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In the interests of full disclosure

kactus

Apparently there was a bit of controversy–well ok, it was just one guy being a jerk–over my joy at getting some psych meds, as chronicled in this post. So, for the interests of full disclosure, I thought I’d let you all know the mind-bending blast I’ve been having, as my body gets used to the first few days of new drugs.

So, I’ve been prescribed prozac for depression and anxiety. It seems to have given me a dry mouth, nausea, and diarrhea, which has sent me running straight for the cannabis to counteract the effects of the prozac. So, the cure for the prozac is, well, pot. Which hey, lucky me.

And xanax, which believe it or not is considered fun by some people, who apparently actually will buy it at the street level. But I think you’d have to take several at a time, cuz this stuff doesn’t do anything exciting except make me woozy for about 10 minutes.

And ambien, because of previously discussed sleep issues.

So yeah, I’m defending to the death my right to take these medications that give me dry mouth, nausea, a full night’s sleep, and slight wooziness. I’m also defending my right to take the warfarin that keeps my blood from clotting, the cartia that is keeps my heart ticking, the amiodarone that keeps my heart ticking, and the toprol, which also keeps my heart ticking. Oh, and the diuretic that makes me pee every 5 minutes and makes my blood pressure drop til I feel like swooning (but keeps my legs and feet from swelling so much I can’t even wear shoes) and the potassium to replace what the diuretic leeches out of my system

And the weed, which makes it all bearable.

97 thoughts on In the interests of full disclosure

  4. I was on Prozac for about 10 years With only one side affect, sexual dysfunction. Wellbutrin fixed that up quite nicely. Then the prozac stopped working & life was hell until I was given lexipro. At the moment I am without insurance and can’t afford it (BTW – fuck Montel).

    The thing that pisses me off royally are the people that assume you get ‘high’ from anti-depressants. Its all happy pill hilarity in their tiny brains. But that is not how it really is. When on the pills I don’t feel giddy or any of the things people suggest – I just feel normal. Good things make me happy & sad things make me sad hust like they do for most of the world.

    That is a nasty cocktail of meds they have you on though. Please be careful.

  5. I was under the impression that SSRIs and SNRIs would amp up the effects of any drugs, including alcohol. I can’t smoke pot because if I do I forget my name and how to tie my shoes for a month, but I do know that on Zoloft and Effexor one drink felt like three to me.

  6. Yeah, meowser, I don’t touch alcohol. Can’t stand it and can’t stand the way it makes me feel. At least with cannabis just one little hit won’t make me high but it will take away the nausea.

    Anyway, everything I’ve read and been told says that the initial symptoms go away after a couple of weeks. So I’m just hanging in there and drinking a lot of water, which is about the only thing so far that seems to want to stay down.

  7. You are mixing a bunch of rather potent prescription/OTC and street drugs. I’d hate to see what’s happening to your liver which has to metabolize most of these drugs.

  8. I’m assuming your doc told you that SSRIs (including Prozac) can cause weight gain, just so you aren’t blindsided.

    I was kind of annoyed last time I took Wellbutrin because it made my early-morning awakening thing start back up again when it was actually supposed to stop it. I need to talk to my new doc about that and see if s/he has any solutions that don’t involve taking an extra drug.

  10. Sorry for assuming weed is illegal where you are. Also, where I am from Xanax is OTC. If your doctor has cleared all that I guess you should be okay.

  11. I’ve got to say, anti-anxiety drugs never did all that much for me either except for the woozifying you note here. Maybe you’ll be lucky and the anti-depressants will help enough with your anxiety or finally getting some sleep will even that bit out? Wellbutrin aggravated some of my immediate anxieties but strangely resolved some other lifelong formerly-limiting phobias/issues, even after I stopped taking it (??).

    Multiple health problems are difficult (and yes, hard on the liver, why some of us have regular tests to monitor things like kidney/liver function, so we know to switch drugs when things start to go wrong), best of luck to you!

  12. And I don’t do “street drugs,” whatever that even means.

    I’m guessing s/he was referring to the weed you mentioned. Wev.

    As i said in response to your last post, THANK GOD for those pills. People who think depression (or other mental illnesses) are somehow failures of will, nutritiou, or exercise have never known someone with serious depression. My partner was really suspicious of pills and therapists for hte longest time, and as result his severe depression went untreated for years longer than it should have. Eventually it got so bad that even he could see that he needed help – he simply was not functional. Couldn’t write his dissertation, couldn’t go to a party, couldn’t even do the dishes. Had a complete breakdown. It was a nightmare. And while he’s still not fully better and they’re trying to find the right med/dosage, he’s worlds better than he was, through a combination of pills and talk therapy. It is allowing him to live life again. That’s why I can’t stand the knee-jerk anti-medication crowd. Those people don’t know. They just have no idea. Those meds (plus therapy, I always hasten to add) saved his life. I don’t mean that metaphorically.

  13. Sorry for assuming weed is illegal where you are.

    Oh, I do live in one of those backward states where it’s illegal. I just don’t consider it a drug. And strangely enough, none of my doctors give me grief about it, either. I think they figure I have enough to worry about.

  15. I had a tight throat on fluoxetine for the first few weeks. Actually, it was similar to the tight throat I would get during panic attacks, which was unpleasant. But it did go away eventually, so at least your dry throat may ease off with time.

    Also, I get air pressure headaches during close/stormy weather, and I’m sure I never got those until I started on fluoxetine. I don’t know if I’m imagining that or what.

  16. Prozac made me gain an alarming amount of weight very suddenly after two years of no effects, and Celexa made me fall asleep in the middle of the day. Welbutrin had no real side effects, but didn’t work as well as the others. Now I have no insurance, so no meds.

  17. Those without insurance that need prescriptions, you should go to this site: http://www.pparx.com. It’s a place where you can register and get your prescriptions for free. It’s not like, shady or anything. You still have to have a prescription from your doctor.

  18. I’ll second what beth wrote about pparx. I’ve known a couple of people who’ve gotten either full or partial coverage of their needed prescriptions through them. Thanks for the reminder, Beth.

  19. Tried eight different anti-depressants. Celexa was the only one that didn’t give me side effects but I wasn’t covered. I went cold turkey seven years ago which is unadvisable. Xanax put me right to sleep.

  20. (Nice site work, BTW- this is nifty!!)

    Good luck with the meds, kactus- my husband has had a few bouts of depression over the 20 years we’ve been together (big family history of it) and until we lived together, I had never seen it first-hand. I’ll admit; I saw it as weakness within him- why didn’t he just “buck up and drive on”? But that was just ignorance on my part of how terrible depression is- I’m grateful that Charlie was patient enough to explain it to me. After so many years together and seeing the cyclic nature he endures, I’m aware enough to help him recognize the early symptoms (most times) and get him into the Dr’s.

    Your list of side effects (and he’s had a few of those, too) SHOULD show that folks taking these meds are NOT doing this for kicks- having to explain the WHY your need is a rude double-whammy, huh? Never have tried pot- can’t stand the smell- but glad it is helping you. It really should be legal and available in medical circumstances; a stance I never thought I’d support when I was younger!! Hang in there…

  21. And xanax, which believe it or not is considered fun by some people, who apparently actually will buy it at the street level. But I think you’d have to take several at a time…

    Xanax is not innocuous. If you take a bunch of Xanax at once (or any of the other benzodiazepine drugs), you won’t feel the same thing as when you take a little, except stronger. When you take a large enough dose, the effect shifts. Instead of relaxing and becoming tranquil you may get severely depressed to the point of agitation, at least if you are inclined toward depression. The worst part is, if you don’t know better you might decide to pop a couple more Xanax in order to calm yourself out of your anxiety attack. That’s my experience, and your mileage may vary, of course, but it’s a good idea to be cautious.

  22. That’s my experience, and your mileage may vary, of course, but it’s a good idea to be cautious.

    Absolutely.

    I’ve known several people who use/abuse prescription drugs. And of course several who use/abuse street drugs too. In fact, my roommate overdosed and died in my house this year (which certainly has contributed to my depression). So I kinda hate recreational drugs or anything that can, well, kill you in a really ugly way so that your roommate/family member has to find you and deal with cops and coroners.

