Antidepressants for your dark period

Oddly, anti-depressants have selectively taken out certain feelings and sensations. I'm not as sad, as obsessed, as blaming, or as morose as I used to be. The suicidalness is still intact. In the last year, we added a med which has helped with paranoia. But what does depression actually feel like, and what do anti-depressants feel like? Depression is a weight on the chest and increased gravity that affects your whole person. You can't pick up your feet fully when you walk. Your head feels too heavy to stay up for long on its own. Without your control, you hear yourself sighing way too much to be polite.

Experiences are endured. Sleep is the only escape, and that only works some of the time as insomnia is a big part of depression. You are tossed between waves of anger and sadness. You just want an end. Anti-depressants don't all work the same, and I've been on about 7 over the years. Some make you shake, and feel like you're sitting on rocket fuel that's about to ignite. Others make you feel like you're floating, while others still can give you a sense of calmness and self-identification.

I'll tell you the oddest feeling to come from psych meds. I don't know which one is responsible for it (as I was on 3 at the time), but I had the very clear and distinct sensation of my "point of focus" being moved forward and out of my head. It was like something had reached into my head, scooped up the little man inside, and set his base of operations up on his nose. I still feel that forward inclination of who I am. It's like coming out from behind a mask.

One very dark period, a few months after I had been put on anti-depressants, my doctor took me off completely and started me on a different drug at its lowest dose. The effect was like having brain damage. I had trouble forming sentences, understanding simple discussions, planning, or making critical decisions. It was a nightmare. I don't think this type of thing is typical, but do keep an eye out for unwise practices from your doctor.

I would recommend anti-depressants for people who have out of control depression. The trade off was worth it to me, and it allowed me to have a much more meaningful personal life. Trust your intuition and sense of logic when deciding on a doctor..Sometimes it seems as though the world just had a new coat of paint on it. Everything is clean and bright and bursting with possibility like an overripe strawberry.

Sometimes it's as though your soul has been wrapped in gauze. Emotions come through a little muffled. The world seems as though it's at arm's length. Nothing really fazes you, gets to you. Still, this emotional anesthesia is preferable to the depression. Sometimes you feel the weight of it all. Your mind recognizes that it has to be drugged into being happy. You hate yourself for being so messed up that it takes medicine for you to feel okay. You wonder why you should bother when you're obviously a mistake, a blight on this world placed here, incomplete, by a forgetful god. You hate yourself. Then you go see a doctor and try a different medication because that one ain't doing its job.

Before I found a cocktail of medications that worked for me, everything was… grey. Sure, I hung out with friends. I played video games. I did my schoolwork. Aside from the rare moments of happiness I could snatch here and there, though, nothing mattered. For the most part, I wasn’t actively suicidal, but I would oftentimes on my drive to school wish that I could get lucky enough to get hit by a semi truck and die on impact. What was the point? Wake up, go through the motions, eat when reminded to, sleep.

Now, though, my default state isn’t happy, per se, but it’s certainly no longer misery. When I stop to think about life in general, I do smile, because I actually feel like I have something to care about. Life in general is exciting again. I want to get out of bed and do my daily routine, rather than lie there all day. It didn’t cure my depression, but it’s made things manageable for me. I barely have any physical side effects as a lot of people do while taking antidepressants, except for excessive night sweat which I can easily cop with, so most of my perspective about it concerns my mental state.

It seems like the dark cloud is gone. Before antidepressants I had this big dark cloud blurring my vision, and giving its shape and heaviness to my world. To put into simple words. After antidepressants I started to see that cloud was slowing fadding away, until it came to a point where I could see a colorful word. A brighter world. I started to do things I was afraid of doing, and I didn’t care about what people were thinking or saying. Suddenly I became that person who knew exactly what I had to do and how I had to do.

I found out that all that gried I felt was a just a matter of perspective and now I had a new one. A bright one. I am much more social now, much more out-going, I am much more peaceful and serene, inside and out. I am very confident, and I have a lot of energy to wake up every day and pursue my goals and dreams. I came back to my old interests, I developed several hobbies and short and long terms plans.

But I have also become numb. Completely numb. That is the “I don’t give a damn” drug. Things happen and they don’t shake me out, don’t matter what is. I don’t react emotionally, at least not so hard as before. I know it would have to be something really bad to make me feel so sad again. Of course I am still not a souless human being. I still feel compassion, even though I think more about them then I really feel. I feel sad sometimes, but my sadness only needs a couple hours to go away. I also forgot my tough past.

I also became fearless. I also know several cases of people on antidepressants who exposed to a dangerous of life-threatening situation didn’t have the hability to feel fear. I know this woman who once fond a huge snake on her toillete, and while the snake was staring at her she coudln’t feel any fear. It almost feels like you are a zoombie, I even have to give myself time “to grief” and think of all the things that made me sad in order to process them mentally and emotionally. I became a whole new person, and I honestly I like this person better.

I wonder if I was supposed to be this new person all the time if I was not being carried away for that dark cloud, and if I can be this “new” person without these tiny little pills. Thinking of it puzzles my mind and as I am still on antidepressants, I have no answer. From my perspective and experience, it does feel good. Just good. I don’t live on the edge of my feelings anymore, be it a good, or a bad one. Cheers!