I started taking anti-depressants
I started taking anti-depressants this month.
At the end of October, I had a mental breakdown. Many of the emotions that came spilling out from the cracks in my psyche had been repressed for more than a year. Some for more than a decade. While my mental health has its peaks and valleys like any other’s, this breakdown plunged me into a valley deeper than any other in recent memory.
The irony is I’d been making a concentrated effort to improve my mental health. I had begun therapy, was exercising, eating healthy, and sleeping well. I had gone further than ever before with prioritizing myself in my own life and finding what made me happy.
Now, a month past my breakdown, I’m reflecting on my own mental health with an acuteness I’d so far been unable to achieve. As a chronic over-thinker, I’ve examined the pieces of myself that broke away over and over again, considering their meaning. With each passing reflection, my ability to identify and express my emotions grows. I’m hesitant to describe my mental breakdown as positive, I’ve learned that sometimes you have to break before you can be fixed. After all, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.
Mental health has always been somewhat of an enigma to me. Up until a month ago, mental health was tied to my physical well-being. I was walking for an hour most days of the week and engaged with strength training. I was conscious of both the quality and quantity of food I was consuming. I was sleeping perhaps too much; but then again sleep has always been one of my favorite past-times.
Yet, as my physical health improved, my mental health continued to stagnate. While I had two brief stints of counseling in college – where I walked away aware of my ruminations and that I was in ”good” mental standing because I didn’t want to kill myself – engaging with therapy was something I had largely avoided. I finally took the step forward and found myself a therapist. The tedious process of rooting out past traumas had begun.
Even with therapy, my mental health was not improving. Indeed, facing traumas brought those memories to the forefront of my mind, forcing me to relive them as if they had just happened. Combine each unburied trauma with my endless ruminations and what results is an ever churning whirlpool of emotions demanding to be expressed.
You see, I move forward through life in a rowboat. Even as I row myself forward, I’m looking ever backwards. I was so focused on trying to understand what was behind me, I never bothered to understand where I was heading.
I didn’t see that I was rowing myself into the whirlpool that was my breakdown. The current took hold of me, and it swung me round and round, forcing me deeper into its depths. As I spiraled, my unexpressed emotions beat against me, breaking me.
When I finally washed ashore in pieces, I realized how naive it is to believe that physical health alone could make me mentally healthy. So, I took the next step and called my doctor. After a thirteen minute phone call – more than half of which was instructions on dosages – I had a prescription for antidepressants.
Antidepressants complement all other practices for mental health. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) – my flavor of antidepressant – are a common type of antidepressant. SSRIs work by blocking the receptors in your brain from absorbing serotonin, the chemical that make us feel happy. Yet, serotonin only makes us feel that way when it’s sloshing around inside our heads.
Think of it like taking a bath. When you first sit in the water, the warmth feels great. Yet, as your body absorbs the heat, the water begins to feel less and less good. If you could slow down the transfer of heat from the water into your body, the water would feel good for longer. SSRIs are what would slow the transfer of heat, or the absorption of serotonin, making its effects on our happiness last for longer.
The problem with SSRIs is you need serotonin in the first place for your brain to enjoy it. This is where physical health comes into play. Exercise can create serotonin. Good food can create serotonin. Sufficient sleep can create serotonin. But so can learning to love yourself, in real and physical ways.
While I’m still hesitant to describe my mental breakdown as a positive experience for me, it’s been a catalyst for me to move forward. I will be in therapy for years to come. I may even be examining the pieces of myself that broke away a month ago for years to come. Yet, the whole time, I will be looking ahead.