I take psychiatric medicines. I am not crazy.

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions regarding psychiatric medication (and mental health, in general). With this post, I aim to shatter some of those myths by sharing my mental health journey (so far) and the lessons I learned from it.

I have been suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Dysthymic Depression (Persistent Depressive Disorder) for almost a year now. I have also been taking 2 psychiatric medicines — one for mood stabilization and second is an anti-anxiety tablet. I have been taking them for over 6 months now.

So, how did I know that I had mental health problems?

I was aware something was wrong with my emotions. I had no control over them and my self-talk was full of bickering and toxic patterns. So I began talking to a therapist online through an organization that provides mental health services. It went on for about 4–5 months. But as things began to get better, my therapist decided to get married and left that organization to settle into another city. They assigned me a new therapist but it didn’t work out with her. So after about 8 months with the second therapist, I decided to pause therapy for a while.

One day, in my endless hours of Facebook scrolling, I came across a post from The Hugging Club of India (HCI) and I began attending their meets. They arrange public meets with therapists and counselors. It was refreshing to see so many people come and discuss their mental health freely.

One day I gathered enough courage and booked an appointment with a Mumbai-based therapist.

In my first “comeback” session, my therapist suggested a psychometric test called MCMI — III. The result elevated levels of anxiety (no surprise there!) and dysthymia (this took me quite a while to come to terms with).

What was my diagnosis?

To simplify this a bit, my mood was constantly distraught. I felt hopeless and irate. These are common emotions that naturally occur in humans. But for me, they never went away.

So, on one hand, I was struggling with the ups-and-downs of a traditional freelancing career and on the other hand, my mood kept worsening. So whatever ability I had to work on my freelancing career was being blunted by the effects of my anxiety.

In my personal life, I found myself out of sync with almost everybody significant. I found myself constantly doubting the intentions of even the closest of my friends. I had lost their trust and I fought with people even when I didn’t mean to. I was constantly finding myself in “foot in the mouth” type situations. I was engaged in self-harm — not physical self-harm but emotionally self-harm (I never wanted to commit suicide nor will I ever try). But I was harming myself emotionally — I didn’t let myself feel any emotion, I was either hooked to porn or some games on my phone constantly.

Being myself meant that the self-harming pattern of doubting people all the time while at the same time trying to change them. Soon, there was no one left. Anxiety had me scared of myself.

I also had fits of rage and irritability. This is a common symptom of Persistent Depressive Disorder (PDD), formerly Dysthymia. To explain what it actually is, I must first talk about what Depression is and how it affects us.

I am still a patient and not a mental health professional. So my understanding of the difference between MDD and PDD is pretty rudimentary. You can find the exact difference between the two here.

When we talk about Depression, we are generally talking about Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Both MDD and PDD are technically mood disorders, which means they induce an acute sense of hopelessness, immense fatigue, and sometimes suicidal thinking. But they affect patients a little differently.

As I understand, MDD causes negative patterns that affect how you think, feel, and act. It affects how you function in real life at home and at work. While the severity of symptoms is quite severe for MDD patients, their mood tends to cycle between very low and a normal level (which is called as mood baseline).

For PDD patients, however, the severity of symptoms (and the dip in the mood) is generally less severe than those in MDD. On the flip side, these less severe symptoms tend to last longer (almost all the time), but the mood oscillations are fragmented. PDD patients don’t generally experience an elevated baseline of their mood. So they forget what it feels like to not be depressed.

For me, I was diagnosed with PDD and one of the symptoms that stood out was that I lost interest in my daily activities — which included my work and my ability to be social. I felt slightly guilty all the time, I could not concentrate or make decisions. And since it was persistent, I experienced these symptoms constantly — no respite whatsoever!

If depression is a wound, then major depression (MDD) is a wound that opens wide, burns, pains, and closes back after a while. My PDD (or Dysthymia) was like a small wound that never closed, constantly burned, and the pain never stopped.

Oh, and let’s not forget — debilitating Insomnia! I. JUST. COULD. NOT. SLEEP. And as any mental health professional will tell you — sleep deprivation makes everything worse!

So, how did my psychiatric medicines help me?

As mentioned earlier, I started by taking two medicines — one for stabilizing my mood and the other for lowering my anxiety.

After about 6 months with them, my anxiety is significantly lower and my mood doesn’t drop as much. I will talk about the detailed list of improvements in my symptoms in a while, but before that, I have to talk about other medical conditions that were highlighted as my anxiety lowered.

My doctor did add a sleep drug and though it did relieve my Insomnia for a month, it seemed to make me drowsy far more often during the day. So we decided to drop it.

Despite having taken the other 2 medicines for about 4 months, I was not able to shake off one very persistent symptom — fatigue. Whether in the morning or in the afternoon, I was constantly tired.

My doctor assured me that this is not because of the medication not working, but it could be a sign of another medical issue. So, I proposed to do a basic medical examination to see if there were any underlying physical factors that were contributing to my PDD. Those tests revealed a chronic deficiency for Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D3.

