For some, the use of prescription medication for mental health issues is recommended, and can have life-changing and positive outcomes. Others may find it can take a while to find the right medication and dose that works for them – having patience, taking note of side-effects and being in-tune to your body can help with this process. It's important to take the time to discuss, and then consider what options are recommended with a trusted mental health professional. Whether that's talking to your GP again, or if you feel like you'd like another opinion regarding your treatment plan, you can contact your local headspace centre.
Starting on a new pill is exciting and terrifying: you're unsure how much it will affect your cognitive ability, your personality, and your capacity to not shit blood. Most times, it feels like a roll of the dice. From antidepressants to mood stabilisers, Xanax to Cooperin, placebo to slow release speed—I've walked through the shadow of the valley of brightly coloured capsules and I'm still uncertain about what works for me. All I know is, as The Who once sang, "uppers and downers, either way blood flows."Go on any forum for a psychiatric drug and you'll realise that people's experiences may have consistency, but never universality. So in writing about the complexity of the relationship you develop with your medication, I want to state outright that this is my personal experience, and I'll tell it as I know it, which may be different from how you know it. I've run a gamut of meds to treat a gamut of disorders, so I'm going to be talking in broad terms of ideas and feelings as opposed to the "Cymbalta gave my hands the shakes" specificity that fills countless message boards all over the net (I highly recommend these boards, however, if just for the sense of community.)I like to think of my relationship with my pill on generic romcom terms. It's a love-hate affair that is 90 percent awkward stumbling and questionable emotional abuse. The meet-cute is more of a "meet-nausea," and in that sense it's not unlike watching 50 First Dates. Sometimes these relationships fall sour in the third act however, and they rarely recover.Vikki Ryall, Head of Clinical Practice at headspace , the National Youth Mental Health Foundation.