Mental Health Support Thread (NOT for giving medical advice, or debating)

Isn't that essentially a sign of addiction: a chemical affects the body in such a way that, if quit suddenly, the patient's body / mind suffers in one way or another? As far as I understand addiction, it means if you do not need or depend on thing x and can quit at any time without any withdrawals (mental or physical), it's not an addiction, but if you do need it / depend on it, and suffer withdrawals when you quit, you are addicted.

In any case, at least the anti-depressants most commonly used in Finland (e.g. fluoxetine, venlafaxine, mirtazapine, escitalopram etc.) usually cause some form of addiction (hence e.g. in fluoxetine's case, there's things such as discontinuation syndrome) as the body's tolerance increases, so meds are almost always a double-edged sword, but in my opinion, in some cases medication is what makes the difference between life and death. Literally.

Then there are medications out there that aren't supposed to be addictive but are (at least to some people), substances like pregabalin. I know if I went cold turkey, I'd probably kill myself. Without it, it's just a matter of time before the downward spiral begins, and no amount of positive thinking will stop the inevitable crash preceded by a crushing sense of guilt and self-hatred that usually have no rational reasons behind them (although my brain does come up with reasons that feel perfectly logical and right at the time, but seem well out of proportion once the meds kick in). As far as I know, benzodiazepines, commonly prescribed e.g. for anxiety disorders and depression-related anxiety (at least around here), also cause addiction.

For the OP:
In my experience, if you suffer from depression, you just have to accept the fact that, especially in the beginning (which might last for over a year), you are a guinea pig because all patients are individuals and what works for patient A doesn't necessarily work for patient B, so you may have to go through several different medications and forms of treatment before you find the ones that work for you in particular, be it meds, therapy, a new lifestyle, a combination of several things, or whatever.

I think that if the depression is paralyzing, i.e. acute, then finding some relief is your priority. Once you find some way to take the edge off the worst of it, there comes a point when you do need to just start to work through it. Surviving depression is hard work (at least in my experience), and there's no magic cure or treatment that will make it go away without any effort. So I believe it's a combination of everything: all the treatments you need (be it medication, therapy, change of attitude, whatever), enhancing your lifestyle, finding support, and lots and lots of effort on your part.

Just my 2c. Godspeed.

 

Actually, one of the main reasons that they slowly pull someone off of anti-depressants is to allow their body to start taking over the job that the medication had previously been doing. They do this with any different kinds of medication. The anti-depressants are meant to keep certain chemical levels stable. When the body has had the chance to start creating those stable levels for themselves, they slowly move you off the medication, thus allowing your body/mind to be accustom to producing those chemicals on their own. And, yes, if they don't do that, it can become an addiction.

 

Thanks for stepping in with your remarks shadowwalker. It's gratifying to here there are people who actually understand these drugs, and not the myths perpetuated about them.

People can become dependant on almost any drug. The body becomes 'accustomed' to the chemical, and adjusts. It's why we have drug resistant antibiotics.

Agreed. I've had to deal with people who have been sucked in to believing this, and they suffer unbelievable mental pain as a result. One person in particular that I intervened with had heard from friends that anti-depressants supposedly change how a person thinks. (sigh) It took weeks for me to convince them otherwise, and when they finally went on anti-depressants their mood improved markedly. I recall them asking me (rhetorically) 'why did I suffer all that time when I could have been taking anti-depressants?' Why indeed.

The same hypocrites who decry anti-depressants are the ones who have no problems with people doing pot or other drugs. So it's cool to do mind-altering drugs, but only if they make you high. If they stop you from killing yourself they're 'bad'.

Wow, this almost sounds like I wrote that myself. I often find myself laughing at those who suggest one can 'think' their way out of depression. I mean, surely people have been torturing themselves for decades because they enjoy the effects that depression has. In reality, psychotherapy is usually the first line of treatment in most cases, and in many cases it can help a person tread water until the depression lifts on its own. (since most do) It's the long term affected that are most at risk from people who encourage others to eschew medication or treatment by psychiatrists.

 

That statistic is misleading on many counts, (and has been repeatedly debunked) primarily because it included people who receive no benefit from one anti-depressant but do from another. So if a person had tried 4 different anti-depressants to find the one that works for them, the statistics show that as if it was 4 people who tried anti depressants and only one benefited from it. The efficacy of anti-depressants can't be measured looking at how a single anti-depressant affects a person, yet that is how statistics are generated. They are looked at on a drug-to-drug basis, and not on a treatment level basis. (This is because almost all studies are done with a single drug by the manufacturers of the drugs themselves.) So any attempt to cite such statistics in this way is flawed.

