Western Medicine Blows

I fought with my psychiatrist for three years to stay off medications before anorexia and mood instability got to be so bad that I didn't know what else to do. I hadn't seen my acupuncturist in months (I'd been using acupuncture to control anxiety, and it was FABULOUS), because I'd been too anxious to call her to help with my anxiety. Now that's a vicious cycle, eh? Plus, it seemed pretty handy to take a pill and that would make everything better. So in May 2005, shortly after my 21st birthday, I started lexapro. And it all went downhill from there.

In June and July I went inpatient for my eating disorder, which was possibly one of the WORST experiences of my entire life. The place that I was at (New Life Centers in Salt Lake City, UT), had the philosophy of "if you won't take a pill for it, then it must not be a problem" (one of the many philosophies I had issues with). And by the time I left I was up to a fairly high dose of Lexapro and also taking 10mg of Ambien to sleep. Every night.

People who say Ambien isn't addictive are full of shit, because I most definitely was addicted by the time I left. Then the Lexapro stopped working as well, so I went on Ativan, which turned me into a zombie and which I also got hooked on after using it for a week!! Like, to the point where if I didn't take it the anxiet was so bad that I couldn't function; if I did take it I was totally zombified but was not anxious. Fun.

Well, this doctor I was seeing who was monitering my weight and whatnot, and was a huge bitch, took me off the Ativan and then my psychiatrist switched me from Lexapro to Effexor, and shortly after that I started Lamictal to help with seasonal depression, and by mid-late November my mood was stable.

Stable, and incredibly monotone. I quit seeing the bitchy doctor and started seeing an acupuncturist again. She put me on Tang Qui (herbs) to help balance out my system and I started taking a couple different homeopathic remedies for anxiety. So I decided I was going to go off the drugs.

As a Buddhist, massage therapist with a background in basic acupressure, and a soon-to-be student of Oriental medicine, I just had this intrinsic feeling that I should stop trying to make the symptoms go away and start listening to them and try to figure out what they were telling me (according to my acupuncturist: lots of liver stagnation, and the drugs just make that worse). So I had a meeting with my psychiatrist, who was adamently against me going off the meds (but I basically said: I'm going off them. Period. Now tell me what I need to do to be safe about it.) but who gave me instructions on how to go about it.

Going off the Lamictal was easy, just as going off the Lexapro had been. I went from 150mg of Effexor to 75mg the same week that I had knee surgery and don't remember having too many withdrawal symptoms (however vicodin could be to thank for that). Then on january 2 I decided it was time to go from 75mg to none (as I'd been instructed), and my life has been HELL ever since. I thought it was bad when I went off Ambien and Ativan and wasn't allowed caffeine when I was inpatient. No, all those things were a piece of cake compared to this.

I can't concentrate, am scared to drive, hypersensitive, and every couple seconds that natural noise of the ears becomes deafaningly loud and most of the time I just want to rip my skin off because it is so awful to be like this. 2005 was the year of the Pill and that was crap, and I just pray to the gods that the aftermath of that will go away soon.

I wish I'd known before that my extreme depression and anxiety did not need to be medicated away but LISTENED TO. Your body ultimately knows what it needs and will tell you. And you can silence that with the pills but that doesn't take away the needs. And they say, but it's BIOCHEMICAL!! which of course it is, but that doesn't address what's CAUSING the biochemical imbalance to occur. Because in reality that itself is a symptom of something greater.

For me being on meds was like taking a world that was dark and gray and shining a light on it and painting everything pink. Now my mood is generally lower but the world has more than one color and seems more REAL. Like it's raining and all this pink paint is being washed off everything. And it scares me that these withdrawals could last for a while. That they have been lasting for so long.

This isn't right. It's not right to take something that can do this to a person.

How is this not a poison?

by Juliana

end of comments re: Western Medicine Blows

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