Until a friend made Depression the topic in an email group a few yearsago, I thought that anti-depressants must be like speed or tranquilisers, mood changing drugs and chemical escapes from reality. My own mood swings had eventually moderated to near non-existance and I couldn't see why anyone would need such things or could claim to be really sober if taking them. In the course of the discussion, I came to understand that some of us have a separate mental illness in which mood swings are caused by a lack of seratonin, and that anti-depressants merely restore this to make their body chemistry, more, and not less, normal. I have come to see over time that maintaining sobriety is mainly a matter of maintaining sanity and this is just something some of us need to do to maintain it. |