Depressed or Normal?—A Personal Tale

by Heidi Stevenson

Recently, I published Are 1 in 10 Americans Depressed—Or Are Doctors Nuts?, and wrote this piece as an adjunct, but then got wet feet and held back publishing it. Today, I've decided to throw caution to the wind.

25 August 2009

During the bad days of dealing with the pain of arachnoiditis. I wanted—desperately needed—an intrathecal pain pump implanted in my stomach to pump morphine and muscle relaxants into my spine, since it was impossible to get adequate pain relief orally. One of the requirements was to pass an exam by a psychologist.

The idea behind the exam is to prove that you're not suicidal. Don't ask me to explain the logic; I would hope never to comprehend it. First, there was a written multiple-choice test, and then a couple of hours with the psycho...excuse me, psychologist.

At one point, he proudly held up a great big number 16* that he'd handprinted on a sheet of paper. He informed me that it was what I'd scored on the test, and that it meant I was "clinically depressed". (Of course I was depressed. Unrelenting pain can do that to you.) I was scared half to death that he would declare me suicidal—which, of course, would have resulted in being denied a pump, and that would have assured my suicide. Logic, though, isn't the strong suit of the psychos.

He informed me, through a supercilious grin as he tilted his head back to look down on me, that I should be taking antidepressants. And he proceeded to pressure me to agree to take them. I needed pain treatment, not drugs that would diddle with my brain.

I was terrified that I'd blown it. My intent had been to have the test show that I was depressed, but not too depressed—a fine line. The thought that it would be necessary to take a class of drugs that I deplore on principle was terrifying.

After returning home and looking up information about the test, it became clear that the psycho was playing a game. That score defines depression that is barely within "normal" range. Whatever that actually means. I've gotta say that it would be completely bonkers to be anything but severely depressed under those circumstances, but that's another point. The issue here is that he tried to pressure me to take an SSRI antidepressant for a perfectly normal reaction to an untenable situation.

That "impossible to fake" psychological exam was completely faked. My real depression was off the charts. I was suicidal. I knew the method I'd use to end it all. But it was obvious that allowing the real depths of depression to show on their test would lead to refusal of the pump, which would have left me with no option but to kill myself.

I'm still here. I got the pump. It resolved the pain and saved my life. It's no longer needed, so is now gone.

So, who was crazy in that situation? And what good would taking antidepressants have done? They wouldn't have removed the reason for my misery. And that, of course, is the point. What good is a drug that masks depression? It can't help you resolve the problem by masking emotions, whether the problem is physical or emotional.

Yet, that is what doctors are doing every hour of every day in America. They are presuming to be arbiters of what is and is not normal emotion. They are declaring that as many as 10 percent of us are abnormally depressed, that we're so sad we need to be drugged so we won't feel it. They are assuming that they have the right to give us dangerous drugs to mask our sadness—without having any sense of whether that sadness is reasonable or normal. They are, in fact, stealing our ability to deal with life problems, learn from them, and grow. Is that sane? Or decent? Or anything but the ultimate in hubris?

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