Member-only story
Mental health
Keep Your Uninformed Opinions on Anti-depressants to Yourself
I’m not an ‘emotional zombie’ who’s “hooked on happy pills”
Anti-depressants aren’t for everyone. Some people will have negative side effects. For some people, they just won’t work. I don’t know the science beyond the fact that the medical consensus is they help far more than they harm. And they do help a great many people.
It’s irresponsible to tell people they shouldn’t try them because you’ve heard they’re “bad” or they didn’t work for you. No two people are the same.
Anti-depressants helped me when I wasn’t eating for days at a time and was sleeping 14 hours a night. When I only left the house to go to work. When I was avoiding my friends and family. Yeah, depression sucks.
I was a — mess and I lived like that for six months. So why didn’t I seek help sooner? Easy. I’d heard and believed all the scare stories about anti-depressants.
Anti-depressants or therapy?
Why not both? They work best in combination. When I had my mental health crisis I immediately joined the waiting list for NHS therapy (I got six free sessions a couple of months later).
