In my last post, I wrote about my history of taking antidepressant medication. I thought it might be helpful for anyone considering whether to go that route in getting help for their mental illness. But another reason I wrote about that now is because I have just changed my medications for the first time in about ten years. And I’m really curious about what the result will be. I’ll tell you why I made that change, and what I am looking for in the next few weeks.

Long-time readers have noticed that I went through a very dry spell recently. I didn’t write anything, either here on this blog, or on my newsletter Biblia Luna, for over six months. There are a number of reasons for that, and I plan to explore some of those reasons in future posts.

But for this post, the important thing is that I’ve been wanting to get back to writing for about two months. But there was so much inertia. It felt like I was crushed under a writer’s block the size of a boulder. I wanted so much to crawl out from under it, but I just couldn’t. I talked about it with my therapist at least three times, and with my spiritual director at least twice, and always left those appointments feeling like I was ready to write again. But it never happened, at least not beyond a few short journal entries and some quickly aborted attempts at blog posts.

Besides my therapist and spiritual director, I also have a psychiatrist I see once every two or three months. My discussions with her cover similar ground to those with my therapist, but with the psychiatrist it’s mostly from the standpoint of medical interventions. (That’s what psychiatrists are for, after all!) I met with her last week, and the topic of my writer’s block came up. I said that my mood was doing okay (which was true), but that my motivation was really low (also true).

She suggested that a lack of motivation could be a lingering effect of depression, and she suggested we increase the dose of Cymbalta I take. This was a big deal to me, because I have had this same prescription for about ten years. In fact, this was the first change my psychiatrist had ever made to it. (I started taking Cymbalta while I was still seeing my family doctor for these meds, and we never changed it.) I was a bit nervous about changing it. What does it mean that I need a higher dose after doing well for so long? Maybe I’ve just built up a tolerance?

I agreed to try it, though. I picked up the prescription for the higher dosage, and put it in my medicine cabinet next to the old bottle. It sat there for days, as I continued to take the old dose. (“Soon,” I told myself. “Soon I’ll transition.”) Finally, after a week, I got up the nerve to take the new dose.

And now we will see. Will an additional 30 milligrams of SNRI make a difference? Will that be the kick I need to get back into writing, and feel like myself again? And I wonder if I’ll be able to tell, in the end, whether it helps or not.

I’m writing again, at least for now. This is my third post in the last week. If this sticks, and this writer’s block crumbles, what shall I attribute that to? The increased dosage? Or is it because of the help from my therapist and spiritual director? Or is it because I’ve had a much-needed week off from work? Or am I finally just getting up off my lazy butt? Or is it something else?

That’s one of the tough things about an illness as subjective as depression. There’s no blood test to tell me how I’m doing. No MRI that will give me clear results. It’s all about how I’m feeling. And feelings can be affected by so many things. I firmly believe that antidepressant medication is a good thing, and that it’s helpful, even life-saving, for some people. I just don’t know if I’m one of them. But I’m convinced that it’s never hurt me, so I’ll probably just keep taking them for the foreseeable future.

If you are struggling with mental illness, I certainly encourage you, first of all, to pursue talk therapy. But also give some consideration to medication. It’s not for everyone – there are a lot of factors to consider. But it’s nothing to be scared of.  

What are your experiences, good or bad, with psychiatric medication? Leave a comment.