And most didn't. The majority, as found in surveys, hid their depression because of the stigma attached. The further you go back the more hidden it was. In the 1950's it was rarely spoken about. Yet it still existed.

People ask why depression rates are so high now and the reality is that they're not that much higher, it's just more people are actually seeking treatment for it. Especially men, who generally are shamed by people suggesting that this is something they can fix on their own - which leads them to think they are 'less of a man' if they can't get over it. There is a reason why - despite women making more suicide attempts - that men kill themselves far more often than women.

What I think drives the paranoia behind the use of antidepressants is that there are so many cynics who think the drugs are nothing but a big pharmaceutical conspiracy to sell medications. They forget that no one will buy a product that doesn't work, so it's in their best interest to product medications that actually improve a person's condition.

 

A chunk of the time it's due to side effects also. The side effects are rather high on antidepressants and range from sexual issues to weight gain. One medicine (Saphris) caused every muscle of my body to lock up in a major allergic reaction. So, there's more reason than just the chemical changes.

 

Exactly. It also depends largely on how long you've been taking the meds and in what quantities. If you've taken small doses for a few months, I doubt you'd be that addicted (or not at all), but if you've taken the maximum dose every day for 5 years, I would imagine mental and physical withdrawals would be pretty bad with many anti-depressants if you went cold turkey. Sometimes even quitting gradually can be a huge struggle. I've read many horror stories about quitting anti-depressants, cases where even slow decreases in doses caused lots of problems, the patients describing the experience "hellish." I know I've never gone through an easy weaning, they've all been difficult even though I don't have what they call an addictive personality and I've done it according to my doctor's orders. And, of course, everything is relative...

 

What I said has nothing to do with semantics, I'm surprised you would even look it that way.
Oh my!!! What is wrong with you? If I meant to blame someone for something then I would have said so, not insinuate it somehow. You are completely misunderstanding and misinterpreting what I said, not just that but adding your own points to mine as if I meant it.
As to the cure for depression. Do they know exactly what causes it?

Why are you misinterpreting and misunderstanding what I wrote?
You say I am prejudiced, yet you are the one who misinterpreted my comments. Contradictory, don't you agree? Do you know what prejudice even means? It describes you well. Why else would you have done what you did, without even noticing it yourself, and your tone... Whatever your issues are, deal with them, and while you haven't I'd suggest you stay away from discussions, arguments and such, unless this is your way of dealing with your problems.

Consider it whatever you want, you've proved yourself biased already.
If people knew themselves well, why would they ever need counseling. After all, all it is for is learning about oneself, getting to know oneself, and that requires thinking. But that does not require someone else's guidance, it is much easier to just look at oneself. Most cases of depression are mental, no biological factors predominantly influencing.

Very nice of you to bring something else into this. You are very objective indeed. Best if you didn't expand this one further, I'm really not interested "discussing" this one right now.
And yes, it has a lot to do with the mind.

They were their faults, and to some extent the society's as well, as everything's rather messed up anyway.
In the end they didn't prove strong enough, mentally, to find reasons to keep living, they were weak. It's for the best they are no more. But still, how much had our messed up society to do with it? If things weren't so bad then perhaps their lives would've gone differently.
By my logic? You know nothing of my logic.
I consider your ignorant and immature behavior EXTREMELY offensive.

I'm not digging anything, I'm just saying as I see things.
Why would even think this way? Kinda dumb you know... and exactly something a prejudiced person would say.

 

I think a lot of what it comes down to, guys, is the source from which the depression stems, and the specifics of the individual suffering from the depression. You should never, however, say that one thing can never work. That it shouldn't be considered as an option. Those that suffer from depression would feel free to consider a myriad of different treatments, maybe even multiple methods at the same time. There's not a "one size fits all" for medical disorders of any kind. Different people's bones heal at different times. Your eye disorder may be curable; mine wasn't. Your depression may be the cause of some yet mysterious disease that's causing the imbalances in your brain, where mine may be due to large levels of stress throwing my brain out of whack. You may find that treatment in the form of counselling and a support group are enough to get you on your feet. I, on the other hand, may see no effect from that, hard as I try. Much as I want to get over it, I may have to "resort" to anti-depressants.

