Prozac and Whimsy

Fluoxetine, sold under the brand name Prozac, is an antidepressant medication of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class used for the treatment of major depressive disorder, anxiety, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and bulimia nervosa. It is also approved for treatment of major depressive disorder in adolescents and children 8 years of age and over. It has also been used to treat premature ejaculation. Fluoxetine is taken by mouth.

The first time I can remember feeling mentally unwell was the day after my birthday in 1990. I was eleven and just remember this unbearable sadness crushing down on me for no reason. It was written off as being “post birthday blues” and then immediately forgotten about. It was only after a recent idle conversation with my wife about all the things we remember from our childhoods that “weren’t great”  that I realised I have just kinda always felt like this. Over the years the sadness has come and gone in waves that have threatened to overwhelm me like a sailor lost at sea.

I was first medicated for my depression in my early 20s in an attempt to fix myself to save an already broken marriage where I wasn’t the problem, or at least not the only one and certainly not the main one. I stopped taking the meds when I left and everything got a little brighter. This has been the recurring pattern in my relationship with antidepressants until recently. The sadness will roll in, I’ll go to the docs, they’ll give me some meds, I’ll feel better so I’ll stop taking them and pootle along until it all happens again. This year has been different, the waves haven’t stopped battering me and no matter how big the dose of the tried and tested Citalopram got nothing changed and nothing I did made any difference to anything anyway.

So I stopped, embraced the waves and started to drown.

Things came to a head as they always do, I had made myself quite poorly. Iller than I have been in a very long time and I worried a lot of people who love me as well as some who tolerate me at best. An emergency out of hours doctor’s appointment, a liberal dosing of Fluoxetine and a visit to my old counsellor for good measure later and here we are today. There was always going to be a today I wasn’t THAT low and never will be again, but that’s a story for another day.

I first came across Prozac in the 90s when my dad was put on it due to his failing marriage and was mocked for it. The depression that is not the failing marriage, that was totally understandable. It’s not that it is easier struggling with your mental health nowadays it’s just more acceptable to admit that you are. I still struggle with it, it’s not a shame thing or even an ego thing I just live in denial that everything is going to sort itself out and be alright. At the end of the day I am an idiot and it is vitally important that you remember this, it’ll come in handy in the future.

I’m still not great at the minute but I’m getting better, or at least I’m not getting any worse. I still don’t really know who I am right now or even who I want to be moving forward. But everything doesn’t feel so relentless. This is helping even if I don’t really know what this is. I’m sleeping, I’m healing, the tide is going out and I have no desire to stop taking the pills.

Yet.