  23. The nausea only lasted a couple weeks for me, so hopefully it’ll be done soon for you. I gained weight too, but I’m not sure it was from the medication, it might just have been that the Prozac brought back the appetite the depression had stolen from me. Also, it interacts with not only alcohol, but also OTC medications like cold medicine – anything that used to make me drowsy before the Prozac started knocking me flat on my ass once I went on it.

  24. I lost track of who said what, sorry…but someone mentioned Wellbutrin making early-morning awakening reappear, and I actually expect that when I prescribe it. I try to use it in people who are really hypersomnolent from depression – sleeping all the time. SSRIs and tricyclics, like Elavil (which I don’t use, but I use some others in that class) are far better for early morning awakening and for anxiety. Wellbutrin will often make anxiety worse, or cause it in people who didn’t have it before.

    All drugs have side effects, and with antidepressants the key is to choose the side effects that either will be least distressing or even maybe beneficial – so the sedation from Prozac may be helpful to someone who’s having trouble sleeping. Sexual dysfunction, OTOH, isn’t helpful to anyone.

    And, as the commercial goes, I’m also a customer. I took Zoloft and then Celexa for about 18 months total. My mood and sleep improved almost immediately. I had sexual dysfunction side effects, worse with the Zoloft, and also some alteration of taste. I couldn’t use toothpaste for a while because the mintiness was really painful, and I still can’t eat spicy food even though it’s been seven years since I stopped the meds. Overall, though, the risk/benefit ratio was positive for me. I only wish I’d taken them sooner.

    Meds aren’t a cure-all and they’re not for everybody, but they do save lives. Going on meds enabled me to do the emotional work I needed to do. I’d had an episode of depression about every three years beginning when I was 19 – I was 38 when I started Zoloft and found the right therapist. Since then I’ve had a few episodes of anxiety, but no more actual depression, despite some devastating losses. I’ve also been able to make some substantive personal changes. I still see my therapist at least once a month, but there’s no way I would have been able to tolerate therapy – let alone make progress – without the meds.

  25. John, have you ever heard of Wellbutrin being prescribed to someone trying to quit smoking? Charlie was prescribed it and had such horrible, psychotic nightmares that he got rid of them!

  26. i had a horrible time on zoloft, i was so numb i started cutting just to feel something, which wasnt like me, having never cut before. i do talk therapy now and it works so much better, for me. i think that a lot of people have to realize that what works for them won’t work for everyone. yes, from my experience i am wary of anti-depressants. no, i would never tell someone they work for to stop taking them.

    i am uncomfortable with GPs prescribing meds for mental health, as i feel drugs like that are so intense they should be monitored by someone who is an expert in the field, but i also understand not everyone has the money or insurance coverage to see multiple doctors. i guess i just really want full universal health care so everyone can get all the care they need, but as it is now, i begrudge nobody anything.

    i hope you feel better soon. i send internet hugs.

  27. I lost track of who said what, sorry…but someone mentioned Wellbutrin making early-morning awakening reappear, and I actually expect that when I prescribe it.

    That was me. It was odd, because it didn’t have that effect when I took it the first time seven years ago. I used to be able to take it right before bed and had no insomnia problems — in fact, it cured my insomnia.

    I hate when new side effects appear when you re-take a medication after a break.

  28. jessilikewhoa, I’m not actually a GP – there are no more GPs. A GP was a doctor with little or no advanced training, someone who came right out of medical school or had one year of internship and then went into practice. In most states, you can’t get licensed that way anymore, and in the few states where you can get a license, no insurance company will pay you.

    I am a primary care doctor, and I do actually have training and experience with psych meds. Not all primary care docs do, though. The most important skill for a primary care doc is to know what you don’t know, and be able to refer to those who do know.

    In my community, even having decent insurance doesn’t guarantee that you can see a psychiatrist, and it certainly doesn’t guarantee a good one. I think patients are better off with me, a good primary care doc, than with several of our local psychiatrists.

    Psych meds can be misused, just like seizure meds and antibiotics and antihistamines. But many of them can be used responsibly by primary care physicians, which is a good thing because 85% of people with depression and anxiety present to their primary care doc with symptoms, and even when they have insurance coverage many refuse to see psychiatrists because of the stigma.

    Yes, I would like to see universal health care coverage and better access to all kinds of care – as I’ve said before. But in the meantime, if it’s OK with you, I’ll keep doing my job.

  29. Like roses said, the side effects should go away after a month.

    Strangely, returning to Prozac after many years gave me migraines which is when I switched to Celexa.

  30. Drugs are over rated and the relief never lasts. Your doctor will no doubt up your dosage soon until your so immune it doesn’t do the trick anymore. Than it’s onto a new pill… let’s hope you have health coverage.

  32. jay, like i said, it makes me uncomfortable, i didnt say you shouldnt do it. ive had friends given psych meds by doctors who did no follow up at all and just kept dosing out refills. that makes me uncomfortable, in the same way someone getting heavy duty pain meds with no follow up makes me uncomfortable. im a huge fan of responsible doctors, as you appear to be. with my medical history ive had some fantastic doctors. i wasnt trying to insult tho i knew so soon as i posted it would come off that way, so my apologies. in our current health climate its important people have any access to care. in regards to bad psychiatrists, thats where i recieved the zoloft, after she had spoken to me for roughly 15 minutes, she handed me a big bag of free samples. so your point is very well taken, lousy comes in all shapes sizes and fields.

  33. and i think my misunderstanding about GPs vs primary care physicians could be due to my family doctor having been in practice for over 25 years, i’m pretty sure he is a GP, tho a very experienced one.

  34. kactus, sorry if someone said this already, but someone briefly mentioned cold medicine, and I ran down here to the bottom of things without reading all the comments, b/c i want to make sure i say this before I forget:

    With Prozac and other such SSRIs, don’t take Sudafed or things like it, unless you get the go-ahead from your doctor. I was on Paxil for a solid decade, and was forbidden to take Sudafed, for fear of my ending up with some sort of cardiac episode.
    So, please, beware the pseudophedrine, and if you need it, be absolutely sure to check with your doc first. Forgive my worrying, but if I mention it, I’d feel all guilty and extra worry-ish.

    Best of luck with everything – I hope it all works fabulously. And if the side effects don’t clear up or get worse or unbearable in the next few weeks, DO NOT hesitate to tell your doc, and do not be quieted. I was talked into “waiting it out” with Effexor for a good six months by my beloved well-meaning doc, who honestly misunderstood the intensity of my side effects. I spent that six months patiently waiting for hallucinations and bizarro spontaneous lactation (etc.) to subside, and would have be done with it sooner if only I had spoken up more forcefully.

    Okay, okay, I must stop fussing. May get more bearable and chill soon!

  35. I’m on wellbutrin. One of the major side effects of wellbutrin is, well, the doctors describe it as “irritability” but find it manifests itself in the unbearable urge to fucking throttle the self-righteous fucks who prance around the internet with their medical degress from Dipshit U. insisting that all forms of mental illness can be cured with long walks and tea. Visions of uncontrolled HULK SMASH violence dance in my head.
    *deep breath* anyway. I often recomend to people who have the option of choosing their doctor to find an Osteopath instead of an MD. I’ve always found my D.Os to be fat positive, holistic in their approach and compasionate about financial issues. My doctor gave me free samples of wellbutrin for over a year until I got insurance
    The dry mouth is annoying but I try to look at it postively: it encourages me to drink more water which is good at improving the general lethargy that comes with the depression anyway.

  37. Everyone’s chemistry is different and what works for one may or may not work for another. And it’s hard to find the right one sometimes. I know I had repeated instances of a drug working and then failing to work after 18 months or so. Turns out I need a drug which combines SSRI and SNRI. I’ve been on one or another of those for about 10 years now. As someone who has experienced multiple serious depressive episodes, I will be for the rest of my life. Unless someone finds a dynamite way to permanently fix my brain chemistry. (My side effects never went away, but it’s still better than clinical depression.)