I think it's demeaning to anyone that has or is experiencing depression to tell them that something that they're all the same, can all be treated the same way, or that, whatever they're doing that's helping them in some way, whether large or small, is wrong and that, even though it makes them feel better, it shouldn't be, and they should just stop. Stop speaking for the experiences of people that are experiencing something that may be diagnosed as being the same thing you have/had, but that may not have actually been the same.

 

Could you offer some scientific data to support your argument? I'm sincerely interested in seeing some research / statistics regarding your statement about most cases of depression being mental without predominant biological factors.

It's a little off-topic, but the question about homosexuality is also interesting and would shed some light on your views regarding matters of mind (what can and can't be done just by adjusting one's thinking / attitude). Since it's a sexual orientation, i.e. something in a person that makes said person sexually attracted to a certain group of people, it could be said that since pedophilia is also, in this sense, a sexual orientation, but treated in some societies as something akin to a psychological disorder, like depression, could one, according to your view, change their sexual orientation just by thinking? That is, if a psychological disorder such as depression could be "cured," according to you?

NOTE: the ONLY parallel I'm drawing between homosexuality and pedophilia here is that both are attributes that cause a certain person to be sexually attracted to a certain group of people. Beyond that, I'm drawing NO parallels between the two and definitely do NOT see homosexuality and pedophilia in the same light except in the sense I described above (i.e. both are, in this context, sexual orientations even though pedophilia is additionally often seen as a psychological disorder, like depression, whereas homosexuality is not and rightly so).

Well said. It seems to me that people who insist anti-depressants are never necessary and that every depressed person could be cured if they just changed the way they think, "got a grip" (or something like that) have never experienced real depression themselves. I see depression as a state where your body is basically physically unable to fight the negative thoughts and moods because of chemical imbalances in the brain (e.g. lowered levels of serotonin, noradrenaline, endorphines etc).

 

What he said.

 

Actually, let me educate you, my friend. First off, the body DOES MAKE the proper chemicals but they're either not being transmitted or received properly. Depression is linked to that. SSRI's stand for "Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors." That's because Dopamine is connected to depression. That's fact.
Antidepressants work to increase either the production or reception of dopamine in the brain. That's scientific fact. Ask any Psychiatrist and they'll tell you this.

Actually, one of the main reasons that they slowly pull someone off of anti-depressants is to allow their body to start taking over the job that the medication had previously been doing.

So untrue it's farcical. If the body WAS NOT making the proper amount of Dopamine BEFORE the medicine, then it's sure as hell not going to if a person is taken off. I think it's time to throw that misconception out the window.

They do this with any different kinds of medication. The anti-depressants are meant to keep certain chemical levels stable. When the body has had the chance to start creating those stable levels for themselves, they slowly move you off the medication, thus allowing your body/mind to be accustom to producing those chemicals on their own.

Yes and no. Normal medications, yes. Antidepressants when one has clinical depression or bipolar? NO. And the body starts creating stable levels for itself? As I said before, that's so wrong it's mind boggling. If the body wasn't doing it before, how in the hell will it do it then?? Sorry, my friend, by that's so WRONG that it's almost not worth responding to. Frankly it's rather pathetic-and I don't give a damn if I get censored.

And, yes, if they don't do that, it can become an addiction.

Really?? Really?? This is the best argument for stopping proper treatment? That's like telling someone who needs stitches don't get them because the wound will seal on it's own. It might but how many weeks would it take? And how much pain?? No responsible person would do that.
Antidepressants are not addictive to those who have mental illness nor have they. What becomes "addictive" is the feeling of "good" we have on it and then start to think that we don't need to take them and then stop. The crash that follows is both predictable and unnecessary.

 

@T. Trian: Just because a drug needs to be withdrawn more slowly (over a few weeks) does not make it the same kind of addiction as heroin or cocaine or even nicotine. A good and appropriate treatment with antidepressants has no harmful, long-term effects. It's just the time scale of brain cells and brain chemistry that causes this peculiarity of treatment.

Depression treatment, just like in case of any other medical condition, needs to be tailored to each patient specifically, and treatment varies between individuals. By saying what you said, it may be interpreted as if you consider anyone who is on long-term antidepressants as 'weak' or 'not trying' and that's just plain wrong.

