#clinical depression
And by now you can only look at me with pity - not with love or friendship but just pity, like I’m something half-dead lying on the roadside and the kindest thing would be to put me out of my misery.
—Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You.
A conversation between Parker Palmer and the author, from Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippett
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I think a lot of people think that once you go to the doctor and get meds for depression and anxiety then that’s it. Or that you cannot question or tell the doctor stuff. But you can. When I told my doctor that the meds in the past that I took made me feel numb, which in turn made me want to kill myself, then she took steps to help me feel better about other kinds of meds completely outside that family of drugs that I had taken previously.
The doctor-patient relationship is a two way street. Yes, the doctor knows things, but you have to be able to communicate what the issues you have are, and sometimes you might even have to convince them there’s a real problem. On the other hand, sometimes the match-up between doctors and patients aren’t that great so it can also be good to find a new doctor.
Once I felt I could trust the doctor after they explained that it was different, I decided to try to take this new antidepressant medication. Of which took a process of months to determine if I needed more, then we discussed introducing a new medicine along with the current one, which is still a process I’m going through now. These kinds of things aren’t set in stone, and you have to be able to be flexible and commutative. Doctors don’t know everything, and they certainly don’t know how you actually feel unless you tell them. It’s important to communicate your concerns and report side effects that make you feel uncomfortable. Meds aren’t supposed to make you feel numb. They aren’t designed for that. So once she told me this, I felt better about trying new ones.
Whatever the case, if you’re not ready to take meds then don’t. Just know that’s an option if you want to take it. I was unmedicated for many years due to my trauma as a teen of being forced to take meds that made me feel bad or worse than I had already felt. So, I totally get it. Just try to take care of yourself. If you know something is wrong or are struggling, try to seek out help. Whoever that is, just try. If you ever need a person to talk to, my door is always open.
Friendly reminder that the reason you feel so much better is because of your meds, don’t stop taking them unless you talk to your doctor first, you really do need them, I promise.
Around June I stopped taking my eye medication because I hadn’t had a problem with my eyes in months. I got really lazy about doing it; then I stopped them altogether.
Turns out, the reason I stopped having problems with my eyes was because I was religiously taking my medication. Whodathunk. Now I have to work to get back to the place I was before I decided I was “better” (I wasn’t!).
If you thought this post was just about anti-depressants or lithium, it could be! For me, this post is about eyedrops, for you it might be about antibiotics, or it might be about zoloft. Whatever it is, please consider talking to your doctor before making a sudden shift to stop taking it. It’s not bad to be on medication. It’s not bad to need it.
…and on a related note, do not let anyone tell you that because you start feeling worse if you don’t take your medication, that means you’re “addicted”. That is not how addiction works.
Okay everyone reblog this version
Depressed person here. I went years without taking any medicine due to it literally being forced on me as a child and it making me suicidal and feeling nothing. I never realized that depression could literally make you feel like no one cared. It can even take away your feelings for other people. While I’m medicated now, I still have problems. I take my meds according to how they’re prescribed, but there are days it only goes so far.
Just cuz you’re on meds doesn’t mean everything is better either. It doesn’t mean all your problems are totally solved. There were so many times I thought all my problems were over only to realize that they’d only just begun, or I’d discover something new about myself.
Yes, you should take your medicine if you have been prescribed them and talk to your doctor about how you feel regularly. Just be careful about thinking because someone is on meds that they’ll stop being depressed or whatever. It can also take a long fucking time to figure out what meds might be good for you. But even then it might not last forever. That’s why keeping in good communication with your doctor is a good idea.
Also, yeh, it isn’t your fault if you need to be on meds. YOU ARE NOT A BAD SICK PERSON BECAUSE YOU’RE TAKING MEDICINE GET THAT OUTTA YOUR HEAD!!! (Sorry I went off lol)
People conflate depression with sadness a lot. It isn’t just sadness. It’s an inability to move, or do anything at all, even go to the bathroom when you know you have to. It’s a pressure in the forehead, an anxiety for no reason, it’s tired, it’s suicidal thoughts, it’s an inability to recognize people love you.
People just don’t get it, they can’t understand something that is completely out of your control, because they think you can just will yourself to do things. Well, not everyone can do that. Depression can take your will away. It can isolate you from everyone even if there’s a bunch of people in the room.
Often times the reason why people don’t reach out to others is for a fear of being made fun of, a burden, or basically lazy. There’s more to it than this, but it is one of the most difficult things a person can go through in my experience.
