Just think of the side effects.
Is it a one time dose that immediately fixes you or something you take everyday a few times a day and overtime you begin to see results? The longer you take something the worse the side effects will be.
It's also completely impossible for a pill to change that much about you. SSRI's do an alright job to take away the reluctance of change and obsessive interests, not to mention anxiety and depression - but they wear off.
As much as I hate my sensory issues, meltdowns, ADHD symptoms, temporal lobe epilepsy, oppositional behaviour, inertia, being unemployed and living at home still and social awkwardness - I do like my curiosity and having many hours of freedom to do as I wish, especially when it comes to my creative writing obsession.
Callista wrote:
LOL, no, an SSRI doesn't turn you into a neurotypical; it just makes you an autistic person who's not as anxious or depressed.
Not that it wouldn't increase your ability to cope and take care of yourself. Anxiety disorders can be HUGE problems for autistics, and can make the autism much more of an impairment than it would usually be. So don't stop taking the SSRI, if it helps you, but I honestly wouldn't say it has changed the core autistic traits that gave you the autism diagnosis in the first place.
Actually it does a bit more than lessen anxiety and depression. It makes you less obsessive so special interests virtually disappear. It makes you more able to cope with change. It takes away stress so stimming hardly happens.
Now maybe I just have a special brain that anti-depressents work differently on but my symptoms had eased so much I didn't feel the need to come back here or call myself autistic. That's kind of the way I am. Nevermind this 'autism for life' mentally most people have. If I don't experience enough symptoms then I ain't got it no more.
Before you say 'then you probably never really had autism to begin with' - come on, it's me.
The anti-depressants don't fix everything though. I don't remember having much curiosity because I don't remember much about when I was on them. So, they took away my curiosity and creativity as well as obsessions which I did not like once I came off them. It took about 6 months for all that to return. They actually made my sensory issues worse permanently. And as for social skills, well, Ritalin helped more in that department then they ever did. I still had to drink alcohol (most foolishly) while taking the my medication to have anything to say. Or maybe I just liked the high.