It has come across to me that there are as many "cures" for depression as there are doctors, as there are sufferers.
Twice now I have been prescribed both anti-depressants and sedatives. Lets take these separately:
Sleeping pills
I have suffered with insomnia for as long as I've been alive. I hated having to go to bed as a kid. My parents would tell me that I would hang myself over my cot's bannisters trying to keep myself up. I had jobs, growing up that allowed this to not be an issue. Catering. But I subsequently went on to a normal 9-5:30 office job.
The sleeping pattern never left.
When I have been prescribed sleeping pills they have had the opposite effect. LIteral electrical-style jolts through my body and an increase in any sort of anxiety. I realised they weren't for me.
I have had sleeping pills that have worked but they have rendered me ineffective for the next 24 hours. The sleep is not natural and it is not a state that I want to go back to.
Antidepressants
If you have ever watched the film Donnie Darko you will understand this. My entire experience of any antidepressant drugs can be described as a comatose, soperific, drunken-focussed path you have to follow. You have a very specific purpose but no idea what it is. You feel as if you can finally deal with the world but only because your head is a little bit top-heavy and generally leading you in that direction.
I hated it. I couldn't deal with it. I preferred the depression to anythin that the pills were forcing me to feel. A couple of times the combination knocked me out and I slept for 6/7 hours but mostly did more harm than good.
I stopped taking all the pills and I sleep a liitle better now. I am not suggesting that this is the best thing for everyone, and I am certainly not a "new-age" guy who wants everyone to go natural. But there are alternatives.
This community is for people to talk and personally think that that is the best way to help us.
Medicine, unfortunately, also involves a lot of guess work as well as science. Not everybody will respond to sedatives and anti-depressants. There are people, just like you, who function better without medication. I know of another doctor who was on meds but took him/herself off it and was fine.
ReplyDeleteNot everybody can be like that. I, for one, have to keep myself on medication. Lately my psychiatrist tried to reduce my dosage but after that happened, I was immediately depressed and I had to self increase the dosage myself.
It's not that best system we have but it's the only system we know