As someone who must take a combination of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds to control the uncontrollable in my body, I refuse to consider myself a drug addict.
And I find myself, once again, wondering why there is such stigma in needing to take these drugs.When I saw the EP-award winning article on being a 21st century drug addict, my heart sank a little. Not because I don't have sympathy for anyone who has to take the meds, but because it seems we cannot take these drugs without there being a sense of shame that comes attached to them.
What makes it worse, I think, is that many people still believe that anxiety, depression, bi-polar, and other mood disorders are "all in your head," (excuse the pun) and that somehow, you can either think your way or alternative medicine your way out of the problems.
If only it were so.
I have no doubt that people mean well, but I have been taking various antidepressants--finally finding Cymbalta about six years ago--and Ativan or Klonopin for nearly as long.
Without these medicines, I would be dead.
I have suffered panic attacks since I was a child. I remember being nine, and being so overwhelmed by the sensations that my body was under attack, that spiders were under my skin, that I wouldn't be able to catch my breath, that each night, alone in my room, I fantasized the dozens of ways that I could kill myself.
My parents had no idea what I was going through, and assumed I would outgrow it. That I just needed to "get over" whatever it was I was going through at school, and I would be better.
And I was, for a couple of years. But at age 13, 15, 19, 22, I had periods of such intense anxiety that all of the suicidal feelings came back.
I didn't really want to kill myself. I wanted the pain to stop. I wanted to stop feeling as if I was about to get hit by a Mack truck.
I remember that, unable to figure out any other way to cope, I would walk or run for miles. Running and running until I had exhausted myself. Sleeping to escape the feelings. Jolting awake as the next bolt of adrenaline went coursing through my system, and then starting the whole cycle again.
Things were relatively quiet for a few years. My next spate of panic attacks began a few years into my marriage. Their constant companion was a bone-numbing depression that allowed me to function, but which took all the joy out of my life. Literally. Nothing could penetrate the fog of Eeyore-like dis-ease I felt.
In my late thirties, things came to a head. I had fire ants in my blood stream. I had crying jags. I threw up constantly as food refused to stay in a stomach that was churning out of control. I began to lose weight--17 pounds in four weeks. And I could not stop thinking of ways to kill myself.
I went to see a psychiatrist.
It took a while to find the right drugs for my system, but Cymbalta, which controls both anxiety and depression, and Ativan, which helps me sleep and avoid the bolting awake in the middle of the night with a panic attack, have made my life relatively sane for the past several years.
I have also accepted that (as I tried in the past), if I go off the medication because I'm afraid I'm addicted, or I feel better, my symptoms will return Oh, not immediately. Not like going through withdrawal. But rather, as my brain chemistry returns to its usual fucked-up patterns, the depression and anxiety will creep back into my life.
I have an illness. A chronic, life-long illness. I no longer feel ashamed to tell people that I take antidepressants. I no longer hide the fact that depression and anxiety robbed me of some of my younger years. I wonder sometimes what I might have accomplished if, at 22, I had not been crippled by depression when certain opportunities arose and I was too sick to take them.
I know now that I feel like "myself." It's not that I'm happy all the time, and antidepressants have not saved me from having to go through tough emotional times. Normal tough emotional times, like people dying, or losing things that are important to me.
What antidepressants have done for me is to bring my brain chemistry to a level that makes me feel as if I can function every day without fear that I'm going to set off a panic attack. (And if you have never had a true panic attack, count yourself lucky.)
I am not an addict. I take medication to control a chronic disease. I would do the same if my thyroid didn't work, or my pancreas didn't work, or my heart didn't work. And no one would try to tell me that I could just will myself out of this.
As it turns out, I exercise every day. I practice deep breathing and mindfulness. I watch what I eat and drink. I make sure I get enough sleep. I'm in excellent health (except for migraines).
I don't sit home and sit on my couch thinking "woe is me." I'm writing. I'm working. I'm happy.
The alternative is suicidal ideation and a fear that at any moment, I'm going to be debilitated by symptoms out of control.
Don't call me an addict.