So, now, for 2 months, I have been taking a special multivitamin supplement in addition to my two psychiatric medicines.

As a combined effect of these three medicines, I experience the following benefits:

• I no longer wake up with a sense of dread, an all-too-common scenario from before when I didn’t take these meds.
• I sleep very well. Although my body clock is very weird, I generally sleep pretty sound (despite omitting the sleep drug).
• My fatigue has lowered considerably. (I just feel plain-old lazy :P).
• My concentration has also improved. I am able to do my work for 3–4 hours straight before taking a break. I am also able to read a book for up to an hour. Both these things were not possible before as I was constantly getting distracted due to my fatigue and depression.
• I am not constantly on high alert. The physical symptoms of anxiety include high levels of stress hormones. Since my anxiety has lowered quite a bit, I can handle my stress.
• To handle my own stress, I have taken up regular meditation and that’s also helping me.
• To build my own habits, I have developed a habit tracking table in my journal.
• I feel grateful more often. Before I started medicines, the feeling of gratitude was hard to come by since my mind was stuck in a “chronic complaining” cycle. PS: If you can identify this condition in yourself or in someone you love, I urge you to get a mental health checkup done because this may be a sign of the onset of depression. I do hope you feel better soon!

It’s not like everything is hunky-dory as of now. I still have to manage my mental health otherwise my depression sneaks up on me whenever I feel tired or emotionally spent. I have started playing Tennis (still a novice). That kind of intense physical activity is definitely helpful for all mental health conditions (currently Tennis is halted due to the COVID-19 lockdown).

Not all symptoms of my PDD have stopped completely, but almost all of them have gotten better or their intensity has reduced.

Were there any doubts about psychiatric medication?

At first, I didn’t want to take medicines at all. I was very angry that I had let other people affect me so severely that mood and thought-processes were altered so significantly.

I didn’t let this anger get in the way of my future because as angry I was, I was also quite uneasy of being stuck in this situation of taking medication. On one hand, I didn’t want to take meds at all but on the other hand, I had no choice. The problems that caused my mental health to worsen weren’t about to magically go away.

So I did what seemed sensible at that time. Take the meds and be done with them as quickly as possible. If this demon was to be a part of my life, I was determined to let it know that it was not welcome.

It wasn’t like I started taking the medicines and everything was instantly fine. These medicines take time to work. Most significant effects won’t be noticed until weeks after starting the course. Depending on the medicines your psychiatrist prescribes you and how your body responds to them, it can take anywhere between 6–10 weeks to see the effect. For some people, they may see positive effects sooner.

For me, I saw minor changes at 4 weeks, which is when I was still getting used to the idea of taking “mental health medication”.

It was scary at first. But I just kept taking them anyway. I figured, “How long will this feeling of uneasiness last?”. Our brains are wired to adapt to repetition.

And adapt my brain did. There was a significant rise in my mood and lowering of anxiety after about 12 weeks of my first dose.

As of now (April 2020), I am taking these medicines every night. I feel so much better — my mood stays elevated and anxiety has very little effect on me. I will keep consulting my psychiatrist and we will see when the dosage can be lowered so we can start finally tapering off my meds.

So, what’s my point here?

If you are someone struggling with (diagnosed or undiagnosed) mental health issues or wondering if these medications are safe/effective you, let me assure you that it’s okay to fear change. I mean, these are high-power drugs that directly alter your brain chemistry. It’s natural to be at least highly inquisitive, if not paranoid, about these medications.

I was pretty skeptical too about taking these psychiatric medicines and their long term effects. I used to worry about whether people will call me crazy. Or if they would alienate me or maybe stop accepting me as I am.

Apart from the public image, one of my primary fears was: Will it even work? Do I have to keep taking them until I die? Aren’t there other options like spirituality, meditation, or online courses that seemed to have helped a lot of other people?

I had an hour-long session where I talked about all these things with my therapist where he convinced me that taking medication would be more effective than any other option.

There is still hope

To someone who had lost all trust in the world, a stranger’s repeated insistence was reassuring for me. I felt confident that I was taking steps in the right direction. Without meeting people who are comfortable talking about mental health, I would not have even known about the importance of psychiatric consultation.

If you are still wondering whether you should talk to a professional about your mental health problems, ask yourself this question: How do you want to see yourself in the future? Do you want to be less stressed? Do you want to see yourself happy in the future? If the answer is yes, then do it for your own future self.

A word of information

Consultation and medication can cost a decent amount of money. Depending on the medicines and the cost of doctor consultation, it can go up to 2000–4000 INR per month. This is only an estimate, and it is specific to India only. If you are not in India, I urge you to do a little bit of research for your country/city. Do note that these expenses recur on a monthly basis.

So make sure you have enough savings or your earnings can cover these expenses for at least 5–6 months, while having a comfortable cushion for the rest of your living expenses.