When I was young — meaning inexperienced, myopic and shallow — I remember passing a knowing look to my sisters when my grandmother, yet again, lamented that she couldn’t find her glasses. Her glasses! Her glasses! The world stood or fell on my grandmother’s not being able to find her glasses. How we laughed. I’m not laughing now. I lost my glasses at work today in a job that demands that, well, I must see. I worked at Staples, in the... Read more
As a member of a coterie of journalists who cover religion, I have been confounded by the moralizing in print this presidential election season has elicited from journalists and thought leaders. Christian journalists and pundits have either struggled to reconcile their finely-tuned moral sensibilities with a morally ambivalent candidate or they haven’t struggled at all about it and have instead called down unequivocal condemnation and scorn. Are Christians obliged to condemn moral imperfection of secular governing authors? Are they remiss... Read more
The main point I have wanted to make in this series of posts related to my discontinuation of antidepressants is this: It can be done. You will survive. Your body is working with you to recover. The last days of my third and final taper, nearly two years after I had made the first attempt, ended innocuously. Step by step I was slicing down my tablets until they became too small to slice. At this point I started skipping days: I’d... Read more
In honor of Mental Health Awareness month, I have been posting about the long and arduous journey I took to get off antidepressants. They had been prescribed for me by a general practitioner when I was experiencing a difficult passage in my life and, over time, had come to affect my health adversely. I made the decision to get off them but it was a long haul. This post addresses how, by my third attempt, I had learned some fundamental... Read more
by Wendy Murray In keeping with my posts this month — Mental Health Awareness month — I include below an account of an experience I had with a medical professional who proved unhelpful and even belligerent in my attempt to seek her help in withdrawing from my antidepressant. I have learned that this story is typical and many patients, like myself, contend with unhelpful doctors. I want to be clear that, even as I write about my experience with this... Read more
(This series about antidepressants is posted during Mental Health Awareness month.) For some, the attempt to discontinue antidepressants is a life-or-death dance. Something in the brain of a person who is discontinuing sends alarming signals. Often these impulses leave one with the singular feeling of rage that focuses on the need to self-destruct or to destroy something or someone else. For those who are discontinuing, if during one of these rage-filled moments, they are lucky enough to cling to the... Read more
Since May is Mental Health Awareness month, I am highlighting my experience with taking antidepressants and how, over time, I concluded they were causing me more harm than they were doing me good and thus decided to get off of them. I had been put on antidepressants by my G.P. during a rough patch (as is the case for so many for whom these drugs are casually prescribed). I found, over time, that my mind was growing dull, my thinking fogged,... Read more
Today is the birthday of the Danish Christian philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard (May 5, 1813 to – November, 11 1855). Among those who have heard of him at all, he is known for such classic works as Fear and Trembling and Sickness Unto Death. Over his troubled life Kierkegaard stayed true to his faith, but wrestled incessantly with its most visceral implications. As a result of this torment, he died prematurely, exhausted from the test. He was depressed. His unstable childhood ill-prepared him... Read more
Continuing my series, this Mental Health Awareness month, about my journey to quit antidepressants, this post describes the point when I made the decision to finally be rid of them. A passage from John Milton’s Paradise Lost captures the picture of my relationship with antidepressants at that point, and the struggle to be rid of them: “[You] feel by turns the bitter change; Of fierce extremes, extremes more fierce From beds of raging fire to starve in ice Their soft ethereal... Read more
The month of May is Mental Health Awareness month and thus is it a good opportunity for me to share what I have learned about antidepressants and how they often frequently worsen the symptoms associated with mental health. You read that right. Many years ago, during a difficult period of my life, I was prescribed by a general practitioner an antidepressant that falls into the category of an SSRI (Selected Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitor). From that time until the time I was... Read more
Poets and Lunatics
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In