Why RFK Jr. Going After Antidepressants Is So Alarming

At the hospital, I was asked to remove my clothes and personal items and keep them in plastic bags. It has been transformed into a corridor gown with flimsy curtains painted around the tokonoma and beige grippy socks. Deprived of my clothes and dignity, I was escorted to the hospital’s mental ward. There, he was left for over an hour himself to stare at the wall and hear the other patients’ tormented voices. They were elsewhere in their small room, baring anything they could use to hurt themselves.

I’m not crazy, right? I mean, I don’t belong here, right? It was a momentary snap from the deep depression and spiral thoughts I had been experiencing the previous month. That day, when I told my mother that I had a suicide idea, she called my primary care doctor’s office. They refused to see me and told her to take me directly to the emergency room. So I told the staff he was thinking about ending his life.

When the psychiatrist arrived, he saw a young woman, 23 years old, who had given birth to her many years ago. At least that’s what he must have seen. Because what he told me was that I was at risk for postnatal depression.

Worse, the warning was everything he had to offer. I didn’t come right after the suicide attempt, so I was just having suicidal thoughts and there was no place for me in the hospital. He refused to prescribe medication. I was discharged from the hospital and sent home on a thousand dollar bill.

Three years ago, I was prescribed antidepressants for the first time. I have been experiencing things I know now that I am depressed and anxiety. However, mental health was not something that was discussed in my family. And taking medication was actively being lightly paraded in our conservative Christian circles, as mental health issues were seen as a result of inadequate faith. It was only when I heard me crying to sleep at night when I saw my parents numb and growing anxiety and that was considered an option.

And the antidepressants helped me until a few years later when my doctor (I wasn’t a psychiatrist) was convinced I should take the medication. I was surrounded by the community and had a boyfriend who was embarrassed to blame me for taking antidepressants, so that seemed like a good idea at the time.

The outcome was devastating. Due to the combination of medication and breakup with my aforementioned boyfriend, I was in a state of depression and extreme anxiety that I had never experienced before.

I was at the bottom of a deep, dark hole and couldn’t see my path. Therapy itself wasn’t working because depression felt so repressive. I couldn’t use exercise to boost my mood, as just getting out of bed was an accomplishment most days. I was so hopeless and full of self-loathing, I wondered what the point was.

My visit to ER was my first taste of how broken the mental health care system is in our country. You can ask for help, but you can only make your doctor refuse to look at you and others refuse to send you home without resources.

Thankfully, I wasn’t in a place to do it myself, so there were people in a position to defend me and help me. I spent two weeks in the outpatient program at a mental hospital. I was paralyzed and simply experienced movement. There’s nothing truly to tell you the benefit of that program other than that it gave you access to prescriptions and the appointment of a psychiatrist you see after the program is over.

Trying to go back to the original antidepressants didn’t work. So I spent months trying to find the right psychiatrist and medication that would allow me to work and actually be involved in life again. One drug that ultimately helped was a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI, an antidepressant that increases serotonin levels in the brain. That SSRI saved my life.

Being on an SSRI did not cure me any depression or anxiety. But it cleaned the fog, managed the symptoms, and gave me light and ladders through the deep dark holes I had been in.

SSRI allowed me to work again. I was able to eat, sleep and concentrate. I was able to work again: first part-time and ultimately full-time. They took me to a place where I could actually take part in treatment, so I was able to dive into the underlying causes of depression and work on techniques to combat anxiety when it happened. After 5 minutes, I was able to take a walk in the fresh air without feeling tired. I was able to spend time with friends and laugh without feeling like I was actually dead inside. I was looking forward to the future again.

SSRIs are responsible for another life too – my daughter’s life. Without them I would not have met her father before or could not consider having a child. However, after her birth, the words that the ER doctor spoke almost ten years ago were fulfilled. Unfortunately, I experienced postpartum depression (and anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder). And the medicine I was taking, which I had been halting for almost a long time.

A few days after my daughter was born, it was really set. One night she screamed and fed her the whole time. I was tired – so I was very tired. I didn’t want to hear her scream anymore. She felt like she was screaming at me that I was a bad mom. I was exhausted, but it caused more anxiety and a nauseous sensation that I couldn’t eat. On one drive home alone from the store, I was weighing the options of just driving, coming back, driving into the building, and finishing everything. I felt like my daughter and husband would be better without me.

It got worse and I felt like I was spilling out of my skin. I wasn’t sleeping for a week. I had barely eaten anything. I helped my psychiatrist find new medications. He then called his mother and felt he couldn’t even take care of her, so he took care of her daughter over the weekend.

It took me a few months to get to a better place, but my new antidepressants and other complementary medications are why I’m still here in 6 years. They are the reason why my daughter has a mother.

So when I read Presidential order to “make America healthy again”the current administration says it will “assess the prevalence and threats” of drugs such as SSRIs, antipsychotics and mood stabilizers. A friend texted me. “He really can’t take our medicine, right?” When she heard that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known vaccine skeptic with no medical background, had been confirmed as secretary to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The executive order refers to a concrete investigation into what I believe is an overprescription of these drugs for children, but I am not as naive as I believe it will stop there.

When asked at the confirmation hearing about his attitude towards antidepressants, Kennedy replied that “it’s more difficult to get away than heroin.” It’s blatantly wrong. Last year, he also assumed that an increase in school shootings could be linked to antidepressant use. There is no scientific evidence. And in his first speech to HHS staff, he directly mentioned SSRIs and psychotics as factors investigating the rise in chronic disease. This is the man who sent people like us to “wellness camps” to detoxify them from medicine and express their desire to treat mental health issues with farm work and organic vegetables.

As someone with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, it is difficult to not even suffer from the possibility that my medication may be denied access. But even without the overtly ban, both Kennedy and Donald Trump’s policies and statements reveal that individuals with mental disorders, disorders, neurological and chronic diseases believe that they are draining US resources. This is a concern and eerie reminiscent of other times in history When eugenic ideology wins.

Taking medication for mental illness already holds a significant amount of stigma. Many people feel embarrassed to take medication for their mental health. Even more people may not consider drugs as an option for fear of being judged crazy or weak or being stereotyped. It will only increase as a result of this idea, along with the stigma surrounding common mental illness.

If you think mental illness is not a real illness, then the depression can be defeated with a bit of fresh air and time spent with friends, or the anxiety is the result of “unresolved sin” or sufficient faith, so no medicine is needed at all.

This will undoubtedly lead to fewer individuals seeking the treatment they need. And as I mostly did, people will lose their lives as a result.

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