Originally Posted by Esther Greenwood

(i tried to PM you this, SynthethicalY, but your inbox is apparently full..)

Umm, hi. I'm on medications for mental problems (depression and other stuff) but I also have therapy every week. Plus, I go to the gym and eat really healthily. I stopped smoking or drinking alcohol about two years ago and I don't do recreational drugs anymore. I read quite a lot of self-help books, I try and be honest and talk to people (I didn't before, this does help). I make sure I get out in the fresh air everyday, I read a lot about Buddhism and I go to meditation sessions. I've tried lots of "alternative therapies", I do charity work... etc, etc. Lots of other stuff.

I'm only saying this because I don't think ONE thing will help. I think this is actually from one of the self-help books I read, but here: try and think of each positive thing you do to help yourself get better as 1%. Like if you go to therapy, improve your diet, get exercise, be more honest with people, smile at yourself in the mirror, take your meds, meditate, start a diary, drink more water, clean up your surroundings.. that's 10%, yknow? You're 10% better. And it's actually not too hard to come up with 100 positive things you can do to help yourself.

I don't have answers really, just suggestions based on my experiences.

Oh, the only thing I'd really say is don't listen to people who warn you off taking any medications without really knowing your situation. And vice versa (don't listen to people who try to convince you to take medications without really knowing your situation.) Both sides are (at best) annoying and strike me as thoughtless.

Originally Posted by Cash Cow

I started to get depressed an hour ago. And started crying. God I feel stupid, saying this.

Originally Posted by Everyneurotic

anyway, hang in there man...oh and drink juice, it's good and good for you, man-juice my current favorite. juice makes things better.

Originally Posted by Everyneurotic

you can clearly see on my post that i said man-ape as in juice made of manberrie plus ape.

you trying to have sex my goat? that'll cost you $5

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

:D...

Originally Posted by Everyneurotic

that's really mature.

ps: did you get that thing i sent you?

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

have a laff man. i just woke up in a goofy mood.

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

anti-depressants eat your soul. seriously, i know like eight people taking lexapro or zoloft or prozac and none of them have any personality.

Originally Posted by Katy

I think depression is the thing that eats the soul.

(Wolf Eyes next album title? "The Thing That Eats The Soul"..)

one of the only things i remember thinking clearly when i was really a mess was "it's like a cancer. like an alien in me, eating my soul."

My personality when i'm in a really bad patch consists of next-to-nothing. My personality when I'm taking my meds properly and doing all the things I'm supposed to do (and going through a good patch) is as close-to-normal as I get.

Maybe the people you know shouldn't be on the meds they're on. Or maybe they didn't have any personalities to begin with.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

speaking of zoloft, which i used to call "vitamin Z"--

i loved the thing because after months & months of long faces i suddenly one day had this manic smile on my face. it was funny because i had nothing to smile about but there it was.

the other lovely thing about it was that because the thing somewhat supresses the sexual response, i got ENDLESS BONERS which were, ah, hard to kill. without the need for tantric rituals it was possible to go on for hours. oh that was fun.

anyway eventually some other brain chemicals must have started to kick in because i started to have the symptoms of overdose & i was removed of it.
oh what was my point?

let's avoid generalizations with this topic. what works for one person doesn't work for another. i think katy makes a very good case for meds when needed and as needed. in any case you have to be a proactive patient & report your changes faithfully to the prescribing entities. just cos we all have pill-popper friends who are fucked up it doesnt mean the meds are bad per se.

Originally Posted by Cantankerous

i see medication as sort of a last resort.

Originally Posted by Katy

Yeah, so do I, really. I don't particularly like taking what I take, but the reason I do take my meds now is because of the experience I had last year when I decided to not take anything at all. I just stopped one day without telling anyone. I decided that if I just ate properly and went to the gym a lot I'd be fine. I did everything right. I was as healthy as could be and I was going to therapy. But i was also lying to my doctors and my family and friends, pretending to take my meds and just storing them under my bed. And over the course of weeks and months I got worse and worse until i ended up in the hospital almost as bad as I'd been at my very worst. I had hundreds of pills and capsules stashed under my bed by the time i finally admitted what I'd been doing... and by that point that was a kind of dangerous stash to have. And I HATED the fact that I hadn't been able to "cure myself". It was really hard to accept that it hadn't worked, despite all my efforts. It didn't make sense. It still doesn't make sense. But that's mental illness I suppose. It's unfair and doesn't make sense.

So now I take them. And things are a bit better, not great, but not awful. Mostly manageable. the drugs are "I gotta do what I gotta do".. and all that.