Your opinions on Mental Illness

[StarSparkle]

BUT not everyone takes prozac. I DON'T take prozac - I'm supposed to take a cocktail of lithium, and three other drugs I don't remember the names of. I don't over emphasize my side effects, they are what they are. Its all or nothing for me, I either take them ALL or I take none. They all counter act each other, (well they're supposed to) but I still seem to be emotionless, cold hearted, and just a shell. Nothing affects me. My own grandfather died two years ago today when I was taking my cocktail of drugs, and I didn't even cry a single tear when that happened. I wanted to be sad, I wanted to cry and scream and curse the fact that I will never see him again, but I couldn't.

 

If you don't know what its like to be without emotion, don't preach about how they make you feel. Prozac is nothing compared to what some people have to take in order to have a stable personality. Right now I'm not drugged - I feel GREAT at the moment, but last night I didn't feel so great. I'd rather feel great most of the time and absolutely horrendous - so bad I don't want to get out of bed, so bad I'd rather die than open the curtains, than feel nothing. What kind of a life is it to not have any emotions? As I've said, when I was drugged I couldn't tell my mother I loved her. I couldn't tell my Grandma I was sorry Grandad died, because I didn't feel it. I'd rather feel my sorrow than live life through a veil.

 

I've tried a lot of drugs - and nothing works for me. They all make me feel the exact same way, and I am not willing to live my life like that just so as I don't become another statistic of a perfectly PHYSICALLY healthy person (but not mentally healthy in the least) sitting on their ass all day instead of working. In the state I'm in now, I would be missing half a year of work because of my state of mind.

 

I wasn't intending to preach at anyone - I'm sorry if that's how I've come over. I just do feel very strongly about this subject, and hate to think of people suffering needlessly with depression. Maybe that makes me come over a bit more vociferously that I intend to, and if that's the case, I do apologize.

 

I'm sure we're all on the same side here - it sounds like most of us on this thread have had problems with depression and/or other disorders, so we know what it's like to feel utterly hopeless, to feel dead inside. I personally suffered from clinical depression for around 15 years of my life, sometimes feeling a bit better, often feeling very much worse. Those years I regard as having been stolen from me by depression.

 

The only thing that has ever helped me has been Prozac - with it, I feel I am the person I was born to be, that I am myself. Before, I was just a body, a shell walking round going through the pretence of living.

 

ok, I'm a bit evangelical about Prozac, but so much of my life has been wasted that I don't want others to needlessly suffer in the same way.

 

I'm sorry if I've upset anyone - my only intention was to try to empower fellow sufferers from depression.

 

StarSparkle

[Darbees]

For me the problem is that prescribing meds is often the first thing the GP will do, without looking at the wider biopsychosocial context. Yes, meds do help certain people, but not universally or even particularly generally. They can help to ease symptoms for a while, and for some people that in its

Something we agree on at last! A lot of GPs are inclined to take the easy way out and prescribe anything on a "wait and see" or "trial and error" basis just to get the patient out of their surgery. That is about the worst thing they can possibly do when someone is going there looking for help who then comes out disappointed and will take anything. Some of the drugs which they casually prescribe have serious and severe side effects and the GPs do not tell the patient about them. A patient who is suffering from depression may be desperate for a quick fix to get them out of it but I would suggest that they check out what they are taking first. Withdrawal is a very unpleasant experience and can last a long time.

[purdyamos]

Please don't try to lecture me - I appreciate you are talking from a position of experience, but so am I.

 

I am not intending to minimise the sometimes-very-unpleasant side-effects of some medication, but I think these can be over-estimated to the extent that fears about side-effects can prevent people taking medication that could really help them. Especially as, certainly with regard to Prozac for example, those side-effects may well be only temporary, but the relief obtained from taking the drug is ongoing. As I understand it, individual people will react differently from others to the same medication - that is why it may be necessary to try a number of medications before an individual finds the one that is right for them.

