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Originally Posted by letitbe123
Sorry this is long, but it is something really important to me! Thank you in advance for your time.
Hi all, I am a 17 year old female. I have been in therapy for a year and a half. My depression is not as bad as some peoples', but I do feel down a lot. I am not the person I used to be. I am not ambitious anymore. I am often unable to concentrate because of my constant thoughts/worries. I am always feeling tired and unmotivated. One of the worst feelings is feeling like you are not living up to your full potential, and that is what I have been struggling a lot with. I've been trying to turn things around, but I can't get bad thoughts out of my head. I want to be the highly motivated, great person I was before.
My therapist recommended medication to help with my worries/sadness & to get me on the road to being productive again. I have 2 major concerns about this.
My first concern is the ethics of medication. I feel like being a heavy thinker is just who I am. My thoughts deeply sadden me. But the fact of the matter is my thoughts are real. I don't want to have this false sense of optimism by going on medication. I also don't want the medication to make things seem better, when they really aren't.
My second concern is that I drink socially on the weekend with my friends. I've had a few other friends who've gone on depression medication, and after a night of drinking they had felt very depressed and anxious the next day. I don't want to worsen my symptoms. I've also read that depression medication cannot be effective if used with alcohol. However, a psychiatrist I saw said that people get around drinking and being on an antidepressant all the time. Going on medication & stopping drinking is not really a good option for me because I will be going to college next year & I want to party.
Bottom line: I would love to feel better and BE better, and I feel that going on an antidepressant could affect my brain chemistry in a positive way. But if I plan to continue drinking socially, and am not completely sure if I'm in line with the idea of medication itself, is it worth it?
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You should definitely talk your concerns over with your therapist. Taking medication (or at least finding the right medication) isn't going to make you a non-deep thinker or flatten your emotions to an unnatural degree. If you get flattened out - and some people do - you'll look for a different medication. I've only ever felt flattened out on one medication. What a good medication response can do is bring your moods and thinking back to a place of normalcy where you can go about your business and do the things that you want to do and feel more like yourself. And it can really help you make better use of time in therapy too.
About the drinking thing, that's really a very small price to pay for feeling like you're living your life more fully. Not drinking doesn't stop partying. You can drink non-alcoholic beverages or limit yourself to a single glass of something that you want to taste. Isn't the point of going out to be with friends, hear music, and relax? Trust me, people will respect you for confidently knowing your own mind and making an independent decision to do what's right for your well being. (And that ultimately goes for a lot of choices in life! Believe me.) Sorry for sounding a little preachy, but I really do think you can have lots of fun in college without consuming lots of alcohol, especially if you're not feeling depressed!