Ending a Lifetime of Depression

Coming off of antidepressants for the first time in a decade

Photo by lilartsy on Unsplash

Hello friends,

When I was around fourteen, I asked my dad if I could see a therapist. Technically, I saw my first therapist when I was eight or nine. My parents were splitting up and wanted to make sure my brother and I were okay. Besides being confused about why I was there, I don't remember much from those sessions. So I was nervous about trying therapy for what was essentially the first time. I wish I’d been more prepared.

That first doctor—Dr. Shinitzky—set me on a path I would not venture off of until now. In an alternate reality, he helped me adjust to life as a teenager and gave me all the tools I needed to be a successful adult. In this reality, he told me he only prescribed medication in extreme cases. I took this to mean I had no real mental health struggles. When I told him I had a difficult time making friends at my new high school, he told me he wouldn’t want to be friends with me either if he were my age. This was not the type of therapy I needed, but I didn’t know I had options. I saw him for a few more weeks, crying after almost every session. I didn’t see another therapist until I was twenty-one.

At that time, I was in my senior year of college. I won’t say it was all terrible. By then, I’d had plenty of adventures and happy times. But the bad times were bad. Use any metaphor you want—a dark pit, an underwater cave, a well of despair, a muffled nightmare realm. The point is, I wanted to die. Or rather, I wanted not to be alive anymore. Life was too hard. Dr. Shinitzky made me believe I was like everyone else. Everyone else just had better coping mechanisms.

I Googled “depression symptoms.” Nearly all of them applied to me, and this was a revelation. Shinitzky was wrong. I was messed up after all! I found a therapist, one who actually helped me. She gave me tools to deal with my anxiety and depression, but mostly she gave me medication. She told me my brain chemistry was a little off, and antidepressants would help correct that. Zoloft sent me to the emergency room at four in the morning, but Celexa worked. I felt like I’d woken up in the sunshine after years of sleep-walking through the mud. I felt incredible. I felt human.

A couple of years later, the depression returned. For the first time in my life, I genuinely contemplated ending it. I had a panic attack at work, and on my way home, as I sobbed and screamed, I nearly swerved into oncoming traffic. Two thoughts kept me in the right lane. The first was that I might hurt someone else on the road. I didn’t want to do that. The second was that I might not die. That scared me. I didn’t want to end up worse off than I was at that moment. So I kept driving.

Shortly after that incident, I found a new therapist who put me on a new antidepressant. After a bit of trial and error, we found an effective pill. The cycle began again. I lived through a couple of years of sunshine before the mud sucked me back into its clutches. So I found a new therapist who put me on a new antidepressant, which brings us to today.

Over the years, I worried I would run out of meds to try. I knew by now that my body adjusted to them after a while, which would send my brain chemistry back into a spiral. I feared the day would come when there was nothing left to try. My brain would languish as it struggled to regulate itself, as I knew it could not properly do. Then I read an article that told me that was probably not true. There is no real evidence to support the theory that a chemical imbalance causes depression.

I needed time to come to terms with this declaration. I read more about the recent study done to disprove this long-held belief. I opened a million tabs explaining that we don’t actually know how antidepressants work. My head spun as I tried to come to terms with the fact that what I believed about myself for the past decade was basically a lie. Then I read an article by Rachel Aviv about the challenge of going off psychiatric drugs. It blew my mind. I highly recommend taking the time to read it, especially if you take antidepressants. It will change your worldview.

For a decade, I believed I had no real power over my mental health. Sure, I went to therapy. And the things I learned there helped. But I had depression, and it would never truly go away. I leaned on the crutch of unbalanced brain chemistry. I locked myself into the antidepressant cycle, not realizing I had the key to leaving that room whenever I wanted. But now, I learned that antidepressants might, in fact, cause chronic depression. The inevitable misery returning was actually medication withdrawal. I didn’t need to do this to myself anymore.

Last week, I met with a new psychiatrist. We devised a plan to taper off Prozac, my current safety blanket/straitjacket. Neither of us was in a rush, knowing that coming off these drugs can be excruciating, especially for someone who’s taken them for nearly ten years. At one point, my doctor asked me what I do. I told her I’m a writer, a poet. “Ohhh,” she breathed as she put her hand to her heart. “A poet, wow. Thank you for letting me take care of you.” I felt genuinely cared for at that moment. I also believed, for the first time in a long time, that I could take control.

Until next time,
Yardena

Weekend Potpourri

• Currently listening to:

• We’re trying something new (or maybe something old?) over at the Soaring Twenties Social Club. I hope you’ll join us.

• “Pre-colonial Africa” is an idea that never existed

• Haley Nahman with some interesting thoughts on the “friend recession.” Shoutout to my hairdresser Jess on this one. After six years of knowing each other in a business capacity, we hung out for the first time as friends. It was great.