I get that they work and are quite helpful to many people, but I will never take another SSRI in my life again. I hate them things. They make me feel dead. It’s like tricking my mind into pretending everything is okay and jolly by becoming stupid and unaware to the reality of the overall situation. If I feel depressed, it’s for a reason, and the solution is to address that reason, not pretend it doesn’t exist or it’s fine. It’s like if you are in a situation where your leg is broken and can’t heal, would you rather take an opiate to numb the pain or change the situation so your leg can heal? I guess my issue wasn’t necessarily a serotonin imbalance 🤷
I still have prominent scars from the time SSRI withdrawal triggered psychosis and I went apeshit on myself with a knife. absolutely never again
That sucksssss. I remember feeling the zaps for a few nights and feeling entirely disconnected from reality. I couldn’t tell if I was awake or in a dream. I would close my eyes and fantasize about whatever I could to pretend I was somewhere else to ride it out. Then when at work during the day, I was pretending that I wasn’t exhausted from severe lack of sleep. I would have to go to the bathroom to take breaks and recover a little and convince myself everything was okay. I even asked someone I got a long with to make sure I didn’t look weird or did anything stupid.
Seems like the withdrawal hit you a lot harder than me, so I can’t even imagine how difficult that was to endure.
I know exactly what you mean about the zaps and feeling disconnected. did you get the thing where you could hear your eyeballs moving? I thought I was actually losing it but after looking it up it seems to be a common SSRI withdrawal thing. aside from the zaps and, y’know, stabbing myself, that was the most maddening part of it for me.
If your depression is for a reason, then yeah, probably not chemicals.
Mine is treatment resistant major depression and very much chemicals. Took me until I was in my midthirties to find the solution. There’s hope even for people with bad chemistry!
That first bit is totally untrue. Do you think our grief is not chemical? That we can’t have neural rewiring occur following the loss of a loved one? Don’t dichotomize experience and neurochemistry. They’re two sides of the same coin.
This is some ableist shit right here. Some of us have real debilitating disabilities. It’s like saying a broken leg is the same thing as being permanently in a wheelchair.
Don’t reframe my statement addressing someone’s specific situation into a blanket comment. That person said their depression had a reason (that could be addressed, and once addressed, the depression was resolved.)
Speaking to that instance, it probably wasn’t chemical, because if it was, it wouldn’t have resolved with action taken independent of chemical treatment, but only with a combination.
I am not the person to try and strawman about depression.