In the mid-eighties, I diagnosed myself as having major depression. Since Ascendin was fairly new at the time, and since it had the reputation of passing the blood-brain barrier quickly, and therefore potentially acting more quickly than the typical antidepressant of the day, I asked my primary care physician if he would prescribe it for me, and he did so.

Your Turn: User-submitted mental health features.  Submit yours here.

Some 10 years later, I read in the psychiatric literature that long-term use of Ascendin often resulted in tardive dyskinesia (TD), a condition and the symptoms of which and with which I was familiar, since I had worked for some years at an old-time state "hospital"/human warehouse peopled by many long-time users of heavy doses of Thorazine, and similar drugs, and the accompanying cases of tardive dyskinesia.

Approximately 2 years after this news from the literature, I observed what I believed to be symptoms of TD in myself. I asked a psychiatrist colleague of mine, and he agreed (through observation) with my diagnosis of TD.

He recommended 400 I.U. of vitamin E once a day.  I tried this therapeutic route, and within 2 weeks I was asymptomatic for TD. While I had never heard of this treatment, or its theoretical rationale, it was empirically effective for me.