Thoughts on Anti-Depressants
People will call anti-depressants a crutch, that you're not coping with your depression yourself. They're right.
Think for a minute though, at how silly this logic would be when applied to anything else. Pretend you want to become a competitive power lifter. You have no weightlifting experience, no training, but this is now your life goal.
The minimum weight category in this hypothetical is a 200kg deadlift. You go to the gym, rack up 200kg and try to lift. What do you think is going to happen? You're not lifting that weight, not even close. You can go back tomorrow, and the day after, ad nauseum. You're never going to budge that weight.
To train weights like that is ludicrous. You'd start a smaller weight, maybe 20kg. You work, you get training, and you can just about shift it. With time and coaching you'll start tackling bigger weights. Your technique will let you shift more and more, until you're at that glorious 200kg.
My depression was my 200kg barbell. I could never shift it on my own. Trust me I tried, but it never budged... My anti-depressants lifted some of that weight, to the point where I could just about stand. Therapists were my trainers, GPs my dieticians.
After 6 months of training I was stronger. I could move my 20kg. So we started reducing my meds; increasing my weights so to speak. Just like our hypothetical power lifter, I took more of the weight directly on my shoulders, and kept lifting.
One day, I took the full 200kg, right on my shoulders. No more meds, no more therapists. Of course, I fell over on day 2. This isn't a Rocky montage, shit happens. The following weeks gave me more success than failures, until I was beating all the lifting day in, day out.
So next time someone comes at me saying anti-depressants are a crutch, I'm throwing them their 200kg barbell, and keeping them the fuck away from anyone who's training to lift their own.