    If someone’s giving you grief about your meds, ask them if they’d expect a diabetic to regulate their blood sugar with will power. Because that’s the problem you’ve got; one of your chemicals isn’t properly regulated and no amount of thinking is gonna fix that.

    MKK

  38. jessilikewhoa, no question there are lousy PCPs out there (and I also realize that PCPs in England are indeed called GPs, so I was being a bit chauvinistic there!) It’s inappropriate to prescribe anything without some follow-up. I usually see patients three weeks after starting an antidepressant or changing the dose.

    Louise, I have indeed seen buprioprion prescribed for smoking cessation, usually as Zyban rather than Wellbutrin (same med). It does indeed cause “irritability” and sleeplessness for some people – not all. I won’t prescribe it to people who have a history of anxiety disorders, not without some other med on board to control the side effects, and I prefer to prescribe it in conjunction with a behavioral modification/counseling program. The evidence is really clear about all meds for smoking cessation, whether they’re nicotine replacements, Zyban or Chantix: they all work better (like 5 to 10 times better) with a behavioral intervention added. Meds alone are not the answer to quitting smoking.

  39. I have been reading about VNS treatment for depression for over a year now & it certainly is appealing. A small ‘pacemaker’ is implanted in your chest with leads that provide regular shocks to the vagus nerve. The frequency and power are adjusted until results are seen.

    There is a lot of upside to that in my mind. The problem is the results have been spotty with some people getting no relief at all. There are also reports of throat and voice problems.

    It also is a major hassle to get insurance to cover the cost because of the experimental nature of it at this time.

  40. Hmm. I’ve never heard from doctors or pharmacists or anybody about cold medicines having negative interactions with SSRIs. Definitely with MAOIs, the earlier class of anti-depressants, but given my pathetic excuse for an immune system, I’ve been combining Sudafed and its brethren with my SSRIs every so often for years without problems.

    When I started Celexa, some years back, I had a weekend of nausea, and that was it as far as side effects went. But I was quite lucky. It is not at all uncommon for a given SSRI to stop working after several years, but either switching it out or augmenting it with a dopamine-norepinephrine system drug like Wellbutrin is supposed to work very well. Worth it, in my opinion–some years of living normally are much better than none.

  41. Those without insurance that need prescriptions, you should go to this site: http://www.pparx.com. It’s a place where you can register and get your prescriptions for free. It’s not like, shady or anything. You still have to have a prescription from your doctor.

    The prescription I can afford. I just haven’t been able to find a doctor who’ll charge me less than $300 for a visit without insurance. But then, I haven’t been looking all that hard lately.

  42. Of the various things you’re taking, the weed is the most likely to be doing you some good. Prozac is innocuous (I was prescribed it and it only made me sleepy, but some people find it works wonders). Xanax is more dodgy, but probably not too dangerous. If your doctor suggests you try Effexor, run screaming from the room.

    As a long shot, you might want to have your prolactin levels checked. My wife went though a cornucopia of drugs before finding a psychiatrist who knew a bit of neurology and demanded a brain scan. Turned out she had a pituitary adenoma, which was pushing her prolactin through the roof.

  43. Missed the original controversy, but…

    I hate anti-depressants and I think they’re dangerous. I think they make people stupid/ cause a type of brain damage. i think they’re also tending to pacify a public who is reasonably depressed and angry. Justified anger and depression, in my opinion, should not be medicated except in very rare circumstances.

    I think doctors who hand out prescriptions without doing full exams and consulting alternatives are also dangerous. I think they are not performing medicine and are instead acting as middlemen between BigPharma and the public. I have a friend who overdosed (luckily she’s OK now) because she had a doctor like that who just handed out new prescriptions without looking at all her old ones or speaking with her other doctors. She was on too many meds and they interacted with each other to do bad things.

    And I don’t think Gregory deserved being called a jerk. I didn’t notice anything where he called you any names or was abusive towards you.

    But, I think you have a right to do things to your body that I wouldn’t do to mine.

  45. Elaine, Gregory never called me names, as if that’s the criteria for being a jerk. No, he totally and callously dismissed the first-hand experiences of the dozens of women on that thread and basically called us addicts. That is Jerk Behavior of the highest order.

  46. Elaine, possibly my stupid brain-damaged opinion doesn’t count for anything, but I’ve tried cognitive interventions without medication, and I personally prefer being able to get out of bed in the morning and not harming myself with sharp implements or red-hot ones to keep from fits of uncontrollable crying. If this constitutes being “pacified” for “unjustified” reasons, so be it. And if taking a single SSRI a day is a more irresponsible thing to do to my body than stretches of weeks at a time of three hours’ sleep or eighteen, alcoholic binges, the aforementioned cutting and burning, forgetting to eat for a couple days at a time, or various other refinements, again, so be it. I’m sorry your friend had a crappy experience with a careless doctor, but if it had been say, a blood pressure medication he’d misprescribed her that had reacted with her other meds, would you be saying that hypertension is something that should never be managed with medication and anybody who chooses to do that is a mindless idiot? If the answer is yes, well…at least you’re consistent, I guess. But I kind of doubt it would be.

  47. Elaine, I suggest you do some reading into what clinical depression is, what its symptoms are, how the treatments work on a cellular level, and how it’s all significantly different than being pissed off at circumstances beyond one’s control. I also suggest that you re-read the original posts; rather than “pacifying a reasonably depressed and angry public,” the posters who have talked about their experiences with antidepressants seem to be active and involved in social issues.

    Of course indiscriminate prescribing is a problem, but that’s related to what others have mentioned about finding quality health care – it doesn’t mean that the drugs should be tossed out the window. Or that people should get preachy about how My Hypothetical Treatment’s Better Than Your Real Life Treatment.

  48. I’m talking about this cultural phenomenon being treated with medication rather than as something caused by our consumption-driven society and polluted environments and industrialized living in general. There is some reason why people who live in less industrialized societies claim to be much happier than people in like in the US. We don’t know exactly what that reason is, but I don’t think they simply have fewer people with chemical imbalances that must be treated with medications that cause brain damage.

    Statistically, women are much more likely to be depressed than men and I think that’s because women are oppressed, not because they are biologically more prone to depression. That’s what I mean.

    To those of you suggesting that I read up here are some other books to read:
    * Prozac Backlash by Joseph Glenmullen, M.D.
    * The Anti-depressant Fact Book by Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
    * Toxic Psychiatry by Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
    * Orthomolecular Treatment for Schizophrenia by A. Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.
    * Nutrition and Mental Illness by Carl C. Pfeiffer, Ph.D., M.D.
    * Let Them Eat Prozac by David Healy, MD FRCPsych
    * Blaming the Brain by Elliott Valenstein, Ph.D.

    And also check out: http://actmad.net/

    For the record, I’ve been to a number of doctors and gone through a variety of therapies and guess what? They all have some different diagnosis and some different medicine they want me to try. And guess what? None of it works any better than regular exercise, proper diet, and community support of my feminist-vegan belief system. For me, none of it.

    Now, you can say I’m just one of the many counter-examples and maybe your problems are worse than mine. And you may well be correct. I don’t mean to tell you want to do with your body. I really don’t give a shit. It’s your body. Use it to pose nude or get implants or hair highlights or smoke weed or get drunk or sunbathe or pierce it or get a C section or get an abortion or change genders or whatever. I do half that stuff myself. Do whatever you want. I’m just giving my personal opinion about psychiatric meds.

    And I don’t mean to say anything about you personally when I say these drugs cause brain damage. I mean that they literally cause brain damage. I do not mean you are stupid for using them. I mean they cause your brain to damage itself. It happens that the damage it does makes many people happier. But it still causes damage. Just like a lobotomy “works” to make people less violent, so do these medications “work” to make people less depressed. It’s not as extreme, but it’s damage nonetheless.

  49. kactus,

    Gregory never called me names, as if that’s the criteria for being a jerk. No, he totally and callously dismissed the first-hand experiences of the dozens of women on that thread and basically called us addicts. That is Jerk Behavior of the highest order.

