Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Farewell Prozac

I wrote the Farewell Prozac blog from last September to December. You might find it interesting if you have, or have ever had, depression, or taken medication for it, or if you know someone who does. It's only my personal views on how things went while I was trying to get myself off medication, and how that progressed; though a short while after, a few months later, I discovered that I wasn't able to cope after all.

I have reflected on this, and how my 'failure' to cope wasn't really a failure at all, but more a success of experience and patience. And I'm glad I wrote about it - there's quite a lot of posts that I find interesting in that blog, for example when I wrote about giving up smoking, or the one where I wrote about how you can't fix some things. I quite like re-reading them every now and then to give myself an idea of how things have progressed since then.

I think in the end what I've realised is that depression isn't something that I can beat, or conquer, but with medication as a spirit level you can live as 'normal' a life as you might want to. Things still go up and down, but not to the same degree, perhaps. And perhaps some of that is because of having resolved the idea in my mind that I don't think I can get on too well without being on medication. That doesn't seem like something that needs solving or sorting out any more, and the removal of that nagging doubt is something that has made life a lot easier to get on with.

So I think the giving-up of medication, even though it didn't work, was useful, because it was something that made me realise that there really is a problem - and something that can't be disposed of forever; but not something that needs to be unmanageable, either.

Every time I feel a bit shaky, I do have to remind myself of that. And it's ok.

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