The slow erosion of my ex-wife

I'm sure what's going on with the weird formatting, but this is the best I can get it.

The woman I was married to and still care about very much is slowly fading away. My ex-wife has battled schizophrenia and being bi-polar for the past ten years, and the numerous rounds of medications along with countless rounds of electroconvulsive therapy have taken a high toll. The woman I fell in love with is gone, replaced with the shell of a person who barely remembers who her children are and all the memories we shared together. It breaks my heart to see the hurt and pain on my son’s face when his own mother can’t remember his birthday or what grade he’s in. All the special things that made her, her, are gone forever. My favorite picture of her was taken on her 30^th birthday when we went out for dinner; her smile is so radiant and her eyes sparkle, and she looks so happy. She was so alive and full of life, but now the smile and sparkle have dimmed. I can barely stand to look at that picture anymore because it makes me so sad. She is like an Alzheimer’s patient; the body is still alive but the mind is gone. I wonder how long until she forgets we were once married.

She lives in Ohio with her mother and has been fairly stable the past few years; the voices in her head and the suicidal thoughts were under control most of the time. Unfortunately she is one of the unlucky few who don’t respond to medications, and the only method that has been effective has been the ECT. Each time she undergoes ECT her memory gets a bit worse, but the round of six or seven she got last week have been especially hard on her. We talked with her yesterday and she was almost totally incoherent and unable to remember much of anything. We have been concerned for a while about the number of ECT procedures she’s had done and the effect on her memory and cognitive function, but after yesterday we decided something needs to be done now. We’re concerned that she’s no longer competent to be making decisions about her medical care, so we’re checking into getting power of attorney for her so someone in her family can make sure she’s getting the proper treatment. We’re limited in what we can do since we live in Missouri and she’s in Ohio, but her mother will soon be meeting with her case worker to discuss this. My oldest son wants to talk with her doctor to discuss how he can justify continuing the ECT procedures when it has had such a profoundly negative effect on her. This is such a sad situation, and I so wish my kids didn’t have to be dealing with this at such a young age.

I wish I could believe that the essence of who she is is still somewhere deep inside her, but I’m afraid she’s gone forever.