Last Wednesday, I swallowed my last ever (for now) antidepressant pill. After nine years, I am finally no longer On Medication. I’ve dreamed about this for years, and discussed it with my lovely doctor on more than one occasion, but the time was never quite right and I was never really well enough for it to be a good idea. But now I am. It’s very strange.
If my life was a TV show (like I used to pretend when I was little, as if people would be fascinated by what I had to say, almost like I’m still pretending at this very moment as I write) then this would be cause for celebration. I would declare I’d had enough, ceremonially burn the leftover medication and arise from the ashes like some kind of positive-thinking phoenix. I’d muse poetically about the years I wasted focusing on the negative and wallowing in self-pity. I’d probably start an Instagram account filled with inspirational quotes overlaid on pictures of nature, and evangelise about my pathway to joy, which would probably involve forest bathing and reciting ‘I am radiant’ in front of the mirror twice a day.
In real life, this is not a sudden transformation. The transition off medication is a milestone, but possibly not an especially significant one. I’m not suddenly better, in fact I’m suspicious of the concept of ever being better because this is probably a lifetime condition that will just come back at some point. This, whatever it is, is just a reprieve, and it’s not even that good yet because they weren’t lying when they said citalopram was addictive and I’ve been feeling dizzy and nauseous for a few weeks now as I reduced my dosage. Apparently this could continue for another couple of months, so I’ll continue to be reminded of the whole sorry saga every morning when I wake up feeling like I’ve just got off the Spinball Whizzer at Alton Towers. I haven’t ‘beaten’ depression, nor will I have done when the withdrawal finally ends. I just happen to be experiencing a combination of lifestyle factors (and a lack of horrible situations I can’t handle) which mean that I can manage it to the point that it’s almost, but not quite, not there.
On the plus side, I’ve taken one single mental health sick day in the whole of 2021 to date, after averaging one a month for the past few years. I’ve also only had one episode where I was capable of nothing except eating biscuits and staring at the wall. In spite of being battered by the deaths of four loved ones in a recent 12 month period, moving house during a pandemic and putting on a load of weight so that I really feel quite disgusted by myself at times, I am functioning. I eat healthy food, I interact with people, I meet expectations at work, I feed the cat. And I do it without any medication. But I probably couldn’t have done a lot of the last nine years without it, and that’s fine. Much as I hate the stuff, I’m not going to ceremonially burn the leftovers just yet.