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Old Aug 05, 2017, 11:06 PM
kkrrhh kkrrhh is offline
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Member Since: Dec 2015
Location: US
Posts: 308
I would almost guarantee that the constant worry and belief that meds have "ruined" your brain are holding you back more and doing more (temporary) damage than the meds themselves ever have. That's not to say that it's super simple, and if you just tell yourself, "never mind, meds are great," everything will magically be fixed. But getting an idea like that in your head and getting upset and losing hope over it can get it all tangled in your mind much like depression. If you keep believing it and focusing on it, it will do no good. I'm not sure if you've mentioned, if I can ask, what were the ADs prescribed for? Because depression and anxiety themselves can cause creative block, issues with emotions in relationships, and a lot of those issues.

I've had similar worries and wondered about meds. And I'm not saying this is necessarily the case for you, but I think it's part of the issue for me and maybe some others. I think we want to blame the meds so we can believe there's an option where things would've been totally ok. We want to be able to say, "this was the meds, they caused these problems," and imagine that in some parallel universe where we hadn't taken the meds, all of these things about ourselves would be different and things would be perfect, whereas a lot of the claims people make about ADs "ruining" them are things that go right along with mental illness anyway. In reality, most of the people who are exposed to psych meds have taken them because, well, they have mental illness. I'm not denying that they're sometimes prescribed when unnecessary, or that there aren't ever bad reactions, but it makes a lot of the scary things you read about people claiming meds "ruined" them iffy. Even if there were some tiny chance, there's no way of knowing, literally no way of knowing, and it's in the past.

ADs don't ruin your brain. Especially after 4 years, your brain's chilled out and gotten back to its own state and anything that could have been considered "damage" that meds could've done is gone. You can dwell on whether things would've been different personality-wise (I'll admit, I have) but honestly, there are a lot of life circumstances that affect us, and wondering what may've been does no good. If at one point 5 years ago you were deciding between taking a job or not, and you decided to take it, naturally a year later things would be a lot different if you could magically see every exact way taking that path had changed you. Maybe you made great money, but in a year spent there let's say you feel you might've gained a shorter temper, worked so many hours you might not have been able to work on music much and felt the stress made you shut down emotionally, and came away with a in intense phobia of spinning chairs that you'd have to work on. Let's say you even hated the job, and just felt it'd changed you and wondered how you'd be if you had taken another path. It would be impossible to see how things would've gone without it, maybe things would've been much worse. Would you think, "wow, I hate that job I quit four years ago and anything it may've done to me. I wonder if it ruined me forever, and I think it's probably reason to give up now." No, you'd think about the job and say, "I hated that job from 2013. I kind of regret it, but it's 2017 and I'm here and going to move forward and work on things, because I can."
This is obviously a way oversimplified, babbly example but hopefully you kinda get what I'm getting at. I know the fact that it's a change inside our literal brains makes it much more worrying, but honestly, that makes it easy to over blow it, too. Just literally look at it like that^... something that happened in your life and may or may not have given you some roadblocks but can without a doubt be worked on and moved past regardless. I know this is more subjective info but, personally I've seen no convincing, realistic evidence that ADs can ruin your brain in the way people worry, especially beyond hope, and I've looked a lot.

You're still living, you're still you, you've still got the same mind and body you've always had, just like anyone else, and can move forward and live life as you would've.
I hope things turn out, good luck with everything.
Thanks for this!
unaluna