Antidepressants: you're doing it wrong

[azurelunatic]

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.

Comments

[shadowspar]

YES THIS. My AD does just as you say -- it puts a damper on my emotional reactivity to negative events. So, somebody saying something negative or critical to me doesn't send me into an uncontrollable crying jag or completely crush my whole day under feelings of worthlessness or despair. It gives the CBT space to work, so that I can have the chance to realize "Hey, that reaction is pretty disproportionate; this isn't something worth feeling horrible about" or some similar such.

[azurelunatic]

Plans changed for something I was looking forward to very much! It's time to:

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.

[firecat]

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

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.

[azurelunatic]

And the chorus of Greatest Fuckups From 20 Years Ago (not the big, life-ruining sorts of things, but the really obviously stupid social interaction stuff that you wonder why you just did that five seconds later).

[firecat]

Unfortunately, I have yet to find a medicine that stops that chorus. But at least it doesn't affect my mood as drastically.

[geekosaur]

THIS.

[kaberett]

YES. I LOVE not lying awake in a haze of intrusive thoughts about how useless I am and what I should do about it because of things I did when I was seven, for crying out loud.

[randomling]

Man, when they killed my favourite character in a TV show, I was just... broken for about a week.

(I am taking this as more evidence that my current anti-depressants aren't actually working. Icon not related!)