Tag Archives: Giles Fraser

My Response to “thedirtyho”s blog post re: Giles Frazer and Anti-depressants

Posted on by
1

Fluoxetine (Prozac), an SSRI

Fluoxetine (Prozac), an SSRI (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From “thedirtyho” blog:

http://thedirtyho.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/for-giles-fraser-ignorance-truly-is-bliss/

  • self-hate
  • paranoia
  • hypersensitive – incredibly attuned to very minor aspects of other people’s paralanguage
  • misinterpreted
  • over-analyzed
  • rejection
  • “walking on eggshells”
  • wondering if something innocuous you said is now being turned into a stick to beat themselves with
  • believing that everyone else hates you as much as you hate yourself
  • self-conscious and self-absorbed
  • Self-loathing
  • knowledge does not make it any easier to deal with
  • did not make me feel suicidal as such, it stripped me of all emotions and left me an apathetic husk – for instance whilst I would not have stepped in front of a bus, if I was crossing the road and a bus was coming, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to get out of the way
  • allow you to function at a basic level; you can make it out of bed, you can brush your teeth, you can go to work – you can pretend to be ‘normal’
  • their purpose is more to quieten the internal voice of doubt and self-hatred
  • a more damaging way of silencing these people is to strip them of their voice
  • woeful ignorance about the debilitating effect depression has on people’s lives

All of these things are exactly what depression due to BPD feels like.  We have been silenced of our voices.  It affected us so badly that we need these medications before we are able to even think about therapy.  We feel everything 10 times what “normal” people feel.  We cannot just go for a walk or socialize more and be cured.  Ignorance about the debilitating effect depression has on our lives is what encourages stigma, which is why people are afraid to go for help.  They are afraid to be labeled as “crazy” because they might need medication.  Even some therapists are reluctant to treat Borderlines, claiming they’re “resistant to therapy”  It’s articles such as this that make us doubt ourselves, which we already doubt our judgement on everything.  We think “I must just not be trying hard enough” even though we’re trying as hard as we possibly can and it’s not enough.  We need Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, but first we need medication so that we can be able to even engage in therapy.

We need to tell our own stories, as people with these conditions who know what we’re talking about from experience.  We need to erase misconceptions.  Only then will sufferers no longer need to fear coming forward with their diagnoses and get the help they so desperately need, saving many lives in the process.