I will never forget the doctor who looked me as I sat shaking in her office in 2003, unable to work, unable to unclench my hands, unable to eat or sleep or think clearly enough to drive. She said to me, "You don't have to live like this." And prescribed me the SSRI drugs that saved my life.
i don't think i would have made it back to college without them
Like just the ability to weather things (friend breakups, work crises, major life changes) that would have flattened me otherwise, that alone is worth the price of admission and the extra 20 pounds.
I thought the same bullshit about antidepressants as everyone does. They'll change my personality (Christ, if only) or they'll make me a zombie or the most insidious: I need my pain in order to fuel my creativity. But the depression wouldn't let me work either, so there I was.
Also, I once was on an antidepressant that *did* make me a bit of a zombie. So I told my doctor, I got on another one, and it had no negative side effects while helping me get through a time that was nearly impossible to endure.
Yeah, I was super lucky that the first one I tried worked. We've adjusted the dose several times, of course. I'm very glad you're okay. You make the world better.
Thanks. Right back atcha.
Three weeks after I started the meds, I was in a hotel room in San Diego and I woke up and felt ... okay. I could think about, like, going to breakfast and going to the airport later, without having to write down step by step what I'd be doing that day and rehearsing it.
That was 22 years ago. In all of that time I have only been off these drugs once, at the start of the pandemic. IT DID NOT GO WELL FOR ANYONE.
I have fought with so many people about these medications, because they think like this hot dog meat fraud does. I have fought with actual doctors who wanted me to taper off, who worried about blood pressure or weight gain or just wanted me to run marathons instead (true story, fuck that guy).
People told me to go off them when I was pregnant, or when I was still futilely trying to breastfeed, and my response was always "do you think any of this will be improved by Crazy Mommy Who Wants to Jump in the River because that's where THAT would lead."
My OBGYN, the most chill person on the planet who was excellent about cutting through woo-woo bullshit, said under no circumstances should your child have a bug-fuck parent, take your fucking pills like a grownup and don't apologize for staying alive for your kid.
When I stopped taking the drugs in 2020, because my busted brain told me they weren't working anymore and I should blow up my life, every single thing I'd experienced before them came roaring back. All at once. 20 years of it. That sucked.
And I hate to think that people, without the resources that I have, will have to jump through extra hoops or get inferior medicines or even do a single goddamn thing differently because of this saddle-skinned motherfucker who already did all the drugs and now doesn't want anyone else to have any.
Fuck RFK Jr., fuck everyone who voted for him, fuck everyone who voted for the people who put him in power, and most of all fuck his fucking outlook that this isn't medicine, that this doesn't save lives. It does.
Thanks for sharing that. Vaccines are one thing but this is all the more terrifying. Millions are unable to function without these medications. In previous generations, people would simply suffer and spiral down. That's what he wants to return us to.