 

Thankfully, I have no need to take and therefore have no experience of the strong medications you refer to, but I can assure you that Prozac certainly does NOT turn people into zombies by any means. That is just simply not true. If you have a brain-chemistry imbalance that requires you take Prozac for the rest of your life, Prozac GIVES YOU BACK your life, it doesn't take it away. Taking a pill every day of your life is such a small thing to have to do, in order to be able to LIVE that life. You are certainly not zombified - taking Prozac clears your thinking and allows you to be the person you were meant to be. That is what I truly believe, from my experiences. Prozac can literally allow a depression sufferer to be reborn.

 

I appreciate that in some cases with some drugs, the side-effects may be so bad as to make the patient stop taking them altogether. But certainly with regard to some SSRIs I do think the side-effects can be over-emphasised, to the extent that people are afraid to take drugs that would be helpful to them.

 

Just to qualify my postings - I am only talking about SSRIs with regard to what I've been saying about depression, as I have no experience of other types of medication.

 

StarSparkle

 

You cannot call yourself an expert and then generalise as you have about SSRIs if you only know about prozac. Seroxat is an SSRI, millions have been prescribed it long term and have had their lives destroyed BECAUSE IT TURNED THEM INTO ZOMBIES! I think the protocol now is that it mustn't be prescribed longer than six months.

 

I had the best part of a decade of my life wiped out because the 'experts' followed the recieved dogma that SSRIs have minimal side effects. I was blamed repeatedly for being a lazy greedy fat slob who made no effort and only had myself to blame for being a semi-comatose beached whale. The moment I stopped taking the tablets the weight fell off and my personality and vitality came roaring back. I'm still expected by some to be *grateful* that seroxat kept me *safe*. But the severe side effects that occur (often) with medications can ruin your quality of life just as much as the original condition can. As BobbyBunny and Donuticus both agree that it can be a question of swings and roundabouts.

 

I have found a lot of workers within psychiatry to be as callous and 'pull yourself together' as the more ignorant members of the public. And it's an ironic tragedy that many people get judged in person for being mentally ill, when the demeanour and behaviour that precipitates the judgement is caused by the medication.

 

EDIT - Just seen your last post Starsparkle. You didn't upset me or anything.

[donuticus]

I never mentioned Prozac and apologies to Starsparkle if he/she felt I was preaching that was certainly not my intent.

 

The side effects I speak of are what I deal with, obviously with varying degrees of severity. I was merely saying if you can deal without the medication then fantastic but dont think people take them as a magic pill to cure all ills. They dont and any time a long term course of medication is undertaken it must be thought about through both a positive and negative light.

 

Once again apologies to those who thought I was lecturing people.

 

With regards to other posters who speak of anti depressants being given out willie nilly, that maybe the case for some ssri's, but as a general rule lithium and other mood stabilisers usually need to be prescribed after a psychiatric consultation.

[Harleykim]

As a sufferer of Bi-Polar disorder - I don't really care what you call it, a lot of people don't even know what it is - but I agree that having a mental illness is just as hard, if not harder, than having a physical disease. I generally have two options - I can be medicated up to the nines, able to work, but not generally be THERE in a mental sense - when I'm medicated I'm not ME, I'm a drug - and live life 24/7/365, or I can NOT be medicated, be ME, act a bit weird sometimes, sleep 2 hours a night, be unable to work and have an unsteady mind but at least its ME, and not some drug thats talking for me.

 

Not many people understand what being medicated does to you. Half of my family actually say I should be medicated and a zombie just so I can work. If they'd experienced being drugs they wouldn't want to be drugged either.

 

There's definitely a limited understanding of mental illness, and people need to learn more. Just because I look fine in a physical sense, doesn't necessarily mean I am. The same applies for everyone.

 

I know exactly how you feel...

 

Medication makes me fine in a sense, but I'm not "here" It ain't me. I can't cry, or show my emotions. It feels as if I don't have any.

 

Where as not been on medication, I'm unstable, but I'm me...just me.

[StarSparkle]

You cannot call yourself an expert and then generalise as you have about SSRIs if you only know about prozac. Seroxat is an SSRI, millions have been prescribed it long term and have had their lives destroyed BECAUSE IT TURNED THEM INTO ZOMBIES! I think the protocol now is that it mustn't be prescribed longer than six months.

 

EDIT - Just seen your last post Starsparkle. You didn't upset me or anything.