    I guess I disagree. I don’t think he was callous and I don’t think he dismissed your experiences. I think he shared his experiences and opinion and you’re the one who dismissed him. I read his comments as directed toward your doctor, not you.

    Now, he may well be a jerk. I don’t know him personally and I don’t know what else he writes and comments about. But I don’t think he was trying to be mean. I think he was criticizing the doctor, who you said basically just handed out pills. Maybe you didn’t mean it that way and you were just grateful to finally have a doctor who acted like a service-provider instead of a parent telling you what to do. But I can see how he interpreted your post as saying your doc was a drug dealer.

  50. I thought Gregory’s assholishness was pretty transparent in his comments, and rather than take a step back after being called out on it, like a non-asshole that just didn’t realize the effect of his or her comments, he plunged right-the-fuck-on ahead, damn the torpedoes, and especially damn anyone who is clinically depressed and/or in pain, and *gasp* takes medication for it.

    I had an ear infection a few years ago that I went to the clinic for first thing in the morning—I woke up with it. Since it was a Saturday, I just picked up my prescription and went back home to rest—it was going from the “thick” phase to actual pain. I figured if I took some aspirin and got some bed rest, I’d be better later. Eight hours later, I was out of my fucking mind with pain, and was having visions of the relief I’d get from driving an ice pick through my skull. I went back to the clinic, where the same doc was pulling a twelve-hour shift. She took another look and said, “oh dear. You’re bleeding behind your eardrums.” Ya think? I got a scrip for Tylenol 3, and within a half-hour of the first pill, I felt like a million bucks. The “thickness” and loss of hearing acucity was still there, but the pain was completely gone. It took three solid weeks to get rid of that ear infection from hell, and I took codeine for the first week and a half—it was the only way to remain functional.

    Yet, I magically didn’t get any lectures from family or co-workers on how my medication was a “crutch”, or how “codeine was addictive” or any of that shit. Neither did I get any lectures about the pain meds after my c-section—in fact, everyone, icluding medical personnel, kept pressing me on how I shouldn’t be afraid to use the pain meds, and not to “tough it out” or try to push my body too far. Quite the contrast from the treatment people suffering from depression get, no?

    I chalk it up to redirected Puritanism, myself. (See? See how easy armchair diagnoses are?) And I’m generally pretty skeptical about medicine—tend not to see a doctor until “it’s time to call a priest.” But damn, if you need it, you need it—and you sure don’t need any more shit about it, than you generally get for having health issues anyway.

    And kactus, I just saw something on the evening news about how cannabis prevents cervical cancer cells from multiplying and spreading. So, smoke ’em if you got ’em—does a body good! 😉

  51. Statistically, women are much more likely to be depressed than men and I think that’s because women are oppressed, not because they are biologically more prone to depression.

    Yes and no. It may be that women are more prone to depression because they are more subject to the sort of experiences that would push somebody with vulnerabilities toward depression into that state. Or it may be that the diagnosing criteria are predisposed to reflect women’s behaviors when depressed.

    Just like a lobotomy “works” to make people less violent, so do these medications “work” to make people less depressed. It’s not as extreme, but it’s damage nonetheless.

    That’s a rather poisonous comparison. Lobotomies did not make the people suffering from epilepsy more active, more able to live their lives to the fullest. What in your research suggests that contemporary anti-depressants cause brain damage?
    I do know that depression is–or causes–brain damage, to the point that scientists can tell by examining brain cross sections not only whether a person suffered from depression when alive, but also whether he or she used anti-depressants–the level of damage is significantly halted.

    Quite honestly, there’s no such thing as justified depression. Nobody deserves to suffer like that.

  52. Nobody deserves to suffer like that.

    And isn’t that key? Because all this hand-wringing over who “really needs” what meds, which seems to boil down to “has there been enough suffering yet? Has this person endured enough suffering to deserve some relief”—-that attitude isn’t helping people. Gatekeeping on medication to alleviate suffering stems from a real unhealthy attitude towards life—towards people. “Deserving” people prove their worth through suffering. And that goes double for poor people, the disabled, women, people of color—all the people who are supposed to do more suffering than the default ‘people’—-privileged white males. Asking for your pain to be eased is asking for a privilege you aren’t supposed to have. Hence, the hostility. You’re stepping over your bounds. Who do you think you are?

    Aaaand….thinking that people with clinical depression can just try a little harder, or meditate a little more, or visit with friends more often, or do something creative, or jog, or what-the-fuck they’re supposed to do that’s healthy and organic and free-range and the magic supercure that “everyone” knows is true and just and right—-is kinda like thinking that if Stevie Wonder just took off those dark shades, he’d be able to see better.

  53. It’s nice that your vegan-feminist beliefs work for you, elaine, but they don’t work for many other people, and I’m worried they might become very sick if they don’t take their medications.

  54. Now, he may well be a jerk. I don’t know him personally and I don’t know what else he writes and comments about. But I don’t think he was trying to be mean. I think he was criticizing the doctor, who you said basically just handed out pills. Maybe you didn’t mean it that way and you were just grateful to finally have a doctor who acted like a service-provider instead of a parent telling you what to do. But I can see how he interpreted your post as saying your doc was a drug dealer.

    Elaine, he did not single me or my doctor out. He pointed the finger at every one of us women on that thread and basically said that we were no better than addicts. Yeah, I dismissed him because he fucking dismissed us. And I’d do it again.

    You know, depression was pooh-poohed for a long time because it was perceived as something only women suffered from. And I don’t see Gregory’s callous dismissal of the stated experiences, feelings, and horror stories of woman after woman on that thread as any different.

    And as several women pointed out, the ablism in his statements was appalling. Depression can be crippling as many of us know.

  55. Elaine… where does one begin with you?

    First, considering the tune of the discourse here up to the point of your entrance, you first line, “I hate anti-depressants and I think they’re dangerous.” strikes me as a little abrupt, perhaps a teensy bit hostile. Granted, as someone who has had hella bad drug reactions and a really bad experience with one doc, I know that there is plenty out there to justify a person’s having a negative, hostile reaction to the casual discussion* of psychiatric medications. But still… the harshness raises flags to me.

    Second, say what you want about how women’s depression et al is caused by industrialism, toxic environments, etc. That’s likely true in some cases, maybe a factor in all. But you know what? Even if that was all there was to it, these factors, oppression/patriarchy/yadda yadda, ARE NOT GOING AWAY, and we have to make it by somehow. If you’re lucky enough to have insurance that covers drugs AND the talk therapy to work out you oppression issues, congratufuckinglations. We aren’t all that lucky.

    Third, about the brain damage. I went on meds when I was 11, long before puberty was in sight. Yes, I was on Paxil, in horse-pill quantites, for over a decade. Yes, I think that’s why my hands tremble a little now. But you know what? Without that Paxil, I don’t think I would be here (long fucking story). I’d rather be here with the hand tremors than not here at all.

    Lastly, and I think I kinda went here a several lines ago: Elaine, dah-ling, please, reflect on the immense privilege that your suggestions are projecting. Even for those of us who have the time/money to be well-read on Big Pharma by your standards (as suggested by the reading list), a lot of us have to take what they can get. In my storied past of docs and insurance, I have found that one is lucky to get ANYTHING mental health related covered. When you have to take what you can get, you’re often going to get medicine before anything else, if you get anything else.

    So, for the love of God, don’t rail against medicine itself and treat the people who take it as uneducated about the ‘dangers.’ That’s actally a rather insensitive thing to do. Rail against Big Pharma, bad docs, a crazy health system, go to town; but don’t talk to me and those in similar circumstances as though we have no idea what we’ve gotten ourselves into. We know, but we have our options, and that’s how it is.

    Sorry if that was long-winded or harsh. Merry Festivus!

    *When I say ‘casual’ here, what I mean is that we here seem comfortable discussing our medical/psychiatric histories with each other and our struggles throughout said histories. For me, this is a safe place to talk about these things, where they are discussed w/o much of the usual “OMG mental illness!” insanity I would encounter broaching the topic, well, damn near anywhere else.

