50 beginning of their diagnoses. When I was first prescribed antidepressants, I believed they would finally cure my depression (a sensible conclusion to draw from their name). I thought they’d work like antibiotics for the mind–I’d finish a course of them, and the infection would be gone without a trace. I’d have my feelings and my motivation back. All it would take to feel like myself again was a round of happy pills. Ten years later, after a revolving door of psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychiatric medication, the sickness is still here. There have been periods of remission. During my first two years of college, I was generally happy and motivated despite no longer taking antidepressants–something my first psychiatrist had once told me would be impossible. But my mood never quite returned to normal. Even the happiest times of my life are tinted with a light shade of unhappiness when I remember them. The empty longing is always there in the background. It’s just more of an itch than an ache. I think it’s always with me. It likely always will be. True happy pills do not exist. I’ve made my peace with that. I know that, despite everything, I will never be the same person I was before. But curing the depression was never the point of the happy pills to begin with. I might never feel normal again, but is “normal” necessary to live? Thinking happy thoughts might not make me happy, but at least it takes my attention away from the misery. Taking care of my physical needs won’t cure anything wrong with my mind, but at least it keeps me fromwasting away. Writing and painting certainly won’t transformmy depression into anything inspirational, but at least it keeps me from feeling purposeless. And the antidepressants won’t stop the emptiness from gnawing at my soul–but at least they keep it from destroying me completely. No, I might never recover entirely. But I think I’ve recovered enough.
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