I am a few months shy of three years sober and have been on nearly every antidepressant known to man, from the most modern SSRIs and even old school ADs from the 1960s.
I'm entering my third month of being medication free. After two years of researching all I could find on psychiatric medication, I opted to taper my meds to nothign with the help a a great shrink.
I've had a diagnosis of chronic major depression, panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder for 30 years. My "disease" left me comatose at times, practically bed ridden at times, a life filled with a constant sense of hopelessness and helplessness and despair.
My depression is in remission for the first time in decades. I don't know if it's the combination of sober time with working on my issues in a cognitive way, or applying the principles of the recovery program I follow, or simply being drug free for the first time in 45 years. I do know that as a child and teenager, I would have met the clinical criteria for depression as defined in any incantation of the DSM.
I have a nagging suspicion that my medication was making me as sick as my alcoholism. Radical thought, I know.
I am beginning to question the entire paradigm of mental illness being caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. My life sucked, despite professional achievements. My childhood sucked. I think depression is as much situation related as it could possibly be caused by an out-of-the-blue chemical imbalance. These are just growing thoughts emerging after spending a year trolling medical journals related to depression and panic and personal reflection and a lot of soul searching.
And I'm not talking about any white-light spirituality that has exorcised my demons.
I think modern psychiatry kept me sick. Not sure, just thinking it.