Hit a bad patch several years ago where undiagnosed fibromyalgia (and other crap) was inexorably grinding my stubborn, ignorant ass into the ground - my habitual stoic response was to soldier forth and carry on and prop myself up with whatever substances had worked in the past - but this time it wasn’t cutting it and I was rendered pretty useless for a while. Was prescribed and took anti-depressants while all the other shit was getting sorted out and although I was grateful for the emotional respite, allowing me to gain some sense of foundation from which to recover, at the same time I was acutely aware of their effect on me. Not only did they suppress depression but everything else. Someone would crack a joke and in my head I’d say: “That was really funny!” but any visceral, organic response was muted. I didn’t feel down (thankfully) but also, I didn’t feel anything. I stopped taking them after that because if I can’t laugh then this world can fuck off. Since then I’ve been able to successfully (most of the time) manage all the ins and outs of chronic pain, depression, anxiety, OCD, ADD, sinusitis, toe nail fungus and a core malaise of my own generally referred to as: “Isn’t he a right lazy bastard.” - without the use of regular chemical interference. Cannabis has been a big boon to me for that. I have friends who rely upon their prescription interventions to merely present a facade of sanity and I know they are so very grateful when they finally find the right balance. I’ve found mine outside of regular meds. Whatever gets you out of bed in the morning and whatever keeps the straight razor in the drawer. Hugs to everyone. Carry on.
Hey Seamus, I’m very close to several people who take psychiatric drugs for anxiety and depression. Neither of my parents can get out of bed without SSRIs, and my brother has been on a lifelong quest to find treatments that keep him from hurting himself. My boyfriend started taking SSRIs to manage his anxiety, as well as some kind of emergency sedative for panic attacks, while we’ve been dating. He also uses pot if he runs out of the other drugs, but he doesn’t like being high all the time. I just got lucky and managed to inherit a brain that works ok most of the time, and I don’t take psychiatric drugs.
I’ve seen all these people I love both with and without drugs, and during the terrible times when they’re transitioning between drugs. I know that the right drug is the difference between my parents being able to show their love for me and being held back by their own treacherous brains. Drugs have kept my brother alive, and I hope they continue to work. I see my boyfriend as being more himself when he’s on drugs that are working, because I don’t see his anxiety as being a part of him. I see it as a parasite that the SSRIs keep under control.
I’m trying to say that I see my family’s mental illness as the same as a physical illness: their bodies (brains) aren’t working the way they want. Drugs can help that, so they take drugs.
Oh my. I’m no stranger to depression, but it looks like I’ve got off very lightly.
(About one year of discussion therapy some 10 years ago, quite stable since. The occasional relapse now is more like the equivalent of a disliked distant relative crashing at my place for a couple of days. Not fun, but I know he’ll be gone once he’s cleared out the fridge, so I can handle that.)
Anyway: hang in there, everybody.
BTW, among the most annoying things about depression (and probably any other mental issue, I guess) are clueless people telling you to “cheer up”… so here is my favourite cartoon about that:
The phrase is “tamped down”, not “tampered down”.
I tried a wide variety, then went off and was doing CBT + the occasional xanax on bad anxiety nights. I’d get all worked up I couldn’t relax (and later that I couldn’t sleep) so a small 0.5mg dose would allow me to chill out, watch something on Netflix then go to sleep. But it’s not something you can take often or risk addiction. I tried weed (cbd rich indicas) and it worked great but I had concerns about drug testing and then moved to a non legal state so I had to go back. 
I pretty much agree w/those who suggest it’s ok to take drugs if it helps. I also have heard that at any given time, a large percentage of the population is on some kind of mind/mood altering drug, prescribed or otherwise - up to 75% of us. I know from our water treatment folks that remnants of these drugs are pervasive in the environment.
My question is, have there been any studies that suggest what this might be doing to our society as a whole? Could this possibly explain things - both positive and negative - like the extreme divisive nature of political discourse, for example? Or any other situations where we wonder why people behave, alone or in groups, in ways that we cannot quite understand?
Indeed. Fixed. Thank you.
I’m really waiting for ketamine or an analog to be adopted. Dissociatives are so promising. I’ve had luck with them before but my illicit drug days are long past.
I take that one. One interesting thing about it is that it’s a 5-HT2A agonist, just like acid, DMT, etc. At first I was wondering why like I felt like I was tripping. Turns out I was! (maybe, no one really knows.) Another interesting thing about it is that it’s actually more sedating at a lower dose (so goes the theory) because at higher doses the nor-epenephrine balances out the anti-histamine effect. I find the sedation to be less intense but longer acting, which makes sense.
