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My Psychiatrist Prioritised My Weight Over My Depression
Happy pills or jeans that fit?
Once again, I feel the need to preface this by saying that I am not a doctor. I did not go to medical school. While I have a degree in psychology, I did not pursue it further, so I am certainly not a psychiatrist or psychologist by any means. What I am is a writer and a person who has been taking antidepressants for over a year now. What I am is someone who has struggled with both an eating disorder and depression for years. This piece is fuelled by those experiences, rather than an expertise or degree, and it’s not the place to get any dosage advice, that’s for sure.
I’ve struggled with depression since the age of about fifteen, and things got really bad again just under two years ago. There was no specific reason for this, as depression isn’t kind enough to provide a scientific cause-and-effect. I couldn’t point at a toxic boyfriend or a shitty job and unmask it Scooby Doo-style to reveal the villain, “Aha! It’s Old Man Withers, he’s the one making me want to kill myself!” Too dark? Sorry, I hoped the cartoon reference would ease things.
My depression was bad. I was back in therapy, doing the work, as I had been for years, and yet there was no end in sight. I couldn’t tell you why I found it so hard to get up every single day, or why I randomly…
