Peter, the name is fictitious because they do not want to be identified, is a subject of 40 years, who loves his work and is recognized for what it does. He is married to a woman who loves and admires, who has an affinity and long conversations. Putting their wage guarantee funds and certain other income, bought an apartment a few years ago and ended up paying less than a year. This is the second marriage for him, and living with her two children from his first marriage is constant and is characterized by affection. Contrary to usual in these cases, the relationship with his ex-wife is amicable. Peter has several good friends, over which a man could want, consider it, because finding one or two good friends in life and is pretty, and found at least ten friends who you can count on in difficult times. Peter’s life has meaning because he created the sense to her.
Excellent. He could be the character of one of those stories of success, happiness and wellbeing. But there is something strange happening. Something that at least for Peter is strange. Two years ago Peter takes Lexapro (antidepressant), benzodiazepines (anxiolytic, tranquilizer) and Stilnox (Hypnotic, sleep-inducing). I give the names of the drugs because drugs are so popular because they are spoken of as one speaks of gelatin brands or types of bread. And the fact that so few names are on everyone’s lips, something to say about our time.
Peter noted that the first time he took antidepressants, years ago, was to lose a member of the family. The pain of losing him paralyzed. I could not work. I wanted to be quiet at home, preferably without talking to anyone. Neither his wife nor their children. Peter just wanted to be “inside”. And when you left home, I felt an irrational fear, I felt that something could happen, like a car accident, who assaulted him or hurt him a loose cannon. He asked a friend who worked in the area, a referral to see a good psychiatrist. Peter felt he had bottomed out, but he feared falling into the hands of a charlatan who prescribe these drugs as if they were aspirin and believes that every human problem is a bad brain chemistry dysfunction.
The psychiatrist was serious and competent. He told Peter that he did not believe he was a depressed or who suffer from panic attacks, but was in a time of mourning. I needed time to grieve, to accept the loss. The psychiatrist prescribed an antidepressant Peter to help him out of the paralysis, because the patient insisted that it should work. The license in case of mourning two (!!!!) days according to the labor-law had been extended by an understanding boss. As Peter’s good at what he does, he received the privilege of two weeks off to recover from the loss of one of the most important people in your life. But he would not fail at these events. And it failed. With the help of antidepressant and after some weeks, returned to produce the same quality as before. Three months after the death of loved Pedro who was again a brilliant career.
Peter took the antidepressant for about a year, under rigorous medical Panic Away observation monthly consultations. As that did not like, the psychiatrist asked to stop taking the medicine. Psychiatrist Peter was accepted and decreasing the dose of medication to stop the medication completely. And remained about a year and a half.
At this time, Peter became much more creative. The number of working hours, which in itself was great, because he felt strong. Peter increased his success was always measured not by money but by passion. I felt that everything was going well, until he started to have insomnia. Peter slept and got up startled, unable to sleep again. Terrible thoughts went through your mind. Peter thought he would lose the success that would not have the ability to do things I wanted to do yet, afraid to die suddenly. The nights were filled Peter imaginary catastrophes rather real to him. And every time I left the house in the morning, again have that fear of being struck by some misfortune, something that was beyond their control.
A few weeks after the onset of insomnia, Peter again felt the paralysis. I could not work-and this, for Peter, was the eldest of real sorrows. He returned to the psychiatric clinic for two years and taking the three drugs mentioned. Pedro, who had always viewed with suspicion the sicofármacos pantry, began to feel the need for them as natural to face the days and nights “what’s wrong with taking a sleeping pill?” Said his wife when she questioned “Or a tranquilizer to handle stress? Or 15 mg of antidepressant to take off the urge to jump on the couch to look inside? “His wife that looked like Captain Pedro Nascimento in” Tropa de Elite “taking pills in the bathroom and telling his wife” Here there There is no problem. Everyone does that. I have no problem. ”
In 2011 Peter had moments where I felt that everything was fine. And if so that everything needed to continue well take some pills, there was no problem. Peter may never have produced so much as this year and therefore even won a wage increase without asking. But sometimes, not often, he was surprised to think that with this routine was losing his life to some degree. Peter did not have the same desire as before by his wife, sex became a secondary thing in his life. He felt no desire to do so with his wife or any other “side effect of antidepressant” he said with resignation.
