Memories of Life With an Antidepressant Twenty-Five Years Ago

The following came up on Facebook memories today, posted five years ago, back in the days when if you typed too much Facebook told you to post as a "note."  They've abolished notes now and rather than lose these words for another year I'm posting them here.  In the last few days Facebook would have told me to post three things as notes.  I may move them here too so that they won't get lost.  Five years ago I was taking different psychiatric drugs.  They messed me up too, in different ways than the drug in this memory.

Ah, memories. Someone in a group asked if people had been on a particular medication. I have.


Yeah. I have. Years ago. In Northampton. Coincidentally I was discussing it at the weekend with my wife. Her simple statement was "You were dead on it." And that's the truth. She says she got her wife back only when I stopped taking it. It was very, very bad for me. I remember writing a list of 18 bad side effects I experienced. 11 of them didn't diminish for the four months I took the drug. And then the GP upped the dosage and it got much worse. The only thing that kept me alive during that time was the fact that I was already "dead" and couldn't do a damn thing. I would never have died as a result of the depression I faced that year. But on those drugs I wanted to die because there was nothing left of me.


But I was forced by the GP practice to keep taking it. Because if I didn't they weren't going to refer me for any other help. And then they did. I was told I would be referred to see a psychologist to arrange counselling or some kind of talking therapy. My relief was great, as was my wife's. Once the referral was done I came off the drug - against the continuing commandment of the doctor.


It's not the only time I came of medication that was totally screwing me up against the advice of a GP or psychiatrist. A shrink in the day hospital in Crawley put me on an anti-depressant that totally mucked up my ability to function. Give me bad depression - it's better than the side effects! When I talked about how bad the side effects were and how I was feeling worse on it the shrink's reaction was not to stop the drug. It was to increase the drug. That made it worse. I then came off the drug and felt a hell of a lot better. The shrink claimed that he was right - that the drug was working now. He wasn't. I told him so and didn't see him again.

In the end I discharged myself from the day hospital because very little positive ever happened there beyond sitting around bored or doing another jigsaw puzzle. The few nursing staff were good. But even then there was a dire funding shortage and they were helpless to provide any of the useful things they would have liked to have implemented there. My only good memory of the place is meeting a man who had designed props for BBC science fiction programmes, including a central element of one of my favourites.


One patient there was taking a cocktail of a dozen drugs. He'd been referred for depression and given one drug. All of the others were meant to tackle the side effects of the previous. That man would just sit there. Unable to communicate mostly. And he would self harm in the dining room with the knives and forks. I hope that he was somehow able to recover - I doubt he ever could in that place.


Returning to the Northampton story: After some lovely withdrawal (which was quicker than when I came off fluvoxamine, which was pushing me rapidly towards liver failure, and had three months of brain zaps) I felt much, much better. I felt alive for the first time in months. Not psychologically one hundred percent well. But being alive again was amazing.


Was I referred at this point for psychology? No. For some kind of non-pharmaceutical therapy? Any kind? No. Even though the GP had promised me I would be. I got referred to a particularly awful psychiatrist who thought that drugs were the only solution, lied to me, told me to "trust in my expertise", gave me someone else's prescription, showed off about all the extra drugs he could give me that the GP couldn't and then prescribed a drug I'd already been on - even though it was on the list of drugs I'd been on that he read out during the appointment. He promised that the only possible side effect was a few days of mild nausea. I knew from experience that was false.


I walked away from that useless psychiatrist in deep despair, knowing that I wasn't going to be receiving any useful help any time soon, if ever. Had it not been for the care of my wife I would have killed myself. She was able to restore some positivity. I hope that man is no longer practicing. I hope that somewhere down the line he was struck off for something - except that my hope would imply he treated someone else very badly.


But my psychiatric experience isn't my experience of the drug I was asked about. And my experience on that drug is not that same as that of other people. I won’t even name the drug in case my horrific experiences prejudice anyone else who may be offered it. Who knows? They might be helped where I was harmed. Some people are.