YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I am sixteen years old and have been depressed for the past three of four years. I have balanced between melancholy and suicidal. My despair has driven away friends and left me in isolation in the past. Two months ago I finally started taking anti-depressants. My mother told me that my depression is a simple chemical imbalance, and I have believed her for the most part. However, I am beginning to wonder whether or not my depression is simply as product of my evironment. The anti-depressants I am on make me feel extremely out of control, and while my few friends have said they have noticed a positive change I feel worse than ever. I feel like I am becoming vacuous as the me that I have always known is absorbed into an unnaturally peppy human being. My emotions are simply being pushed under a wave of blurry brightness. My best friend and family have all told me that I should not stop taking them, since I am still pretty unstable but I don’t know if I can keep doing it. Every morning I take one I feel like I am sacrificing a huge piece of myself. I know that depression is not who I am, but I also know that this “alternative” is certainly not me either. I keep skipping out on taking it every couple days and it is only making me feel worse as I keep throwing my mind in and out of whack. I started taking them because I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning and started failing some of my classes. I can now get out of bed, but I’m still not doing well in school and I’m usually a decent student. I don’t know what to do. I want to stop taking this medication more than any thing, even if that means becoming a sad, introverted person who isn’t likable. At least that person isn’t afraid of their reflection even if it is dirty.

Go back to your doctor and tell him/her what's going on, it takes a bit of tinkering to get the meds right.

ghughes1980 is absolutely right. I'm in my 40s, started taking meds in my 30s and I still have to adjust the dosage (in consultation with my doctor) now and then, and they can have a particularly powerful effect on teens.

I concur with the last two posters. Don't give up just yet. Let your doctor know what's going on. There are many different anti-depressants -- I know it's hard and it's scary taking drugs that mess with your brain, especially when you're so used to being depressed that you've forgotten what it's like to feel "normal." But since you've been having these depressive symptoms for years, it's very likely that your brain chemistry is throwing you off and you need medication. Please don't give up hope.

Hey i took antidepressants when i was around 15. I totally relate to what you're describing.I almost got kicked out of school because I just couldn't go. I couldn't function I called in sick at least once or twice every week. And once I started taking meds I could at least attend school even if I didn't do particularly well.

'vacuous', had to google that word but that is exactly how i felt on my meds. I never felt like myself just sort of mindless and empty in a different way. I didn't realise how unhappy i was on them because i didn't feel depressed anymore. But I was unhappy. And unhappy is better than depressed because i wasn't suicidal anymore and I was more functional and thats why I stayed on them and like you because my friends and family said they saw a positive change in me. I really wished I told my psychiatrist all this. But he was just a dude who gave me like a year's worth of medication and told me to come back next year. I didn't trust him. Find one you trust and tell him because I'm sure a different medication could change things.

For me I went off them in February (i'm eighteen now), I took a year and a half to stabilise myself with meds and therapy and just telling my friends the truth. Meds gave me the courage to open up, to sort through all the therapists and find the one that I could work with. So when I came off them I was okay and supported. I realised I had not cried like earnestly in a year. Like before there were tears and numbness when I cried. I feel more like myself than I have since I became depressed or when I was on meds. I don't think I can go back to meds either but I would never rule them out.

So yeah sorry that was a ramble but I thought being on meds was great, but then I started hating it a lot. But I don't think I could have come this far if not for them, honestly I'd probably have killed myself or done something horribly reckless and stupid and drive everyone I loved away. I built my life and safety nets while I was on them. So now that I'm off them if I fall into depression I'm safe. Maybe go and try different meds, which is something I wished I'd have done, and stay on one you think is bearable and ok while working at therapy or whatever else helps so you can go off them safely if you want to stop.

Well said.