|
When a "counselor" wants you "to be put on" anything, the counselor is not sticking to his or her job description. It would be alright for the counselor to say, "I think you should see a doctor." It would be alright for the counselor to say, "I think you have some issues that are outside of what a counselor can help you with." However, counselors have no business forming opinions about whether or not you should be "put on" medication or what type of medication might be of help to you.
It might be a good idea to see a regular doctor, or a psychiatrist, and talk about what kind of problems you are having. A doctor will try to come up with a diagnosis - like: depression or anxiety or lots of other things. Mood stabilizers are different from antidepressants. They tend to be powerful drugs that help some people a great deal, but can have side effects for some people that can mean the person can't take them.
I have taken quite a few different drugs. I took both mood stabilizers and antidepressants. When I took mood stabilizers, like lithium and Lamictal, they didn't do anything at all to make my mood more stable. Lithium made me quite sick.
Antidepressants in the tricyclic family help me a lot, and my life is a lot more miserable, if I am not taking them. Other types of antidepressants didn't help me at all. Most doctors don't like to start a patient on the type of antidepressant that I take. It is an old fashioned drug. They will order it for me because experience has shown that it works better than anything else.
Everyone is different. What is a big help to one person, might make another person feel worse. Taking a drug that is new to you is always an experiment.
|