  56. Some of you have misinterpreted my comment about justified depression. Here’s what I meant:

    People in prison, refugee camps, war, etc. obviously have a very good reason for being depressed. If we just put them all on anti-depressants, would that be OK? Or should we do something else to fix it?

    That’s what I’m saying. I’m saying there are very good reasons to be depressed these days and that anti-depressants are not always the best solution. Maybe we just need a better, fucking president and an economy that’s not going in the shitter and universal healthcare and the troops to come home and our votes to matter…

    Please, please, please try to give someone the benefit of the doubt when you read or listen to what they have to say. Going on the attack to anyone who criticizes you is not a helpful, productive reaction. It doesn’t make any of us learn anything or become better people.

    “I don’t see Gregory’s callous dismissal of the stated experiences, feelings, and horror stories of woman after woman on that thread as any different.”

    It’s different because he shared his own depression experiences, as have I. It’s different because we’re not saying “you”, we’re saying “we”. We’re saying we think meds are not always the best choice for people diagnosed with depression. We’re saying our experiences prove differently. We’re not othering you or saying you don’t deserve your drugs. We’re saying, “Hey, there are other options. And our experiences tell us that drugs aren’t the best choice.”

  57. Yes, Elaine. How very feminist of you, telling women that they’re just hysterical hypochondriacs.

    You’re already on thin ice here.

  58. I posted this in the old thread, but I think it should probably go here:
    Not only is it not my (albeit limited) experience that depressed people are just begging to get an easy fix in the form of meds, it is often an incredible step towards progress to WANT meds. It requires admitting there is a problem and wanting to fix it. That is huge!
    1. People with depression blame themselves and often don’t see the irrationality of their thoughts.
    2. Depression makes people feel like they deserve to feel bad.
    3. Getting medication requires actively seeking out help. Finding a doctor. Calling to make an appointment. Actually going to the doctor. Actually talking to the doctor. When I was struggling with depression, all that was OMG TOO MUCH.

    Elaine, I hope that all of that helps you, but for me the idea that only stupid people are happy (as you posted in the old thread) or that depression is a rational response to the oppression women experience almost killed me and is a pattern in a lot of depressed people taken to the extreme: There is nothing to be happy about, so happiness is fake. I feel like crap, I take on the weight of the world’s problems, and so I am superior to people who ignore it all and can be happy.

    Getting past all that to the point where you actually want to feel good is a big hurdle for many people with depression, and anyone who has done it deserves to be supported, not blamed for med-seeking.

  59. I completely agree, Astrea. Part of the symptoms of depression is being convinced that no, other people don’t realize–you’re just objectively bad. And indeed, if you weren’t such a loser and bad, you could just pull up your socks and shake yourself out of this, and the fact that you’re not doing that just proves how awful you really are, so it serves you right to feel so lousy. And on and on.

    I think that what many people don’t realize is that the pain you feel when you’re in the throes of depression has nothing whatsoever to do with some objective assessment of the world. Depression is in some ways amazing narcissistic (that’s not a slam at depressed people–it’s an observation on the way my mind works when I’ve been depressed): out of the all the people in the world, there’s something so uniquely horrible about you that nobody else can understand how bad you are. The location of horror isn’t in the outside world; it’s in yourself. (One of Freud’s most trenchant observations, I think, on the difference between mourning and what was then called “melancholia.”)

    Second, say what you want about how women’s depression et al is caused by industrialism, toxic environments, etc. That’s likely true in some cases, maybe a factor in all. But you know what? Even if that was all there was to it, these factors, oppression/patriarchy/yadda yadda, ARE NOT GOING AWAY, and we have to make it by somehow. If you’re lucky enough to have insurance that covers drugs AND the talk therapy to work out you oppression issues, congratufuckinglations.

    Word, word, word! Increasing rates of asthma, including mine, are probably a response to increased air pollution. Does that mean I’m supposed to walk around unable to take a deep breath and being rushed to the emergency room once a year when I have an attack because asthma is a natural response? Would that somehow be “better” for me than taking meds? If I develop cancer due to toxic crap in my water supply, am I supposed to just forego chemotherapy because cancer is a “reasonable” response on the part of my body? Or do I get to take whatever measures are available to keep myself in good health? Now, I’m quite certain that my depression is almost entirely endemic: it’s been running in my family for three generations, and prior to being on medication, it popped up when nothing had gone wrong in my life at all. But what if it weren’t? Should I just suffer, then?

    Further, I can’t speak for anybody else, but the genuinely terrible things that have happened in my life are too important to be used as a hook to hang the same old depression on. They deserve my full attention, and a genuine emotional response that’s about those events, not my illness.

  60. I also have to say: so you had lousy experiences with psychiatrists, Elaine. Big deal. I’ve had really lousy experiences with gynecologists. That doesn’t mean that gynecology is bad for women, or that the treatments they gave me for yeast and bacterial infections are damaging or somehow globally “don’t work.” It means that I had a run of bad luck, and those particular treatments didn’t work for me at that particular time. But I’m not running around telling other women that Diflucan is a scam that causes damage and is bad bad bad for them.

  61. They deserve my full attention, and a genuine emotional response that’s about those events, not my illness.

    Yes. And I think many people don’t understand that depression interferes with genuine emotional responses. For me, at least, I am most functional when I have a very flat emotion level. (In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not on meds and found therapy uncomfortable and never went long term). I can function well and feel decent when I’m a bit distanced from everything and am not experiencing very high or very low emotions. I used to set myself up with high expectations and get very excited about things, and then blame myself when I either didn’t follow through or wasn’t good enough and went spiraling down to self-destructive lows.

    And it’s true that depressive thoughts are very self-involved. I think it’s another reason depressed people are accused of being attention-seekers. But it’s because we get caught in this self-perpetuating loop that’s so hard to break out of, like a skipping record.

  62. People in prison, refugee camps, war, etc. obviously have a very good reason for being depressed. If we just put them all on anti-depressants, would that be OK? Or should we do something else to fix it?

    Well, are they depressed? That would be a key question to be answered. Not all people in such situations become depressed. For those who do, post-traumatic stress disorder causes serious biochemical changes in the brain, and merely changing the immediate situation, while important for a person’s overall well-being, is simply not sufficient for them to regain full health. Biochemical agents are therefore quite necessary for people who have suffered major trauma and have developed PTSD or depression as a result.

  63. People in prison, refugee camps, war, etc. obviously have a very good reason for being depressed. If we just put them all on anti-depressants, would that be OK? Or should we do something else to fix it?

    In addition to what EG said, I would add that depression is not a normal reaction to a stressful situation. When they have a very good reason to feel despair, fear, anxiety, sadness that means those feelings are not necessarily depression. Depression is a disorder that is not necessarily in response to an event.

    Further, this is such a strawman argument. No one here has suggested medication for every situation and every individual.

    I find it disheartening that this could be a good place to discuss women and depression from a feminist analysis. There are problems with how women’s depression has been treated, but being hostile against women with depression who find medication useful as if they’re colluding with big pharma and the patriarchy is so obviously not the way to discuss the issue.

  64. What people who oppose antidepressants don’t understand is that clinical depression isn’t just being sad– that’s something normal that all humans experience. It’s more than that: it’s an actual IMBALANCE in brain chemistry. When, say, diabetics need to take insulin because of an imbalance of chemicals within their bodies, would anybody even dream of suggesting that they’re doing the wrong thing by treating the diabetes, and that they should just go without drugs? Yet this is EXACTLY the same thing that people do when they dismiss the use of antidepressants: there is a huge difference between being sad for “normal” reasons (prison, refugee camps, etc) and being sad because of an actual physical pathology in the brain.

  65. Chuck: Exactly.

    There’s no such thing as “justifiable” clinical depression.

    There may be a good discussion to be had about overmedicating, and treating women with normal reactions as if they have clinical depression, but it’s not appropriate to suggest people who take meds and recommend them for actual depression are just trying to push medication on everyone.

