Posted by KathrynLex on December 3, 2010, at 1:41:22
In reply to Re: Coping with People who don't understand Meds » KathrynLex, posted by obsidian on December 2, 2010, at 22:44:35
obsidian,
It's funny but it never occured to me (and I feel like it should have) that other people might find it threatening to know how vulnerable we are. It makes sense. People are fragile. I know this, I'm afraid of that, and others are too. By taking medication we all have to admit that to ourselves on a level that's different from people who have never needed it.
For years and years and years I wouldn't tell anyone that I took medication, and now that I do I rarely explain what it's for. I've started talking about it because I want to educate people about how it really is necessary for people to use these medications, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I do need a clever response for those people who say things like, "Oh! You don't need that."
K.
> well, that's a tricky one
> I have a friend, who when I told that I took antidepressants, said "oh sid!.....you don't need that!"
> like it was some shameful thing
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> and I think, yeah, I'll just go sit in traffic, it'll all be just fine!
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> my therapist said that my reply could've been "thanks, they're working."
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> It's been my opinion for a long time that it's threatening for a lot of people to consider the idea that we are vulnerable in this emotional way.
> ....that we might not just be able to "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps". To think that one day, a person might not be able to do that, it is just too much for a lot of people to fathom.
>
> I don't tell a heck of a lot of people that I take meds. But oh how I can't stand those annoying employee physicals, those questions I get when I go to doctors in specialties other than psychiatry, the "special" treatment I get when I go to the dentist sometimes (that last one is just funny).
> it feels like it changes how they perceive me.
> I'm a "dangerous character" ;-).
>
> I especially don't tell people I know who work in mental health.
>
> the word "antidepressant" is slowly becoming more accepted, doesn't freak most people out...though it seems I know an awful lot of folks who have been on them.
> I just don't tell anyone who isn't also on meds.
> and only my closest friend really knows what I take. We both happen to take lamictal, the same dose. She claims she decompensates when she doesn't take it. It's funny, because she is someone who can really say that the med helps her.
> I take the meds, and some days I don't know if they help....then I think about whether I want to become terribly depressed and incredibly anxious.....and I think, eh.....not so much. I'll take 'em even though I truly do not know what they do for me..maybe it's the withdrawal effects I want to avoid, whatever the reason is, I just don't have the time for it. I can't take off for a couple of weeks to go off my meds while I can gather my brain together again.
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poster:KathrynLex
thread:972254
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20101117/msgs/972280.html