Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (
azurelunatic) wrote2013-01-03 09:28 am
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Antidepressants: you're doing it wrong
Every last one of you peeps who have never been on an antidepressant: the next time you are tempted (whether out of ignorance, fear, or some other non- evidence-based reason) to dismiss the entire category as "happy pills", pipe the fuck down.
Of course some people have shitty reactions to antidepressants, either a specific one or entire categories. This includes shitty emotional reactions. Also, a health provider who pushes pills without other treatments is an utter shithole of a system.
However, for the people for whom it works right (with or without other treatments), this is what it does:
Stops the self-reinforcing cycle of shitty life events bringing down brain chemistry and shitty brain chemistry hindering recovery.
Makes it possible for other brain tinkering to work.
Allows a normal range of emotion while preventing the deepest lows from sticking. (Me off St. John's Wort looks a lot like me on, until I get in a shitty mood and don't recover.)
Saves people's goddamn lives, jobs, relationships.
"Happy pills," my ass.
Of course some people have shitty reactions to antidepressants, either a specific one or entire categories. This includes shitty emotional reactions. Also, a health provider who pushes pills without other treatments is an utter shithole of a system.
However, for the people for whom it works right (with or without other treatments), this is what it does:
Stops the self-reinforcing cycle of shitty life events bringing down brain chemistry and shitty brain chemistry hindering recovery.
Makes it possible for other brain tinkering to work.
Allows a normal range of emotion while preventing the deepest lows from sticking. (Me off St. John's Wort looks a lot like me on, until I get in a shitty mood and don't recover.)
Saves people's goddamn lives, jobs, relationships.
"Happy pills," my ass.
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a) cry, scream, curse, and yell
b) sleep through the whole day with the help of a passive-aggressive dose of benadryl
c) be upset and need comforting, then feel like a horrible person for ruining everyone else's day too
d) be disappointed and generally low-grade miserable (quietly) for a few days
e) be disappointed and generally low-grade miserable for about five minutes, disappointed for another twenty or so, then get back on with the day
Answers:
a) me, ~1980-1997
b) me, 1999
c) me, ~2004
d) me, post-therapy, unmedicated.
e) me, post-therapy, medicated.
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YES THIS.
Things that happened to me when I was un/undermedicated:
Feeling weepy and miserable for a whole day because I saw a sad movie.
Crying for a week over an upsetting scene in a novel.
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(I am taking this as more evidence that my current anti-depressants aren't actually working. Icon not related!)