Peter had worked as reduced trips to the cinema, meeting friends and the stack of books beside the bed was in the same place. He had also lost interest in tourist trips with the family, he was busy with their professional projects. Pedro was gradually finding that their leisure time were increasingly scarce. And although the work gave him great satisfaction, I felt I had removed the small pleasures of everyday life. In mid-September, Peter began to feel a vague nostalgia for he could no longer ignore.
“I slowly began to realize that he could not keep my life with such medication. I had accepted as many of the people I know who take such drugs. “Score” I only get to do everything I do because I have that kind of anabolic, because I’m bombarded psychically. I live many experiences throughout the day and I have no time to brood, and had no time to assimilate the mourning. Life is a dizzying, but it’s a life that I feel. Sometimes I have wonderful experiences, but in the next few weeks, or in the same week, do not remember, because other experiments are superimposed on them. And I know because I take pills only sleep, only waking me because I take pills, just bear that rate because swallows pills. Until a short time ago, I felt that everything was fine, so I thought I would be taking pills for the rest of my life. Instead of changing my routine to make it bearable, on went my limits because I knew I would have the drugs and if she fell, just enough to increase the dose. I turned an equation: Peter + medications. But recently I began to feel he did not want that life for me. There’s something wrong when you made up for you life is only possible because you take three different pills to live. And maybe a little while I will be taking viagra time to feel desire for the woman I love. That at age 40. And over time the side effects of this drug will cause with prolonged use, illness and disease in other parts of my body. I know many people like me and got used to believe it is normal to live at the point of birth. But if you stop to think, that’s crazy. That itself is a disease. And doctors are keeping us sick, but productive, using remedies to adjust the machine at a pace that the machine can only hold up over time. Suddenly I realized that I was a human machine and was using legal remedies as if they were penalized cocaine or other drugs. And the craziest thing is that everyone thinks I have an enviable life and everything is excellent. As legal drugs, because of the popularization of diseases such as depression or panic syndrome, everyone thinks you take birth normal strength to get out of bed in the morning and sleeping pills to avoid having afraid to die at midnight. Suddenly I realized that we are all mad, starting with me. Crazy for thinking that this is normal. ”
With permission of Peter, I requested an interview with the psychiatrist. A smart professional and serious. And it was strangely honest. I asked why sicofármacos prescribed to people like Peter “We live in a world where people do not have time to assimilate what is to be human, I often encounter this situation in the office. I see where the person asking for antidepressants because they can not work, can not go on with life. I know I can not work and get on with life because life became impossible, because it needs a time that does not have to assimilate the experience. It is obviously not possible, for example, assimilate mourning or separation in a week and carry on as if nothing had happened. So as you can not live without doubts, without sorrow, without frustrations. All these feelings are human, but the pace of our life times removed for assimilation. That person is not sick, is that his life is the absence of spaces to experience those feelings and assimilate what is human being that person only needs to work the next day and produce or if you will not lose their jobs. Then I give an antidepressant and I needed medical observation, with psychotherapy so that person can do something with your life and then take the drugs stop. It is a dilemma and has not been easy for me to deal with that, but it is in this world where I practice the profession of psychiatrist. Because depression is a real illness, it’s actually very difficult to get results even with current drugs. As with other mental illnesses, the results with very slow – and sometimes no results. Most people are not sick doctor today and so the result is fast and seems highly satisfactory. But these people need accountability in situations where humans could not take them. ”
Pedro, who was never adept at the famous New Year’s goals, this time ordered a perhaps the most difficult that can be proposed: “I am gradually reducing the dose of medication and I’ll stop taking them in March. My goal in 2012-and may have many problems to achieve it, is possible to create a life for me. A routine life and my body and my mind can bear, a life that is possible to accept my limitations and deal with them, a life that has time to absorb the pain and suffering, and time to enjoy the joys of the small pleasures and company of those I love. I know it will have a cost, I know I’ll miss certain things, maybe even have to change jobs, but I think worth it. I want to have bombed more the mind, or be an obedient machine. I just want to take a human life.