do you take psych pills?
 

i know that we are not a fair representation of the populace as a whole, but....still. i'd like to know.

I was on Ritalin a few years back, but I still attest I didn't need them, and almost never took them anyway.

No never



Psych pills are "anit- psychotics". What did you take lj?


Ritalin and antidepressants are not psych pills. IBRAM...and you are right. You probably didn't need them
.( just cause you said you didn't)

i meant any pill designed to manage your moods, psyche, etc.

Say more please.... how do you "know" if you "need" them? If I say I don't is that necessary and sufficient? How do I know I'm not wrong? How do you know I'm not wrong? What if things other people think are dragging you "down" are things you consider core components of your personality? What if you obsessively post to message boards (in between checking your package tracking status) at 12:16AM?

I think you need them steve...

If you think you can cope without them then you probably don't need them. Unless you (not you) are psychotic in which case I'm not sure your opinion counts.

I take the lowest dose that they make for Paxil. I have some anxiety associated with my "condition" and what it is doing to my family, oh, and the whole chronic-pain-thing.

What does cope mean?
How do I know I'm psychotic?

(Yes, I'm being a smartass as usual. No, I don't think I'm psychotic. But really. How do we know these things?

I knew someone would latch on to that.

Ibram seems to know himself well enough to tell us. I was being respectful and not second guessing him. Why not ask him?

no comment


Thanks: Lumberjim for the clarification.

Thanks: Aliantha for saying what I was thinking.

Thanks: Beestie. for saying what you were thinking.

No one really knows do they? Most of us just make our judgements on how others react to us. If we decide they've changed their reactions, we have to ask ourselves, is everyone else being weird or is it me?

At least, that's what I do if I think I'm losing the plot over something.

If you don't think you need help then, usually, you don't. Its when you think you are losing control or that you are not in control that coping is no longer a viable option.

As far as being psychotic goes, I'm not sure a self-assesment is all that material. Usually, one's behaviour will bear it out in which case, the opinions of others (like Wolf's) become significant.

So in other words , I'm not strange I'm just like you ??


Oh and on the pill thing , no I do not , but in the 70's my mom had me be a guinnie pig for LOTS of studys( try some of these , These are new try some of them , oh now these , nope now these ) , I don't rember much of the early 70's at all

BTW, I was diagnosed, as a teen, with a disorder, but the meds made it much worse. I learned to deal on my own.

I was diagnosed with adhd in my elementary years and took ritalin for awhile. I've been off for years now, but the attention portion is pretty bad these days. Its hard to describe to people what my mind does during the average day, its like some trippy movie. A commercial awhile ago kind of hit it on the nose with the whole "flipping channels" thing. Try to imagine listening to a professor in class, then a song or image or joke or movie or conversation pops into your head and you fight to suppress it for 5-10 minutes. Repeat every 10-15 minutes and thats a normal day for me. These days I'm more innattentive than hyperactive.
Sometimes when I'm tired it just goes on straight. Concentrating on one thing, even something entertaining like a movie or music or video game is not doable because I just can't pay attention. The slightest external stimulus will distract me. If one of the florescent light bulbs is buzzing in class it drives me insane. If the prof is speaking and so is someone else near me, I can't focus on either one. Its like trying to watch two tv's at max volume right in front of my face.
Though there is one positive. If I am extremely motivated about something, I can "hyper focus" on it and go through it with ease. I have always loved reading and when I get a good book I can sometimes finish in a couple hours. In grade school I consistently read 3-4 grade levels above mine. Other than that benefit, I'd say it is a living nightmare at times.

Depression is something that I have to deal with from time to time. It comes up seemingly without connection to events or level of general happiness/unhappiness. Doctors have given me various drugs at various times, but I don't think they did much good. Nowadays I have other ways of dealing with it.

I included myself as currently taking them, because I took the last one so recently.

