Brilliance on the phenomenon of depression
I ran into a blog today that really got me thinking and reeling and typing. This blogger, just yesterday, lost her husband to cancer. I felt a goose walk over my grave, as they say, when I read the post. Considering my own husband's health struggles, I read back through her archives and ran over this post.
As I've probably mentioned on this blog, I've suffered from recurrent episodes of depression and severe anxiety since I was eight years old. I also have a mild case of OCD. All three of these conditions are linked to low levels of seratonin in the brain, and considering the age of first onset combined with this fact, I'm pretty much convinced that my brain chemistry is, as they say, fucked. For years, despite obsessive suicidal thoughts and difficulty functioning when I was going through an episode, I fought taking meds. I'm a native New Englander, and there's a real spirit in this part of the world of not taking help and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. I bought into this BS and suffered for the first 24 years of my life, now, I see, needlessly.
When I was 24, the anxiety and depression got so bad that my doc practically insisted I get a psychopharmaceutical consult. I started on 50 mg of Zoloft, which I took for three years. But the, ahem, sexual side effects you've seen in the fine print on the Zoloft ads were in the house, so I decided to try life off my meds. I lasted several months but relapsed, so doc man put me on Celexa. After awhile, I started pooping out on that, so he raised my dose. I got tired of the bullshit and said, "Let's try it again." I was OK for the first few months, then relapsed again. So earlier this year, after a short experiment with Lexapro (yuck-y), I went back on the original and best, 50 mg of Zoloft. It wasn't getting the job done, so doc man upped it to 100, where I currently sit. Seems to be doing the job, so we left it. Of course, the sexual side effects don't get better when you UP the dose, but I've sort of learned to live with it.
After a long time of denial that I needed meds ("I got along fine without them before!" Yeah, but I wasn't living up to my potential, as they say), I'm finally in the acceptance phase of taking them. And it feels good to not be fighting, fighting, fighting something I need. Et al's post just hit it on the head. You don't have to take meds, but life's better on them, so why not?
Fuck you, Tom Cruise.
As I've probably mentioned on this blog, I've suffered from recurrent episodes of depression and severe anxiety since I was eight years old. I also have a mild case of OCD. All three of these conditions are linked to low levels of seratonin in the brain, and considering the age of first onset combined with this fact, I'm pretty much convinced that my brain chemistry is, as they say, fucked. For years, despite obsessive suicidal thoughts and difficulty functioning when I was going through an episode, I fought taking meds. I'm a native New Englander, and there's a real spirit in this part of the world of not taking help and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. I bought into this BS and suffered for the first 24 years of my life, now, I see, needlessly.
When I was 24, the anxiety and depression got so bad that my doc practically insisted I get a psychopharmaceutical consult. I started on 50 mg of Zoloft, which I took for three years. But the, ahem, sexual side effects you've seen in the fine print on the Zoloft ads were in the house, so I decided to try life off my meds. I lasted several months but relapsed, so doc man put me on Celexa. After awhile, I started pooping out on that, so he raised my dose. I got tired of the bullshit and said, "Let's try it again." I was OK for the first few months, then relapsed again. So earlier this year, after a short experiment with Lexapro (yuck-y), I went back on the original and best, 50 mg of Zoloft. It wasn't getting the job done, so doc man upped it to 100, where I currently sit. Seems to be doing the job, so we left it. Of course, the sexual side effects don't get better when you UP the dose, but I've sort of learned to live with it.
After a long time of denial that I needed meds ("I got along fine without them before!" Yeah, but I wasn't living up to my potential, as they say), I'm finally in the acceptance phase of taking them. And it feels good to not be fighting, fighting, fighting something I need. Et al's post just hit it on the head. You don't have to take meds, but life's better on them, so why not?
Fuck you, Tom Cruise.
<< Home