this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
18 points (87.5% liked)

Mental Health

4224 readers
1 users here now

Welcome!

This is a safe place to discuss, vent, support, and share information about mental health, illness, and wellness.

Thank you for being here. We appreciate who you are today. Please show respect and empathy when making or replying to posts.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules

1-Posts promoting paid products and services of any kind are not allowed here.

2-All posts and comments must be helpful and supportive. Do not put vulnerable people at risk.

3-Do not DM or ask to speak privately to any of our members unless they specifically request it.

If a person from this community disturbs you in a comment, please report the comment. If you receive a DM you did not request, send a screenshot of the DM in a message to a moderator. This is a bannable offense.

4-Suicide, Self-Harm, Death-- Extended discussions are STRONGLY DISCOURAGED here. First, mods and community members are caring people, but not experts in crisis situations. Second, we want to avoid Lemmy becoming like many commercial social media platforms, where comments can snowball into counterproductive talk.

If you or someone you know needs more help than can be found here, please refer to the pinned resources.

If BRIEF mention of these topics is an important part of your post, please flag your post as NSFW and include a (trigger warning: suicide, self-harm, death, etc.)in the title so that other readers who may feel triggered can avoid it. Please also include a trigger warning on all comments mentioning these topics in a post that was not already tagged as such.

Partner Communities

- Therapy

Neurodegenerative Disease Support

ADHD

Autism

Fibromyalgia

TMJ

Chronic Pain

Bipolar Disorder

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Friends and Family of People with Addiction

To partner with our community and be included here, you are free to message the current moderators or comment on our pinned post.

Community Moderation

Some moderators are mental health professionals and some are not. All are carefully selected by the moderation team and will be actively monitoring posts and comments. If you are interested in joining the team, you can send a message to ZenGrammy for more information.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I have been living with depression since a teenager and after so many years, I recently finally started receiving psychotherapy (CBT). While I'm already seeing some modest changes in my thinking patterns, my therapist noted that in the last few weeks the severity of the condition is worsening and it might be a good time to talk with my primary care provider about antidepressants as a combination therapy.

This got a reaction out of me, specifically that I don't like the idea of chemically altering my mental state and losing access to what "I really feel" (as I perceive it).

I know that the logic behind this sentiment is not very solid, but we can't reason ourselves out of our feelings that easily. For me this is also challenging because I don't take any recreational substances that affect my mental state, so I can't tell to myself that it's like e.g. smoking weed only more targeted and supervised.

I'm curious if this sentiment is familiar to anyone else, and how you dealt with it (whether you decided for or against medication).

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 108beads@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I know this is an odd answer, and may not be for everyone. I got the prescription filled, and held the dose in my hand and asked it: "will you hurt me?" And worked with that in meditation. It said it was okay to take. These days, I'm more inclined to research the heck out of it online before starting any drug, any reason. (And: I would never do this with a rando drug which came from who-knows-where.)

If you don't like how you feel, after giving it a fair shake (several weeks, whether you want to see the change as blood plasma concentrations or rearrangement of neural pathways), you can stop. You're not committing to it forever and ever; the effects will wear off once you stop taking it.

If you do want to stop, be sure to contact the prescribing doctor—or if the doc is unavailable, at the very least a pharmacist. Some drugs for depression need a gradual tapering-off schedule to avoid nasty effects of going cold turkey.

[–] agrammatic@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Good tip, thanks! I did read somewhere that scheduling dose increases and decreases is extremely important with this class of medication, so I'll definitely only do it with a doctor who can observe me closely.