- When I was a teenager I had health insurance under my mother because of her job. I went to a famiy doctor who was a generally nice asian female doctor. I told her I wanted anti-depressants. She asked me if I had broken up with a boyfriend and I told her "NO." She didn't appear to like that answer and she continued the appointment as if I had some "typical teenage" problem. As though whatever was the issue would somehow go away. Well it never did go away. I left the appointment without medication which was probably a good thing. In some ways I do not think the doctor was wrong about being careful about giving out pills but then again I never got any help. I also didn't know that I had an anxiety issue which is now often said to go along with depression and who knows maybe GAD is a symptom of having a personality disorder.
- A couple weeks later I managed to get myself into some sort of specialist who was some young woman that was in the mental health side of the healthcare system. I didn't talk to her for too long. I don't remember the conversation. I don't think she even asked me about myself or what was going on in my life. They didn't ask and to be fair I was not good at expressing myself and even I DID NOT UNDERSTAND what was going on in my life. They gave me Prozac. I may have taken it for a few months perhaps 2-5. I am not really sure. I was young and dutifully believed in authority of healthcare. I believed doctors and medicine has validity. I didn't think about the money pharmaceutical companies make. Nothing changed though. The people near me, my mother, her boyfriend, my brother, none of them said anything about it one way or the other. I do not know from an outsider perspective if anything had changed. Sometimes on meds I assume that people do not know if they are acting differently.
All of this was a long time ago. Some of it I do not recall the details.
In my early 20's I ended up trying Paxil and something else, Zoloft. I'm not sure what these things were doing to me but I actually think one of them was making me worse. I had some roommates who were all in accounting school. I didn't say anything to them at all about being on medication why would I. So I do not really know what their opinion was likely they thought I was crazy in general.
I guess there was a time period where maybe I took nothing.
At some point down the line I had made appointments with a couple different therapists both of them I would say were rather bored with me and I only saw them a handful of times. One was covered from the insurance I had with my job and one I paid out of pocket. The lady counselor I saw through my job was really very little help at all and some of the stuff I talked with her about had never resolved or gotten better in fact some of the stuff I've discussed with her has just gotten worse over the years. I'm not sure what the point was in talking to her other than it was her income process. For me it was not helpful.
There was a woman I was paying out of pocket and some of the stuff I brought up to her she didn't take it too seriously and these things are still impacting my life. She did mention that anxiety is connected with depression. I think it may have been the first time I had ever heard of generalized anxiety. She really didn't describe too many details to me. I ended up eventually making a phone appointment somehow with a psychiatrist somewhere and I think they gave me an official diagnoses over the phone of an anxiety disorder.. then from there I think I later got a family doctor prescribing me Wellbutrin. Not sure anymore how the long string of events went together.
Took wellbutrin for 2-4 years I don't recall really. Something snapped with me eventually and I was fed up with the idea that there was ONLY or merely something wrong with my "BRAIN CHEMISTRY" I quit taking those pills and I fell into a deep depression that wose worse than ever before. Wellbutrin is actually a dangerous medication. I would not say it's addictive because it doesn't make a person "feel good" but there is a real withdrawal. Sometime during that time I believe I started wondering quite a lot about my personal history, family dynamics stuff. It was around the time I ended up finding this board and writing here and started wondering about personality disorder stuff. In any case one day I had said to myself that I just wanted to be myself even if that meant I was "lower functioning" or something. I started to wonder why the pills were doing so little for me personally and if they were merely performance enhancement drugs. The pills were not making me FEEL better. I was getting more stuff done. Perhaps I do have some kind of focus and motivation issue related to anxiety. Frankly I wish someone could really make these things more clear to patients. After many years it is all speculation about what is wrong with a person.
Long time went by being off of anything. I did my last job fine with no pills it seems.
I haven't seen a doctor in about a year now. The last time I went to a free clinic for some pain in my side and an asthma prescription. Somehow the subject of depression or whatever came up maybe they just screen for that now. I don't recall. I filled out their stupid paper form. The form basically tells them I am depressed and I feel like shit. So they screened and got the form but there is no place it goes from there. They collected what feels to me like personal information but for really no benefit to me. There are not really any counselors in that office and I didn't really feel like talking to someone anyhow. When the doctor said the form obviously meant I was depressed or whatever he said something like "you can talk to a nurse, she isn't a counselor but you could talk to her if it helps to talk to someone." I didn't want to stay any longer in the office. I had to leave to get home anyhow.
I really didn't feel comfortable talking to a stranger. What am I going to say to them? What am I going to say to a stranger in 15-20 minutes about my life, it all of a sudden feels self-centered and very awkward. What does that person even really know or understand. The person is likely also just another person in the community. What would she have ultimately said "hope things get better?" Likely she would have also assumed that whatever I was experiencing would eventually resolve on it's own.
Pills and words really don't do shyt. The evidence is here I am still repeating myself.
Things will definitely work out on their own. They always do like people say. But lots of times things don't work out very WELL. Then years and years go by where things are not very "well" and that is just how it is.
There appears to be an illusion of solution. An illusion of services.
So I really hate it when people ignorantly give me unsolicited advice to "talk to a therapist" or whatever. I have. My narcissistic mother also likes to tell me to see a therapist as if I am mentally ill. It's great when assholes insinuate you are mentally ill.
For that matter always trying to give unwanted advice is a form of control. It's just more controlling behavior.
