Coming Off
Posted: Wed 18 May, 2011 Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Health, Thoughts 7 Comments »Last week, I made the decision to stop taking the Citalopram. It hasn’t done much for me in the year I’ve been taking it – other events have had far more effect on depression, motivation etc. than the anti-depressants have. I’ve also found that they have a nasty levelling side-effect, making me not care more than when I wasn’t taking them. (By that I mean that everything was just same-same in my head, there were no real highs – or, admittedly, lows – and it all became a bit blah, nothing provoking any form of reaction)
Additonally, the anti-depressants just didn’t seem to really work for me. There were still Bad Days on them, but there weren’t really any Good Days- things more levelled out to Just OK Days. (or Blah Days) My motivation didn’t shoot up – indeed most of the time it seemed to be harder to be motivated, because well, what was the point? I wasn’t Depressed, but more Couldn’t Be Bothered.
So, I’ve come off completely them. It’s not the method advised by GPs, but I don’t have the time, tolerance or inclination to do a “gradual withdrawal”. If the withdrawal side-effects were to become really bad (not that I expect them to) then I have a new box ready to be started. But I doubt it’ll be that bad.
Weirdly, the worst time (so far) for being off them seems to be early evening, when my head begins to feel a bit wooly, a bit floaty, not really all that level. It’s not debilitating or unpleasant – just a weird sensation.
I don’t miss the Citalopram.
I don’t know what’s next. I’m going to go back to wanting to do things, and then to trying to find ways to motivate myself to do them. So far that seems to be OK. I’m not perfect – thankfully I’ve never claimed to be – and I do have issues with motivation, or at least Getting Things Done.
I’ll still work on the motivation and so on – I’ve still got the ideas and plans, but need to bring them out into the world – but I don’t think it’s actually necessarily related to depression.
And when all’s said and done, I’d rather have the ups and downs of life, depression and whatever else, instead of the flat day-to-day numbness of Citalopram.
Always found the side-effects to be far worse than the actual root problem. I think I lasted a month on them as a result.
Good decision
By the way – have you ever seen this book? An interesting take on life in general
http://www.amazon.co.uk/F-k-Ultimate-Spiritual-Way/dp/1848500130/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305743323&sr=8-1
You know YOU best, so to hell with the doctors. Hope things are more up than down and if you ever want a mini-break come to Glasgow and I’ll get you properly shitfaced! 🙂
OMG. You’ve sussed the pharmaceutical industry and most medics’ response to anything they can remotely label as ‘depression’, in this country.
Excellent, another convert.
But, I doubt the price of shares in pharmaceuticals will go down any time soon because few people come to this realisation and then choose to take back control over their destinies.
Life is indeed better with the ups and downs. I know that means Ronan Keating was right with his rollercoaster song but… well, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Good luck. *hugs*
My experience with anti-depressants is that you have to try several, and perhaps take a couple of different ones at the same time. Bupropion + citalopram was what really helped me, though I’ve since discontinued the citalopram with no side effects or change in mood. Buproprion is a SNRI, not a SSRI, so it acts in a slightly different manner in the brain than other anti-depressants. My particular diagnosis was/is major depression and attention deficit disorder (which is now known as ADHD predominantly inattentive), and bupropion seems to work for both. Mind you, I was severely depressed for 27 years or so, and outside of a couple of periods of a few months, thought about suicide constantly. So while I think they have caused some amount of numbing of the highs, that’s an incidental cost compared to curing my lows. YMMV.
I found http://crazymeds.us insanely useful (heh) after my last patch of major depression put me on meds for the first time – mind, of equal use was a pretty decent GP and local psych unit. But yes, as i am sure you are fully aware YMMV massively with this stuff, do your own research and work out what is best for yourself.