There has been so much stuff written about anti depressants in the ever reliable about medical issues press over the last few years. (like that story that said they weren’t effective in mild cases, which everyone took to read ‘they don’t work at all’ despite the thousands, millions of people with severe cases who had been helped…)
There has also been a growth in the amount of people who assume all medication , especially for things like depression is BAD and you are a BAD PERSON for taking them and you’re just buying into OMG BIG PHARMA CONSPIRACY for taking them.
I am sick of being judged for taking medication. Sick of people who do not live with my illness every day, do not know how it affects me feeling they can pass judgement on me. Taking anti depressants does not make me ‘weak’ it does mean I am delusional and think ‘pills can cure me’.
Anti depressants are not a cure, yes I have had awful side effects from time to time and have had to change meds to get one that ‘works’.But I still take them becuase the benefits outweigh this.
I am sick of being judged for taking medication that helps me manage a chronic and disabling illness.
It’s about management, at the end of the day my meds help me manage just a tiny bit better. I have therapy, but the reality is therapy is hard to access on the NHS and waiting lists are long; I waited a year. People get put on anti depressants to help them cope while they wait for other treatment, it’s one small part of treatment for an illness that varies so much from person to person, that has no cure, that can only be managed with varying degrees of effectiveness.
So before you get on your high horse and start judging people who take ‘evil naughty bad bad bad bad’ anti depressants think:
If you had an illness that made you feel unbearably awful for the majority of the time, you’d take something that helped even a tiny bit wouldn’t you?
And by unbearably awful I mean unbearably awful. I’m not talking about a bad mood that can be managed by talking to friends of having a nice walks. I’m talking about not being able to get out of bed, about be tormented by thoughts that you want to kill yourself and you’re terrified that you might; it’s a terror that has kept me awake, has left me physically shaking, it is not just a bad thought, it’s bad thought that takes over your entire being and begins to eat away at you.
That you’re hopeless, that nothing is worthwhile, thoughts that swirl round your head so fast and are so vivid and real you can pretty much feel their effects physically: You shake , you become agitated, your limbs become heavy, you get dizzy, you feel sick to the stomach.
You can’t cope with life any more, you can’t do your work, you don’t see friends, or when you do somehow manage to drag yourself out you don’t feel right and spend a whole evening ‘having fun’ trying to hold back tears.
You sleep so much, becuase you’re tired and becuase sleeping isn’t being awake. You’ll take sleeping pills so you will sleep for days so you don’t have to face the world.But even when you sleep it’s no escape, this thing has invaded your dreams, you can sleep forever and still wake up tired becuase you can’t rest, even in your sleep.
You get strong urges to hurt yourself, to destroy your body, and you do.
and no matter what you do to ‘distract’ yourself it wont work. No amount of comedy films or chocolate or shopping trips or whatever else is supposed to lift the spirits will work.
Then something helped, maybe you only felt so goddamn awful 90% of the time, you had 10% to feel halfway normal. Believe me you’d take that chance. It might have side effects, it might ‘not be a cure’ but it helps you gain some vague semblance of functionality of actually HAVING A LIFE that you don’t care. It’s worth it.
I honestly believe without anti depressants I would have attempted suicide. I certainly wouldn’t be able to go to uni, to see friends, to have a life.
So excuse me if I react with bitter cynicism and bile when some sanctimonious twat tries to tell me what a big mistake I’m making my taking anti depressants and how it’s a ‘bad thing’ and how I should just take some herbal tea and go for a jog or massage my aura or something.It’s my choice to take anti-depressants, I don’t get handed them from a sweet shop, I see both my G.P and Psychiatrist regularly. It’s my CHOICE about an illness that affects ME.
To put it very un-politely FUCK OFF. It’s my life, it’s my illness , it’s my body. Until you live with what I live with every day, STFU and do me a favour. I have enough to deal with without your pious attitude problem.
7 Comments
May 3, 2009 at 10:47 am
Keep preaching it! Anti-depressants didn’t work for me, then again, my main problem may not actually be a depression but rather a degree of autism, so that would explain it, I suppose. But I did try them, and I have a cousin who’s on anti-d’s and will be for the rest of her life. She’s doing great these days because they found a medication that works fantastic <– her words.
The way I usually explain the anti-d’s to people: If you had broken a leg you’d want a cast, too, right? And some crutches to get around on until your bone heals, right? The anti-d’s are the cast and the crutches to help you along while you heal. And if you’d had an accident and had lost one leg, you’d want a prosthesis so you could still walk around, right? The anti-d’s can be that prosthesis for the mentally ill. And though it will always be an ‘unnatural’ part of you – just like a prosthesis – it will make life better and easier and tolerable.
Feel free to borrow that explanation when you run into more stupid people
May 4, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Kudos for you: there should be no one who judges what you do to make your life, your illness more manageable. I get that sometimes too, the whole naturopath vs big pharma argument: my sister bought me a hat that says “I think my doctor and I know more about my chronic illness than you do, so I’ll thank you to keep your mouth shut.” Or something really close to that… I’m just never wearing it at the right time, I suppose.
May 4, 2009 at 10:43 pm
I am SO with you on this. Great post.
One of the most annoying anti anti-depressant things I’ve heard is the idea that they stop you being able to feel a normal range of emotions. Completely ignoring the fact that *depression* stops you being able to feel a full range of emotions.
August 10, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I know exactly how you feel, someone told me that I was being stupid and didn’t need anti depressants as I had nothing to be depressed about. But, that’s the worst part, not knowing what’s making me feel so bad and worthless.
I feel so much better now I’m on a regular course of antidepressant and I’m dreading getting weaned off them in case it comes back.
Does anyone else get urges and impulses to just do stuff, bad stuff, well, like I jut wanna pack up my shit and move away but I have to consider my boyfriend, but then I think. Why? Why cant I put me first?
August 17, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Kirsten, I’m a little late here, I know. Anti-depressants DO actually stop your normal range of emotions. They take the top off all the peaks in both directions good a well as bad. That’s why it was a horror for me, but may work perfectly for others. Depression doesn’t as such prevent you from your normal range, it ‘merely’ skews it more towards the bad stuff, the good stuff can still be felt.
September 29, 2009 at 3:20 pm
This is the best description I’ve read in a long time of what major depression feels like. The only aspect of depression that you didn’t mention is one I’ve experienced at times: a feeling that my body is “dead”.
This is very hard to describe, except to say that there’s nothing going on inside onself—or at least nothing of any interest to the conscious you. If you get hungry you don’t eat, because you know there will be no pleasure in it. And so on.
The body has lost the ability to feel pleasure or well-being or comfort. But it can still feel pain.
Major depression in my experience is not a matter merely of passively enduring a mood, as some who never had it might think. It’s a restless, active torment that’s emotional, mental, and physical, and that removes all hope of it stopping.
I perfectly understand why so many smart, successful, brilliant–and also just everyday–people ruthlessly offed themselves, in all those innumerable generations before antidepressants came along.
September 29, 2009 at 3:25 pm
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