A hard pill to swallow: Young women's experiences of taking antidepressants

Abstract

This research uses a narrative methodology to explore the experiences of young New Zealand women who have taken antidepressants, focusing on how these experiences affected their sense of self and how they understood their difficulties. This research is based on narrative interviews with 16 young women, aged 18-25, who used antidepressants. A narrative analysis compared the different types of narratives women used to describe their experiences and a thematic analysis considered patterns of meaning across their stories. The narrative analysis suggested that taking antidepressants affected these young women’s sense of self in a variety of different ways. Some narratives described antidepressant use as being able to restore or enhance participants’ sense of self and to assist them to meet normative expectations of young women. This narrative suggested the risk that young women might be forced to remain on antidepressants in order to maintain this valued self. For others, antidepressant use led to a view of themselves as either damaged, helpless, or no longer themselves. These narratives were accompanied by a sense of powerlessness and failure. In some cases, however, participants described increased agency as they rejected a biomedical conceptualisation of selfhood, and drew on more holistic or psychosocial understandings of selfhood instead. The thematic analysis highlighted the transformation that young women experienced in their understanding of themselves and their difficulties during antidepressant use. Antidepressants seemed to function to validate their distress but also resulted in the potential for an ‘illness identity’. Antidepressant use impacted on the women’s relationships with others. Participants tended to strive to find relationships in which they felt accepted for their choice to take antidepressants. Participants, however, tended to feel relatively powerless in their interactions with health professionals, which had a negative impact on their sense of self. The findings suggest that health professionals should acknowledge the impact of antidepressants on young women’s developing sense of self and strive to create a space where young women are able to make an informed choice about antidepressants.