It's not a hedge, its science. ADs are effective in severely depressed people, and are essentially a placebo for mild to moderate depression.
Your medication worked in three days? That's fantastic, but ADs take weeks before they are effective, so it seems that yours is likely a classic case of a placebo response.
I have my own anecdotal evidence: I was severely depressed, anxious, and had horrible bouts of insomnia. I tried some different ADs, they didn't work for me, I just got the unpleasant side effects. Talk therapy helped tremendously initially, but it was meditation and yoga that have been the cure. Not merely a treatment for symptoms, like ADs are, an actual cure. I no longer suffer from anxiety or depression, and I sleep like a baby. It is truly miraculous, but it isn't easy. I show up every day to sit for 15 minutes and meditate, no matter what uncomfortable feelings are churning inside me, and have done so for 13 years.
Is meditation a placebo? Maybe, but it's free, and the only side effects I've experienced are increased calm, happiness, open mindedness, creativity, confidence, and ability to concentrate.
Medication, talk therapy, and a mindfulness practice can work together beautifully to stabilize someone going through a bad episode of anxiety/depression. But, to really get better, permanently, eventually the medication will have to be dropped, and very likely the talk therapy as well. There is no substitute for choosing to experience your scary emotions directly and consistently, and through looking the monster in the eye, you come to realize it's only a phantom, and gradually it loses its power over you.
People greatly overrate what medications can do for them, and greatly underrate the severity of side effects and also the power of their mind and emotions have on their physical well being, and the degree to which they can harness them to their benefit.
@I-Ranger , thank you for posting this. I really think that both meditation and mindfulness practice would be really helpful for me. Do you have recommendations on tools to start?
I actually started with
Meditation for Dummies book, lol. Since then I have read about other types of meditation and mindfulness practices, and honestly, I think there are several that can be helpful. Qi gong, tai chi, yoga, centering prayer (if you have an affinity for religion), and many different types of meditation. The important thing is that you are practicing holding your attention on one thing, and then noticing when it has strayed, and then bringing it gently back to that one thing. This strengthens your ability to direct your attention where you want it, simultaneously weakening the ability of your negative thinking to take you over completely.
I feel meditation on the breath is the simplest, most direct way to bolster mindfulness, but I would say try a few different practices and see what resonates with you the most. Whichever one you ultimately choose, do your best to have patience and trust in the process. Relief from emotional suffering never comes as fast as you want it to, but believe me, it will come.
Here's my half-baked metaphor for how it works:
Imagine you (and everyone else) are required by law to carry a huge bag of sand with you everywhere you go while you are awake. The bag is sealed and you are not allowed to open it in anyway. It totally sucks trying to carry and/or drag this thing around all the time, wearing you out and making everything you do more difficult. You obviously hate the bag, and even when you get to put the bag down at night, you find yourself thinking about how much you hate it and how much harder everything in your life is and will always be because of it. Soon, the stress of thinking about the bag is almost as painful as actually having to carry it.
Then you meet a wise old woman who is joyful and happy, and whose bag seems almost empty. You ask for her secret and she tells you that there is a design flaw in the bag, and that if you hold it just right, a few grains of sand will fall out, but it's so few that you won't be able to see them falling out. You doubt it will work, because if it did it would be on TV and everyone would be doing it. Eventually you're so desperate for relief that you'll try anything, and you start to do what the wise woman suggested, even though the special way you have to hold the bag is uncomfortable and painful, which means you can only do it for a short period each day. Day-to-day, you don't notice any difference, and you get frustrated and think it is useless, but again, you have nothing to lose so you might as well trust what the wise woman told you.
But one day you notice the bag feels a little bit lighter, and going about your life is a bit easier. You realize it's working, which motivates you to keep up the uncomfortable daily practice. Then the real miracle happens. A day comes where you stop worrying, hating, and thinking about the bag while you're carrying it, and especially when you've put it down. You still have to carry the bag every day, which isn't pleasant, but you notice you are happier the more you just accept its existence, and you start putting this freed up mental energy into creating the life you want. This acceptance is made easier by the knowledge that the bag is indeed getting lighter, albeit slowly.
Then a day comes where you look back on how heavy your bag used to be, and it's obvious it is significantly lighter now. It still affects you and makes things harder than if you didn't have to carry one at all, to be sure, but going about your life is far easier than it used to be and you really stop thinking about it. You are grateful every day that your bag is lighter, and you occasionally give yourself a lighthearted facepunch for not taking the wise woman's advice sooner.
You ultimately realize your bag may never be completely empty, but that's okay, because it has ceased to be a source of suffering, and dammit, you're a pretty happy person now. And so you just keep doing the daily uncomfortable practice, because, why wouldn't you?
The one thing I would strongly recommend is reading
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. He does a masterful job explaining how the mind/ego works, and gives concrete practices to help you transcend emotional dysfunction and suffering. I read it at least once a year, and probably always will. It's effect on my life has been profoundly positive. I'm sure you can get it through the library and there a probably a million cheap used copies for sale online.
A New Earth is also an excellent book of his.
You can do it, BeanCounter. You deserve to be free from suffering, as we all do.