Call me lucky.
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Thank you for writing this so honestly and openly. I hope many people read it, not just those of us in the choir. ~r
Bless you for this.
r.
diagnosis that could have made her life easier, brighter.... she displayed every symptom of bipolar disease. Nothing more than a physical illness - never acknowledged or treated. As an adult my heart breaks for the endless difficulties she faced with no support or understanding. Even from her daughter. Be nice to you. Be pleased that you have sought out and achieved the treatment for a physical illness. You are not an addict. You are a woman who found the treatment to adjust her brain chemistry to normal. Or for what passes as normal these days. . This information is sweet for me, to know that an illness of this sort is treatable , finally. Blessings to you. My Mother, a complicated, brilliant woman, would have understood you. Hell, she would have been proud for you. I am sure your family is quite grateful for your personal courage.
Lezlie
Depression is truly a different bag of cats as it were. I have suffered from this all of my life and without treatment I dissolved into a jumble of nerves and sadness that often propelled a desire to just die to end the misery. Still, I encounter the people who do not understand that there is a physical cause for it. Some refuse to believe it. Without the meds for anxiety and depression I would likely be dead.
Thank you for such a powerful and needed post. The message you've articulated here will help many who have suffered with both pain and stigma more than you may ever know.
There's truth in the maxim that authors are present in most of what they write. The courage and integrity which motivates so much of your writing lives within this piece.
Rated and appreciated.
Our brains are complicated organs. I've studied and rewired mine through daily meditation over a couple decades, and cannot begin to describe the difference that single practice has made. I've also watched students suffering from deep depression emerge into light with therapy and medication. Self care is up the individual. The worst possible choice is to do nothing, to be that tough independent I've got this bub kind of person. So much of life is suffering to begin with, why not whittle off the suffering that you can.
I do take the meds because they increase my quality of life tremendously, but do I really need them? I've spent the last several months trying to get fit, hoping a better overall health picture will "cure" me. So far it hasn't. I will always feel a little guilty taking mental meds mostly because I know they are over-prescribed and so often used as a crutch for people who just don't want to do the hard work on themselves. Am I one of those? As long as I take the meds I will never know.
Ignorance is hard to cure, so is stupidity. Unfortunately a lot of ignorant stupid people make ridiculous statements about what is a real disease. If I had a dollar for every family member of patients that said they need to just snap out of it, or I dont want them taking mind altering drugs, I would be a millionaire.
The joy that returns to a life plaqued by chemical imbalance is a miracle of our modern times. I swear some folks would prefer to return to the dark ages than have a loved one have a chance at life.
Mind body and spirit must maintain balance to be healthy. If a daily pill is needed to keep that balance, then so be it.
I think there's a stigma attached to the word addiction that needs to be lost in some cases. Not every addiction is a bad thing, and in cases like this where it saves lives, it's definitely a good thing.
THE CONSTANT ASSAULT ON PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS IS ONLY A SIGN ON THE FALSE STIGMA THAT STILL CLINGS TO MENTAL ILLNESS. WHY NOT ATTACK HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE MEDS, OR LIPITOR?
I joked in a most insensitive way in my egregious post about ,oh what was it, uh, “hating my sisters”, yes, about being an addict to psych drugs, but that was my usual hyperbole fuelled by diet coke. I do not at all feel that way. Gabapentin, an off label mood stabilizer for my bipolar, has probably saved my life these 10 yrs of being properly medicated for bipolar 2. I was only diagnosed at age 33. You can, or perhaps you can’t, imagine how much of a mess I made of my life in my 20’s and 30’s, bounced between immobilizing depression and semi-delusional mania.
I take 6 meds. I take a clonopin when my heart is racing 20 yards ahead of my brain. I take paxil and wellbutrin to get that sluggish brain up to snuff, get that serotonin flowing. Also the other chemicals. For some reason my neural configuration is, well, off. I admit it proudly. I am bi, I say, hi! No, not that kinda bi. Actually, dipolar means the same as bipolar. So I am di. Whatever. I am ill.
