Member- Aug 21, 2014
- 5,049
- Tinnitus Since
- 1999
- Cause of Tinnitus
- karma
So, keep in mind that I'm very strongly biased by my own experiences, and that the things which have worked for me, do not work for everyone.
That said: I spent years being told that I had "organic" problems and "imbalances" of one kind or another, and that I "needed" drugs to feel happy. I heard this from people with impressive titles, and so for a long time, I believed it.
None of that stuff ever really worked for me, and I grew dismayed of being put on one cocktail after another. I got sick of side effects. I got sick of feeling crazy. I decided I had to find a different path for myself.
I put a lot of effort into finding someone who was a licensed MD, with lots of drug knowledge, who was skeptical of the wisdom of putting unhappy people on these drugs. It was not easy to find someone like that, but they are out there. (Truthfully, first I started with `alternative doctors`, who were in general only too happy to share my distrust of drugs -- but who often suggested things which were very, very unscientific, and very, very expensive).
I had been on these drugs for so long, getting off them, and then returning to any semblance of a normal life took a long time, and a lot of effort.
The things that "worked" were:
* having a lot of love and support in my life from understanding people, some of whom had been through similar difficulties. I know that love and compassion and human interaction are a luxury in the modern world, and I do not know where I'd be now without the patience and support of my wife, family and close friends.
* having an engaging job that I find rewarding and challenging, for which I am compensated well enough to live comfortably and have interesting hobbies. Again, I realize this is a luxury.
* maintaining a strict sleep schedule. Sleeping at least 7-8 hours a night (or, at worst, laying calmly in darkness for that length of time during periods of protracted insomnia and stress)
* maintaining a relatively strict food pattern: lots of fresh fruits/vegetables/lean meats, limited sugar, as few processed foods as I can manage
* regular exercise. You don't have to go crazy, but, we evolved in a world where we probably walked 2-5 miles a day. Sitting down for 8 hours and then going home and sitting down for another 6 hours is unnatural and damaging. Exercise releases stress hormones, which the body then cleans up.
* mindfulness practices: yoga, meditation, whatever.
I question anyone who would pretend to tell you what the long-term effects of these drugs in you specifically will be. No one really knows. People exhibit a huge variety of responses to these drugs. Some people take them for years and never have any issues with them. Other people develop serious side effects which take years to resolve after short-term use. It's a big question mark.
I don't necessarily think St. John's Wort is especially benign, either. It's a plant-derived supplement, but it's clearly got active drugs in it.
From what you said about St. John's Wort, and then SSRIs, it sounds like you've been bouncing back and forth on a bunch of different drugs for a while, so your brain is probably sort of confused and scrambled.
My best advice is to figure out what you want to do. Do you want to try the drug approach? If so, then I'd pick a single drug, at the same dose every day, and stick with that for a period of several months to see what it's really doing. Are you tired of messing with drugs? In that case, I'd say stop taking them, and stick with that for several months. Hopping on and off drugs and supplements, and changing doses, seems like a recipe for disaster.
Whichever direction you go with drugs, I would also recommend taking some basic care of your diet, sleeping the best you can, and getting exercise at least every couple days (a little bit every day, is probably even more useful than trying to do a marathon session once a week). If you're open to the mindfulness practices, I know that I, as well as a number of other people I have spoken with, have found them very helpful in managing anxiety and depression -- but meditation clearly isn't a drug, and it's not going to instantly change the way you feel.
The reason I'm so gung-ho about significant lifestyle changes rather that drugs, is that I believe that anxiety and depression are often compounded by certain kinds of behaviors and lifestyles. So, if there is a lot of unchecked stress in your life, the best you can really do with drugs is paper over that. I think that drugs have their place in the short-term management of very acute distress states... someone in a severe crisis is not in a good position to try to make serious changes to their lifestyle! However, when the drugs do too good a job of papering over the cracks, it can be tempting to just stay on them and keep living the same toxic lifestyle. I think this is burning the candle at both ends, and this is exactly what I did for the years I was on Klonopin. As you might expect, when I finally tried to get off Klonopin, I was in worse shape than I had been to start with!
If what you want to do is change the way you feel, in a sustainable and big way, I think this is really only possible if you're willing to make big, significant changes to the way you approach life. This is easier said than done, but the alternatives are not pretty, either. And, I'm also not suggesting that any of this is magical. I have made all the changes I'm describing here, and I still feel uncomfortable and anxious or sad sometimes. That's part of life. But, there's a big difference between "I feel some anxiety, I'm aware of that and I'm not letting it prevent me from doing what I need to do" and "I am crawling up the walls thinking about killing myself for hours at a time".
