This was such a refreshing read! I have a very fraught relationship with SSRIs, but the recent flood of skepticism has irritated me for a while. I think criticism of Big Pharma and other such entities (even psychiatry in general as it has manifested historically) is completely valid, but I also think a lot of the Discourse has passed the point of overcorrection.
Yes! Thank you for sharing this nuanced, empathetic essay. I agree with you wholeheartedly that the two pieces by Millie need to be required internet reading (seriously I think her 2 posts ought to be permanently part of Substack home page.) Your line: “If that makes us soulless, I’m not sure I want one” is phenomenal and kinda broke my heart. I’m grateful to read your insightful perspective on this unsettling trend happening both sides of the political spectrum. Every paragraph I found myself cheering and nodding along, bc I see and feel a similar sense of unease regarding the memes that go against us. Thank you for calling out fascist Freya, that dumb Carson, and the erroneous, dangerous propaganda they pedal in their attempt to blame life-saving medication for all of their far right bugaboos ie lack of marital sex, for lgbtq+ people having allegedly too much ‘not straight’ sex (wtf?), for the rise of mass killing atrocities (I can’t even believe I had to type their ideas out bc these false, far right culture war talking points are so out there and off the mark.) I’m sorry that you feel the palm print indents of living with OCD (I have OCD pretty imprinted in my DNA too.) There’s a ton of trial and error with meds; a lot of the human brain and heart remains a mystery. Yet it’s an act of honesty and humility to acknowledge the unknown qualities of taking meds, while still honoring and respecting our inner humanity, our souls so to speak. 1/5 better is no small thing. I’m really glad that you’re writing about this difficult, complex subject with a strong sense of empathy, bravery, and heart.
to offer another personal story, I'm one of those people for whom SSRIs saved my life and I'm a completely different person (which is GOOD--happier, healthier, more loving) and
I'm close as I can be to certain that it wasn't just placebo because I tried 4 other meds just as optimistically beforehand
there is a sense in me that antideps are about maintaining productivity in a soul destroying system that causes the depression and anxiety in the first place... i am also treatment resistant and i think that has a lot to do with how i view the world under capitalism and hegemony... i mean it's natural to be depressed if you cannot look away from genocide, ecocide et al
i agree to an extent, though coming at this from the perspective of someone having OCD, which is really rigid and specific in its patterns, and also really painful, it helps me so much to understand this as a condition that can be managed. i think everyone looks at it differently though!
believe me I'm sorry i didn't mean to discount your living with OCD or the fact that you have found something to help manage it, i am glad for that benefit for you! i was commenting more generally on prescribing as first action by a system within a system, which like all generalisations, is horribly inaccurate in so many ways; and more specifically about other reasons than the chemical model for depression. my thanks for your post, and your reply which gently alerted me to be more mindful of my words and the existant context i am entering them into 🍀🐞 if i could find something that helped me out of my own hell, i would take it! i have so much guilt and shame at the fact the best of me has not been as available as i wish it could for my loved ones. my dad was on zoloft and it gave him so much of his life back.
Ellie I literally wanted to cry while reading this. I want to thank you so much for writing about this issue because I to have been on Setraline for a year now and it changed my life. I have been able to kick an alcohol addiction, porn addiction and eating disorder. Life is not perfect but I feel more balanced versus crying myself to sleep every night or dealing with chronic ptsd. So I appreciate you sharing your experiences and being empathetic. I have been sad since I was like five years old so to experience even a moment of happiness or even months of happiness is a blessing. While I don’t want to be on setraline forever—plan on doing EMDR for right now it has been a bandaid I needed until I can heal the wounds that I came here with. 🥹
I really appreciate this essay on multiple levels, but what stands out to me is how bad things have gotten in certain parts of the internet re: SSRIs? I think as you hit your 30s, your online circles start to tighten sometimes, and you don’t get exposed to the tides of popular opinion as much because you’re spending online time with good friends with shared values. I’ve NEVER seen someone accuse someone else of a “Zoloft stare” or whatever, and honestly, I’m kind of glad? Definitely going to give Millie’s writings a read ASAP.
The thing that makes me sad about this is the OCD piece. OCD isn’t always successfully managed with SSRIs; a good amount of people need antipsychotics, and those are arguably even MORE stigmatized due to how our society is so discriminatory against those who experience psychosis (even if that doesn’t describe the patient with OCD who needs that class of medication). I’m fairly open about being on a low dose of Latuda and how it saved my life re: severe OCD. I did two modalities of therapy for OCD - CBT (exposure therapy) and ACT - and what helped the most was medication (with ACT as a close second; I have a good workbook recommendation if anyone’s interested).
