Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Thinking

So, Goody (I would totally make her name into a link if I knew how), a most prolific blogger has often waxed on the state of mental health care in the United States. I have learned quite a bit that frightens me about the way things are down south, and I thought I would share some of my own experiences and thoughts here.

I was diagnosed with depression a few years ago, when I was quite young. I clung to this diagnosis, it made me special, and it explained why nothing was my fault. I was quite pleased to know that I, like many other people out there, had something wrong with me. Now I know that I probably was not depressed, I was a teenager, I was lazy, and I wanted an excuse. Anyways, I ended up moving away before they could prescribe me medications, but any time I ran into trouble, I comforted myself with the knowledge that "It's not my fault, I'm mentally ill." A couple of years ago, when I was about 24, I went to my doctor and complained that I had a headache, and was tired. He asked me a couple of questions (Do you sometimes feel like you can't accomplish things? Are you often tired? Do you cry sometimes?), and diagnosed me with depression again, and prescribed Effexor. No, he didn't think that perhaps I was a little stressed out, as I had recently moved to a different city, and started a new job. He didn't ask if I had someone to talk too, nope, just prescribed the drugs, and sent me on my way.

So, I started to take the effexor. Yikes. That was a trip. The only way I can describe the first two weeks of taking that stuff was that I had stepped sideways. It was like I was totally out of sync with the rest of the world, I didn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I was constantly jittering. Eventually these side effects faded, but if I missed a pill by even an hour, I was heaving my guts up over the porcelain throne. Then one day, after about 2 years of taking the stuff, I decided I didn't want too. I still feel the withdrawal effects, though they are tolerable now. I really thought I was going insane, it was like someone was electrocuting my poor brain, my skin crawled constantly, and I had fainting spells. I actually went to my doctor and told him I thought I may be addicted to the drugs, and he said "No no, Effexor isn't addictive, although it does have some mild withdrawal side effects at times." Oh My God! How can something not be addictive, but have such terrible withdrawal symptoms that after a week, you want to take a whole bottle to make it stop.

After the wee fuss-pot was born, I had problems again. It was well known by my health care practitioners that I had problems with depression in the past, so they were watching me and counting the days till I cracked. I admit that I went a little crazy after Mary was born, but it turned out that I was able to work through it by altering my behavior, eating, and getting out of the house...Of course those things didn't happen till after I was prescribed two different antidepressants. According to Goody, if I were in the USA, they could have forcibly medicated me, or even worse, locked me up and sent Social Workers to watch Mary. It kind of blows me away.

One last thought, apparently they are starting to diagnose men with Post-Partum Depression. Um. Can men actually be post-partum without some sort of surgery?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A number of years ago, I was diagnosed with depression. And I don't argue with the diagnosis: at the time I was weeping all the time, I had terrible mood swings, it was affecting my work and my friendships.

But I do argue with the 'cure'. I was put on Paxil, and I also had a miserable time. It didn't help the crying or my work; it didn't help how unhappy I felt. All it meant was that I felt equally bad all the time, instead of up and down.

After nearly a year, I went off the pills, cold turkey, without talking to my doctor, and had terrible withdrawal symptoms. I was feverish, nauseous, dizzy - so sick I didn't even notice I had the flu two weeks later.

I finally went to my doctor, and she naturally told me that Paxil wasn't addictive so it wasn't withdrawal. And after that point, any time I went to her, she would try to get me back on the pills. Which would make me cry. Which would give her more ammunition.

I switched doctors, joined a choir, started exercising more regularly and going outside more, and voila! problem basically solved.

I think depression exists; I just think that the 'hard' cure (sunlight, activity, social interaction) is a hell of a lot more effective than anything chemical.

So what I'm trying to say it, I completely agree, and bravo!

-Cori

Anonymous said...

Depression, Bipolar Disorder, ADD and ADHD, and a few other psychiatric "disorders" all fall into a deplorable category of non-proven "diseases".

ALL proven neurological diseases in existance are characterized by either a) a detectable chemical imbalance or b) CLEARLY identifiable symptomology. Since NONE of these so-called diseases can be tested for chemically, the diagnoses always rest upon point b. Tests have shown that in the vast majority of cases of the above mentioned "disease states", diagnosis will vary drastically from health professional to health professional... which means that the symptomology is NOT clearly identifiable.

The fact of the matter is that psychiatrists have invented "diseases" to represent normal human behaviours that are distasteful to us. When one has been stressed, has no friends to talk to, feels trapped, one feels sad. But we don't want to feel sad... so something must be wrong with us. When our children are difficult to control and must be taught to behave, we find ourselves too lazy or too overwhelmed to take them to task, and therefore something must be wrong with them. And the response is always the same; the bread-and-butter of the medical community, drugs.

I'm not saying that there are NO justifications for using drugs to control mental problems. I'm just saying that the combination of a) a society of people that do not want to actually deal with their problems, b) a medical profession that is trained to see diseases where there are anything remotely resembling a symptom, and c) a big-business attitude towards drugs and treatments, results in a very dangerous place.

Doctors are NOT infallible. Don't let them trick you into believing that they are.

Ok, sorry. Done ranting now.

Anonymous said...

Thanks. I appreciate you giving this topic a wider audience and am so sorry you had to suffer through Effexor withdrawl (and yes, gosh, what do you know, those darn drugs were addictive after all).

I should have mentioned a few decent resources in that post;

http://www.quitpaxil.info/
(You can get information about addiction and withdrawl as well as support forums).

http://www.ssricitizen.org/
(more on the dangers of seretonin drugs)

http://mindfreedom.org/
(Activism and information from psychiatric survivors).

And some (darkly) comic relief for survivors;
http://www.webspawner.com/users/glaxo/index.html

Thanks again for spreading the word.

Kugel said...

Excuse me, "Anne R. Key", but do you really think men get yeast infections and breast cancer because they don't want to feel "left out"?
The first one is caused by bacteria and the second is caused by a virus. I dare you to go up to a man who has suffered from either condition and tell them that they "just wanted attention". You have an appalling lack of sensitivity.

And apparently you are under the mistaken impression that male bellydancers are something new. Uh, no. They've been around for centuries in the middle east. Just because Western society perceives bellydancing as a female-only activity doesn't mean that male bellydancers just recently sprang up out of nowhere. I have two males friends who are middle eastern belly dancers and they tell me it is a very old tradition in their country.