Ugh. Been there. Was on a benzo for about that long and then had to quit cold turkey. Which, you know, can literally kill you. It wasn’t as bad when I quit Paxil at 16 at least. I had the pleasure to visit a Pzizer exec’s house with a large group anti-vivisection activists one night. That was fulfilling.
Have you tried Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy? It’s a process where you make a list of PTSD enduing experiences with the therapist and talk though them while directing your eyes in rapid movements. Hacking the body by simulating Rapid Eye Movement sleep, the effects quite amazing.
You may find this interesting. These people are great.
All my best wishes, Seamus. That sounds really hard (and familiar).
I have long-term major clinical depression and anxiety, and mild PTSD. I gave a talk at my company last year about mental illness, and in the section on medication I said a few things:
- The subtitle of that section was “We Don’t Know Shit About Shit”. We have so little actual understanding of how or why any of this happens, or why the drugs do or do not work for different people. This is not science, this is one step above superstition.
- I call my medication experiences “Medication Roulette”. Spin the wheel, wait 4 weeks, hope the upsides outweigh the downsides!
- My current meds give me hyper-real nightmares, if I miss even one dose I get dizzy, feverish, and shaky (what’s up, fellow Venlafaxine takers!), AND you will pry them from my cold dead hands. They help me, and even with all the downsides life is better on them than off.
My answer is I resent the hell out of my meds, and I am deeply grateful for them. It is fine and reasonable to feel both feelings. What helps me is that I strongly own my decision to be on the drug and dose I’m on. I’ve tried 4 other meds, cocktails with Wellbutrin, higher doses - my current drug and dose are the best balance of good and bad for me. That is my choice, not my doctor’s. I’m lucky to have a doctor who respects that.
There is a lot of good advice in this thread (I’m really hopeful about micro-dosing, EMDR was helpful for my PTSD, I’m on an anti-inflammatory diet cause it can’t hurt why not try). For right now, be kind to yourself. Medication transitions are hard on the body and mind. Don’t expect to be at full capacity. And if it’s really not working, stop. Tell your doc how hard it is. Make sure this experiment with a new drug is your choice.
Re: Inflammation and Depression…
Inflammation is a factor in depression and vice versa. Many, many modern foods (introduced after or during the Neolithic) irritate the gut and make it more permeable than it should be, which can permanently activate the immune system, resulting in body-wide low-level, chronic inflammation. Fortunately, while we don’t usually have control of all the aspects of our life and our psyche, we have control over what we eat. I very, very much recommend to anyone to look into the Autoimmune Protocol, which is a variation of Paleo nutrition.
https://www.thepaleomom.com/how-mood-and-gut-health-are-linked/
https://www.thepaleomom.com/start-here/the-autoimmune-protocol/
I started eating according to the Autoimmune Protocol a short while ago (~9 days), mostly because it’s the only promising natural “therapy” against my vitiligo. So far I can report that my chronic low-level joint pain/inflammation seems to be gone and I’m more mentally alert. Anxiety-level seems to have improved as well, but it’s too early to tell. I was microdosing with Kanna (Sceletium tortuosum) before starting the AIP, but I don’t feel a need to do that currently, which is at least mildly interesting to me.
I really hope this helps someone.
Because neither doctors or patients are generally trusted to make that judgement call, and so the larger culture decided that living as long as possible was the best option.
Talking honestly and calmly about one’s own mental or emotional health or (without privacy violations) a loved one’s or friend’s is KEY to overcoming stigma, stereotypes, prejudice, and ignorance.
Encourage others and be encouraged. The world, humanity have problems to solve, with which we can’t help when our minds and emotional weather keep us trapped alone. And not just problems to solve, there are beautiful days, children, animals, art, and other comforts small and large to be enjoyed with our better minds & hearts.
Talking helps. Medicine should be talked about, not just swallowed. And mental health should be discussed the way we good people are doing here. THANK YOU FOR POSTING, SB.
To those who are trying to be helpful by highlighting recent developments, recommending different factors and influences, treatment strategies, etc., I offer a word of caution:
Long term sufferers of a condition hear this kind of thing a lot. And it’s almost universally meant well (at least, folks who aren’t being dismissive and think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion). And it almost universally misses the point.
As a fundamental premise, long terms sufferers have been looking for solutions for as long as they’ve been suffering. They’ve been inundated with such well meaning recommendations for at least as long, ranging a continuum between “medically insightful” and “crackpot”, with a significant majority leaning toward the latter. While they might not have “heard it all”, per se, and while people are “just trying to help”, it can also be tiresome and sometimes offensive. There’s only so many times I can explain that so-and-so’s aunt who’s really good at helping people balance their energy by figuring out their food sensitivities just isn’t going to do what needs to be done because of the underlying genetics (this is a real-life example, not aimed at anyone here). Nor is supplemental gene therapy going to help, because even though proper copies of the gene can be introduced to the cell they’re garbage collected in the lysosome and never make it to the nucleus for replication/integration.
