Do the drugs work? The minefield of medicine

Please note this is just my experience and i know it varies from person to person, with many people having major side effects that cause the mental health to worsen.

Recently i have started to lower the dosage of the medication as i am slowly am feeling more (i want to say my old self but thats not true, i actually feeling better than my old self) positive and focused mental state.

Over the past 5 years, i have been taking Antidepressants and Anti Anxiety medication to help me through each day. This was something that i actually hated the fact i had to do.

The first tablets Sertraline, numbed me a bit, helped me get some emotional control. Yet the side effects were not great. They caused me to feel ravenous, uncontrollable eating and grinding my teeth. After around 18 months, i spoke to the doctors about changing them.

They then changed me over to Citralapram. Thankfully i’ve had no obvious side effects but they kept me on a level playing field. To add to this they added Propranolol to help my anxiety.

This combo allowed me to survive on a day to day basis, functioning enough to slowly recover and start to rebuild. Through meditation, therapies, self reflection and biggest one, talking about things.

Over 20 years ago, when we lost my cousin. I experienced my first real bout of grief, depression and breakdown. I didn’t know how to cope, i just went into survival, just went to work, came home, shut myself in my room, played the computer, watched tv and listened to the Radio. Sometimes all 3 at once to drown out my thoughts.

At this time i was advised to have antidepressants. I refused, i couldn’t see how a pill would help.

In hindsight, having been on medication since. It may have helped me to navigate through the devastation. Not that it’s something i will ever fully get over. But may have helped to learn to function sooner than i did.

As i said, i know medicine won’t work for everyone. But there are many types of help out there. So, please reach out, as you may find you can do better than just survive.

Remember Be Kind to yourself.