I truly just have something a little off in my brain, and it’s not my fault. I realize that the serotonin hypothesis of depression is likely not true, despite evidence that SSRIs work to an extent anyway, but we don’t want to over-correct, either. I won’t even touch the sex discourse; it’s horrifying in all directions.
I think it’s very bad in certain areas of the internet but thankfully this isn’t something you’d come across if you weren’t very online - although I’d argue the extent to which it’s permitted is very symbolic of where the broader culture is headed!
Re: ocd, yes that’s true it’s a complicated one sometimes and the societal perception of antipsychotics could be a whole other essay in itself - I wouldn’t be qualified to write that but I would really love to learn more about it.
I really appreciate this take. I've felt myself pulled to different sides of the issue over the past 6-7 years that i've been on various meds for various diagnoses. i definitely feel like doctors i've had have kind of thrown meds at me until my symptoms were manageable enough to be ignored. i had to really reevaluate my expectations of meds - i reaaaally wanted to believe (naïvely) that a bit of chemical correction would completely change my life and i was always let down by this.
while i agree that the moral panic-y memes about "zoloft stare" and ssri induced sexlessness are totally unhelpful and, as you point out, often explicitly reactionary, i think it's also valuable to consider the extent to which healthcare systems (american, in my case) do find it easier and cheaper to prescribe meds than actually treating a person holistically. often times people are experiencing crises of meaning as a result of structurally imposed atomization that cannot be adequately treated by meds alone. i have had to square this with the fact that i do still take meds and have found them to be helpful to an extent. for me it has been hugely impactful to realize that the intentions with which i move through the world (aka actively seeking out community & personal growth) have a far richer effect on my mental health, and meds can be a helpful way of enabling me to engage with life in this way rather than being ends in themselves.
it's really unfortunate & sinister how fascist corners of the internet have twisted the very real problems with psychiatry and the medical model of mental health to suit their eugenicist leaning ideas. naomi klein has a quote about right wing conspiracy theorists getting the feelings right but the facts wrong, which i think is sort of happening here - we are right to be cautious of medical systems when it comes to mental health but not because they're making everyone trans or brainwashing people or causing mass shootings or whatever. it's the market structure that allows healthcare institutions to scrimp on effective treatments at best and profit off of our misery at worst.
(sorry for the long comment, this piece just really got me thinking. thank you for writing!)
I studied pharmacogenomics, and for most drugs it isn’t disclosed that a huge proportion of people simply will not fall in the narrow window of efficacy. Also it was found that in various African populations, SNP (gene mutation) analysis wasn’t bothered to be carried out and various painkillers being totally ineffective was overlooked. Hopefully in the future, personalised medicine can help save more lives, because a simple tweak could help the thousands of people who do not absorb or metabolise drugs as intended. Pharmacology industry classes will point blank tell you that if your drug won’t make money, you won’t be making it. Crazy stuff
Lost about two years of my life and my sex drive to Effexor and Pristiq. I do not feel they helped anything except by numbing everything—couldn’t feel pain, but also couldn’t feel happiness or pleasure. I was an unmotivated lump, blank, surviving joylessly. Weaning myself off was a horrific process that took nearly six months and involved way too much incapacitation and suffering. Seriously, fuck brain zaps.
What gets under my skin about medical providers prescribing SSRIs/SNRIs basically as a first resort to any complaints of depression, anxiety, or panic attacks is primarily those providers’ ignorance about how autism presents in women. Turns out what I thought were panic attacks were autistic meltdowns, and unfortunately those drugs don’t fix autism. But never once did my doctor suggest screening for autism when I described my issues. It’s so under-diagnosed in women and I wonder how many of us have become sexless robots bc we’re being incorrectly treated and medicated into oblivion.
That being said, I’m thrilled for anyone it actually helps.
I was on SSRIs and honestly did not feel a thing. Only that when I forgot to take them, nightmares ensued. In a very literal way, it was hard to get through the night.
I just recently started Prozac and this was such a good read. I think this line of thinking also contributes to people who could really benefit from medication taking, subsequently being turned off from the idea (no pun intended), because our culture still stigmatizes it. I hope our 20%’s turn into more soon, and thank you for sharing!
I’ve been on sertraline for a year now and I literally feel like a different person - in a very, very good way :)
I’m so glad that they’ve helped you feel like the person you want to be💗
This was such a refreshing read! I have a very fraught relationship with SSRIs, but the recent flood of skepticism has irritated me for a while. I think criticism of Big Pharma and other such entities (even psychiatry in general as it has manifested historically) is completely valid, but I also think a lot of the Discourse has passed the point of overcorrection.
