Launching this blog dedicated to my research, thoughts and musings on how mental illness is treated in America. In 1993 I went to a psychiatrist for the first time in my life. I was 37 years old, married to a college professor and had three adorable, healthy little kids. I lived in an upperclass neighborhood, drove a mini-van and had just spent the past three years so severely depressed that I rarely left the house. The psychiatrist diagnosed me with severe depression (duh) and told me that Prozac (only on the market for 5 years at that time) was the answer to my problems, AND it had no side effects. Even in my severely depressed state I laughed. "Oh yes it does" I said, "you just don't know what they are yet". It takes just about 10 years from the time a new drug is released to the general public for the side effects to accumulate, be documented, be researched, and be published. The psychiatrist ruefully agreed with me, "we don't know what the side effects are yet". But I was desperate, my kids were desperate, and my poor husband had long since reached his limit trudging to a demanding career in the highly competitive field of college professor, while his wife sat in a chair all day, barely keeping the kids clean, fed and safe.
So began my sojourn into being treated for a mental illness in America. The USA with the best health care in the world. America with the most cutting edge advances in everything from brain surgery, to heart surgery, to cancer treatment. Surely the United States of America would be well equipped to take care of it's mentally ill.
I took the lowest dose I could possibly take. The 20mg tablets of Prozac I took every other day, or cut them in half, so that my dose was just 10mg. Initially it was a miracle drug for me. Within 3 days I was stunned by how my mind cleared of the relentless molasses I was swimming through everyday. I had energy, motivation, and the ability to get my life back on track to become successful. I was thrilled !
Ten years later the Prozac "pooped out" (as the psychiatrists like to say), and while I was entering menopause I began to spiral into the kind of severe depression that I thought was long behind me. I had been getting the scripts for the Prozac from my family physician, but now it was time to see a psychiatrist again. Only this time I got a diagnostic upgrade: Bipolar Disorder. Apparently the Prozac had caused just enough hypomania to qualify me for that lovely upgrade. I was just thrilled, needless to say. Kind of like thinking you have a nasty cold, only to find out you have lung cancer. And so began 22 months of constant medication changes, which oddly still contained Prozac in the mix, just at higher doses. During that time I also took Lamictal (anti convulsant) Zyprexa (anti psychotic) Lithium (mineral) Effexor (anti depressant) and Abilify (anti psychotic).
At one point my psychiatrist insisted I agree to ECT (electro convulsive treatment). I said "No" to that lovely idea. Having electricity shot through my brain with a $20,000 medical bill left for me to pay (without insurance) didn't seem like a good plan for relieving my depression. Like a never ending craps game, the meds were rolled like dice to see if a winning combination would bank off the sides of the table. Needless to say the dice are loaded in favor of the house (who made a bundle off me), but I never did come up a winner.
So this blog is my attempt to make sense of those 22 months in which American psychiatric ingenuity gambled with my brain while enriching its coffers, all in the name of achieving good mental health.
I stopped playing craps with my brain in 2006, April 14, 2006, to be exact (yes I have my medical records, so I know the exact dates and treatment I received), and after two years of crushing depression and detox, my head cleared, the depression lifted, and I began to research in earnest on alternative ways to treat and/or live with depression, and what exactly those psychotropic drugs do the brain and body of those who take them.
This blog is the result of my continuing effort to be informed on this subject. Both to prevent myself from being so easily persuaded to gamble with my brain and body, and to present the unvarnished truth about psychiatric treatment in America.
I did find alternatives that work for me. But alas the years I spent responding to the inner tides of emotions, moods, and corresponding thoughts, have not had a happy outcome. The phrase "a day late, and a dollar short" comes to mind.
So dear reader I hope you can find something useful here, and on occasion something humorous. So let us begin ~ Depression Monologues ~
