The then 38-year-old was unable to remember her children’s birthdays or recognise her friends’ faces, and it meant she was unable to practise medicine again.

She’s not alone; Andy Luff, 66, from Herefordshire, couldn’t remember his own name and was left bedbound.

Officially called electroconvulsive therapy, ECT involves passing electrical currents through the brain to trigger a seizure and ‘reboot’ it.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) describes ECT as one of the “most effective treatments” for the “most severe forms of mental illness”.

However, a survey last month by the University of East London, of 1,000 ECT patients, found almost two-thirds felt their quality of life got worse afterwards, and nearly half said it made life ‘much worse’.

Professor John Read, who led the study, says: “Psychiatrists say it saves lives, but there is no evidence it reduces suicide.

“Some studies show it can make people more suicidal, probably because of the memory loss.”

Prof Read’s latest findings reveal that ECT was given to more that 1,000 patients in Scotland last year even though they had rejected the treatment, only to have been overruled by doctors.

He has since called for the immediate ban on ECT in patients who object to the “ethically unacceptable” procedure.

Doctors perform electro shock therapy on a patient to treat depressionGetty

In 2023, the World Health Organisation and UN warned that forced ECT risked breaching patients’ human rights and could be regarded as a form of torture.

A Scottish government spokesperson told The Times: “Patient safety is paramount and for patients unable to consent due to the severity of mental illness, appropriate legal safeguards are in place.”

Today, ECT is offered in around 99 clinics across the UK, according to the RCPsych.

Around 2,500 ECT treatments are carried out in England alone each year, but only when other treatments have failed or if a patient’s condition is life-threatening.

It’s a fraction of the 50,000 treatments a year in the 1970s and 1980s; many will remember scenes from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), when Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is strapped down to a bed and shocked as punishment.

Prof Read says: “Just because a treatment has been around for decades doesn’t mean it’s safe – lobotomies were used for years too.”

Sue’s doctors, at Worcester Royal Hospital, told her ECT was the best option when antidepressants drove her manic.

It has utterly devastated my life. I lost who I was, my job, and precious years with my children

Sue Cunliffe

Her depression was triggered by problems in a marriage that ended.

Out of desperation and trusting her fellow NHS doctors, Sue agreed. She underwent 21 rounds of ECT between 2004 and 2005.

Patients nowadays are put under anaesthetic and given a muscle relaxant while a controlled current is passed through small electrodes on the scalp.

The effects of the ECT were immediate but devastating – from the moment Sue came out of treatment, basic skills and memories had vanished.

Sue says she had to “start again” from scratch, learning how to read with the help of children’s books.

Having dreamed of becoming a doctor since she was a little girl, her career was destroyed just as she was about to be made a consultant in paediatrics.

‘Last chance’

A neuropsychologist told her the complex brain skills she needed to work in medicine were not strong enough.

“So I had to retire at the age of 38 from a job that I loved,” she says.

“I couldn’t remember anything of my past. There are whole years that are just gone. I don’t really remember my children much from that time at all.

“I got lost taking my children to school on a route I’d done hundreds of times. I couldn’t walk through a doorway without crashing.”

Worcester Royal Hospital said it could not comment on individual cases.

John Devapriam, Medical Director for Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, said: “ECT is a clinically recognised, safe and effective treatment for severe mental health conditions.

fpnw.co.uk©2025It has utterly devastated my life. I lost who I was, my job, and precious years with my children, reveals Sue[/caption] They told me it might cause a headache and some memory loss – but never that it could wipe out my life, adds AndySupplied

“We follow processes to obtain informed consent from patients, including for patients who may lack mental capacity to make the decision themselves.”

An NHS England spokesperson added: “Our clinicians work with patients to get the most appropriate care and treatment for their needs, guided by both national guidance on the evidence base from NICE, and in discussion with patients about their needs.”

Andy, an ex-care home worker, couldn’t remember his own sense of self after his first ECT in 2015.

He was told it was his “last chance” of recovery from bipolar, and insists he was not warned about risks.

“They told me it might cause a headache and some memory loss – but never that it could wipe out my life,” Andy tells Sun Health.

“When I came round from my first treatment, they said, ‘You alright, Andy?’ and I said, ‘Who’s Andy?’ I didn’t even recognise myself anymore.”

Once a keen hiker who regularly climbed the Welsh mountains, Andy says he then spent years barely able to leave his bed after 15 sessions.