I prefer not to call it an illness, just for semantics’ sake. I call it a disorder. Whatever. It is lifelong, and if not treated it will utterly destroy me in one day’s time, I know.
Terrific post.
james
For those of us who are relatively high functioning without the meds, is it so wrong to ask the soul searching questions? Meds make life much easier for many of us, but is there another way to cope without them? Isn't it at least possible that doctors are too quick to prescribe a problem away? Clearly the growing trend we're discussing here has at least as much to do with convenience for patients/doctors and profits for Pharma as anything else. Shouldn't that concern us? Yes, take the meds if you need them, but we should be careful establishing need. That's all I'm saying
I could say that I am addicted to indoor plumbing, but that would strike most people as nonsense. Perhaps I would say that I prefer it or couldn't see living without it. The later meaning that I couldn't see myself wanting or choosing to live without it.
My only point is that part of the the rationale of this post is a reaction to sloppy, imprecise use of language.
Just saying.
Call me lucky.
Amen, and amen. I have friends and family for whom psych meds have been a very real lifesaver. Lucky, indeed.
Now that I am older and wiser I understand that simply because I have not experienced certain problems does not mean they do not exist. I still don't know anyone with such problems although Tampa is a center for pain medication "Pill Mills".
Take 'em if you need 'em. I take 7 pills a day for various ailments. No reason mine should be more acceptable than yours.
:-) R
Addiction is marked by a lot of things. And, to me, there's a difference between a physical dependence on a medication and an addiction--which is compulsive behaviour combined with a physical craving and is much more complicated than simply needing to take a med to stay healthy.
I also agree that people who take pain meds have been unfairly characterized. Last night, debilitated by cluster headaches, I went to the ER to get a shot of toradol, and the triage nurse intimated that she thought I was engaging in "drug-seeking" behaviour. Given that my pulse rate and my blood pressure were sky high--clear indications of the level of pain I was experiencing--it took a lot of calm on my part not to tell her to go fuck herself.
Today, I feel great. And I haven't taken any pain meds. If I were an addict, I would have eaten the whole bottle between last night and this morning.
I really am encouraged by people coming forward and talking about their antidepressants. We really do need to lift the stigma for getting help with what some people simply see as "the blues," but which for some of us is a matter of life and death.
I can't imagine what horrors were bestowed on people for millennium due to a lack of understanding that and even if there was an empathetic perception, any ability to heal it. I know from personal experience and observation of people close to me, how many people have resorted to self-medication of addictive, destructive and grossly inaccurate in their effects, substances, both legal and illegal. How many issues of health impairment, death and damage to others has that resulted in?
As with most issues which tax the capacity of humans to allow for any perception of that in others which is different, or might be interpreted as "weak" (and thus a threat to the herd) mental illness will have to endure the inadequacies of human adaptation as much as anything has in the struggle to reach a place of rational understanding and efficacious treatment.
I've seen the tragic results when those who adhere to the macho bullshit of "toughing it out" cause others to not have been provided with the help they needed (help those who did that to them, needed as well). I've heard lines like, "It doesn't matter if you get your drugs from a psychiatrist, you're still an addict." I know just how stupid, stupid can be, and sadly, stupid frequently rules and destroys a lot of people's lives.
Thank science for the development of brain scans which provide physical evidence of how brains function differently and the development of medications which can compensate for that. And please, do not fly fearfully in the face of ignorance when some asshole says something to you about "toughing it out" or "meditating to calm yourself down". Yes, many other things can help and one should entertain them, from meditation to exercise to cognitive therapy.
But when you need to have the intervention of medication to compensate for structural or chemical brain functions which are screwing up your life and tormenting you, DO NOT allow some ignoramus or fear of being labeled interfere with reclaiming your life!
