No doctor, I do not have "depression."

[VinylTurnip]

@Koxinga

So you’re saying that when your doctor above offered you pain pills, she was doing so as an alternative to having the bone reset?

It’s pretty common practice, I think. When I had my vasectomy, the doctor said he could either stitch me up afterward or give me something for the pain. Because I’m feeble and cowardly, I opted for the Percocet. Had to walk around for a few weeks with cut hoses swinging from my nads, but eventually they withered and snapped off, and the wounds more or less closed. Well, on one side. The other side’s still suppurating, so I avoid wearing white pants.

I thought it was kind of odd, but **Annie **was so adamant in her recommendation…

[wonky]

@Guinastasia

That’s mighty white of you. :rolleyes:

You really edited to add this?

@VinylTurnip

Well, on one side. The other side’s still suppurating, so I avoid wearing white pants.

It is after Labor Day. Oh, maybe that’s you should avoid taking white pills. I always get my fashion advice mixed up.

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@Annie-Xmas

When I snapped off the top of my wristbone and was offered pain pills, I refused. I got through it with ice packs and a shot beore the doctor moved the bone and put a cast on it, then nothing but asprin and Aleve.

So pills to relieve pain are bad, but aspirin and Aleve are OK? Remind me how aspirin and Aleve are not pills that relieve pain? :rolleyes:

[DigitalC]

Dude, you were no All-Star, but you weren’t a scrub either

[Guinastasia]

@jsgoddess

You really edited to add this?

Perhaps it was over the top. But the whole “too many pills” crap is a bit of a sore spot with me. I don’t have a choice whether or not to take them.
(I probably shouldn’t use that phrase, but I’ve never meant it literally – it’s usually in the opposite as it used to be used, if that makes sense)

[VinylTurnip]

@Guinastasia

Perhaps it was over the top. But the whole “too many pills” crap is a bit of a sore spot with me. I don’t have a choice whether or not to take them.

Maybe not, but you still have options. Are you familiar with “plugging”?

[Guinastasia]

@VinylTurnip

Maybe not, but you still have options. Are you familiar with “plugging”?

Do I want to know?

[monstro]

Before I took my first psychiatric drug, I tried to tough it out too. I was afraid they would change me into something unrecognizable, or that the side effects would kill me. Or that they would just be a waste of money.

And I wasn’t half wrong. I went through a whole catalogue of drugs, it seems, and some of the side effects DID pull a number on me. Geodon turned me into a zombie. Not a sleepy zombie, but an insomniac zombie. I once got lost in a city park while being on that drug. Not the wild jungle, but a freakin’ city park that I had been to plenty of times before. Lexapro was no better. I never wanted to kill myself more than while I was on that drug. I cussed out an old lady too. I had a good reason, but still. That was out of my character.

Those experiences made me aware that you have to be an informed consumer, and that no one can force you to take anything you don’t want to. They wanted me on Haldol. Knowing what a hard-core drug that is, I went Hal-Nawl to Haldol. They wanted me on Risperdal. I told the doctor I refused to take anything that would most certainly make me fat, so hell to the nawl to that as well! So he put me on Abilify. It worked a little, but it turned my turds into bricks and made my lips pucker and quiver. When I realized mouth movements like those could become permanent, I stopped taking it promptly. The nurse practioner said perhaps I could try a lower dose and I told her no. No tardive dyskinesia for me, thankyou.

But I didn’t give up.

Wellbutrin allowed rays of sunshine to come in, and once we got the dose right, the side effects were tolerable (though I have to count calories so I don’t become underweight). Klonopin controlled the tics with minimal side effects, but it’s power is waning and I’ll need help getting off of them. Now I’m on Anafranil, which two years ago I refused to take because I thought I was strong enough to handle my problems. I really wish I hadn’t been so stubborn. I could have saved myself two years of racing thoughts and catatonic features. I’m dealing with the side effects like a sleepy, nose-bleeding, dizzy-spell-having little trooper. But damn that stuff works. I’m about to start my period (when everything is usually at its worse) and my head is crystal clear, my movements as fluid as a ballet dancer’s. Anafranil is my “key.”

Yesterday, the doctor said he wanted to add another drug just to knock out the last remnant tics that I have, without the sedative effects that Anafranil has. And ya’ll know what I said? No. I’m taking three pills now, and I don’t want to take a fourth. I want to be functional, not perfect. And because I’m the boss of this ship, he listened to me and put down his prescription pad. Hopefully my exploration of the pharmacy shelves is over and done with.

Am I cured? Well, I’m not depressed anymore. At least right now. My thoughts are not jumbled and painful, I don’t hear echoes in my head, and I don’t have fantasies about hanging myself anymore. I do have a basal ganglia disorder that will probably always be with me. Perhaps one day I can get off the drugs, or maybe not. I don’t know. All I know is that all my “toughing it out” was a damn waste of time and could have endangered my life much more than the drugs ever did. I’m not just talking about suicide, but literally freezing up in the middle of intersections during rush hour traffic because my legs wouldn’t move. Yes, I had to endure lots of pain before I found the drugs that worked, and I’m not exactly pleased that I don’t have all the energy I used to have before I started taking Anafranil (and I am sick of my nose bleeding all the time). But the struggle has been worth it.