Etc., etc., etc. (with apologies to Yul Brynner). It’s way more helpful to just ask people what they need; listen, respond, empathize. Humanize, rather than trying to “solve”, because “solve” can also feel dismissive - as though the problem (and the person to whom it is inextricably linked) should just stop being a problem. You probably don’t mean it that way, but this is an oft-repeated bruise you’re leaning on. Dealing with chronic conditions one learns to “smile and nod”, thank people and hope they feel heard so they know when to stop, and simply continue on, carrying the burden same as always.
That’s the word of caution, and the point that’s often missed.
My take on the actual article comes from a more empathetic perspective, as I also deal with a chronic condition (genetic, in my case), which is significantly affected by external factors. Sometimes those are as simple as taking a nap (or three), or boosting blood sugar, or drowning myself in sodium/magnesium when electrolytes go off the rails, or even sometimes requiring narcotic grade pain management because nothing else can even scratch it. Fun fact: this condition includes an almost complete resistance to localized anesthetics and analgesics; think “poorly anesthetized root canal with a live nerve” (which is a thing that happened), and realize this is a pain level only one standard deviation away from the day-to-day, encountered on average two times over every three weeks.
The point being here, that “pre-treatment ‘me’” and “post-treatment ‘me’” are very, very different people. Complete changes in patience, emotional color and depth, empathetic outreach, temperament, energy levels, focus, appetite, etc. Some of those are clearly physiological, some of them are parts of my identity that I’d like to believe are clearly a part of “me” and my personality. Seeing them change so substantially in response to extrinsic factors undermines that idea, clearly reminding me that the chorus of influences which make up the “self” with which I identify are fleeting, delicate, and illusory. And yet I vastly prefer to maintain treatment in order to appreciate the lucidity and strength they provide, muddying the boundaries and incorporating “treatment” into part of that identity definition.
This is a hard place to be, psychologically. It creates an external dependence, requires a constant soul-wrenching struggle, and can beat you over the head regardless of the degree to which it has already humiliated and humbled you. I will “always be at the mercy of chemicals and [conditions] I’d sooner not have”. I will also engage, strive, fight, and push back as long and as best I’m able - with both help and hindrance from beyond myself. It will often not be enough, and I will fail with painful setbacks. I will pause, recover, and try again, with more or less than I had before.
To answer your question, I look at meds and most of the treatments generally as a cursed blessing. Sorry if that’s overly melodramatic; today is one of those aforementioned days, and the renal dysfunction it’s almost certain to cause tomorrow (along with their attendant effects) are weighing heavily.
Going off Effexor was pure hell for me. The one thing that finally worked was opening up the pills and taking out a single bead, then getting used to that dosage. When I felt I was ready, I started taking out two beads, and so on. Eventually I was off the Effexor and without the (literally) nightmarish side effects. It was glacial, but it was kind and it worked.
I’m still not the sunniest person in the world, and I’m prone to some bad nights, but I wouldn’t go back. Weekly or bi-weekly talk therapy is critical, though, and I don’t know if I would have made it to this point without it. If you’d ever like to try to transition away from that medication again, give this method a try.
to all those suffering from illness - may you find peace. whether it be through drugs (illicit or not) or some woowoo practice administered to you by someone you would even try to hide from your spouse. you deserve peace. you deserve health. you deserve happiness. just because you breath.
also, if i ever meet the tool that decided it was legit to make a distinction between ‘health’ and ‘mental health’ i will likely throw a punch to the throat. no one would ever suggest the rise in broken legs might not ‘be real’ (the only reason they are diagnosing all these broken legs is because of some silly new thing called an x-ray machine - a pure farce sold to you by the medical establishment elite). but a rise in adhd, a rise in ptsd, a rise in autism? geez…clearly the only reason there might be a rise in ptsd is an increase in the number of people that want drugs for a problem thats ‘all in their head’.
Tell that to the blind man.
Here’s an inexpensive option that has worked wonders for me: micro-dose lithium supplementation. Came across an article [ https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/should-we-all-take-a-bit-of-lithium.html ] and purchased 5 mg capsules from Swanson’s Vitamins online, also available on Amazon. Buy the lithium orotate or lithium aspartate; both are about $5/bottle. This is called micro-dose or natural-dose lithium and not to be confused with psychotropic lithium at much greater doses. It greatly reduces repetitious, negative thoughts, is calming, and actually improves cognition. A nice side benefit was greatly decreasing my tinitus. Please read the NY Times article and do some online research about low-dose lithium. I felt the effect in less than 24 hours…very fast acting.
What part of humans are crazy and also do drugs doesn’t make sense?