He says: “I wore the same socks for two years until they rotted away because I couldn’t remember how to take them off. It felt like I’d lost myself as well as my past… I was so messed up I wanted to kill myself.”

He even struggled to recognise his own parents at times.

His partner Jill Davies, 64, who he met in 2019, helped rehabilitation with her support.

But Andy claims the treatment left him brain-damaged and he still suffers from what he calls “neuro-fatigue – the brain just gets tired”.

The evidence of long-term memory loss after ECT is unclear, fuelling the divide between scientists.

Professor George Kirov, who calls ECT ‘transformative’, describes the treatment as ‘rebooting the brain’ in simple termsX Dr John Read claims ‘about half of the people who lose memories never get them back’

Dr John Read, professor of clinical psychology at the University of East London, claims “about half of the people who lose memories never get them back”.

Around 70 per cent of people who receive it are women, NHS data suggests.

“There’s something very troubling about that,” he says.

Clinics are currently inspected every three years through the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ ECT Accreditation Service.

I wore the same socks for two years until they rotted away because I couldn’t remember how to take them off. It felt like I’d lost myself as well as my past

Andy

Yet campaigners are calling for inspections by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in the same way as other mental health treatments and hospital services are.

Dr Read says: “The only people keeping an eye on it are the ones giving it – and that’s not acceptable “Actually, it is outrageous.”

Despite being used since the 1930s, experts still don’t know exactly how it works.

“What we do know is it causes a seizure,” Dr Read says, “and that it causes a lot of damage”.

Save lives

Professor George Kirov, who calls ECT “transformative”, describes the treatment as “rebooting the brain” in simple terms.

“It disrupts the abnormal cycles of negative rumination that trap people in depression and allows the brain to form new connections,” he adds.

Prof Kirov has been delivering ECT for more than 20 years at his practice at Cardiff University, and says: “I’ve been in psychiatry for many years. There is no other treatment that provides such dramatic changes.”

Figures from the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ ECT Accreditation Service show about two-thirds of patients are “improved”, or “much improved”, and around 45 per cent reach remission (symptom-free).

Only 1.7 per cent deteriorate.

Dr Richard Braithwaite, Chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ ECT Committee, said side effects are covered in patient leaflets.

“The suggestion that most patients find the treatment not helpful is out of keeping with nationwide observations,” he claims.

Prof Kirov says: “ECT is reserved for the sickest patients – people who have stopped eating or drinking, who are mute, catatonic or deeply psychotic.

“For them, the transformations are remarkable.”

ECT is not the answer for everyone. But it is essential – a matter of life and death even – that everyone with bipolar should have the choice

Simon Kitchen, CEO of Bipolar UK

He acknowledges that memory loss can be a side effect, adding: “But people who get well usually say, ‘Yes, I have memory problems, but it’s a small price to pay’.”

One of those people is Professor Tania Gergel, 53, director of research at Bipolar UK.

Tania admits she has some gaps in memory, but says the 200-or-so ECT sessions she has had “saved my life on multiple occasions”.

In her twenties, Tania’s bipolar caused a depression so deep she was unable to function, and she was forced to drop out of university.

After failed treatments in hospital over a year, doctors offered her ECT. She says: “It was an incredible turnaround. I went from being suicidal and psychotic to going home and finishing my degree.”

Tania later had ECT in her 30s when she relapsed due to miscarriages and pregnancy hormones.

“We knew ECT was safe in pregnancy,” she says.

“Six weeks later I gave birth to a happy, healthy baby. She’s nine now. I think I owe ECT everything, really. My career, my life, my child… everything.”

Simon Kitchen, CEO of Bipolar UK, said the charity “welcomes ECT”.

He says: “I have personally met many people with bipolar who’ve told me they wouldn’t still be here if it wasn’t for ECT.

“ECT is not the answer for everyone. But it is essential – a matter of life and death even – that everyone with bipolar should have the choice.”

Prov Kirov says the walls of his clinic are “covered in thank you cards” from ECT patients.

He says: “Over the years I’ve treated about 400 patients. We’ve had only one complaint. I’m not in the business of harming people.

“I do this because it’s rewarding – you see a person get well and their parent says, ‘Thank you for giving me back my daughter.’ That’s what keeps me doing this.”

Sue has never fully recovered, though she relearned how to read and write over two decades.

She says: “It’s like having an old mobile phone battery in my head. You charge it up, it takes a long time, and it drains very quickly. That’s how my brain is now.”

“It means my hopes, my desires, everything I had planned for my life has gone.”