Sometimes I wonder if my heart is like a black hole--it's so dense that there's no room for light, but that doesn't mean it can't still suck me in.
Since I am writing a book about depression, I am often asked in social situations to describe my own experiences, and I usually end by saying that I am on medication. __till?_ people ask. __ut you seem fine!_ To which I invariably reply that I seem fine because I am fine, and that I am fine in part because of medication. __o how long do you expect to go on taking this stuff?_ people ask. When I say that I will be on medication indefinitely, people who have dealt calmly and sympathetically with the news of suicide attempts, catatonia, missed years of work, significant loss of body weight, and so on stare at me with alarm. __ut it__ really bad to be on medicine that way,_ they say. __urely now you are strong enough to be able to phase out some of these drugs!_ If you say to them that this is like phasing the carburetor out of your car or the buttresses out of Notre Dame, they laugh. __o maybe you__l stay on a really low maintenance dose?_ They ask. You explain that the level of medication you take was chosen because it normalizes the systems that can go haywire, and that a low dose of medication would be like removing half of your carburetor. You add that you have experienced almost no side effects from the medication you are taking, and that there is no evidence of negative effects of long-term medication. You say that you really don__ want to get sick again. But wellness is still, in this area, associated not with achieving control of your problem, but with discontinuation of medication. __ell, I sure hope you get off it sometime soon,_ they say.
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
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Since I am writing a book about depression, I am often asked in social situations to describe my own experiences, and I usually end by saying that I am on medication. __till?_ people ask. __ut you seem fine!_ To which I invariably reply that I seem fine because I am fine, and that I am fine in part because of medication. __o how long do you expect to go on taking this stuff?_ people ask. When I say that I will be on medication indefinitely, people who have dealt calmly and sympathetically with the news of suicide attempts, catatonia, missed years of work, significant loss of body weight, and so on stare at me with alarm. __ut it__ really bad to be on medicine that way,_ they say. __urely now you are strong enough to be able to phase out some of these drugs!_ If you say to them that this is like phasing the carburetor out of your car or the buttresses out of Notre Dame, they laugh. __o maybe you__l stay on a really low maintenance dose?_ They ask. You explain that the level of medication you take was chosen because it normalizes the systems that can go haywire, and that a low dose of medication would be like removing half of your carburetor. You add that you have experienced almost no side effects from the medication you are taking, and that there is no evidence of negative effects of long-term medication. You say that you really don__ want to get sick again. But wellness is still, in this area, associated not with achieving control of your problem, but with discontinuation of medication. __ell, I sure hope you get off it sometime soon,_ they say.
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