Electroconvulsive Therapy Transforms Lives

Against a backdrop of childhood abuse, Wanda Rupp built a happy life ”” with the love of a husband, her two children and a satisfying career ”” until one day darkness came over her and brought everything to a halt.

”I didn’t feel like doing anything. I just wanted to fall into bed and not get up,” said the Middle Paxton Twp. woman, recalling the nervous breakdown she suffered at age 48. ”I was lucky my husband stuck by me. I didn’t want to see anyone. I began losing weight. I was depressed all the time.”

Rupp went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed her depression and put her on one and eventually a series of anti-depressants, none of which worked.

”My husband would go to work and I would be outside on the lawn, wandering. The medications put me out in an atmosphere where I was nowhere,” she said. Eventually, she ended up hospitalized because she was suicidal.