I have been taking anti depressants since the winter of 2009. I have decided that being that I am at a better place in my life, I would like to get off them. Mind you, no one told me that antidepressants have an addictive quality. I tried getting off the meds several times before this attempt only to find out that I couldn't just get off them. I tried the cold-turkey method only to find myself feeling dizzy a lot of the time and getting sensations of jolts through my body. Needless to say, this didn't work out very well because it interfered with my daily life.
Being that getting off cold-turkey didn't work out so well, I am tapering off the medications. For the first time in several years I am able to feel emotions again. Zoloft, the anti-depressants I was taking, had subdued my emotions. Yes, I still had them and felt them, but they were almost drone like now looking back. Now, I can feel the range of emotions I have and am capable of feeling. I feel like a child who is exploring the world for the time because I am exploring the world through my emotions. When I was younger, I thought that my emotions were a curse and I had to learn how to control them so that I could function in the world. I was scared of them (which is part of the reason why I got on Zoloft in the first place, other than being suicidal). I did not give myself the freedom or space to express my emotions much less experience the world through emotions. Emotions are rendered as weak by society, especially misogynistic mainstream thought. I am now finding new strength and freedom through my holistic existence which includes emotions.
The road to getting off Zoloft is not easy. I have been tappering off the medication since April and it is now July. At first I was thrilled with my decision and thought that getting off them would have been as easy as getting on them. But I was wrong. Between the dizziness, jolty feelings, light-headiness, emotional roller-coasters, and overall sick feelings, I thought that I would have to stop my journey of getting off Zoloft. But after reading many stories of other people's struggles I found renewed strength and confidence in myself. I wasn't the problem, Zoloft was and I need to get it out of my body all that much more.
Well, I believe I am in the last phase of my tapering off and feel really good about this process. I have come to believe that this society has found another way to try to make masses complacent and fearful of their own selves. The myth that people, especially women, are too emotional and can't control their own emotions is a lie to pinch people against each other and themselves. If one believes that the stress one is enduring due to the must-work-even-harder mentality or that the loneliness one is feeling because of the individualistic isolating culture we have or the sadness we carry from lack of love and warmth is of our own bodies' doing and can not be controlled or healed in other ways other than medications, we are only creating a society of people that can't trust themselves and thus runs into the arms of the government and the pharmaceutical companies. Ultimately creating a society that is taught that they can't function without themselves or each other, isolating individuals even more perpetuating the "mental illnesses" that permeate our society. Though there are some people that do have some medical issues and need help, I do not believe that the majority of these patients are suffering from actual disease but rather suffering from the disease of capitalism at play.
