on mental illness and medications

[acroyear]

From a blog I read regularly -- Good Math, Bad Math : Off topic: Mental Illness:

The point of writing this isn't to tell the world that I've got clinical depression, or to say "Gosh I like my drugs". The reason that I'm writing this is gripe about how people react when they hear that I take psychiatric medication. For some reason, the fact that my brain has a problem that's easy to fix using medication is somehow considered to be a huge strike against me, an inexcusable sign of personal weakness.

No other illness is treated this way.

[...]

What happens when I take my medication? I'm myself again. The medication doesn't make me feel happy; it makes me feel. With the medication, my emotions come back; I can feel happy or sad. I enjoy it when things are going well; I get sad or angry when they go poorly.

But how do people react?

Somewhat over 1/2 of the people who hear that I take an antidepressant express disapproval in some way. Around 1/3 make snide comments about "happy pills" and lecture me about how only weak-willed nebbishes who can't deal with reality need psychiatric medication.

I confess to being thoroughly mystified by this. Why is it OK for my stomach, or my heart, or my pancreas to be ill in a way that needs to be treated with medication, but it's not OK for my brain? Why are illnesses that originate in this one organ so different from all others, so that so many people believe that nothing can possibly go wrong with it? That there are absolutely no problems with the brain that can possibly be treated by medication?

Why is it OK for me to take expensive, addictive drugs for a painful but non-life-threatening problem with my stomach; but totally unacceptable for me to take cheap harmless drugs for a painful but non-threatening problem with my brain?

Comments

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

Probably because of the attitude that all it takes to change what is in your brain is the proper attitude. I don't think you can understand that unless you go through it yourself. This includes me.

There is also the other view of those who fear medication for mental problems because they fear it will change who they are as a person, and that by being under meds, they can't be themselves anymore.

[fiona64.livejournal.com]

by being under meds, they can't be themselves anymore.

The problem with meds (and I speak with first-hand experience) is that they're a crap-shoot. On the wrong one, you *aren't* yourself anymore. BTDT.

The one that works best for me still has bad side effects ... Parkinsonian tremors, to be precise. I hate it, and I do everything I can to keep anyone from seeing. It doesn't always work.

Still, it beats the suicidal ideation and OCD behaviors I had on other meds, hands-down.

And you're right ... it's hard for those who've never been through it to understand. It's like any other invisible disease; if it can't be seen, to many people it isn't real.

It's a hard way to live, I assure you. I remember what life was like before the panic attacks and the bouts of melancholia ... I'm keenly aware of how things have changed. I wish nothing more than that I could "just cheer up." :-(

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

Remember that the next time you're confused because I can't "just stop worrying." :^)
Mind you, I'm avoiding meds for the moment because of breast-feeding, but once Robbie's weaned, I think I shall have to have some words with my doctor...

[i-kissandra.livejournal.com]

Generally, I have no reaction at all to anyone needing to be on any kind of medication primarily because it's really none of my freakin' business, and secondly, because I'm assuming that one is an adult and has been properly diagnosed by a trusted physician. (although sometimes I react a bit only out of surprise that someone has shared such an intimately personal detail)

Perhaps people react with derision (is that the right word?) because there is a far-reaching tendency for over-medication and mis-diagnosis? Take the "diagnosis" and over-medication of children who supposedly have ADHD, for example. (Yes - can't help it. I DO react to that)

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I really want to thump the people who think things like anxiety disorders, depression, and what not, are things you can "overcome" if you just work hard enough at it.

Over the past 20 some-odd years, I've seen what people close to me (realtives, roommates, friends, and friends' kids) are like both on their meds and off. I will take them on their meds any day of the week over not on their meds.

If I needed those sorts of meds to function and people started giving me grief about it, I'd be real tempted to tell them, "Well, it's either that or I commit suicide. Which would you prefer?" Hopefully that would shut them up.

[sequentialscott.livejournal.com]

I've had a somewhat different experience with that. Maybe that's because I don't go around telling anyone who will listen, but neither do I try to hide it. I share with friends or sometimes if it is relevant to some aspect of a conversation.

What's surprised me is the number of people who say, "wow, that sounds like how I feel a lot of the time." (Mine isn't clinical depression, it's a chronic depression that rarely incapacitates but also rarely lets up. People who have what I do plus clinical depression suffer from "double depression".)

I've had to try a couple of different medication combinations. I was quite hesitant to try them at first because I thought that maybe that would change levels of creativity or subtly alter perceptions. That hasn't been the case, and I'm happy I seem to have found a decent combination.

If someone were to tell me I ought not be taking them, I'd probably view that as an educational opportunity. Depends how they say it, of course.