ABSOLUT Zoloft.

Be careful when taking psychiatric medications. If it is possible, please consider other kind of treatment. Love yourself. love your body, love your brain cells.

This is not a subject that I usually bring up in a conversation or when I meet somebody, or with my friends or relatives. It´s painful and it brings up memories that eventhough are healing, they still *itch*. In fact, I rarely speak about this, but if there is one single person who is going to get any kind of benefit from this, or is going to try other kind of healing therapy, it´s worth it.

I took Zoloft for almost two years back in 1994. I was suffering from very deep and difficult to handle depression and anxiety. All I remember from that time is that I wanted to die. No more. That was all I thought about all the time. I started a psychiatric treatment after being one week at the clinic, sedated all the time, because they thought I´d try to kill myself. I didn´t try to kill myself and I don´t think I would have been able to try it, even if I wanted to die, it was something different to commit suicide. But it was horrible. After leaving the clinic I started going to the psychiatric therapy sessions, and started taking zoloft and other medication for anxiety. It was like this for almost one year. But as time passed by, I didn´t like how my treatment for depression and anxiety was developing and I *decided* to quit one day. I was feeling *OK*, and I was doing very very good at the Design School. In that year, my end of term collection won a place for a recognised and important fashion show. I felt *motivated* by all that was happening and as I was feeling *OK*, I just quit the medication. I never told my psychiatrist that I was not taking it, and I stopped going to the therapy sessions. I didn´t know that Zoloft ( as many psychictric medication) had to be withdrawn by degree. The outcome? 12 years of something *very close* to BPD ( Borderline Personality Disorder) without any kind of treatment and even worst, any kind of knowledge of what was going on in my brain or in my spirit. There is a lot of information one can find nowaydays, just use google search and you´ll get thousands of sites.

I know that sometimes the psychiatric medications are indispensable and can/must not be replaced with other kind of treatment , but it depends on the level of depression and anxiety, any other mental disorders on the patient, background, etc. And of course that has to be assessed by professionals, and not by friends or relatives. Or... even worst, you must not try to solve it by yourself. No, it doesn´t work like that. The lack of information on this kind of things , how does your brain work, what are the substances that it needs to *work* in *harmony* often causes worst damages. For example, without needing to go too far, I tried in a certain stage of this past 12 years to *find something to make me feel better*. And how intelligent I was!! I tried to do it with alcohol or drugs. Ehm... you´re right, it was not a solution. It only made things worst.

I was becoming an alcoholic, and I was spending all my money buying alcohol, and after two very bad episodes with alcohol, I said to myself that I had to stop drinking or else I´d end up in a rehab center (in the best case scenario). When I was drinking alcohol in those doses I was even more depressed the next day... and the following week. *sigh*. I decided to stop... *someone* inside , call it whatever you want, said, stop, think, this is not the way to feel better.

Another source of *non-voluntarily induced-depression* (as I call it), is the medicines I have to take for the migraines. I´ve had migraines since I was in high school. They have gotten worst through the years, and the progress of the medicine and science have given us, the people who suffer from migraines, a wide range of medications to stop the pain and the symptoms. And yes, they stop the pain, and some of them relieve the symptoms, but the next day... I feel depressed. They lower the levels of serotonin in my brain just as alcohol does. Right, another day, another week of depression...

I had a very bad depression and anxiety phase a few months ago, and I knew how it would develop if I didn´t do something about it. I didn´t want chemicals inside my body , intoxicating it, and I didn´t want to be like a " zombie" again, erasing the memory of those times, just as I was when I took Zoloft. *I decided* (and this time was the best decision) to look for a different treatment. I found a Therapist who has experience not only in the scientific part of a therapy but in alternative medicine with spiritual, and energetic healing therapies. He is also working at a rehab center for drug-addicts and alcoholics. And as you can imagine or know if you ´ve even been in a AA therapy, he´s not a *sweet lollipop*. The therapy is not nice, he has been very hard on me. There were days when I just wanted to kick him. That is just the result of being stubborn with *me*. Reluctant to accept and change translated into harder therapy sessions. But now it´s different. I understood. *sigh*.

Now, after almost four months of a "not very easy" therapy, and really putting all my efforts to overcome the depression without chemicals, also receiving not only answers but natural and excellent remedies for my body and my soul, I am getting better every day.

Alternative Medicine and Spiritual healing therapies might not work as fast as a pill of Zoloft or any other psychiatric drug taken every day, and they are not going to make you *feel-super-good* instantly like the *zesty boost* coming from drugs like speed or cocaine, or *super-mega-good* like Ecstasy, but for my own experience and opinion, the pill of Zoloft is, as the other chemical substances, only a *theatre mask* and does not solve the *real* problems. It is just a way to avoid the confrontation with yourself, with your own life, with your own flaws, with your own problems, with your past and your present and who you really are and who you want to be. That was all I got from those 12 years. Evasion. I was evading ME. My relationships at work were a disaster, my relationships with men were a bigger disaster.

I was so afraid of being alone with myself that I was not completely *me* and I *thought I needed* attention and care in extremes. I was alone most of the past years, but was not paying attention to *me*. And I was so scared to be left alone because I couldn´t find myself. Now that I have been through all this and that I know that I am a complete human being, that I don´t *need* a person to complete me, now I know I am a woman with no fears of being alone, with no fears of being *just me*, and with a lot of things to give to my family, my friends and a partner. I know that I can not search for something that I am not giving to myself in another person. This particular subject is extremely painful now, because the darkest days are gone, but the man I love has also gone.

I haven´t met anyone who can tell me the opposite about the use of chemicals to solve depression issues. All that *super-mega-happiness* or the *cool* efect of psychiatric drugs are fake. Fake happiness, fake harmony, fake wellness. It´s walking backwards, there is no road ahead. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Only darkness, or, what it is in most of the cases and very sad, numbness and stupidity, a waste of *life* , a waste of all the talents and gifts that were given to us. The waste of the power and the beauty we have inside.

I have to acknowledge though, that depression is not just *sadness* that goes away with a *happy* motivation, it is a lot more than that, I am aware of the fact that depression might have genetic, familial, biochemical, physical, psychological, and social causes on a different level of input on each person, but I am happy and thankful, and I have been blessed, to have been receiving spiritual guidance and have been using natural medicine. But all this happened because I wanted to leave my black hole and I asked for help. The Light, the change, the help, don´t come if you don´t ask for them.

I wanted my body to be clean of chemicals, and my spirit to be free. I work on finding the key of the handcuffs I put to my spirit so I can set it free, the work on *changing me* hasn´t been easy....( who wants to admit and accept he was wrong, exercised poor judgment, made a lot of mistakes) I´ve become more aware of my flaws, but also more aware of how blessed I am, how much love I have to give and how much I can learn.

The path I have to follow is like a path of snow, I have to make the footsteps... and the path is hard to see. But this is growing, learning, changing, giving, loving ...

After all, where are we headed when we can´t see the Light, when our spirit is not well and nurtured but to a neverending cycle of going inside and outside our black holes...I hope you can all find a Spiritual Guide who can guide you to the Light.

LOVE. <3

Me.