Posted by JohnL on July 1, 1999, at 18:16:33
In reply to confused, posted by Jim on July 1, 1999, at 15:28:44
> I have benn on Xanax for six years and quit last summer. Then I went on Luvox and Trazadone. In march I went on Paxil. I feeling guilty that I am on anything. I am having side effects with Paxil and need to get off them. I have been doing great but am nervous to quit. I also am questioning the validity of the pill-mania. These are man made pills for a natural body. Somewhere there has got to be long lasting effects such as cancer. I know we have diseases like OCD, Panic, Depression but are we tackling the diseases with more with pills or more with spirituality and other alternatives. I would love to get off them but am scared
Jim, you raise some very good points. Unfortunately I don't think mental illness drugs have been around long enough to know if they have longterm health risks. Many people find healing (or at least coping) in spirituality, psychotherapy, acupuncture, herbs, yoga or whatever works for them. Though this site is concentrated with folks like us having a hard time being treated, there are millions of people who's lives have been totally transformed with medicine. My family doc has 200 content patients on Prozac in a town of about 5000 people. And he has about a dozen trouble patients like me. Just to keep it in perspective. Besides, nobody forces us to take pills, we choose to.
Just imagine 50 years ago. If you had depression, mania, psychosis, schizophrenia, panic, or whatever, you had no choices at all. My poor grandmother lived a life of dysthymia, once turning into a SEVEN YEAR major depressive bout before finally subsiding on its own to JUST dysthymia for the rest of her days. We complain (me included) about insomnia, sex, weight gain, etc., but just think what a bottle of Zoloft or something could have done for my grandmother in those seven torturous years.
Anyway, I do feel the same as you. I don't want a prescription. I hate going to the doctor. I hate side effects. All of them. I hate waiting. I hate drugs that don't work. I hate thinking they might hurt me. When I die, I don't need to go to hell, because I've already been there. I've been normal, and I've been suicidally depressed. For me, my life is better in pursuit of treatment, with all its shortcomings and risks, than to not have a choice at all. Like you, I would love to get off drugs. But I'm doing the best I can with the hand I've been dealt and the tools at my disposal. Sorry to ramble. I'm with ya. JohnL.
poster:JohnL
thread:8108
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990628/msgs/8114.html