  66. Saying “well, you have a good reason to be depressed, and therefore we don’t need to treat it” is just like saying “well, I know why you’re bleeding. You cut yourself on that big knife over there. You have a perfectly good reason to bleed. So I don’t need to sew it up or stop the bleeding, do i?”

    Not everyone who suffers trauma becomes depressed, and for those that do, early treatment is key to preventing long-term ill effects. Does it work for everyone? No. But it works better than anything else we have.

    I do see women who are the “designated patient” in their family. There’s a lot of suffering out there caused by the ridiculous expectations layered on contemporary women in the US. I have more than once said to a patient “it seems to me you’re doing a good job taking care of yourself, but your boss/husband/partner/kid has unrealistic expectations”. I’ve written about some of these encounters in my blog. I’m not blind to the oppression of women and the toxic effects of that oppression. But there’s evidence that depression has existed throughout human history; there’s some underlying physiological shift in people who are depressed, one we don’t yet fully understand. That doesn’t mean it’s not real.

    Meds may well cause neurological change, but so can long-standing depression. No one here is suggesting that everyone should take meds, or that they’re universally safe or that they’re bliss in a bottle. Sometimes, like the song says, it’s whatever gets you through the night.

  67. “well, I know why you’re bleeding. You cut yourself on that big knife over there. You have a perfectly good reason to bleed. So I don’t need to sew it up or stop the bleeding, do i?”

    Heh. “Well, of course your leg is broken–the impact of that car threw your body with such force that given the laws of physics, your leg could not help but snap under the pressure of landing. It’s a fine reaction. Wait, what do you mean, you want to walk again?”

  68. The prescription I can afford. I just haven’t been able to find a doctor who’ll charge me less than $300 for a visit without insurance. But then, I haven’t been looking all that hard lately.

    holy shit! now, my broke uninsured self really wants to go hug everyone at my doctors office, where a visit without any lab work is 80 dollars, always. i’m going to assume this must be one of the benefits of living in a rural area.

    you live in new york right? are there any county clinics or anything? i kno my county has a clinic that charges fees on a sliding scale based on your income. the wait to get in is very very time consuming, usually 3 hours or so before you can see someone, they do appointments but those have to be made usually a month or more in advance, for any sort of random illness you have to go as a walk in and just wait, but i also was only charged 15 dollars for the appointment cos i wasnt making much money at the time. and, their dental clinic saved my bottom front teeth from having to be pulled when i got the abcess from hell.

    and i will of course give a shout out here to the target (and walmart if you shop there) 4 dollar prescription programs. i always bring a print out of the target list to my doctor and ask if they can prescribe off the list for whatever i need, usually antibiotics.

  69. Oh look, another subject on which it’s safe to ignore what Elaine says.

    Brain damage? Stupidity? Interesting. Because once I went on paxil during my first semester of law school (which semester, by the way, included September 11, 2001, and my law school was across the river from the Pentagon, but don’t worry, I’m sure the reactions of my classmates were just caused by inherent hysteria and feeblemindedness), here’s what happened to me: I stopped having panic attacks at all hours of the day. Which meant I could start sleeping again without waking up at 3 am with my heart pounding out of my chest. Which meant I could actually eat a full meal instead of choking down an apple, and gain back the ridiculous 20 pounds that I lost when I stopped eating in the first place, because I can’t eat right if I’m not sleeping right. Which meant I was able to stop bursting into tears for no good reason. And all of that gave me the strength to concentrate on my studies, do my work, and pass my first semester of law school.

    After that, I graduated from my law school (not that it matters, but it’s a top-tier school), passed the hardest Bar exam in the country, and started practicing law.

    While taking paxil.

    Dude, if that’s your definition of stupidity – bring it on.

    If you don’t want to take psych meds, go with G-d, do what you want. I certainly don’t judge you for doing what works for you. In turn, I’d appreciate it if you would quit judging me, or anyone else for that matter, for doing what we know works for us when we confront our mental health issues.

  70. There are problems with how women’s depression has been treated, but being hostile against women with depression who find medication useful as if they’re colluding with big pharma and the patriarchy is so obviously not the way to discuss the issue.

    I’m not being hostile towards women who find medication useful. I was very clearly attacking big Pharma, not kactus or anyone else. If you found my comments offensive, I’m very sorry, but please reread them and try to give me the benefit of the doubt when you interpret my words, because I did not mean to hurt anyone.

    The only thing I have against kactus is that she called someone a jerk and attacked his beliefs and feelings. I don’t think he deserved that because a) he was sharing his own experiences and criticizing the doctor, not kactus and b) he was already in the minority and being attacked by other commenters so kactus didn’t need to bring more attention to him and any attacks on him.

    I hate antidepressants; not people who take them.

    Side note: they’re giving anti-depressants to dogs to “cure” them of separation anxiety and to zoo animals to help calm them. They “work.” That is, the pills help these animals cope with their very normal and natural reactions to their very unnatural situations. Dogs get separation anxiety because they’re pack animals, not playthings for humans to own and leave at home while they work. Zoo animals get anxious because, well, they’re zoo animals. They should be out in the wild. Just tossing that out there…

  71. phew. ok, so i just read through most of the other thread, and i was honestly amazed at hearing about anti-depressents making people feel good, cos as i said, when i was on zoloft i didnt feel good, i didnt feel anything, just numb. and while my talk therapy helps me alot, i still have all the symptoms of depression and anxiety from my ptsd and my generalized anxiety disorder that has progressed to the point of me being pretty much totally agoraphobic where i miss a lot of school and heavent seen most of my close friends in over a year. so now i really really want to kno what pills i should try. i was under the impression that all anti-depressents just made people numb which made the depression cease but in my case all the good feelings stopped too. if there are anti-depressents where you can still feel something i want in.

    so, any sugesstions on what i could try or what to talk to my doctor about would be very helpful.

  72. Elaine, this is getting very tiresome. Yes, I called Gregory a jerk because he was being a jerk. I’m about to call you a jerk, too, because you are digging yourself into the biggest jerk hole of the world trying to defend Gregory. What is it with you two anyway?

    He implied that doctors who prescribe pills are drug dealers. He implied that people who use those pills are drug addicts. He said flat out that people who use psychiatric medication are depending upon a crutch. Do you not see exactly how offensive this was to every single person on that thread who took a chance and admitted to their own depression and anxiety issues? And if somebody is being a jerk I will call hir that. Period.

    Be happy I didn’t use stronger words, because many of them are coming to mind right now.

  73. Jess, different varieties of anti-depressants work differently in different people (heh. different different different); one that works properly for you will not numb you at all. Paxil is supposed to be very good for both depression and anxiety disorders, but it is a second-generation SSRI rather than a third-generation one, so it has a higher incidence of side-effects. A lot of it is trial and error, unfortunately–you and your doctor keep trying until you find one that works for you. The only guide I know of is if a close relative has found a medication that works for him or her, there’s a good chance that it’ll work for you.

    It could be that SSRIs in general don’t work for you. In that case, you could try one of the recent drugs that work on the dopamine/norepinephrine system, like Wellbutrin or Cymbalta. (Wellbutrin, though, I’ve been told, can exacerbate anxiety/jitteriness, so that one’s probably not a good match.)

    The earlier kinds of anti-depressants, the MAOIs, can be very effective in people who have atypical depression (you sleep and eat a lot instead of barely being able to sleep or eat at all). There are difficulties with them, though. In pill form, they have bad interactions with many, many over-the-counter drugs, as well as with red wine, chocolate, salami, and other good things (my psychiatrist explained why to me recently, but I can’t remember–it has to do with the enzyme we have that allows us to digest slightly rotten meat). But they have recently developed an MAOI patch, which is specific enough that it avoids your stomach, and means that you can drink wine and eat chocolate.

    I am on Celexa (generic: citalopram; third-generation SSRI) and I was very, very lucky. It was the very first pill my psychiatrist tried, and it worked very well. But many people have to try two or three to find the right one. However you choose to go about it, Jess, I really hope you find the relief you need.