I have no doubt that they helped me get through the worst of my depression - there were days when I sat on the sofa in pain from a full bladder unable to talk myself into going to the toilet for example. I'm not sure that I could have pulled myself out of that alone. My whole personality felt like it had been tied in a sack and dropped into the deep, dark well of my brain - I was cut off from my normal thoughts and totally hopeless that I would ever be "me" again.

I was started on fluoxetine (Prozac), but within 10 days I was back at the Doctors because I was having intense and recurrent suicidal thoughts. I couldn't even pick up the phone to make an appointment - I had to walk in there and sit in the surgery until someone was free to see me.

I settled on paroxetine (Paxil), which was increased from 20 to 30mg when it didn't have enough effect for the GP's liking. The most recent prescription I had was back to 20, and I felt I was beginning to get my life back.

I decided to stop taking them because although it's only been a short time (comparitely speaking) I hate the idea of being dependent on them for normality. I have a history of depression which has simply not been diagnosed before - this was the worst episode but I am aware they do pass.

Hence trying to work on my thinking and subsequent behaviour for the future.

I accept that some people need the medication on a long term basis - I honestly don't feel I am one of them and the previous month has helped confirm this for me.

Rite now I take simvastatin anti-depressent, trazadone for sleep, valium for anger managment. and cannibis to get stoned.
Alcohol is yucky!

Simvastatin is a cholesterol lowering drug (and it's engraved on my eyeballs at the moment as we're trying to switch 60% of patients on atorvastatin to simva to save money)

I wish I found alcohol yucky. I have finally decided to cut it out completely, but the decision took me a long time to implement. Teetotal total - 4 days so far.

I put no, never. My black moods are part of my charm...

I monitor my alcohol use pretty closely, I know I like it too much.

Oop's I farked up it's setraline thats the anti deppresant. i have no less than meds fhat I take twice a day. Thats down from 15 I was taking.

I've come to the conclusion that proper diet, exercise, and coping methods (cognitive therapy, etc) are better for me than any meds and the side effects that come with them.

Plus, dealing with insurance companies on this is a nightmare. I had a waiver on my last policy that stems from me seeing the doctor due to heart palpitations and since the diagnosis was stress, they declined to cover me for any neurological disease of any kind from that point, forward. "Neurological disease" could include damn near anything, including cancer.

Insurance companies are run by the devil.

Insurance companies are so the wrong people to be deciding on health care costs. If ever there was a case of the service users needs being in direct conflict with those of the service provider/facillitator it's insurers -v- patients.

I've been on Lexapro, 20mg (max single dose) for...well...several years now. It does what I need it to do. When I am depressed, I am angry. The drug levels all that out for me, making me a considerably less angry person.

Interesting. Another reason I refuse meds: my creativity stems directly from my issues. I don't want it to go away.

My camera is my therapy.

There really is nothing pretty about my moods but my reasons for living with them are similar to yours. I don't want to lose "me" in the process of becoming a socially acceptable person. Beyond the psych pills, I'm getting off of meds of all kinds now that I've reached middle age. I really don't want to end up over-medicated when I'm an oldster. Does it say something about us/me that I feel the need to explain why I don't med-up?

It says you have valid and interesting input on this thread. Also that you don't want other people assuming you disapprove of their medication and sharing the fact that you have chosen alternative methods of coping.

I think anyway.

yeah. that's why the poll. i feel like the oddball because i take nothing.... other than advil for a headache, occasional decongestants and sometimes vit C if i get a cold. i try to avoid antibiotics, too.

I don't like taking my antidepressant in general, it makes me a bit too flat. I totally agree, that I don't feel as creative without the moodiness. However, In the interest of my marriage and my daughter's quality of life I take my medicine regularly. A small sacrifice by me to make the lives of those I made a commitment to, or chose to bring into this world, better. Should I find myself alone and my child(ren?) grown, I would likely go off of them. However, my depressions were getting worse before I trid a new drug, to the point of days of continual suicidal thoughts, so it my be that as I age, (stay on meds?) my brain is getting worse at making the right balance of chemicals so that this might not be possible.

