Antidepressants work – but we need to talk, too

The results of a comprehensive, six-year study confirmed last week what I’ve known a long time: antidepressants work. I know this because half the people I know are on them – and that’s only the half I know about. Antidepressants saved my life, they tell me, and I believe them. I don’t say: “The only thing you’ve swallowed is propaganda, mate, straight from Big Pharma’s chalky teat.” I would have to be a maniac to do that. And I’m not a maniac. At least, not in that way.

I’ve been on antidepressants at various points in my life. And I’ve always been one of the 80% who come off them within a month, looking for another way. I quickly tire of the tweaking of drugs and dosages required to find the appropriate prescription. I freak out at the initial side-effects – the flaccidness in my brain, the lack of ideas in my underpants. More than that, I’ve always had been uncomfortable accepting there is something medically wrong with me.

To some extent, I stand by that. Our social structures perpetuate inequality, our media feeds feelings of inferiority, while our politics is an accelerated zoetrope of horror. I feel unnerved when I meet someone who isn’t depressed. What’s wrong with you, I want to ask. Still, while it’s not wrong to feel viscerally offended by many aspects of the modern world, when the strength of those feelings stops you living your life, it’s not a solution, either.


Source: theguardian