Crazy

In 2006 I was kinda sorta hijacked into psychiatric treatment. By "kinda sorta" I mean that the psychiatrist actually came up to the medical school where I was doing my PhD research at the time and dragged me all the way to the psychiatric hospital, where I then proceeded to spend an hour every week, talking about life, the universe, and everything.

The diagnosis was major depression, and I was also put on Lexapro. It worked, though I don't think I'll ever be completely out of the woods--I still "crash", for lack of a better word, but far less often than I used to, and for far shorter times.

But sometimes I have to wonder: where would I be without having gone through treatment, and knowing what it's like to be well and truly okay? Is it "real" if I'm only well and truly okay with the aid of prescription medications and/or St. John's Wort? What's better for you in the long run--to be unmedicated and so distraught you spend the entire day in bed (or worse--I've never gone much farther than sleeping all day), or to rely on pills for the rest of your life? Am I really who I am now, or is it just the meds talking?

You can go crazy thinking about questions like that. For me, I've decided that sometimes functionality, rather than "naturalness", is the best measurement of "better".