Wednesday, 5th March 2025 @~P1
[This message has been conducted and written directly into this archive, but in response (as a retrospective) to a conversation had earlier with a friend, in the real world.]
I did.
I wished only to put across the idea that antidepressants really can help some people through when they need it most. You were making statements that ‘antidepressants make people more depressed’ and that they are actually ‘unhealthy for you’.
While I agreed (and continue to agree) that this can be the case for some people, I wished only in this statement of mine to shed light on the real positive differences that these things can make.
Antidepressants helped tide my mind over while I was to configure it for myself. They’ve helped me tame my mind just enough to maintain just enough hope to get in there for myself and address the root problem.
Antidepressants are just a bandage, if even that, and should not be treated nor considered as a crutch. For me, they have been a tool I’ve been able to use to make picking at my own mind for myself easier; it’s been sort of a tin opener that’s let me gain a greater access to how my mind works and operates.
All of the work that ultimately could’ve possibly saved me from living a life of not living properly came from me. Sure, there were parties that helped me along the way, but the main power through the entire war, among all the allied forces we had at our disposal, was my very human drive to move forward. My antidepressants solely helped me feel my way into a state where I could reconnect just enough with that drive while I fostered a deeper connection with it myself, perhaps independently of them.
As I said earlier, antidepressants are a bandage, a plaster, tape on a duct. They’re not a fix, a solution, a resolution, a resolve for one’s problems. They’re a temporary measure, in my opinion, and should strictly be employed as such in all reasonable, typical circumstances.
That said, though, I don’t believe this to have been a problem for me, since this is exactly how they have been treated. They’ve been little but a gateway for me to adopt just a slightly more positive outlook while I solidify my own thoughts, beliefs and views about the world that extend far enough beyond ‘I don’t care and just want the pain to end at any reasonable cost’.
To be quite frank? I was pretty terrified of taking medications.
Admittedly, I may not have been quite so anxious as my mother was; that said, I was in the midst of the repercussions of having not been helped properly yet, so I suppose it was natural I was going to be, at least to some degree, desparate for any sort of release, regardless of nature, which I suppose is why so many find themselves suicidal.
I just felt scared of letting these ‘chemicals’ into my body. I didn’t know what they were, what they did, or why they were to be there, just that I felt like they seemed ‘artificial’ or like an ‘easy way out’. None of this was really the case, which I’ll get onto soon.
I had already become accustomed to taking my ADHD medications (which I understand to be quite a bit less controversial) by the time we were trialing my SSRIs, so I was admittedly less shaken than I could’ve been. However, trying out antidepressants for the very first time was possibly even more mind-numbingly frightening than my ADHD meds ever were.
What I think helped me was learning more about how these kinds of medications work.
A big paranoia and fear of mine was the impression that happiness I garnered while on SSRIs ‘wasn’t truly mine’ or ‘wasn’t true happiness’.
I was petrified that any emotions I would feel would be artificial, pretend, as if taking drugs or alcohol recreationally. I was frightened that this’d be proven to me should I ever put them down, as all the progress I would’ve thought I was making would vanish in front of me.