  74. I hate antidepressants; not people who take them.

    Glad to know you don’t hate me; you just hate the medications that make it possible for me be myself and live my life; you just claimed they damaged my brain; you just compared them to lobotomies and by extension, me to a person who’s been lobotomized; you just called me “passive.” I can’t imagine why those of us on meds got all upset at you.

    Man, I haven’t heard this “Love the sinner, hate the sin” stuff from a leftist before.

  75. kactus, you choose to interpret our words as hostile towards you personally or towards all people who medicate. We are not being hostile towards you. We shared our experiences with depression and medication and why we’re against anti-depressants. And doing so doesn’t make either of us jerks.

    You’re the one being so hostile to diverse opinions. Anti-depressants are controversial for a reason. Did you really expect to post

    “I’m glad to report that new doc is high cool. He willingly gave me happy pills, and that makes him A-OK in my book. Happy pills to help me sleep, happy pills to take away my anxiety, and happy pills to take away my sadness. Let’s hear it for pharmacology–it rocks!”

    and not receive any criticism? Did you really think everyone who has had depression themselves and had friends and family with depression thinks that pharmacology is the answer and the greatest thing ever? Do you really think that it’s OK to name-call people who disagree with you simply because they disagree?

    Gregory “implied that doctors who prescribe pills are drug dealers”. Yes, you’re right, he did. And that doesn’t make him a jerk. That makes him one of a growing number of people who are wary of pharmacology. “He implied that people who use those pills are drug addicts.” Yes, you’re right again. And plenty of evidence will show that many people have a chemical dependency on their psychiatric medications. That’s what addiction is, a dependency. It doesn’t mean the addict is a bad person or even that the thing they’re addicted to is bad, it means they have a dependency. People can be addicted to all kinds of things. “He said flat out that people who use psychiatric medication are depending upon a crutch.” Yes, again, I don’t see a problem with that statement unless you also think it’s offensive to call actual crutches crutches or to call wheelchairs or casts or stints or other medical devices names that describe what they do. There’s nothing wrong with calling anti-depressants “crutches”. It’s not offensive and it certainly doesn’t deserve a gang pile-up.

    You know what? I’m done with Feministe. No more threats of banning me or telling me I should be happy you’re not calling me names. You can take your happy pills and your narrow definition of feminism and shove it.

  76. oh good lord. Yes, Elaine, by all means take your toys and flounce home instead of being a woman and taking the fallout of your grossly patronizing generalizations. Yes, she said facetiously “woo, happy pills.” This after detailing the laundry-list of unpleasant side effects she was also dealing with. It’s pretty obvious that she was making a joke. Possibly not a very good one, but definitely a joke.

    I also want to see the research supporting your contention of “brain damage.” And please “It’s just like calling a wheelchair a wheelchair.” Are you serious? Do you have the same contempt in your tone for crutches and the people who use them, that they wouldn’t REALLY need them if they didn’t buy into the perception of their ‘illness?’ And again, is blood pressure medication a “crutch?” Is insulin a “crutch?” Or is secreting insufficient serotonin just a figment of those feeble minds who if they would just throw off their shackles of the patriarchy would be faith-healed? I’m sorry, Elaine, your reasoning smacks of the same “walk it off” attitude that kills people with depression every day. Overprescribed? Yes. So are antibiotics in this country but you’d be damn glad to get them if you were coughing up green slime or bleeding behind your eardrums. And you have NO WAY OF KNOWING, when you make those generalizations, how many of the people you’ve just blithely accused of being “addicts,” how many of them find those meds just as necessary–either like antibiotics, until their system has naturally rallied, or like type 1 diabetics, who will always need them to maintain equilibrium. I’m glad you can do it without. Undoubtedly, there are other people who could do it without if they received the proper support. But a lot of people? Never get that support, and a lot of other people can’t do it without meds even if they do.

    So by all means, go out and CREATE your utopia where nobody will need psychopharmaceutical intervention, and quit acting shocked that people are angry with you when you’re being as rude as the people who undoubtedly spout misinformed crap at you about how you can’t really be healthy as a vegan, and how much better you would feel and happier you’d be if you ate meat, and give people on psychiatric medication the same benefit of the doubt that they’re adults who can make a choice of what’s best for them, in their particular circumstances.

  77. oh for fuck’s sake. or, well, what Sister Ann said.

    signed, another “addict” who prefers her “addiction” to being being actually immobile from depression, thanks very much. ta ever so for saying it doesn’t make me a bad person, though, you know, because I was really worried about that.

    tell me something–oh, right, you’ve left. but well, I mean. As for actual crutches and wheelchairs: well, one, you’d be surprised at some of the assy things people say, or, well, maybe not; on the other hand, d’you think wheelchairs are “addicting” too? That the people who make ’em and sell ’em are like drug dealers (which of course has no negative connotations, “drug dealer,” no precious). Do you go around to people who thank god for modern technology for their wheelchairs or surgery or whatnot going, well it turned out -I- didn’t need that, therefore they’re controversial? Like, people should really just rise up, like Lazarus, and walk? Or?

  78. Man, I haven’t heard this “Love the sinner, hate the sin” stuff from a leftist before.

    New around here, are you?

    -waits eagerly for the next round of sex worker/elective surgery/transgender/high heels n makeup war, that and her next trip to the dentist anyway-

  79. p.s. I am already a “better” person, thank you, because I have heard this sort of argument approximately 8,000,000,000 times (just drink orange juice! say, have you ever considered more exercise! oh, snap out of it!) and I haven’t yet strangled ONE PERSON. even though, it would’ve been COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED. hey! maybe it’s my meds mellowing me out! Thank Big Pharma, by cracky.

  80. Yeah, it may be that psych drugs are overprescribed, but for a large number of people they actually work. Calling them addicts and their doctors pushers frames the discussion in a truly offensive way.

    Not that stigmatizing people with mental health problems is anything new.

  81. Holy crap, why did nobody tell me tickets had gone on sale for Scientology on Ice! I missed the whole thing!

    Look, I have had a lifetime battle with major depression, and I took pharmaceuticals for it for fifteen years, okay? I’m obviously not anti-medication. But I also had some pretty extreme side effects while taking them that long. Therefore I’m as conscious as anyone else is that we might want to make as many different treatment modalities for depression available and well-known as possible. Not everything is going to work for everybody all the time.

    But really, if you don’t know the difference between endogenous and exogenous depression — that is, depression that is largely uninfluenced by life circumstances and depression that is caused directly by them — then you really don’t know anything. Yeah, it could well be that a “better world” would result in less depression for many people, and that a lot of people are handed scrips for these drugs where they’re really not necessary. I’m sure that in my own particular case, having had a less traumatic childhood might have made a difference for me.

    But it’s equally true that before medication, I would cry buckets for days even when good things were happening, because I had a leak where all the good feelings were supposed to be held. Medication plugged the leak. If you don’t know what it’s like to want to kill yourself because someone looked at you funny on the bus, then you don’t know depression, not the way I knew it before I was ever treated.

  82. It’s your body. Use it to pose nude or get implants or hair highlights or smoke weed or get drunk or sunbathe or pierce it or get a C section or get an abortion or change genders or whatever. I do half that stuff myself.

    Hey Elaine, fuck you. being trans* isn’t a choice and fr many of us transition isn’t either.

    Clinical depression has fuckin little to do with the situation. Yeah, if you’re already depressed or tend to get depressed a bad situation may trigger or make your depression worse. But then so can a good situation or nothing external at all.
    Some of us do eat well, exercise, get sunlight, etc. Guess what stopped me? becoming depressed despite doing that.

    Because my sister’s 13 year old friend who has a decent life, few problems, is smart and capable (and treated as such by most folks), etc. totally has a reason to try to kill herself. She is [i]just like[/i] those POWs and zoo zebras and has totally normal reasons for being depressed and suicidal. No, going off her drugs at the behest of her psychiatrist and while receiving talk-therapy) totally didn’t cause her to slip into major depression again. She totally didn’t ignore all of her friends for months before deciding that everyone hates her and now she hates everyone (something that I’ve also done when really depressed). All she needs to do must just be getting more sun and eating more lentils!!!!

