Antidepressants and Humility

Since the start of 2021, I’ve been taking antidepressants. I never thought I’d get here. 

I met antidepressants when I was a kid through commercials for medicines like Abilify and Cymbalta. I didn’t understand what depression was and why people took those medications. And the long list of side effects that at the end of each commercial convinced me that antidepressants were a trojan horse. 

Antidepressants came back to my life at the psychiatric outpatient program I attended in the fall of 2019, when I met a psychiatrist who repeatedly suggested I get on medication. I was proud, and naive, and told her that I don’t need any medication and can get better on my own through therapy and meditating. To me, medication represented weakness and giving up, and I was determined to hold onto my pride through my recovery. I was let out of the outpatient program early. They told me that I’d gotten everything I could get from the program and that there was no use for me to come anymore. To me, this was proof that I was okay and that I was already better. It was proof that the psychiatrist was delusional for suggesting I get on medication. She didn’t know who I was and what kinds of odds I’d overcome in my life.

Antidepressants stayed away for a few months after that as I kept recovering on my own. During this time, I put the pieces of the puzzle together that I had complex PTSD and various attachment injuries that resulted from long term child abuse and bullying during grade school. The path ahead of me for recovery seemed clear. I just needed a few months of EMDR and then life would magically get better and the PTSD would be cured. Everything would get solved after that. And on top of that, I didn’t need any antidepressants. It seemed like a sure victory.

Then the coronavirus pandemic began, and I flew home to make sure I wasn’t going through the pandemic all alone. I felt relieved to know that I’d be around family during the pandemic, considering I had no idea what was going to happen in the near future. EMDR was going to be put on hold, but that wasn’t a problem since I could continue to recover on my own. That was the plan. I’d go home and keep meditating and doing my processing work, fix my family, and when society opened back up, I’d emerge in an enlightened and perfectly healed state, ready to take on the world and live the life that I’d always dreamed of. It all seemed so perfect.

Needless to say, this plan fell apart once I got home. The first month was okay, but then the sleepless nights that were marked by constant panic attacks and flashbacks began. I reached out to a therapist to do remote EMDR out of desperation, hoping that everything would be perfect after that. And things did stabilize for a bit, but the panic attacks came back and they were worse than before. Pretty soon, I had to move out of the house since being at home kept retraumatizing me. 

And so antidepressants knocked on my door again, and this time benzodiazepines were joining them. My therapist said that these were just to stabilize me during a hard time while therapy kept doing its work. I was crestfallen. I felt like I was admitting defeat, but I rationalized that the antidepressant was just to help me sleep. I started taking amitriptyline.

My condition kept getting worse while at home in Seattle and I ended up developing a nasty case of gastritis due to all of the stress. I left for Boston when I realized that there was no way I could heal while in the same environment that traumatized me in the first place. Once I was in Boston, I kept up with therapy and continued taking amitriptyline, with the intention of not taking it soon. Things kept improving, but I hit a serious road bump on Christmas day when I was struck with a panic attack that ripped me out of my sleep. From 3 to 11am, I was meditating and trying to relax my systems, calling crisis lines, hoping that the panic would pass and the terrifying thoughts and feelings would subside. Luckily it did, though I felt ripped apart for the rest of the day. The next week wasn’t easy either, as my anxiety levels crept back up to levels I hadn’t seen in a while. Finally, January 3rd came and I had my worst panic attack yet. I was convinced I needed to go to an inpatient care facility, and I woke up my housemates at 2am to discuss options and prepare to get hospitalized. It didn’t happen luckily. My general practitioner suggested I take Ativan (a benzodiazepine) to calm the anxiety down and get on an antidepressant - not for sleep this time but to actually ease my anxiety, the intended purpose of an antidepressant. 

My attempt to defy the odds and heal in a record amount of time without taking medication came to an end. It felt like giving in, like I had lost and was a failure of sorts for needing to take medication. Why couldn’t I just meditate my way out of the anxiety and PTSD? What’s wrong with me? Nobody else in my family needed to take any sort of psychiatric medication. But then again, nobody else in my family except for my sister was attempting to move out of denial and start healing their psychological wounds. I was at a crossroads. I could continue trying to do what I’d been doing for the past few months, meditate my way out of PTSD while doing EMDR on the side with the grandiose fantasy that I could somehow reach enlightenment and heal completely without having to do what everybody else did, or I could take the antidepressants, reduce my suffering, and accept the reality of a more gradual recovery. I chose the latter, not because I enjoy sacrificing my ego, but because I have too many loved ones in my life that I care about who would prefer I not suffer, and I wanted to have them in my life. It seems a bit sad that I couldn’t even justify taking the antidepressant for the sake of easing my own suffering but for the purpose of the people around me.

The antidepressants helped alleviate my anxiety to a degree I couldn’t have imagined. In fact, I told my therapist that I should have been on them much earlier. I felt stupid and ashamed. I could’ve saved myself so much pain if I’d just swallowed my pride and taken antidepressants back when I was first offered them. I remember how self-righteous I was that I didn’t need any medication while everybody around me at the outpatient program did, and how I was going to heal faster than everybody else and end up in even better condition than people without any sort of trauma history. In reality, I was narcissistic and pedestalizing myself, and ultimately my justice was served.

Being on antidepressants brought me more than just relief from my anxiety and a better mood in my day to day. It also brought me a bit more humility. Humility in that I’m just human like everybody else. Humility in that I make serious mistakes and need to learn lessons. Humility in that I’m not special in my healing, and that I don’t get a free pass to “create my own improved path to healing” just because I think I’m smart. Taking antidepressants has helped bring me down to Earth and live in reality more. And while this stung for a bit, and I certainly complained for some time, it’s also relieving. There’s less shame in asking for help, less shame in admitting that I have flaws and make mistakes, and less shame in acknowledging that I’m only human. In fact, I’m grateful to have learned these lessons because I got something even better than my grandiose fantasy, peace with reality.

Naturally, I’ll make more mistakes in the future and will learn more lessons that instill humility, but at least I can look back on my relationship with antidepressants and understand that in the pain, there is gold to be found.