RFK Jr's extreme and dangerous ideas

A deeply personal defense of mood medication

I’ve suffered from depression since I was a teenager. But I wasn’t given antidepressants for it till I was in my early 30’s. In my teens I self-medicated with weed and alcohol, and in my 20’s I just powered through, even though the stress of that showed up in my body in many other ways.

It wasn’t till I was hospitalized for a suicide attempt at age 38 that I was finally diagnosed with bipolar II, and put on mood stabilizers.

I learned that mood medication is an art as well as a science.

My doctors and I found that SSRI’s, the drug that RFK Jr has declared “as addictive as heroin” would work great for the first few months then lose effectiveness - FOR ME. Unlike RFK Jr, I’m not egotistical enough to believe that what doesn’t work for me is completely useless; it might work brilliantly for someone else with different brain chemistry and genetic makeup.

It took trial and error to find the combination of meds that worked for me. Since we found the correct cocktail, I’ve been remarkably stable. Yes, my dose of antidepressants goes up and down (right now I’m up to what my psychiatrist and I jokingly call my “Trump dose”, which is double the dose I take in more normal times) but I’ve written 20 books in 20 years, countless columns, raised two kids, dealt with the loss of both my parents 16 months apart, got divorced, remarried, and moved three times.

However, I can’t tell you how many people have tried to make me feel like a failure for taking meds. Those folks are always full of ‘helpful’ unasked for advice like “Take a walk in nature!” “Exercise!” “Listen to music!” “Eat healthily!”

It’s infuriating because before we found the right meds I was doing all of those things. But I still felt like I was trying to climb out of a vertical-walled dark chasm with no handholds or safety rope. I’d push back, but nonetheless, that insidious message that I was somehow weak for having to take mood meds permeated my subconscious.

As a result, when my horrible three-year long divorce was finally resolved, I spoke to my psychiatrist about trying to go off my mood meds as an experiment to see if my mental health issues were situational, as the result of being in an unhealthy relationship, or if there was an organic component. She agreed we could try, so under her careful guidance, I titred off my mood meds gradually, until I wasn’t taking any of them.

It was a useful, but extremely unpleasant experience. I felt awful. I remember a trip with the kids to Great Wolf Lodge where I struggled to function. Thank goodness my then boyfriend, now husband, was along to do the fun things with the kids while I slogged my way through the day.

It was so bad that for almost a decade afterward, I couldn’t listen to Mika’s Life in Cartoon Motion (the album my daughter was obsessed with at the time and we listened to on auto repeat during that trip). Fortunately that bad association has past, because I love that album!

The worst thing was that because all those “helpful” people had been stigmatizing taking meds, despite knowing better, I still I felt like a failure. That I “should” have been able to cope without resorting to meds.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how ridiculous that was. No one gives Type 1 Diabetics grief for taking insulin to survive. No one gives people grief for taking medication for high blood pressure, or elevated cholesterol, or inflammation. No one implies I’m weak for whipping out my inhaler when I’ve been near a cat or in a dusty or smoky place.

So why the hell should I listen to idiots like RFK Jr saying that SSRI’s are “as addictive as heroin”, and worse, that we should send kids to “wellness farms” where they focus on faith and 12 Steps, but without any medication?

Dude, I tried to pray my depression away. It didn’t work. I’ve had therapy out the wazoo (I found DBT particularly helpful, and use strategies from it to this day) and I do all the other things I’m supposed to do like eating healthily and exercising. But finding the right combination of medication has not only saved my life, it’s enabled me be a happy, productive, tax paying member of society.

I’m proud of the things I’ve overcome in my life and have worked bloody hard to do it. I’ve chosen to be open about my mental health struggles and the fact that I take medication (despite the fact that people who don’t agree with my politics have tried to use it against me) because I want young people to know that change is possible. To help end stigmatization, so that people aren’t afraid to get help; so that they realize getting help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

And I’m sure as hell not going to allow a nepo baby with a brain worm who compared Covid 19 vaccine mandates to the Holocaust to stigmatize me or anyone else who takes mood meds.

If taking a few pills a day is what allows me to be happy and functional, write me the script!

xo Sarah