I’m not “weak” or a “sell-out” because I use medication. I’m brave and actually care about getting better.

[Guinastasia]

One thing that always amuses me is when people refer to medication as “a crutch”.
I always want to ask them if they go up to people with broken legs and yank their crutches away and yell, “Walk on your own!”

[wonky]

@Guinastasia

One thing that always amuses me is when people refer to medication as “a crutch”.
I always want to ask them if they go up to people with broken legs and yank their crutches away and yell, “Walk on your own!”

I hope someday we get to the point where mental issues can be viewed as the same type of thing as other physical issues, but what seems to be happening is that a lot of other physical issues seem to be getting less and less sympathy instead. That’s not what I wanted!

[Guinastasia]

@jsgoddess

I hope someday we get to the point where mental issues can be viewed as the same type of thing as other physical issues, but what seems to be happening is that a lot of other physical issues seem to be getting less and less sympathy instead. That’s not what I wanted!

Huh? When did I say that I have less sympathy for physical issues? Where on earth did you get that from my post?

My point is that it steams me when people have told me that anti-depressants are merely a crutch, as if that’s somehow wrong. No one would go up to a person walking with a crutch and yell at them (at least, I hope not!), and yet they feel perfectly fine doing so to people who take psych meds.

[wonky]

@Guinastasia

Huh? When did I say that I have less sympathy for physical issues?

Not you. I’m talking generally. Instead of mental stuff getting more respect, physical stuff seems to be getting less.

[Guinastasia]

@jsgoddess

Not you. I’m talking generally. Instead of mental stuff getting more respect, physical stuff seems to be getting less.

Okay, gotcha.

[mookieblaylock]

Can I also say I laugh at the term self-fulfilling prophecy? Because the “prophecy” did a real good fucking job of fulfilling itself long before I ever felt this way.

[Koxinga]

Sure, knock yourself out.

[Koxinga]

Here you are, brain the size of a planet, and this is the way we treat you? I suppose nobody has ever bothered to replace all those diodes down your left side in all this time, either . . .

[EvilTOJ]

I can’t help but read Mookie’s posts in the same kind of nasally tone as the son in Swamp Castle in Monty Python’s Holy Grail (but Faaather, I want… to SING!!!)

[wonky]

@EvilTOJ

I can’t help but read Mookie’s posts in the same kind of nasally tone as the son in Swamp Castle in Monty Python’s Holy Grail (but Faaather, I want… to SING!!!)

Only he would be accompanied by Sad Trombone instead of swelling strings.

[Minnie_Luna]

@Kelby

Which is why I think man-made psychiatric medications are like using a blunt instrument for surgery. Yes, they are effective for many people, but not a magic elixir that restores outawhack brain chemistry, which seems to be what big pharma wants us to believe.

I believe the meds should be a tool in regaining health, but not an treatment end in themselves.

I was on anti-depressants for 12 years for anxiety. I did therapy for a year after going on them, but my symptoms disappeared, so I stopped going to therapy.

Five years ago, I hit a bit of a rough patch with some stuff. I tried to deny all those emotions, but when someone I knew attempted suicide, it hit me that suicide didn’t seem like that bad an option. That scared the shit out of me, so I called my health care provider for a referral for a therapist.

Through the therapist and a psychiatrist, I am now off anti-depressants. It took 4 months of reducing dosages and tapering off, but it did happen. My doctors were nothing but 110% cooperative and very willing to take it as slow as I wanted to.

I still have issues, but I am proud to say I have the coping skills to deal with life and not be reduced to a blithering ball of anxiety when shit happens. My family is full of denial, addiction and emotional manipulation. I was full of denial, isolation and emotional repression. Those elements are still there, but I can actually talk about them and work them out so that they don’t rule my life anymore.

heathen earthling
Perhaps I would be a lot happier if I took anti-depressants, but I do think I would be at all the same person, and I really do not want to become delusional or ignorant of reality. So, better off to just accept what is, find some comfort in the exceptions (not everything in life is worthless, there are some people and things that make me happy).

I felt this way as well and I am glad to say I no longer feel this way. I clung to my anger and resentments as if they were what was keeping me alive. Those feelings were instead keeping me isolated and unable to really connect with anyone (including myself) on an emotional level.

Treatment (whether it be therapy or medication) is not going to make you a different person, hell, it may not even make you a “better” person. It’s not going to make you delusional or ignorant of reality, because you already are. Emotions are not rational and trying to rationalize them will just make you even more insufferable.

[Kevbo]

If drugs are the real stumbling block, you can do a hell of a lot of good with just eating healthy and getting regular exercise.

I was very resistant to taking anti-depressants. Eventually tried out of desperation. They did some good for a while, but seemed like less as time went on. They don’t make you feel happy, they stop the depression. Once the depression is mostly gone, they don’t do much except the side effects are still there.

For me, the drugs gave me enough of a kick start to work on eating better and riding my bike a lot. Which I think did more good than the drugs, but probably wouldn’t have happened but for the drugs.

Is your therapist using CBT? If not you should look into that.