Don’t Med on Me
The Flat-Earth Approach to Brain Science (and Rocket Surgery)
There’s a new head of Health and Human Services who thinks people like me are part of America’s problem — medicated masses stumbling through life, victims of Big Pharma and our own weak wills. The thing is, I’m actually quite good at stumbling through life. I’ve been doing it successfully for 27+ years without alcohol or drugs, though I do require some pharmaceutical assistance to keep my various neural and immune systems playing nice with each other.
I’ve got what you might call a complex relationship with my brain and body. Depression, anxiety (both generalized and social), multiple sclerosis, and — plot twist — recently diagnosed autism at age 58. According to our new HHS Secretary¹, I should be off growing organic kale (for “three or four years”) at a “wellness farm” somewhere, getting “reparented” until I no longer need my medications.
Here’s what I know from lived experience: My antidepressants² have never made me a zombie — they make me functional. My MS medications³ don’t make me weak — they keep my immune system from treating my nervous system like an all-you-can-eat buffet. And my recent autism diagnosis⁴? That just helped explain why I’ve spent my whole life feeling like an anthropologist on a very long field assignment among humans.
The irony isn’t lost on me that someone tasked with overseeing America’s health believes that mental health conditions are essentially moral failings, that autism is an epidemic rather than a different way of experiencing the world, and that medications for chronic conditions are just crutches we could discard if we just tried harder. It’s like putting a flat-earther in charge of NASA — sure, they’ve got strong opinions about the shape of things, but maybe not the most qualified perspective.
Speaking of strong opinions versus qualified perspectives — let me tell you about the time a nationally renowned neurologist (mine) gave me the most unprofessional (and life-saving) medical advice I’ve ever received.
“Just take it, Chris ... what’ll it matter in 10,000 years anyway?”
– Absurdist medical wisdom from my neurologist who, in one Zen-like moment, cut through my pharmaceutical hesitation.
I was deep in one of those depressions that makes the bottom of the Mariana Trench⁵ look like the shallow end of the pool. My neurologist had suggested antidepressants at my previous visit, and I — champion of sobriety and extremely careful curator of what goes into my body — had acquired the prescription but not taken them. You see, after making such a life-altering decision to quit alcohol and other drugs, I was hesitant to add any new substances to my carefully maintained system. I had this idea that medication would fundamentally alter who I was (spoiler alert: it did, in all the right ways).
During my follow-up appointment, when he discovered I still hadn’t started the medication — and was still dangerously depressed⁶ — he dropped the formal medical speak and said something I’ll never forget: “Just take it, Chris ... what’ll it matter in 10,000 years anyway?”
That absurdist-yet-profound perspective cut through all my carefully constructed resistance. I went home and took the medication. I don’t say this lightly, but I genuinely believe he and that prescription saved my life.
Since then, I’ve worked with an equally wonderful psychiatrist to find the right medication (because brain chemistry is less like lock-and-key and more like jazz improvisation — you try things until something hits the right note). My only fear about my current antidepressant isn’t that it’s changed who I am — it’s that it might eventually stop working.
The fundamental disconnect here isn’t just about medication — it’s about understanding what healing actually looks like.
– On the sale of snake oil and vinegar dressing for your organic kale salad
But here’s what our wellness-farm-advocating HHS Secretary doesn’t seem to get: medication isn’t a magic bullet or a chemical straightjacket. It’s one tool in a whole workshop of mental health maintenance. I exercise, eat well, sleep regularly, journal, talk about my mental health (both professionally and in general), and maintain sobriety. The medication doesn’t do the work — it just clears enough of the fog of neural civil war to let me see which parts of my brain are staging the coup today.
The fundamental disconnect here isn’t just about medication — it’s about understanding what healing actually looks like. Sometimes healing means accepting help. Sometimes it means taking medication that helps your brain chemistry play well with itself (and others). Sometimes it means recognizing that your different way of experiencing the world isn’t a bug — it’s a feature.
So no, Secretary Kennedy, I won’t be checking into your wellness farm anytime soon. I’m too busy actually being well — managing my MS, understanding my autism, treating my depression, and using my lived experience to help others navigate their own paths to whatever wellness means for them. I’m doing it all with the help of evidence-based medicine and qualified medical professionals who understand that healing isn’t about ideology — it’s about what works. Turns out the real wellness was the scientifically-validated treatments we made along the way.
FOOTNOTES
“RFK Jr. Is Already Taking Aim at Antidepressants”, Mother Jones, Feb 14, 2025
Currently, I take 100mg of desvenlafaxine (Pristiq®) once daily. Desvenlafaxine is a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) as opposed to the more commonly prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). In his crusade against antidepressants, RFK Jr. exclusively references SSRIs. Likely because laypeople — like RFK Jr. — and the mainstream media use “SSRIs” as knowing shorthand to present as if they “get” the complexity of modern neurochemistry treatment. They don’t.
My current MS medication is Ocrevus® (ocrelizumab) administered via a 2-hour intravenous infusion every 6 months. Ocrelizumab is a recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody. FYI, FWIS, Ocrevus treatment currently costs ±$85,000 annually without insurance, down from $120,000 when I started it. I didn’t have insurance when it was time for my most recent infusion. The makers didn’t let me know until the last minute and every other option had been exhausted that they will ultimately give it to you if you “qualify”. Insurance and Big Pharma are gross, inhumane rackets.
ASD Level 1 (of 3). See: “Autism Diagnosis: The Levels of the DSM-5”, Embrace Autism, Updated Mar 2, 2023
The deepest part of the ocean at almost 7 miles deep.
Caffeine: my most mission-critical medication — your donation keeps this neurodivergent troublemaker fully caffeinated and conspiring.
Flying the flag of weaponized ignorance: half-mast hopes for rational discourse / the Gadsden flag remixed by the Error Dome
