Trigger warning – discusses depression and depressive thoughts

Last year I made the decision to slowly withdraw from my antidepressants after being on them for 10 years. I’m currently on the lowest dose and I’m determined to completely finish taking them in a few months; but it’s not an easy process. One of the worst symptoms of my depression has always been the self-sabotaging or self-depricating thoughts that race through my mind. It’s a constant barrage of destructive and hurtful thoughts that bombard my mind:

“You’re useless, You have no worth, You are lazy, Nobody cares for you, You’re a burden to your family, You can’t do anything right, You have no friends, Nobody likes you, You don’t deserve to be here, You’re wasting your life, You’re fat and ugly, You are an embrarrasment, You let people down constantly, You’re a dissapointment, There’s something wrong with you, You don’t fit in, Nothing good will happen to you, You’ll never be good enough, You’re broken, You’re a waste of space, You have no value, You arent lovable, You won’t ever be happy, People will always leave you, You can’t look after yourself, You burden everyone around you”

These kinds of intrusive thoughts are a major symptom of depression and it’s not easy to live with them. It’s even harder to explain them to people who have never experienced depression. It’s easy for people to say “ignore them” or “just don’t think those things”, “tune them out” but it’s not as simple as that. It’s a constant conscious effort to filter these thoughts and identify them for what they are; which is a symptom of depression, an irrational mental error. I compare it to an email system; hundreds of thoughts bombard the brain every minute and I have to consciously filter the valid and important thoughts (rational) from the spam (irrational depressive thoughts). The problem is that there will always be spam that gets through the filter and this is when irrational and intrusive thoughts get mistaken for rational, normal thoughts.

Antidepressants have worked for me over the past 10 years because they’ve numbed my mind so my feelings and thoughts are dampened. Depressive thoughts feel less intrusive and they aren’t as frequent, it’s easier to ignore them. Coming off the antidepressants is therefore like a shock to the system, my mind is suddenly having to work harder to do what the antidepressants were doing. I’m fully aware that my brain has become used to antidepressants and so it almost overreacts to them being withdrawn. My brain is having to balance it’s own chemicals and my mind is in a constant state of anxiety and apprehension.

That’s why I’m writing this post, because it would be easy for me to tell everyone it’s not difficult, to lie and hide the reality of what mental illness is like. I could say that coming off antidepressants is not a struggle, that it’s a breeze. I could let those self-sabotaging and intrusive thoughts weigh me down. Depression makes it hard to talk about feelings and thoughts, it urges you to bottle up your emotions and ignore them until they overcome you. Depression is so destructive because it tells you to keep these thoughts and struggles secret, to fake a smile and say you’re fine. Over the past 10 years I’ve experienced moderate and severe clinical depression; and I’ve learned from that experience. I’ve learned that depression is at it’s strongest when it’s hidden behind a facade, when it’s not spoken about or acknowledged. Knowledge is power and knowing that depression is an illness, admitting that it’s affecting you and talking about it rather than concealing it, is a positive thing. It’s okay to admit you’re not okay, it’s not weak to say you’re struggling. Talk about it, write about it, express it however you need to; don’t hide it.