To peeps who've ever been on anti-depressants before.

... Have you ever had that urge to suddenly "go off" them? If so, how do you grapple with it, stay on the plan you've been prescribed? If not, what keeps you confident and happy with your current state using them?

(I'm talking about those people who have found something that actually seems to work for them. If it's a pill that causes stupid side-effects and isn't curbing your symptoms effectively, that makes the cynicism a little more valid.)

I've used my personal poor performance at the Kendo nationals last Saturday as a trigger to go cold turkey, as well as earlier heavy musings with personal relationships in the weeks prior. I'm at a weird junction now, trying figure out whether to continue or go back on - and how to construct my mindset in either case.


Likesay … If you decide to go off them, is that a sign that you're trying to take a more active approach to combating your own depression? Or are you "giving up" on your prospects of getting better? If you stay on them, how do you fight the feeling that they're pointless / not enough when you do get down even with their help - or that you're not trying hard enough? How optimistic are you about eventually having to wean off them, if you can?

Perhaps most critically … Are you yourself only when on these drugs - are you only the happy, fully-functional you with them to hold you up? Or are "you" really the you who falls apart without them - the you which you want to fix without hiding your darkest depths under any kind of "mask"?

... I know I'm perhaps being pointlessly philosophical about it. "Take the drugs you fool!" maybe is the simplest answer.

But in my various dabblings with undergraduate Psychology, I do know this: A person's mental attitude can have a MARKED influence on the ultimate outcome of their condition, whether or not the ACTUAL treatment was successful." Case point epileptics and pre-operative mood before lobectomies … *cuts rant short*

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For any of you interested in my writing, this whole thing about pills and happiness is going to hopefully end up in a planned novel of mine. Mixed in with some crazy shit about a totalitarian regime in a dystopian reconstructed future, a segregated tower with floors testing different dimensions of human tolerance / suffering, a parallel world where everyone is female and compatible and gender divides mean fuck all, a collective resistance movement butting against reformists and apologists for a system that preserves the "natural and holy order of the world' …

So like … I have a personal as well as artistic interest in this topics. Depression seems to affect a marked number of people very dear to me too, so it's not just out of a concern for myself either. ~
(I'm actually very bad at caring much for myself, as certain close friends know well.)


Here's hoping y'all are well-ish okay and not dabbling crazily with chemical divorce like I am. I'd love to hear personal stories on your own dealings with this. <=]

<3

- D.