It's weird how many abled people are surprised when I tell them that my prescribed dose of adderall doesn't make me euphoric or high. IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO.

People talk about not wanting to take psychiatric meds because they don't want to "feel like a zombie" a lot. Listen: if you feel like a zombie, you tell your doctor, and if your doctor doesn't change your meds, you change doctors.

That's not a typical reaction to most common antidepressants though (that's the kind of medication I hear it about most). A more typical reaction is "Do I feel different? Maybe things are better? I guess it's more manageable."

That's not to say that psychiatric medication can't drastically change lives. It absolutely can. But the effects of many medications are subtle and gradual.

An antidepressant that works for you is likely to make you feel more energetic and able to enjoy things. It's not a happy pill.

It should make you feel LESS like a zombie.

When I say that the effects of medications are often subtle, I don't mean they're insignificant. But they can be difficult things to notice and may take introspection to understand, especially with medications that can take weeks to start working.

Of course, some medications have immediate and drastic effects. It depends on the medication.

For me, depression limits the range of my emotions so that I feel hopeless and bored, and I don't enjoy things anymore. Antidepressants don't exactly make me happy, but they widen the range of my emotions so that I *can* be happy.

I take adderall for ADHD and Xanax for anxiety (the latter as needed), and those effects are much more noticeable than my Prozac or my Abilify (an atypical antipsychotic used as a mood stabiliser in low doses). They help massively and immediately.

But that doesn’t mean that medications like that are the only ones worth your time.