Depression

I've been prescribed antidepressants in the past but I've always felt reluctant and apprehensive about taking it, largely because a) I feel that the effects are probably short-term, they're not going to actually resolve the depression, b) because they do have side-effects and, c) I didn't feel comfortable, myself, with taking some tablets.

There was one particular tablet I was prescribed, it wasn't Prozac, but it was something that was on a lower scale which I started the course.... but I only took them for a few days and I feel that, looking back now, that I didn't actually take them for long enough, anyway, to have any [pause] authority to say whether they would have helped me or not.
 

I was worried before I took them that I would become divorced from reality' like you don't care about anything. But I don't think it really is like that. Perhaps if you took a high dose, but I don't think it is. Despite the side-effects, for me it was the right thing to do. I actually felt happier that it worked, because it proved to me that what I had been suffering was a physical thing'. Chemicals in my brain. And you spend years with people saying, "Oh, cheer up love, why are you so miserable?" And you're thinking it is not my fault. 

But you are made to feel it is your fault. The fact that these tablets helped me, I thought there was something going on with my serotonin'. I felt vindicated. But after a while, I realised it sorted out my brain chemistry, but you have learnt all these negative ways of looking at things, and doing things' you've learned this behaviour, from your parents at times. 

And that is why I believe I need long term therapy as well. I felt better, but I still didn't have ways of dealing with things'. The tablet helps you to be more positive, but in other ways' for example, I find it easier becoming friends with men, but I find it hard to make friends with women. But there is no tablet for that' I still have a total inferiority complex'. I think I am right, but I also think I am wrong. I hold myself back' I know I am good at my work, but another part of me thinks I'm crap'
 

So I try and make an appointment every three months or so to pop in and see him. And whenever he persuaded me' or would suggest or advise probably rather than persuade'. Advise that perhaps after being on the anti depressants for two years, that I should come off it. I was a bit unsure and he went on to say, 'Well you know it's worth giving it a try. Why don't you? You'll come and see me every two weeks and we'll see how you're getting on and we can monitor it closely.' And so I did. 

I came off it fairly gradually, although I believe that's actually not necessary. You can stop and start I've read elsewhere now without sort of tailing off, but I did sort of tail it off over the period of about a month. And then whenever I went back everything was reasonable, ok after the first few weeks, and then very slowly it began to sort of slide again. And so when I went back and suggested that perhaps I could go on to this medication again he said, 'Well ok.' He was happy enough with that. 

The guidelines suggested that you know if you had sort of one depressive illness you should be on it for six months. The second occasion, on it for a minimum of two years, and the third occasion that you would be on it for five years. And so, I feel well, and for the next four and a half years from now I am quite safe. I can still continue taking that. 

But in five years time do I have to go back and sort of plead my case again? Ask, as it were, if I can continue taking them, or do I have to go back through that misery of feeling that it's all going pear shaped again and maybe existing for a number of months not feeling well?