Something We Need To Be Talking About--Part Three

Please visit my first two posts on this topic to get caught up!  You can find the first post here and the second post here!

**The following opinions are mine.  I'm not a doctor.  Please seek professional medical advice if you are feeling depressed or are having other issues.

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People have a lot of opinions about anti-depressants.  These are mine.

Anti-depressants are handed out like candy from doctors.  These are powerful pills that mess with your brain chemistry.  They can have serious side-effects.  Too many doctors prescribe them without following up with their patients and too many patients request them without actually finding out what's wrong with them.  

There's a lot more to taking an anti-depressant than just popping a pill.  And this is the part that makes me dislike the whole industry.  If you are given an anti-depressant, you need to be following up with the doctor (preferably a psychiatrist) and communicating about side-effects, how you are feeling, etc.  You may have to be on a different medicine.  There are a lot out there and sometimes it can take quite a few times to find that right one.  For me it took 6 tries.  You also have to determine the correct dosage that you need.  A lower dosage of one medication may not address the specific problems that you are having.  For example, 20 mg of Prozac will not affect OCD in a patient.  60-80 mg are more in that range.  But building up to that dosage takes time and observation from your doctor. 

Anti-depressants do not make your troubles disappear.  They do not make the world better.  If you are on the right one, it will help you cope better with the cards you've been dealt.  You will still have bad days, because you are human.  That commercial with the sad cloud?  It's a lie that it goes away.  The sad cloud is still there, but now you can also see the pretty flowers, the kind people, the person in the mirror. You just don't live in the sad cloud anymore.  

I went to a psychiatrist in December of 2011.  She, upon first meeting me, determined I was depressed and wanted to prescribe me anti-depressants.  I said no and I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head.  I explained to her that it was important to me to find the real problem first, determine its severity, and then think about treatment.  Hello?  Why was I the one that had to say this?  Because healthcare is like a factory.  It is a system that is over-strained and understaffed. 

And you know what?  You can say no to a doctor.  Just plain old no.  YOU have to be an advocate for yourself.  YOU have to determine your path of treatment.  A doctor wants to treat the problem, but not neccesarily in a way that helps you overcome it. 

I met with the psychiatrist several more times, still saying no to her Rx pushing.  We lined up some testing--which consisted of 2-3 hours of me answering questions, looking at pictures and telling the story of what I saw, looking at Rorschach ink-blots, and filling out quizzes. 

After the test results revealed I had major depression and GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) then I allowed treatment to start.  I wasn't super excited about the medication.  I didn't feel all that great.  After a few months I stopped taking it. 

All hell broke loose in my life.

I won't go into this part as much, because it's painful for me, something I'd like to keep to myself. I will say I found myself in my car parked in the middle of Chicago crying hysterically, hyperventilating, and calling 911 twice.  Because there is a God in heaven, both of my 911 calls failed--the operators couldn't hear me--what are the odds of that??

At that point it was obvious I was going to lose it all if things didn't change. I was going to lose everything. 

Somehow, Brendan and I stayed together by a thread.  Then we moved, again.

In our new town I made appointments right away for a pschyistrist.  After I talked to her for a while about my previous diagnosis and history with medications, she put me on a new medication.  I love it.  LOVE it. I meet with  her regularly to discuss how I'm feeling and to determine my dosage needs. She also referred me to a therapist (who happened to be a Christian!) who I've been meeting with on a weekly/bi-weekly basis. 

The medicine has been wonderful for me.  It's taken several months to get it to a therapeutic level.  It has no side-effects that I've noticed.  It's allowed me to feel even, calm, put things into proper perspective--to feel like me, without all the crazy.

The therapy has helped so much, too.  Talking through problems, feelings, emotions and learning to reframe them has begun to change my way of thinking.

Brendan and I are kind of on our 2nd honeymoon right  now.  Things are SO MUCH better between us.  In all areas *wink wink* (gag, sorry, that was TMI). 

So, that's my story.  A long road, but finally I feel like I've arrived at a place where I can be the best me possible: spiritually, psychically, as a wife, as a mother, as a friend.

In the first installment of this little series, I said that we had to have the courage to come forward and talk about this--this being mental illness--which even my therapist admitted still holds a stigma.  Do you want to take a step and share your own struggles in a guest post? 

If so, email me at ourcasualfriday@yahoo.com.  I'd love to share your story with others so that we can all begin to see that struggling with these issues is the norm for so many of us.

xo