"Call me lucky." Fuck yeah.
that said, i have a slightly different take on the addict label. i see it as a term to help those fortunate souls who aren't dependent on them understand that i *need* them, that this isn't some phase, and no, i don't need to "ween myself off of them" as one misguided friend told me once.
i certainly understand your point and don't disagree. i just see it as an opportunity to educate.
here's my pet peeve on the topic: people who think that antidepressants "make" me happy. i know some people have had the experience of having their emotions dulled; i am not one of those. i try to explain that taking a pill doesn't make me happy, it allows me the opportunity to be happy.
anyway,
bon chance
It's just that simple. It's funny how that sums up what has been written in in volumes of exquisitely wrought, glorious prose (Noonday Demon, Darkness Visible, etc.).
Thank you.
You make me want to try cymbalta. I thougth that it didn't work. Thanks for the tip.
http://crazymeds.us/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
Crazy Meds: The Good, The Bad, and The Funny of Neuropsychopharmacology
A brilliant and charming hub for people with disorders and those suffering to find the right meds and testimonials on the meds that worked and OH SO VERY did not.
I have had one all-out panic attack in my life, or at least what I felt must be one, turned out in my favor that it was based in low potassium (what the docs told me, I have no clue myself). I can at least relate after a fashion to what it must be like to be under constant threat of such a thing - and those who've not had such an experience should thank their lucky stars ; I know what it feels like but I literally can not imagine trying to live with it.
So I say viva la medicine!
Rated for we need to dump a *lot* of prejudices/preconceived notions.
I hope this doesn't come across as critical of you. That isn't my intent.
My issue was to break the stigma that "addiction" doesn't necessarily mean you're in the street trying to score, just that there's something you need to function daily and you'll need for a long period of time.
I don't know if I hadn't made that clear previously, but that's all I was trying to point out: how strange it is to wake up one day and realize you're an 'addict.'
The over prescription of all kinds of drugs when they aren't going to help have made the pendulum swing the other way. There was a time when everyone had therapy and for some people there were no childhood or adult problems, it was brain chemistry. Now everyone is treated as if it's brain chemistry and behavioral therapy is out of fashion. Everyone has grief, everyone has stress, if a person has a reason to be stressed or grieve then drugs don't change anything. It's the same with trauma like PTSD, drugs don't change normal responses to abnormal situations.
I think the fact that so many who don't need it are medicated, instead of learning what's wrong and how to change our responses, that it's assumed drugs don't work on anyone. The reality is they don't work if that's not the problem. Not everyone is identical, doctors noticed men and women having different anatomy, perhaps some day psychiatry will notice not all humans are wired the same. May it be soon. I think of the 40 years I wasted not knowing what was wrong with me and taking drugs that did nothing or made me worse. I refuse to feel ashamed that I have PTSD and attachment disorder, it's my life and I'll get well if I want, no one else has a say in it.
I'm grateful that last year I finally figured it out and I too have started to get well. Never stop doing what works, I won't. You are very lucky. You are alive.
Websters definition of courageous: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.
I'd say you're doing a good job in all departments.
It's that connotation of being crazy that adjoins the subject of mental illness. Public awareness, education and understanding of mental illness seems to be growing, albeit at a frustratingly slow pace. Here's to hoping that one day soon, crazy will no longer tag right behind mental illness.
Lee--I think your post is courageous. I just don't want you to ever feel shame that you have to take drugs to correct whatever chemical imbalance causes your mood disorder.
The guys I met from the methadone clinic feared kicking in jail more than death. My father chose to die rather than go to the hospital after being nearly beaten to death - he knew that he would die if he couldn't have a drink.
How ever we choose to manage our "issues" is up to each of us. The stats show what the stats show. What ever trips your trigger (or keeps your trigger from tripping) is up to you. Call it your mother's little helper, a disease, or addiciton - It is your right, as it was my fathers, and my buddies from the clinic who choose to stay on government subsidized dope forever. What is dependency? What is addiciton? Rationalization? Delusion? What can't we convince ourselves of ? God bless us, every one!
I guess technically she and I are both dependent on our drugs, but they're for maintenance, not pleasure. We're lucky, too.
r.
Psych meds aren't for everyone. But, I've seen how they can change lives. Thank you for letting us into your life to see how they have helped you.
I cannot BELIEVE, in the 21st century, that you would feel you had to explain why you wouldn't apologize.