Taking antidepressants is like removing a fog you never realized you lived beneath. I see myself and the world clearer; I am more myself on antidepressants, not less. Two weeks ago, I was sitting in the kitchen at work when the topic of wellness came up. It didn’t take long for the conversation to shift […]
You don’t have to just lay there and take it. When I was 15, I attempted to hang myself in my room. It didn’t work. Over the following seven years, I experienced some of the most incredible mood swings of my life. I would feel so happy, then, before anyone could pick it, I’d slump […]
Dear Dana is a bi-weekly advice column for humans who engage in romantic relationships. Please send your dilemmas, issues, conundrums, assumptions, conflicts, anxieties, worriments, obstacles, complications, predicaments, queries, questions, and any other synonyms for “problems” to deardana@rolereboot.org. Dear Dana, My boyfriend and I will be having our one year anniversary next month. For the past months, […]
Later someone tried to explain to me: Everyone here knows you are sick. Everyone knows. But I couldn’t understand that, somehow: How could I be naked with my sickness in public and, simultaneously, unseen? I developed a lot of stereotypes about Germans during my time occupying the 36-cubic feet underneath my laboratory workstation. Germans, I decided, in a constant […]
I had the guts to help myself and I’m finding a way through this, to the place where I don’t lose my shit when my kids lose their shoes. In life, I try to strike a balance between transparency and over-sharing. Motherhood is a blessing and a joy but it’s messy and scary, too. Life is […]
Depression isn’t something you can control, and it certainly isn’t something caused by being a certain weight. “You know, you should really just lose weight,” the psychiatrist says to Caley. I’m sitting in the counseling office with my sister, Caley, who is currently experiencing a difficult episode of depression. Her sense of self-worth is low, to […]
We need to look at both sides of the issue when we talk about medication, not just one side or another. Everyone will have their own experience. Yesterday, a blogger named Erin Jones posted a selfie with her new antidepressant prescriptions. After trying to live her life without medication, Jones wrote in a Facebook post […]
I wish that I had spoken to my therapist about my fears of medication and pregnancy and seen a psychiatrist specializing in my condition sooner. I wish that I hadn’t put myself in the path of such terrible, useless suffering. I wanted to get pregnant so I decided to wean off my antidepressant. I didn’t […]
