Published on 12, July, 2020
I read this and thought i would share it for your thoughts.....
The obvious answer to my question is no.
However, I didn’t always feel that way. In my 20s, I saturated myself in healthism and orthorexia. I thought I could control and optimize my body and mind simply by addressing my diet, getting enough exercise, and going to therapy.
I incorrectly thought that if someone needed psychiatric medication, it meant they weren’t doing the internal and external work. I assumed they were just treating the symptoms instead of the root cause.
This was further reinforced by a brief stint of anti-depressants I took in college. After a fire that consumed all of my physical items, I entered a deep state of depression. My doctor suggested Prozac, which I took. It didn’t help. It even worsened some of my symptoms.
Worsening symptoms is something doctors watch out for when they prescribe psychiatric medication. I incorrectly thought that if one psychiatric medication negatively impacted me, then all the rest were garbage as well. I didn’t know that certain medications can impact you differently depending on how your body responds to it.
I later took SSRI’s again after my mom died. I entered another deep state of depression. The medication I took that time helped (Zoloft), but I felt like a zombie. It was sooooo weird to barely think anything at all. In some ways it was very calming, and in other ways it was alarming. I didn’t want to Zzombie my way through life, so after three months I weened myself off
I also started therapy at that time, thinking that would be enough. It wasn’t.
Look, I’m a therapist, I clearly believe in the power of therapy. However, it cannot resolve everything.
Some things are just outside of our control.
I didn’t believe that until I learned I am autistic. I realized how different my brain is than a neurotypical brain, and that it’s ok to not measure myself by neurotypical standards. I will always think more and feel more than the average person.
Personally I always found being autistic and having different neurological wiring means that most tablets and medicines unless they are super straightforward give me side effects. I can only do paracetemol, codeine, bismuth, antihistamines, and a handful of antibiotics, everything else either doesn't work as well as it should or has sideeffects and especially anything that affects the brain has always been a recipe for disaster. One particular incident where I stopped being able to speak in any kind of structure that resembled English at the checkout in Tesco and then had to have a whole thing and panic attack was so traumatising I have forever sworn off all psychiatric medication, SSRIs might as well be LSD for all the good they ever did me. I myself have only ever had any great success with lifestyle shifts and addressing the underlying problems that triggered the negative mental health in the first place.But I'm a big supporter of you gotta do what works for you, and if it works for you to "pop" pills then all power to you imo. It upsets me that a lot of people who do rely on medication to either stabalize themselves or get better face a lot of undeserved stigma and shaming. As if we all didn't have enough on our plate anyway. So you do you Tulip.