Bottom line, I am not the only one who is affected by my depression, so I take my meds for everyone that I love including myself.

I'm definitely not saying adults shouldn't be free to decide what works for them. What we are doing to our children is a whole other thread.

But you smoke herbs, right? Isn't that a sort of self medication?

I put down that I take nothing. But I do drink a little.

Mostly I'm thankful that my chemistry is pretty well balanced. I have ups and downs like anyone else, but they are very moderate. A good friend got post-partum depression after her first kid. That really opened my eyes to how depression is a very real thing that can strike anyone. She was always so happy and normal, and then one day she wasn't. Makes me thankful.

Sometimes I am so jealous of my husband for being 'normal'. At one point about a year ago I was asking him if he ever thought of killing himself, and he looked at me with a horrified look and said honestly, he had never thought of it. I knew then I needed to get to the doc. Stupid brain.

not so much anymore, really. i did yesterday, and it was the first time in ?4 months?

I have a wee dram of rum now and then. ;)

BUT...that's not to manage my moods or anything. purely recreational.

On a side note, never ever do this if you catch strep throat. The complications of allowing it to progress are... not good.

I take two different SSRIs. They are what keep me from driving over a cliff. Doc says I'm chronic. I have tried just about them all over the past 13 years or so, and I think I have a good combo now. I've tried to wean off, only finding I am back where I started. It's chemical. I could have benefited from help as far back as college.

It isn't less of 'me' it's just less of the destructive depressed side of me. I'm still the silly person, the introspective person, the deep person, the inquisitive person, the thoughtful person...I just don't feel the need to go play on the highway anymore. :)

Blue moods are normal; real depression is not. To know that you can choose to cope without meds means you are not truly clinically depressed. The truly depressed have absolutely no control over the matter. You can't pull yourself up by the bootstraps. You can't take weeks of work off at a time because you can't get out of bed. SSRIs are quite simple in the way they work, really, and it makes sense.

I'm still me. No question.

depression is a medical illness. the brain doesnt produce enough of the chemical SEROTONIN which defines mood. I get S.A.D. (seasonal affected disorder) almost every winter and managed to stay off the Prozac for 3 seasons in a row, but this year I've needed them, so I'm back on them until March.
Anti Depressants are very useful for people who need them, but Doctors rarely tell patients how to use them properly. They are not a magic wand, issues still need to be addressed and they should be used time - limited. After 2 years or so they have the opposite effect and can make people feel more depressed than when they first went on them.
Weaning off them should be slow: allow 6 weeks to come off and expect a few dips in serotonin levels until the neurotransmitters stabilise again.
This episode was getting bad for me, and i know the signs - de-motivated, loss of appeteite, wanting to sleep all the time, irritable, pessimistic, staring into thin air, on the verge of tears for ne apparent reason and so on.
It's clinically proven that exercise helps to stimulate serotonin.

it seems to me that sometimes, when you give something an acronym, or name a 'disorder', you create it. A thing like SAD (not to pick on you, phil...and i don't know the first thing about it, really) sounds self fulfilling to me. I mean....it almost seems like they come up with the disorder to fit the acronym.

I get DRUNK: Drink Rum Until Naked and Kissy

I've been on zoloft for depression a number of times in my life. Right now, I'm not, although there are days when I'd like the "get up and GO!" that it gives me. My depression is not of the suicidal stripe. I'm not the kind of guy who walks out of the middle of a movie, no matter how shitty it gets, I always wonder what will happen next.

My depression manifests itself more as a complete lack of starting ability. Not lack of motivation; I feel like doing things it's just that I get overwhelmed by the enormity of getting dressed and all the effort that goes into that. Sometimes when it's been bad, I had to make the choice between putting gas in the car or going to the post office because doing both was more than I could manage.

Despite all the crap w/ the house this year, I've managed to keep moving, albeit slower. I can tell there is an episode waiting in the wings, I'm managing it by getting plenty of rest.

And drinking a half to 2/3 a bottle of red wine a night. Love me some antioxidants.