    Same with one of my friends; who when she stopped taking her meds she [i]just played WOW[/i]. NOTHING else– didn’t even eat or sleep or go to class. She was fine on meds, she missed some when she came to college and then she got manic and decided she didn’t need them, then she got depressed and wouldn’t take them. Fun times I’ll tell you, stealing her other pills and her knives so she couldn’t OD or slit her wrists.

    Eliane/Greg, have either of you even taken a psych class or even looked through a psych book/official website? Clinical depression is a fucking physical thing; not just “oh, I is sad nowz!”.

    PS: I call dibs on giving talk-therapy to the anacondas and the pythons!!! Sssarahasseeeithee!!

  83. Meowser, I can feel negetive emotions days, months, even years after they first occurred. Most of the time I can barely remmember/re-feel my positive emotions in the same day.

  84. Another person suffering from depression checking in. Mine is less severe, so I can actually combat it without prescriptions, but this is all chemically driven. Listening Elaine?

    Anti-depressants are controversial for a reason.

    Because they work for some, and not for others. THIS IS NOT A REASON TO ATTACK PEOPLE WHO POST IN FAVOR OF THEM. Simple logic would seem to allow people to understand this. Antidepressants do not work for me. Therapy does. AM I EVERY PERSON?! OF COURSE NOT. Therapy alone does not work for every person, and you are ludicrous to act as if someone is wrong for saying that the things that ave helped them are things they are unashamed of. You should be ashamed. For your needless and insipid attacks here. Not everyone is you. Not everyone has to answer to you.

  85. I think the problem Elaine is having is that she’s confused the colloquial, informal use of the word “depressed,: as in, you know, my cat died and I’m depressed about it, with actual clinical depression, which is something wrong with your brain that you can’t really fix by yourself, no matter how hard you think about it.

    Combined with the usual universalizing of one’s own experiences (and the demonizing of those that don’t fit that experience) that is a problem in the feminist blogosphere.

    You shouldn’t formulate a theory based on limited evidence and then reject/ignore/take your ball and go home about the evidence that doesn’t fit the theory you formulated. You should take new information, use it to learn how your original theory was flawed, and then adjust your theory accordingly.

  86. You know what? I’m done with Feministe. No more threats of banning me or telling me I should be happy you’re not calling me names. You can take your happy pills and your narrow definition of feminism and shove it.

    Huh. Must be Wednesday.

  89. Meowser, I can feel negetive emotions days, months, even years after they first occurred. Most of the time I can barely remmember/re-feel my positive emotions in the same day.

    Then I hereby dub thee “endogenous,” and bequeath you the magic beans!

    I think I cost myself unnecessary amounts of time in the bell jar by thinking it was “cheating” to take meds. Or that doing so would divorce me from my true emotions. I lost out on crucial years, years I could have spent building a career and a life for myself, trying to “talk it out” without drug therapy because I didn’t want to incur the disapproval of New Age types who had no idea what it was like to become completely unglued over the tiniest stressors every single day. (This was before there was Prozac; the drugs they prescribed back then, MAOIs and tricyclics, were pretty heavy-duty shit.) I’d probably have had to have my therapist move in with me and take over my life, Eugene Landy-style, in order for that approach to have done me any good.

    I don’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else. So I say, if you have something that works for you, keep doing it — unless and until it doesn’t work for you anymore.

  90. EG, thank you. that was really helpful. now, i just have to get on medicaid (uninsurable due to a pre-existing condition, my medical record is 3 inches thick) and hope that i can find a doctor who takes medicaid who will work with me on this.

  91. -waits eagerly for the next round of sex worker/elective surgery/transgender/high heels n makeup war, that and her next trip to the dentist anyway-

    Or the Great Fat Schism!

    I think I cost myself unnecessary amounts of time in the bell jar by thinking it was “cheating” to take meds.

    A lot of us do that because we fall for the line that we should just snap out of it, or get more exercise, or think of all the really depressed people in China.

  92. We shared our experiences with depression and medication and why we’re against anti-depressants. And doing so doesn’t make either of us jerks.

    Hey, if that’s a valid argument, let me change around a few of those words and create another valid argument:

    “We shared our experiences with women and women’s rights and why we’re against feminism. And doing so doesn’t make either of us jerks.”

    OR:

    “We shared our experiences with black people and why we’re against affirmative action. And doing so doesn’t make either of us jerks.”

    As a number of people have already mentioned, personal experience is utterly meaningless when it comes to discussing antidepressants if you haven’t experienced the chemical imbalance of clinical depression, in the same way that, for example, personal experience is utterly meaningless if you are, say, a middle class white man like myself and you want to understand the issues facing women of color. It’s shocking to me that some people on a feminist website don’t understand this.

  93. I dunno. Seems to me that if your problem is with Big Pharma you might could say a word about Big Pharma.

    Big Pharma does suck. But they make some hella useful products. The fact that they push these on people who don’t need them, or often make up syndromes to create demand so they can move product(*cough*erectiledysfunction*cough*) does not mean that the drug itself is bad (assuming it was properly tested), or that the people who are helped by it are weak, deluded, brain-damaged or what have you.

    And here’s another news flash: Yes, lifestyle can factor into clinical depression, in that it can exacerbate the symptoms. Case in point: a lot of depressed people self-medicate with alcohol, which is a depressant and just makes matters worse. And yet, when you’re in a pit of despair, you can’t really take those affirmative steps to kick the booze or eat better or get more exercise or daylight because the depression won’t let you. Lift the depression with medication, and you have a chance to make changes that might serve you better next time out.

  94. People like Elaine certainly depress me. /snark

    jessilikewhoa: I actually had the same numbing effect with Zoloft, but low and behold, since you and I are different people, that effect actually was helpful to me for a while. It helped me make progress in therapy, because I wasn’t so overwhelmed all the time. So I wish you good luck in your search for a medication that gives you the effects that you need and a doc who’ll work with you financially. (The doc part goes for you as well, zuzu.)

  95. Elaine: if you want to comment again here, fine, but do it under your own name, not some sockpuppet you made up.

  97. I don’t mean to tell you want to do with your body. I really don’t give a shit.

    “Nevertheless, I will spend quite a lot of words telling you exactly why I think what you in particular are doing to your body (about which I do not care, honest) is a terrible thing, and subtly implying that you are a moron for doing them. Although that doesn’t count unless I actually call you a moron in plain words. And calling you brain-damaged and lobotomised doesn’t count, because that’s medical and real people have those conditions and what are you, some kind of ableist?”

    Cough.

    It’s a terrible thing when people prefer to ignore the actual, real, honest experiences of human being who are sitting right there and sharing intimate things in the hope of educating people. But many feel it’s better to go entirely by theory and third-hand information that someone has written a book about than to actually consult the people whose lives they’re trying to save. By jingo, we’ll save them whether they like it or not!

    On another note, I was not always so accepting of Prozac and the like – my stepfather was on the drug about 15 years ago, and it didn’t do him so well at all – mentally, he became worse. I worried that that would happen to me if I was on the drug, so I spent a long time listening patiently to the people who told me I must just be premenstrual, or it’s just teenage hormones, or I should just try to not be such an annoying fuck, or whatever. When I was prescribed fluoxetine in 2005 after a particularly bad patch where I was finally accompanied to the doctor after freaking out at some people in the housing association where I lived at the time (I can’t even remember why, I think it was to do with the washing machines), I thought I’d take it for a month – as the doctor recommended – and if I noticed anything freaky, I could stop and tell the doctor it wasn’t going too well after all. But it turns out that the tight throat was the most prominent of the symptoms for me. I have been lucky, I know, but I can say I’ve been helped.

    The trouble is, I can write this big long screed about how I came to be taking dangerous chemicals and my own personal experiences, and some people will still carry on with the “just walk it off, drugs do more harm than good, you’re so selfish for thinking you deserve this when people are starving, get over yourself, there’s nothing wrong in your life”. It’s simply the case that some people cannot hear anything but their own voice and what’s going on in their own head. At least, so it seems to me, but I don’t know if I have a book written by a scientist to prove it.

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