The following below are responses to a series of questions I will be asked during a video interview about the affects of anti-depressants. The video is going to be a simple short video for you-tube, non-profit and solely for educating anyone interested on the impacts of anti-depressants and such. Because not all of my answers will make it into the video, I took the time to fully answer them in text, as I write much better than I speak. Enjoy and feel free to leave any comments.
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Did you have thoughts of suicide (or a suicide attempt) while on antidepressant medication?
While on antidepressants, I was known to myself as nothing more than a face in a crowd, moving through the motions of a scandalous teenage world…hoping that one day I would know how to feel again. Everyday a white erase board became one of the most entertaining objects to stare at. Problem is all I could envision upon this whiteboard were math problems. There was nothing more to think about while on this cocktail of thoughtlessness. The only time I had alone…I spent scratching at my chest in anger, screaming at the top of my lungs to music, and cursing the one they call “god.” So, did I have thoughts of suicide on anti-depressants; More than you can imagine. Did I attempt to kill myself; No. But I did from time to time, hit my head multiple times, along with the scratching of my chest. So technically, either way, there was a form of self mutilation.
In retrospect, do you see a connection between the medication and the suicidal ideas?
At times, the thoughts I had seemed to derive off the knowledge that I was on Prozac. In my head, I was saying, “I am on an antidepressant, so this means I must be pretty depressed.” And I think that is the exact place where these thoughts seem to begin to evolve. Accompany this with the medical terms, “severe depression” and “suicidal ideology”, and you have yourself what seems to be a severe mental problem, when really they are all just a phase that became drugged and prolonged. It is because we know we are on something for something like this that our imagination begins to run wild into a deep forest of feelings containing desperation and deprivation, continuing to snowball into this “Oh my god, my life sucks” thought. These thoughts probably wouldn’t be there without these medications also having a presence. I am speaking on behalf of a teenager put onto a medication. I believe the same can’t be said for a young child at the age of five or six. They are much younger and lack an understanding that teenagers have about certain things. If you put a child on some type of drug like this at such a young age, they will grow thinking this drug is a necessity for their life, and without it, they aren’t the same. They don’t even know what this drug does but they see it as something there to help them, which means later on, they will want to know what is wrong, probably fight to get off the medication after they find out and if they fail, angst thoughts will evolve into something much more because of their new knowledge of it. It is a weird cycle of evolving misunderstandings that some may look back on and learn from as I have done or some may never understand that part of their life.
Any friends/others you’ve observed with similar reactions to that kind of medication?
Throughout the years on these medications, I had met many a person on many medications for depression and ADHD. The ADHD ones, while on their medications, seem to be very “Eh, whatever” about anything not seen as a necessity, lacking motive to do much other than what they had to. Their attitude towards life isn’t that great, either, though they may have a perfectly enjoyable life. Some seem lazier than others but all have the tendency to ask “why” about things they don’t understand, argue their points, and then speak their mind on the overall subject. All these views are over the past three to four years I have been watching and analyzing the medicated teenager. It seems as though the ones strictly on just Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall or whatever, still have a mind of their own and do their own thing. But what is interesting are the ones on both an amphetamine and antidepressant. They seem to do what ever anyone else around is doing, enjoying it, laughing with it and all but put them alone, and they don’t do anything constructive or seemingly enjoyable. It’s like a light bulb that is waiting for someone to turn it on.
What’s it like not being on anti-depressants?
To not be on anti-depressants…isn’t easy at first. The time when my thoughts of suicide were most intense was when I was off of them combined with the pressures of the world around me. Like I said, the anti-depressants didn’t make the thoughts go away but instead regulated them. So when I had initially taken myself off of them, I literally had no control and seemed to be attacked every class period by thoughts of hurting. But this is all because, over time, I had forgotten what is was like to be “okay.” I had not realized until later that I was “okay” the whole time, and that these drugs were preventing my ability to grow mentally/emotionally. Almost the same can be said for when I relieved myself of Ritalin and all other ADHD medications. I literally had forgotten how to learn and focus on my own. Ritalin and others actually do work like they should, it’s just their side-effects cause many things ranging from lack of appetite to depression. Combine that with an anti-depressant and you have someone deemed as “emotionless.” That to me doesn’t really mean lack of all emotion but rather more of an apathy towards emotion as a whole. You still feel it, but it takes more of the good things in life to matter and less of the bad. You overall are disoriented as a human being and have little control over your mind. Psychologists and therapists may beg to differ…but who better to tell you than a person five years off medication he was on for eleven. There are no professionals but the ones like me. There are no voices to listen to other than ours. I have rebuilt my processes and conquered the turmoils of these unnecessary drug’s after effects.
How has being off them enhanced your ability to create — to paint, to write, to do music?
When I think of how these medications affected my creativity…I curse them more than anything else in this world. Before the anti-depressants, my body had become incredibly accustomed to the “dosage of speed”, as I like to call it, given to me daily. I had grown eventually to discover my creative side, which didn’t really surge until the death of my father. But come time when Prozac came into my life, nothing really mattered in terms of writing or drawing because I didn’t want to do it any more. And when I did, all I could create were these horribly in-your-face, cliché thoughts of violence towards religions and people including myself and close ones. So, there I was, unable to escape from these thoughts, and when I thought I was escaping, I really was just making them more visible by putting them on paper. This “coping skill” was more of an excuse for my angst to show. I remained this way until I finally took myself off these medications. The art that followed…there was none. I couldn’t even remember how to put words together to make decent poetry, let alone draw. Since then, I have rebuilt my process of creativity from scratch. And this is frustrating. This is frustrating because I could be at a higher level in terms of art right now. Who knows, I could be a master of still life drawing already, because at the rate I was going, it seemed inevitable, it was all I wanted to do. Though I am frustrated, I am also grateful. I am grateful because I am at a better understanding of where to go in terms of art now. I have also found a form of art that I have more in common with, one which I can truly express myself with; Abstract Expressionism. Furthermore to expand my self expression, I am now working on installation projects and such that pertain to my teenage years and major events amongst them to let others have a better understanding of the world’s impact upon me. So all in all…the medications have both hindered and propelled my art and knowledge of it. Hindered by holding me back at the times in which I was on them but propelled me since the knowledge to follow the period of recovery has given me a better understanding of who I am and what I need to do to get to where I want.
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