To answer the question, no, I've never been on psychotherapeutic drugs. I am on a variety of other medications (stimvistatin, metformin, one or two others) in order to try to stay alive and healthy.
I've definitely had "low" periods in my life, some that possibly did qualify as depression. I understand that that's not unusual. I am not really at one of those points now, though.

A question I'd like to ask -- is it possible to be non-depressed (i.e. having none of the classical physical symptoms of depression) and yet wonder why you bother getting up in the morning, and what would be lost if you... just gave up? The only reason I take the aforementioned drugs is because there are worse things than actually dying (renal failure, heart attack, stroke, blindness, etc.) I'm actually rather neutral on the dying part. If someone told me I had an incurable disease and I was going to die in six months, I don't think I would bother to fight it.

I don't take any mind altering drugs. I take thyroid medicine, but that is about it.

But I always wonder about the fact that I get depressed sometimes. I don’t know if I am actually depressed… but it feels that way.
The thing about it is that it can’t be a chemical imbalance because I only get that way when things in my life are going down the tube. I always feel like I have good reason to feel that way, and therefore can’t shake it. If things get better at all then I feel better. But sometimes it takes a long time for things to improve. Or if they do improve, something else happens so I am back to square one. I don’t know if anyone else has this happen to them but it sucks for me. The last 6 or 7 months have been really bad though. I am still trying to fight it. I just don’t think pills will help since there is too much going on that saddens me.

Wow Pie... I think you just summed up what I was trying to say.

Could be raising of the Bodhi mind ?

I dont take anything.

Mersyndol occasionally to assist with sleeping, but its over the counter....Naphrogesic for girlie probs...and Paracetamol for headaches.

I've often wondered whether I need to be on something, but I think I have reconciled with the fact that happiness is *fleeting*, not something that I should be expecting to be continuous.

The things that get me down are really just *life* and I just get the fuck over myself these days (or try at least).

I guess I'm with you, Pie and Iggy, not depressed as such, but... I dunno, just... nihilistic? Resigned? Something like that.

Yeah, I'm familiar with that feeling too.

Same here. Alot of what's been said here hits the mark. It all came to a head last year when we found out that my oldest, at 14, was cutting herself, was on the phone for hours in the middle of the night with a "kid" from Cincinnati that she met on-line, and then started to run away, to Cincinnati, but got scared and called from 30th street railroad station. It was enough to drive me to drugs. As long as I can remember, though, I've had thoughts of hurting myself, and that maybe my loved ones would be better off if I just wasn't around anymore.

Yes, some mornings it's just not worth gnawing through the restraints. :(

Do you mean to say that, to control your reactions to your daughter's behavior and how you dealt with the whole situation? Or are you saying you think your feelings or behavior influenced your daughter negatively? Has your taking Lexapro had any impact on her?

If we're counting alcohol, I think I voted wrong.

Don't drink, don't take any anti-depressants or other prescription meds to alter my moods. Never have taken anti-depressants, but did drink in increasingly larger amounts until 3 years ago when I quit, cold turkey.

I was suicidally depressed as a teen, but somehow I managed to get through it in one piece.

Nine months after my daughter (now 19m) was born, I came down with post-partum depression. It was horrible in that I couldn't be bothered to do anything that I love. I couldn't get through a single page of a good book, didn't touch my jewelry work, couldn't get excited about or interested in anything whatsoever. I wasn't suicidal (or God forbid, homicidal), just blah...almost like I was invisible and irrelevant. I began taking some heavy duty multi-vitamins and L-5-hydroxy Trytophan (all natural product that enhances serotonin production). Within a couple of weeks, I felt back to normal (whatever that is :p ).

Stormie

Well said. That is what we cannot define.

Yes, yes, and yes.

