Mental Health Week Edition- My Experience with Antidepressants and the Stigma Against It

My Experience with Antidepressants and the Stigma Against It

TW: mentions of suicide

There is no person in the country who has not taken a pill before. There exist pills of every size, shape, color, and magnitude, all doing something different to the human body with a scroll of legal precautions and side-effect lists. They can combat a myriad of physical plights that would take hours of home-remedies before their conception; Tylenol, for instance, is a pill people take commonly for minor pain and headaches. This kind of little capsule is considered socially-acceptable, but there exists one with a unique function that we often have trouble addressing without some discomfort: antidepressants. Antidepressants are a form of mental health treatment that can assist in a wide array of mood symptoms, and is most commonly treated for depression. The world is not yet settled with the pervasive issue of mental health decline – about 125 Americans commited suicide everyday in 2020, but you can find anyone on the street with the opinion that mental health is no big deal. Consequently, psychologists far and wide are scrambling for solutions to this mental health crisis. Widening the accessibility to treatment is a paramount step, and providing proper antidepressants can critically improve a person’s day-to-day functioning and mood. So what is the problem? Stigma and physiological complications. As a person suffering from depression, I have faced these issues across my lifetime, and I encourage others to persist in receiving treatment regardless of the misinformation.

I remember the first time a psychiatrist advised me to take antidepressants, feeling oddly excited to try something that could really work. Handing the prescription to my parents, I saw disdain fall upon their faces. They failed to understand why anyone would put a thirteen year old on medication and refused to put me on anything. I told them I wanted to give it a chance, but the response was that there had to be something else that could work. People often overestimate their ability to be mentally healthy, and seeking any form of treatment can socioculturally imply weakness. Therapy is one thing, but drugs? Suffice to say it was an open-and-shut case with my parents. It took a years-long string of outbursts and episodes for them to change their mind; The pressure became too heavy after I was clearly not receptive to therapy, so they had a long conversation with a psychiatrist before putting me on a very low dosage of Zoloft. I could finally feel a breath of fresh air, but the feeling was temporary as I unknowingly entered a new field of complications.

I knew I couldn’t anticipate too much from medication – The psychiatrist explained in simple terms that it takes a long time for there to be any real chemical difference in the brain, and even then, Zoloft would not for sure be my match made in heaven. This tends to be a huge roadblock for people. How many costly psychiatrist sessions and months or years of suffering can people afford until they find the perfect antidepressant? Even I had some anxiety about starting medication, despite my hope for it. I was nervous about needing medication for the rest of my life, but the psychiatrist explained that typically, when symptoms naturally start to recede with the combination of therapy and medication, you can eventually taper off of it. This certainly comforted me, so I started right away. It took me some time to realize Zoloft was not the right match, even after increasing the dosage. My parents found this to be a conclusive flaw in my argument, and I had to stop taking medication for a year or two. After an ex-boyfriend blindly suggested that I may have had Bipolar disorder, I consulted the psychiatrist to see if I could get any medication to help with my mood swings. Turns out I was just a regular teenage girl with no Bipolar, but unexpectedly, the medication they put me on is what I am still taking today.

I have been taking 50 milligrams of fluvoxamine (luvox) everyday for the past five years without side effects, and while I don’t feel noticeably happy while on it, I sure as shit feel bad when I’m off it. This is what usually gets people to draw conclusions about dependence on antidepressants – My experience might tell people that antidepressants give you extreme withdrawal. What I feel, however, is that stopping my medication would send me right back to where I was when I never took them. The progressive improvement in mental health was almost completely thanks to luvox, but that can be hard to recognize over a span of years. The only reason I can make that conclusion is because I took a long break from luvox after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it raised absolute hell for me for the ensuing months. In conjunction with the necessary yet unhealthy state of isolation I was in, not taking my meds was the worst decision I have ever made. The only reason I stopped was due to complications with scheduling a new telehealth appointment with the psychiatrist, and I simply did not make further attempts at scheduling. It is indicative of the state I was in without luvox that I only reached out for a refill after an aborted attempt, or a suicide attempt I stopped myself from committing, and I hated waiting those four-to-six weeks waiting for the boost in serotonin.

Antidepressants begin a long path for anyone taking them, but it is important to remind yourself that you’re taking these pills for a reason. We can hope that complications like side effects and waiting those 4-6 weeks will dissipate in the coming decades; Nevertheless, no matter how many meds fail, you must not give up on yourself. Ignore the preconceptions of the word “drug” – think of it as necessary rather than addictive. For myself, I am confident that someday I will no longer need luvox to feel okay. Once I find the perfect combination of treatment, I will fulfill the tapering-off procedure the psychiatrist explained to me years ago with ease. It has and will be a long path to mental healing, but my experience with antidepressants taught me that everything in life is a matter of trial and error.