Article on Depression - Wrong to make me stabby?

[jarn]

The Globe and Mail in Canada is running a series on mental health.

 

THIS: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/niall-mcgee-didnt-believe-in-depression-until-cancer-meds-put-him-in-a-suicidal-spiral/article24660218/is today's article.

 

Read to the end.  To the 'I went off the ADs/benzos without my doctor's knowledge or permission and got better, though whether that's BECAUSE I WAS NO LONGER ON PSYCH MEDS OR THE INTERFERON (cancer med that had caused his depression) HAD LEFT MY SYSTEM.

 

O

 

M  

 

G

 

They have a little bit after the article about how it's bad to cold turkey off meds, but the article fucking glamourizes doing it!  And says that hey, maybe, this is why I'm better.  How is this responsible journalism?  What does this say to all the people out there struggling to stay on meds, who desperately need meds to function?  That gee, you're just some other loser sucked in by BIG PHARMA?  UGH.

 

I tweeted the Globe and CAMH saying I thought it was irresponsible.  Urgh.  Unless I'm going craz(ier) and this is a perfectly fine and dandy article.

 

Edit:  And it's not like he was in therapy.  And he's pretty negative about CBT, despite it's proven efficacy.  WTH.

Edited May 29, 2015 by jarn

[water]

Made me VERY stabby. This Part in particular. Lucky guy, huh?  It just went away, swoop. Well fck him. heh.

 

-----------------------------

The way I saw it, all the talking, the group therapy sessions, and, especially, the many drugs that I had tried had little effect. I felt like I was fighting a nuclear war, but that psychiatry had given me only bows and arrows to defend myself. A few days after returning home, I stopped taking my medication. I told no one. Not even Helen. I was so angry that nothing had worked that, in an act of juvenile defiance, I threw all my drugs in the garbage. I was aware of the possible side effects of cold turkey withdrawal from psychiatric medication: insomnia, extreme anxiety, depression, elevated risk of suicide. But, the way I saw it then, there wasn’t really any downside – I was already living with all those side effects.

For the first week or so, I didn’t feel any difference. And then something unbelievable happened. In early March, over the course of a week, I went from being clinically depressed to having almost no symptoms. My anxiety melted away. I was able to sleep about five hours a night. Deep reserves of energy returned. My concentration came back. I could read. I was able to follow the plot of a TV show. I could write. I could take my son to the park. Soon, I was back in the gym working out with Rafael Nadal-like intensity. Whether my recovery was a result of quitting psychiatric medication, or simply interferon finally leaving my system, I will never know for sure.

The weeks and months that followed were the happiest of my life. I tried to get caught up on everything that I had missed. I called friends and family and talked their ears off. My appetite was back and I regained much-needed weight on my emaciated frame. Cillian and I spent many hours running around like monkeys escaped from the zoo. In the fall, I returned to work and within a few weeks I had settled back into a familiar routine. My family had come through a great crisis. Somehow we were all intact.

 

 

[jt07]

Yeah, this definitely sounds like an anti-psych piece. Why is mental illness the only illness where going without meds is a virtue? Nobody runs stories that say, "Oh, I quit my insulin and I feel so much better." Why? Because I'm sure they would be liable in court for publishing such nonsense.

 

This article just perpetuates the tired old stigma that people are not mentally ill; they just lazy and have to try harder. It sickens me.

[jarn]

THANK you guys!  I feel saner already.  Water, that is the EXACT bit that pushed me over the edge.  

 

jt, so true.  Going without insulin would be HORRIBLE, but drop your ADs and you're better than the other psych patients.  

[IcePrincess88]

The Globe and Mail in Canada is running a series on mental health.

 

THIS: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/niall-mcgee-didnt-believe-in-depression-until-cancer-meds-put-him-in-a-suicidal-spiral/article24660218/is today's article.

 

Read to the end.  To the 'I went off the ADs/benzos without my doctor's knowledge or permission and got better, though whether that's BECAUSE I WAS NO LONGER ON PSYCH MEDS OR THE INTERFERON (cancer med that had caused his depression) HAD LEFT MY SYSTEM.

 

O

 

M  

 

G

 

They have a little bit after the article about how it's bad to cold turkey off meds, but the article fucking glamourizes doing it!  And says that hey, maybe, this is why I'm better.  How is this responsible journalism?  What does this say to all the people out there struggling to stay on meds, who desperately need meds to function?  That gee, you're just some other loser sucked in by BIG PHARMA?  UGH.

 

I tweeted the Globe and CAMH saying I thought it was irresponsible.  Urgh.  Unless I'm going craz(ier) and this is a perfectly fine and dandy article.

 

Edit:  And it's not like he was in therapy.  And he's pretty negative about CBT, despite it's proven efficacy.  WTH.

I just wasted about 15 minutes of my life reading this article. He has the nerve to say, and think, that he is so special that he has "treatment-resistant." depression. Who does this guy think he is??! I did not like this article one bit. It seemed too much like they were encouraging people to go off meds. They should be ashamed of even running that story,

[larkspur]

So, this guy gave meds a chance for 37 days, not long enough to feel an effect from any antidepressant that I know of, and he wants to parade himself around like the posterchild for recovery from mental illness?

 

He can choke on a bag of dicks. I don't appreciate this article.

[helenllama]

I wouldn't be suprised given the miraculous recover that this was some kind of seasonal depression... 

[SchizoHH]

Great.. Gives those who say "just get over it" more ammunition.

[melissaw72]

This article totally sucked.

 

 

Great.. Gives those who say "just get over it" more ammunition.

 

^THIS.

[Squish]

So the guy had a bad episode of depression that lasted about 4-5 months, and he eventually recovered spontaneously when he was not taking any psych meds. Given that an untreated episode of depression typically lasts 6 months, and psych meds can get that down to 2 or 3 in the best case scenario, that is really not that long. He pretty clearly recovered because his brain had had the time it needed to recover from the interferon.

 

 

Treatment resistant depression, my foot. Try having it for years.