💗 thank you so much!
Yes! Thank you for sharing this nuanced, empathetic essay. I agree with you wholeheartedly that the two pieces by Millie need to be required internet reading (seriously I think her 2 posts ought to be permanently part of Substack home page.) Your line: “If that makes us soulless, I’m not sure I want one” is phenomenal and kinda broke my heart. I’m grateful to read your insightful perspective on this unsettling trend happening both sides of the political spectrum. Every paragraph I found myself cheering and nodding along, bc I see and feel a similar sense of unease regarding the memes that go against us. Thank you for calling out fascist Freya, that dumb Carson, and the erroneous, dangerous propaganda they pedal in their attempt to blame life-saving medication for all of their far right bugaboos ie lack of marital sex, for lgbtq+ people having allegedly too much ‘not straight’ sex (wtf?), for the rise of mass killing atrocities (I can’t even believe I had to type their ideas out bc these false, far right culture war talking points are so out there and off the mark.) I’m sorry that you feel the palm print indents of living with OCD (I have OCD pretty imprinted in my DNA too.) There’s a ton of trial and error with meds; a lot of the human brain and heart remains a mystery. Yet it’s an act of honesty and humility to acknowledge the unknown qualities of taking meds, while still honoring and respecting our inner humanity, our souls so to speak. 1/5 better is no small thing. I’m really glad that you’re writing about this difficult, complex subject with a strong sense of empathy, bravery, and heart.
thank you so so much jessica 💗 what a lovely comment and I’m so glad it resonated!
to offer another personal story, I'm one of those people for whom SSRIs saved my life and I'm a completely different person (which is GOOD--happier, healthier, more loving) and
I'm close as I can be to certain that it wasn't just placebo because I tried 4 other meds just as optimistically beforehand
that’s really lovely !! I’m so glad that you’ve had that experience 💗
Ellie you are incredible
💓💓💓💓 thank you Ini
there is a sense in me that antideps are about maintaining productivity in a soul destroying system that causes the depression and anxiety in the first place... i am also treatment resistant and i think that has a lot to do with how i view the world under capitalism and hegemony... i mean it's natural to be depressed if you cannot look away from genocide, ecocide et al
i agree to an extent, though coming at this from the perspective of someone having OCD, which is really rigid and specific in its patterns, and also really painful, it helps me so much to understand this as a condition that can be managed. i think everyone looks at it differently though!
believe me I'm sorry i didn't mean to discount your living with OCD or the fact that you have found something to help manage it, i am glad for that benefit for you! i was commenting more generally on prescribing as first action by a system within a system, which like all generalisations, is horribly inaccurate in so many ways; and more specifically about other reasons than the chemical model for depression. my thanks for your post, and your reply which gently alerted me to be more mindful of my words and the existant context i am entering them into 🍀🐞 if i could find something that helped me out of my own hell, i would take it! i have so much guilt and shame at the fact the best of me has not been as available as i wish it could for my loved ones. my dad was on zoloft and it gave him so much of his life back.
Ellie I literally wanted to cry while reading this. I want to thank you so much for writing about this issue because I to have been on Setraline for a year now and it changed my life. I have been able to kick an alcohol addiction, porn addiction and eating disorder. Life is not perfect but I feel more balanced versus crying myself to sleep every night or dealing with chronic ptsd. So I appreciate you sharing your experiences and being empathetic. I have been sad since I was like five years old so to experience even a moment of happiness or even months of happiness is a blessing. While I don’t want to be on setraline forever—plan on doing EMDR for right now it has been a bandaid I needed until I can heal the wounds that I came here with. 🥹
💗 I’m so happy that it’s been useful to you Deziré and that my words resonated! thank you for your kindness
I really appreciate this essay on multiple levels, but what stands out to me is how bad things have gotten in certain parts of the internet re: SSRIs? I think as you hit your 30s, your online circles start to tighten sometimes, and you don’t get exposed to the tides of popular opinion as much because you’re spending online time with good friends with shared values. I’ve NEVER seen someone accuse someone else of a “Zoloft stare” or whatever, and honestly, I’m kind of glad? Definitely going to give Millie’s writings a read ASAP.
The thing that makes me sad about this is the OCD piece. OCD isn’t always successfully managed with SSRIs; a good amount of people need antipsychotics, and those are arguably even MORE stigmatized due to how our society is so discriminatory against those who experience psychosis (even if that doesn’t describe the patient with OCD who needs that class of medication). I’m fairly open about being on a low dose of Latuda and how it saved my life re: severe OCD. I did two modalities of therapy for OCD - CBT (exposure therapy) and ACT - and what helped the most was medication (with ACT as a close second; I have a good workbook recommendation if anyone’s interested).
