Depression

When I was first a tertiary student valium had just been invented! It seemed like a wonder drug and was prescribed for everything from sleeplessness to muscle pain, and as an anaesthetic for removing teeth. Many depressed people had valium prescribed for them.

I myself had severe back pain and was prescribed a low dose. It seemed to work!! A friend of mine had cancer of the prostrate and had a high dose. It seemed to work.....but he should never have been allowed to drive but that's another story

All this is history and more mature reflection would cause us to think other wise. Anything...even grass clippings would become addictive for some...many people gave their personal control over to. valium.

Doctors seem a lot more cautious these days. Though people are still prescribed massive amounts of so-called anti-depressants. I have spent a number of counselling sessions convincing people that it is OK to take them, and to deal with the stigma of being "on anti depressants". The argument goes something like this....

These tablets make you better. If you had needed prescribed anti-biotics you would have taken them, so why not these. And the side effects are remarkably few.

I had a longish period when I took prescribed anti-depressants. The problem with them, it seems to me, is not the tablets themselves but the psychological addiction they may engender.
Another problem is that clearly they are meant to be used to get patients to a point where they can be open to psychotherapy, but so often doctors seem happy to leave people on tablets rather than progress to this stage.

In fact having taken 3 or 4 different types of a-d's I know that all the explanatory literature suggests that you should expect to take them for 12-18 months. Yet many people I know have been on them for years.

Now, either we have to change our understanding and accept that some people will be lifelong takers of these drugs or challenge this sort of lazy medicine.

Any way, I decided after about 3 years that I was going to stop taking them and live with the consequences. And I do. Every now and then I have a "black dog period", but I know what it is and I know it will pass. It is awful, but it is the price I choose to pay; for me it is far better than daily medication. I do not eschew those who have chosen medication, but that is not my choice and despite the occasional blackness I somehow feel free-er.

I was pleased to see the honesty of the former WA Premier Geoff Gallop as he resigned this week in order to deal with his depression. I myself decided that I was not going to avoid talking about it (as I have done today), and that the only way to deal with community prejudice against depression and those who have this illness is to bring it out into the open.

It is not a moral failing, it is a sickness.