 

I admit I was essentially talking about Prozac - I agree I should have made that clearer. Although I believe that the other SSRIs - EXCEPTING SEROXAT - are very similar to Prozac.

 

I understand that Seroxat is a VERY different proposition to Prozac, and that there have been horribly bad side-effects from taking it, and it does seem to be quite a nightmare drug. I was careful to try to refer to Prozac and 'some other SSRIs' in my postings, but I should have taken more care to specifically exclude Seroxat. But I was a little nervous over the issue of libel...

 

My experience with Prozac was that it turned me from being a zombie into a person who could actually start to live her life again. I'm not saying it's been easy or everything's been rosy since I taking Prozac, but it has made life worthwhile again after many, many years of 'living' in a very dark place. A place I would not wish on anyone.

 

I wanted to make the point clear that taking SSRIs in general does not mean at all that the person taking that medication becomes a zombie - it was the opposite for me. I appreciate that taking Seroxat is a different matter.

 

Sorry if I've unintentionally caused any confusion.

 

StarSparkle

[Heyesey]

I wanted to make the point clear that taking SSRIs in general does not mean at all that the person taking that medication becomes a zombie - it was the opposite for me.

 

Threein lies your problem. You have no right to be generalising from a single instance - yourself.

 

Then again, neither does anyone else in this thread.

[StarSparkle]

Threein lies your problem. You have no right to be generalising from a single instance - yourself.

 

Then again, neither does anyone else in this thread.

 

Well pardon me for trying to be of some help to others

 

As a matter of fact I'm not just generalising from my own experience - I have also read extensively on the subject over a period of quite some years, and I felt this thread was showing a rather one-sided view of taking medication. I was trying to illustrate that suffering side-effects from taking SSRIs are by no means certain, and you have to weigh that possibility up as against the life-transforming benefits drugs like Prozac can offer.

 

StarSparkle

[ladyB]

Please don't try to lecture me - I appreciate you are talking from a position of experience, but so am I.

 

I am not intending to minimise the sometimes-very-unpleasant side-effects of some medication, but I think these can be over-estimated to the extent that fears about side-effects can prevent people taking medication that could really help them.

 

sometimes very unpleasant...a bit of an understatement!!!!

 

I also do not want to minimise your problem but some of the side effects that antipsychotic medication gives you is terrible not just unpleasant and it is no suprise that many individuals choose not to take it....to be told you have to take meds the rest of your life is bad enough but to then be expected to live with the side effects of that drug is just plain cruel....

[Darbees]

Well pardon me for trying to be of some help to others

 

As a matter of fact I'm not just generalising from my own experience - I have also read extensively on the subject over a period of quite some years, and I felt this thread was showing a rather one-sided view of taking medication. I was trying to illustrate that suffering side-effects from taking SSRIs are by no means certain, and you have to weigh that possibility up as against the life-transforming benefits drugs like Prozac can offer.

 

StarSparkle

Prozac is the so called "wonder drug" because it is helpful to many, many people, there is no disputing that and it has minimal side effects, however it does not work for everyone and then people are given out drugs or cocktails of drugs which have all kinds of horrible side effects. By your own admission you don't know so much about these other drugs.....

Thankfully, I have no need to take and therefore have no experience of the strong medications you refer to, but I can assure you that Prozac certainly does NOT turn people into zombies by any means. That is just simply not true. If you have a brain-chemistry imbalance that requires you take Prozac for the rest of your life, Prozac GIVES YOU BACK your life, it doesn't take it away. Taking a pill every day of your life is such a small thing to have to do, in order to be able to LIVE that life. You are certainly not zombified - taking Prozac clears your thinking and allows you to be the person you were meant to be. That is what I truly believe, from my experiences. Prozac can literally allow a depression sufferer to be reborn.

Effectively you are almost doing what the "pull yourself together" brigade do by saying that Prozac worked for you so it is ok for everyone else.

 

If you haven't already done so you may care to read up a little on Venlafaxine/Effexor which is casually prescribed by GPs to people who have not responded to Prozac. http://www.join-the-fun.com/effexor-withdrawal.html