I truly just have something a little off in my brain, and it’s not my fault. I realize that the serotonin hypothesis of depression is likely not true, despite evidence that SSRIs work to an extent anyway, but we don’t want to over-correct, either. I won’t even touch the sex discourse; it’s horrifying in all directions.
Thank you for the lovely piece!
I think it’s very bad in certain areas of the internet but thankfully this isn’t something you’d come across if you weren’t very online - although I’d argue the extent to which it’s permitted is very symbolic of where the broader culture is headed!
Re: ocd, yes that’s true it’s a complicated one sometimes and the societal perception of antipsychotics could be a whole other essay in itself - I wouldn’t be qualified to write that but I would really love to learn more about it.
Thank you for your thoughtful words 💗
Brilliant and empathetic read
thank you 💗
I really appreciate this take. I've felt myself pulled to different sides of the issue over the past 6-7 years that i've been on various meds for various diagnoses. i definitely feel like doctors i've had have kind of thrown meds at me until my symptoms were manageable enough to be ignored. i had to really reevaluate my expectations of meds - i reaaaally wanted to believe (naïvely) that a bit of chemical correction would completely change my life and i was always let down by this.
while i agree that the moral panic-y memes about "zoloft stare" and ssri induced sexlessness are totally unhelpful and, as you point out, often explicitly reactionary, i think it's also valuable to consider the extent to which healthcare systems (american, in my case) do find it easier and cheaper to prescribe meds than actually treating a person holistically. often times people are experiencing crises of meaning as a result of structurally imposed atomization that cannot be adequately treated by meds alone. i have had to square this with the fact that i do still take meds and have found them to be helpful to an extent. for me it has been hugely impactful to realize that the intentions with which i move through the world (aka actively seeking out community & personal growth) have a far richer effect on my mental health, and meds can be a helpful way of enabling me to engage with life in this way rather than being ends in themselves.
it's really unfortunate & sinister how fascist corners of the internet have twisted the very real problems with psychiatry and the medical model of mental health to suit their eugenicist leaning ideas. naomi klein has a quote about right wing conspiracy theorists getting the feelings right but the facts wrong, which i think is sort of happening here - we are right to be cautious of medical systems when it comes to mental health but not because they're making everyone trans or brainwashing people or causing mass shootings or whatever. it's the market structure that allows healthcare institutions to scrimp on effective treatments at best and profit off of our misery at worst.
(sorry for the long comment, this piece just really got me thinking. thank you for writing!)
I studied pharmacogenomics, and for most drugs it isn’t disclosed that a huge proportion of people simply will not fall in the narrow window of efficacy. Also it was found that in various African populations, SNP (gene mutation) analysis wasn’t bothered to be carried out and various painkillers being totally ineffective was overlooked. Hopefully in the future, personalised medicine can help save more lives, because a simple tweak could help the thousands of people who do not absorb or metabolise drugs as intended. Pharmacology industry classes will point blank tell you that if your drug won’t make money, you won’t be making it. Crazy stuff
Lost about two years of my life and my sex drive to Effexor and Pristiq. I do not feel they helped anything except by numbing everything—couldn’t feel pain, but also couldn’t feel happiness or pleasure. I was an unmotivated lump, blank, surviving joylessly. Weaning myself off was a horrific process that took nearly six months and involved way too much incapacitation and suffering. Seriously, fuck brain zaps.
What gets under my skin about medical providers prescribing SSRIs/SNRIs basically as a first resort to any complaints of depression, anxiety, or panic attacks is primarily those providers’ ignorance about how autism presents in women. Turns out what I thought were panic attacks were autistic meltdowns, and unfortunately those drugs don’t fix autism. But never once did my doctor suggest screening for autism when I described my issues. It’s so under-diagnosed in women and I wonder how many of us have become sexless robots bc we’re being incorrectly treated and medicated into oblivion.
That being said, I’m thrilled for anyone it actually helps.
I was on SSRIs and honestly did not feel a thing. Only that when I forgot to take them, nightmares ensued. In a very literal way, it was hard to get through the night.
Keep writing about this topic. Your personal experience guides me in thinking about these diseases and treatments
this was a really interesting read — thank you for bringing this to my attention
I just recently started Prozac and this was such a good read. I think this line of thinking also contributes to people who could really benefit from medication taking, subsequently being turned off from the idea (no pun intended), because our culture still stigmatizes it. I hope our 20%’s turn into more soon, and thank you for sharing!