The drugs do work

For those who don't know, in July 2007 I was diagnosed with severe depression. I was signed off work and prescribed Citalopram. I knew nothing about this drug other than what my GP told me: it's a selected seratonin re-uptake inhibitor or SSRI, the same family of drugs as Prozac. A scary thought - I've read Prozac Nation.

Severe depression means that it was bad. I hadn't just thought about killing myself, I'd planned how I'd do it. So when I say that Citalopram saved my life I'm not being melodramatic.

Citalopram, an SSRI. Photo by Fimpelman (commons.wikimedia.org).

Mental illness is not well understood in the UK. And depression is one of the most prevalent and least understood. (Along with alcoholism, but that's a whole different story.) I kept my depression hidden from most people at the beginning, telling only a select few, most of whom were very supportive. Even my own father thought I should have been able to just myself out of it, that it was a matter of choice.

My boyfriend of the time didn't really get it either. He tried, but there were days when I could barely get out of bed and he would get home filled with silent resentment that I hadn't done the housework. It's difficult to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it just how exhausting even the tiniest things can be. At times just sitting up in bed was completely draining.

Citalopram gave me my life back. But it also cut me off from myself. It was like being two separate entities. The human being who went to work, paid bills, was a productive and useful member of society. I'm deliberately avoiding words like machine and automaton here, because it wasn't mechanical. It was organic, autonomous. It just wasn't informed by that other part of me, the feeling, creative part that in my depression had become my enemy.

I couldn't write. I couldn't create. I was studying for an MA at the time and after four days stating at a blank page I had to come off the drugs in order to write an essay. My brain went haywire. I felt dizzy and spaced out, but my 5,000 word essay was written in a matter of days. It probably goes without saying that I did this without my doctor's knowledge.

But the worst thing for me, as a wannabe novelist, was that I couldn't write fiction. The words just weren't there anymore. For as long as I can remember I've written fiction. It's part of who I am. My brain was forever coming up with new ideas for novels, stories, plots, subplots, characters, even a screenplay once, and I got huge pleasure from making these real through words. And suddenly I couldn't do it anymore. That part of my brain was no longer accessible. I hated it. Right from the beginning I wanted to get off Citalopram.

It’s taken four and a half years of slowly decreasing my dosage, with a few setbacks, notably last January when things got really dark again, but a few weeks ago I stopped taking Citalopram. So far it’s been fine.

Life is certainly harder without Citalopram. Being on it is like being in a bubble that protects you from life’s sharp edges. It’s like having a nice comforting barrier between you and what’s happening to you. Life without Citalopram is more raw, more real. Emotions are more vivid. Sometimes I find myself crying for no reason, the final episode of the latest series of Being Human was a total blub-fest. But there are also moments of joy, just at the wonderousness of life. And I’m writing again. Short stories, two whole chapters of a children’s fantasy novel, and of course this blog post. 

I've gone on quite a bit, so as a reward for getting to the end, here's a cute picture of a cat. Own photo.