Posted by madeline on April 22, 2006, at 14:30:09
In reply to Guilt and Shame about taking Meds :(, posted by minimal on April 22, 2006, at 14:01:15
Oh Mini, my heart goes out to you so much. Please don't feel bad about taking your medicine. Please.
If you had a headache and had to take aspirin to function you wouldn't think twice about it. If you had high cholesterol, you would take a lowering medication and you wouldn't think twice about it.
So then why do we feel bad about taking other medicines that help us to live just as much as any drug on the market?
Why is that?
I think there is a pervasive undercurrent in a lot of people's minds that believe that when you have to start in these so call "psychoactive" drugs, it means that you are a failure at life. That you failed at a good diet, you failed at exercise, you failed at prayer and you can't even make yourself feel better.
Well, none of that is true, you are a strong minded, strong willed person that thinks enough of themselves to try and feel better. And most of these techniques above really aren't that successful for most people anyway and yet we still think that if only we were strong enough we wouldn't need the meds.
But the fact is, there a multiple, multiple clinical trials that demonstrate that in the right patient, these drugs work and offer relief. You can find any study to support anything, but far and away the most widely validated approach to treating depression is with those bottles you have in your hand.
There should be no guilt or shame in using a therapy that has been validated in such a way over DECADES of reasearch.
Are you in therapy as well, or is it just the meds?
I hope you feel better soon and don't give up.
Maddie
poster:madeline
thread:635861
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060417/msgs/635871.html