Is anybody here on anti-depressants?

After trying to battle with depression for a year, I've just now gotten an appointment with my doctor to see about me getting medication. I want to ask how medication has helped you and what can I expect? A lot of people have told me it just makes you numb to everything which I'm pretty fearful of. I just want be able to start enjoying life again and get over this nasty hurdle in my life.

I have a casual subscription to alcohol.

Usually works.

Ate said:

I want to ask how medication has helped you and what can I expect? A lot of people have told me it just makes you numb to everything which I'm pretty fearful of. I just want be able to start enjoying life again and get over this nasty hurdle in my life.

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Anti-depressants are horrible... FOR ME... They may work for you and people really believe in them... but not me! Because I earned VA (federal) healthcare I have been quite the guinea pig for seeing what works for PTSD (basically post-war syndrome). For about 3 years I was on anti-depressants and they had little or no effect on me at all. I was definitely feeling less attached to my wife, which was bad, and suicide began to feel like a more acceptable option when I would think about it - it seemed almost compassionate to me when I was on anti-depressants. What ended up happening to me was I tried to drink myself to death and I blacked out about a block away from my house in front of a bank (I live in Los Angeles)... When I woke up I was locked in a VA mental hospital/cage in West LA where all my rights were stripped and I felt like I was imprisoned. After I convinced a panel of doctors with clipboards that I was not going to hurt myself or others, I had to wait about 3 days in limbo before they let me go.

When I got home I stopped taking the anti-depressants cold turkey and within 6 hours or so I began to get horrible withdrawal symptoms that nobody should ever have to go through. It felt like I was constantly falling over even when laying down, I had these intense electrical pulses going through my eyes and brain, and I had ringing in my ears that would fade in and out - all of that was happening within 30 second bursts one after another - until I dosed again. This lasted about 3 straight weeks and I finally had enough so I took more of the medicine to make it stop.

I gave it one more shot and made it through the withdrawals and off the meds by diluting the medication into a quarter cup of water that I left in the fridge. I took one of those liquid baby droppers and sucked up about halfway into the syringe and used that to stop the symptoms. Gradually I filled the syringe with less and less amount of the solution. One day I woke up and had no symptoms so I threw the medicine out and never looked back. It seems to take about 3 weeks to get off this stuff though so be prepared for that! Most people can't take time off work to deal with withdrawals so intense as these are and that's probably where all the suicide horror stories come into play.

Other things that have worked for me:

- Cannabis (small dose at day)
- Alcohol (small dose at night)
- Breathing exercises
- A therapist
- Meditation
- Hypnotherapy
- Exposing myself to the public in small increments
- Just driving around with no particular place to go ~~

If you want to talk about depression and what you're going through, please feel free to do so here. Nobody is going to judge you and if anything negative happens, it will actually help you learn to let things go. I noticed when I was extremely depressed a lot of stuff was going on in my head or I really let external things bug me, like what people say or write online. But then I realized that I am in control of myself and that nobody "makes" me feel anything, only I allow myself to feel bad - or good!

Best luck to you if I don't see you around! I would highly recommend you ask your doctor person to keep you on a very low dose for as long as possible. Don't let them keep on jacking up the dose on you! It's not one of those things where more dose = more relief! It's a strange, strange drug!

A lot of people are medication negative. Don't let them scare you. For me, antidepressants have had side effects I wasn't prepared to cope with. My first antidepressant experience was with Zoloft, and that made me sleep all the time. My second experience was with Prozac (Fluxotine) and that made me listless.

1) I couldnt allow myself to sleep all the time
2) Being listless was totally unacceptable for me

Both of these things hindered my work progress.

It took a month off of the Fluxotine for my personality to come back as my brain re-adjusted.

Of course, now I self-medicate with caffeine pills and as you can see the posters who have psoted so far self medicate as well.

i've been chronically depressed for over ten years. i've always been afraid of taking an anti-depressant, so i always tried to find healthy and natural outlets. just a few years ago, i started taking st. john's wort and it works well for me. i take six pills in the morning and i'm good for the whole day. the thing that sucks is that it takes a couple of hours to take effect, so if i wake up in a bad mood, i'll usually be that way all morning and usually until after lunch time.

I take anti-depressant medication, and it does not make me numb. It makes me want to live, and it gives me the motivation to do things. Depending on the medication, it can take a few days to two weeks or so to work and may have to be adjusted, but once you are steady on the one that is right and the correct dosage for you, you will be happy you made the decision to go to a Doctor and seek help in that way.

I tried the alcohol and illegal drug thing a long time ago to get rid of depression and anxiety--I ended up much later in a Rehab. Alcohol is a depressant, and using alcohol and/or drugs to cover up depression will just waste valuable time--maybe many years of your life. Also, think about overdoses, getting arrested for possession, or DUI's. No good can come from trying to treat depression that way.

Yes, I take Risperdal.

Ate said:

After trying to battle with depression for a year, I've just now gotten an appointment with my doctor to see about me getting medication. I want to ask how medication has helped you and what can I expect? A lot of people have told me it just makes you numb to everything which I'm pretty fearful of. I just want be able to start enjoying life again and get over this nasty hurdle in my life.

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The OP had questions.

- Has it helped you?
- What can I expect?

I was on amitryptiline (sorry about spelling) for many years and they helped me to sleep. They didn't particularly help with the depression. I came off them a year ago and haven't really slept properly since.