I’m coming out of the medicine cabinet. Yep, I am on an antidepressant. Celexa, specifically. Just started a week ago. Not for depression, but anxiety (related). You’re probably thinking one of two things: “yep, just another person medicating their real problems away”, or “I wonder if I should tweak my dosage...”. For most of my life, I would’ve thought the former. But after struggling hard with this for a year, trying every non-drug solution I could think of (yoga, therapy, not drinking, breathing excercises, etc., etc.), it's just getting worse. Making it difficult to work. Making me anti-social. All of which makes the anxiety worse....A horrible downward spiral.
No doubt, I have non-chemical issues to deal with. In therapy (another first). But I can’t deal with them laying in bed fighting off panic attacks.
Ok, enough justification.
SIDE NOTE: EVERYBODY I KNOW IS ON SOMETHING. I had no idea until I started discretely consulting friends. Ok, not everybody. But probably %80. Seriously. It’s like there’s some kind of anxiety/depression epidemic going on. One by one, people I thought were medication free are revealed. Celexa, Prozac, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Lexapro, Zoloft, Cymbalta, etc., etc. The list goes on. And the remaining 20%, maybe should be. Self medicating with booze, pot, cigarettes, regrettable sex, food, or god knows what else. W.T.F??
On the one hand, I’m relived to know I’m not alone. And I’m understanding people better. On the other, I’m wondering what the fuck is wrong with us? Is it just modern life? Our increasingly polluted environment? Disintegration of families? Hyper saturated media culture? Spending all day in front of computers multitasking? Electromagnetic radiation? Just San Francisco? Probably not. The state with the highest anti-depressant usage is apparently Utah.
I hope I’m not on this for life (if it works). That lifted out of anxiety, I’ll be able to work on getting feel-good chemicals from natural sources: loving relationships, more satisfying work, sex, making art, and just feeling alive. But who knows...Welcome to the Brave New World people. I didn’t realize we were already there.
Wish me luck:)
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Good luck to us all.
ReplyDeleteGood start to an interesting topic. My two cents: I think the self-medication is primarily coping mechanism peculiar to San Francisco. I don't think as many people are on anti-depressants here in Phoenix. We eleviate all our angst and loneliness the old fashioned way: gun violence and institutionalized bigotry.
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