Better Living Through Chemistry

For all those living with a mental illness, the fun surrounding taking medications to control that illness is never-ending. Sometimes the meds make you sleepy, make you dull, kill your sex drive and cause weight gain. Unlike phsycial ailments, there are no quantifiable tests to determine is a psych medication is working. The success or failure of a medication is based solely on the person's assessment on whether or not you feel better.



That's the mess I am in. For over a year now, I have been taking three to four different medications to help with my depression. Depending on the circumstances of my life at the time, I would say the medication helps, or doesn't help. If nothing is going on, I feel OK. However, a slight bump in the road or a situation that is difficult for me to handle (large crowds, meeting new people, etc) will cause me to go into somewhat of a tail spin. The bigger the stressor, the worse the spinout. Meds don't seem to be helping at all with my reaction to stressors, even good ones. And sometimes, even if things are going well, I still feel depressed for reasons I can't explain.



I have no insurance, so I am going through the public mental health system, which has some serious flaws. It is overwhelmed, underfunded and their services are not well coordinated. A month after I got out of the crisis center, I still didn't have a case manager or a treatment plan. I also see a psychiatrist for about 5 minutes once every couple of months, and she asks me the same three questions: any side effects, do you want to kill yourself, and do you see/hear things that aren't there. If I answer "no" to those questions, I am sent about my merry way with refills. Remember those spinouts I referred to earlier? I mentioned them to my "drug dealer" a few months ago. She responded by adding more medication, both of which are used to treat bipolar disorder. The latter was a strong anti-psychotic that left me dull and confused most of the time. I quit taking it after a few weeks, but my psychiatrist wants me to resume the medication so she could see how I behaved on it.

I don't really know at this point how much of my depression is organic (caused by a chemical imbalance in my brain) and how much stems from the fact that my life is in limbo right now, and a therapist is taking me on a guided tour through pretty much the worst experiences of my life thus far. Lately I have been asking myself if the feelings I experience are truly from me, or are they from the medications? I just don't have a sure answer right now.