My view of medications

Of late I have heard a lot of controversy about medications for anxiety and depression.  Lots of people seem to think they are over-prescribed, not useful, or people shouldn't take them.  There seems to be a lot of opinions of what constitutes depression/anxiety as a disorder and what is just a natural part of life.  I am not a doctor, nor an expert so I will stick to my own experience.

I take anti-depressant medication.  It also has a calming effect generally and helps with anxiety.  Deciding to take medication was one of the most grueling decisions of my life.  I was completely against the idea for a long long time.  In hindsight, it is the best thing I have ever done.

Before I started on the medication I knew things weren't right with me.  I was getting counseling and nothing was getting better.  I felt like there was always some blockage that I just couldn't seem to get past.  On some level I understood the things I needed to change, but I absolutely was not able to do it.  I finally decided that medications were worth a try when I started to wonder about suicide again.  I knew at that point I needed some other kind of help than I was getting.  I didn't want to go down the path of being so desperate that I wanted to kill myself, again.

So I started on the medication.  It took some time, but eventually I could see solutions to problems.  I felt able to cope with life in general and a lot of the hard emotional work I have done.  I felt alive, instead of numb.  For me the medications have been a life saver, possibly quite literally.  At some point I will try to stop taking them and see what happens.  If it doesn't work and I start to feel depressed again, I will continue to take them.

I am sure there are challenges, and quite possibly the medications are over-prescribed.  But, and for me this is a big but, for some of us they help, a lot.