I think that she was behaving unacceptably, and my response was probably more severe than it should have been, which cause even more poor behavior on her part. I was sweating the small stuff, and not seeing the big stuff. Relations with my wife were tense, and that spilled over into my dealings with the kids. When things came to a head with my daughter, it scared the shit out of me, and put things in perspective, but I was on an emotional roller coaster, and could break down at any time. I would wake up in the middle of the night and have to check to make sure she was still in bed, my legs would shake, I was almost incapable of doing anything that wasn't urgent and necessary, and lost my appetite (I called it my daughter diet). After starting Lexapro, I was able to just let things go. When she acted out, I could see that she just wanted a reaction, and was able to withhold a reaction. Our household is much more relaxed now. My daughter is still a 15 year old girl, with all those issues. My wife sometimes sees "letting things go" as "losing", and letting my daughter "get away" with poor behavior, which she sees as poor parenting. But in the long run, my daughter is happier, communicates with us more, and has stopped, as far as we can tell, her self-destructive behavior. I wouldn't say that Lexapro is solely responsible for all that, but I feel like it enabled me to do things differently.

Wow, I never put that on the intenet before.

Very interesting variety of responses. The brain is a tricky thing. It is what makes us who we are, yet can totally deceive us into thinking we are something we are not. When something goes awry, it may be only glaringly obvious to those around us.

For me, that's what has been the most scarypart of dealing with my 'imbalance'. I want to trust that I know what 's best for me, but time and time again, I've been fooled. It has taken a long time to learn to trust someone else to tell me what I can't see. I'm damn lucky he stuck through the nasty stuff long enough for us to get to this point.

Spexx, it was when my 3.5 year old daughter asked me over and over, "Mom, are you mad at me?" I knew I had crossed the line. Until she said something, I didn't realize how I was affecting her. She was starting to become afraid of me and my out of control temper as I was getting shorter and shorter with her. I could write off my husband telling me I was being out of control, but when my daughter basically was saying the same thing, it shocked me into reality.

This is what a depressive on meds goes through when increasingly shitty things keep happening and the pressure becomes too great:

Could I GET a gun?

Would a wrist slash be better?

How many tylenol does it take for an OD?

Thank god I have family I wouldn't dare hurt.

Just sayin'

Yeah, you're walking around doing what you're doing, and BAM! someone points out that you're being a dick. "But I'm just being me". "No, that wasn't you, it was a dick speaking through you". Oh...

Those things might fuck up your life insurance. Now, while you're driving 75 MPH on the highway, passing a semi, it won't take much to "have an accident", and it'd all be over real quick, and the insurance would take care of your family. Maybe better than you could....

This is getting depressing. Beestie, tell us a story about your neighbor and his dog.

OMG! I thought I was totally alone in all of these thoughts of mine till I read bullitts post on page 1. I was reading about ME! - that is exactly how I am! A flourescent light, a bug buzzing in the next room, a fan that whirrs off balance. . . hyper hearing . . . As I grew older I learned some coping mechanisms that work for me - like making lists if I have more than 2 things to buy or do. The best part was the "hyper-focus" Thats the best description and the most frustrating part. Why can I totally focus in to certain tasks, block everything else out and be incredibly productive at times and not at others? This still drives me nuts.

About 3 years ago my son was diagnosed with ADHD too and they put him on meds for it - as a show of solidarity I agreed to take them with him. I felt no different with respect to the distractions. I must say though, that I no longer felt happy or content anymore I mean it took the bottom spectrum of negative emotions away, but in the process removed the true happiness and joy away as well - leaving me with moderate feelings about everything. Never really happy or sad - just sort of ok all the time. I hated that and haven't taken anything since. Maybe I should, but I made it through the last year which has been hell with the split and all.

I'm still here and friends and family tell me I'm better than I've been in years so .... who knows? Certainly not me. Thank you bullitt, thank you very much.

Nice. Thanks for your support and concern, friends.
I don't have children. That is not what I was talking about. though your compassion is really overwhelming. Don't worry I wouldn't subject a poor kid to me.

I know, give it a rest, get over it, waa waa waa.

That's what all you boohoo I'm feeling blue people don't get.

See you on the flip side.:(

Miscommunication? I was using the figurative "you", to mean "me".