And I know you didn't say this, it was someone else in the thread that claimed antidepressants were effective '17%' of the time. What a false statistic. Appropriately prescribed antidepressants, used as treatment for clinical depression, work in upwards of 80% of the cases. This is from clinical experience. However, I can not vouch for inappropriate prescribing.

 

Frankly, those statements explain why people shouldn't listen to a word you say on the subject. Let us know when you decide to move into the 21st century.

 

I was going to respond to your remarks, but seeing as your post it littered with ad hominem attacks I see no reason to lower myself to your level. Doing so would only validate your remarks further, something I have no intention of doing.

Good day to you.

PS: "Good day to you." is a polite way of me saying I won't be responding to your posts further.

 

Hold on, which meds are you talking about? And how do you define addiction? Without clarifying those things, this discussion is prone to misunderstandings.

I'm just asking because I've met and talked with quite a few people (mostly folks who've used anti-depressants for years) who've suffered of withdrawals, which is generally considered a sign of an addiction, when weaning even when it has been initiated with the consent of their physician.

Yup, so not what I was saying. So just for the sake of clarification: sometimes long-term use of anti-depressants is necessary for some people. There's nothing wrong with that and that doesn't make them any worse than other people. Anyone who says it does, doesn't know what they're talking about.

And I didn't mean to say that anti-depressants are addictive in the same way like e.g. heroin or cocaine, only that they can be addictive even though the nature of the addiction is different. When discussing drugs (legal and illegal), I see addiction as a state in which a person starts suffering withdrawals when the amount of drug x running in their system drops below a certain level.
Or should we call it "dependence" in the case of legal drugs / anti-depressants and "addiction" when it comes to illegal drugs / stronger painkillers like opiates & opioids? KaTrian pointed out that this may be a cultural blunder on my part because in Finnish, addiction and dependence are the same word. Sorry if that's the case.

I'll try to look up research data, but I've encountered some claims of long-term sexual dysfunction among men (may have been a few women too) with some anti-depressants (not necessarily complete impotence / frigidity (or is it frigidness?) / loss of sexual urges, but persisting numbness, decrease in the frequency and level of arousal etc), but I can't remember if there was anything mentioned about overly liberal dosages or other mistakes in their treatment or which anti-depressants were in question. I think at least one tricyclic and one SSRI were mentioned, but I'll try to look for the articles.

This may very well be the first time we agree on something.

Wow, I have to admit I rarely witness anyone rooting for eugenics on a public forum, but I guess there's a first time for everything...

 

Can you look at yourself, what you are doing? You are, as well, ignoring my points.
In addition to what you replied I also said "But still, how much had our messed up society to do with it? If things weren't so bad then perhaps their lives would've gone differently."
Why would you even take just one or some parts and ignore the rest? What is the point of ignoring something I've as well written? You're older than me, quite a bit I'm guessing. Then why do you not know better?

And me move to 21st century? So your idea of "21st" century is one where people ignore what others say? If anyone, then you are one who should not be listened to. And you should move to 21st century, and not your version of it.
Picking some points and ignoring the rest is not smart, nor respectful.
And even still, if to view just those that you cut out, they are still true. I look at the big picture. Weakness is not a virtue, not physical, not mental. And still, there's the society's impact that cannot be disregarded, especially if the society itself is a mess.

Let us know when you grow up, or don't. Your life, your choice.

 

Something I anticipated... "ad hominem".

If there's an argument with one who is biased, prejudiced, in a rather strong way then there's no point continuing the argument. It wouldn't lead anywhere.
Instead might as well point out the flaws of personality and opinions of the biased one, to some extent. Perhaps spark some light on the person, make him see himself, or try at least.

Validate further? This makes no sense at all.

I've dealt with people similar to you before. Nothing of value other than analyzing who you are, what your biases are.

It's not possible to lower you to my level, as you've always been, and still are, lower.

 

Since we are all biological, then the cause is essentially always biological as well. What I meant was abnormalities in bodily functions, in organs, in the brain itself. I highly doubt most cases are those abnormalities.
Perception of the world creates moods, if there's a period of bad events without change toward better, then mood can go down, and stay that way for a long time. To get out must do thinking over whatever it was or one's life in general.
Having a wrong lifestyle and not knowing it could make one feel bad. As if no reason why, as if it just is so. If no change, the feeling worsens, and can get very bad. If one sees and knows oneself, and lives a healthy life dietarily and physically, and mentally as well, then there will be very little or no issues. If the cause is something else I see no point discussing it, it's beyond reach of simple methods as medication could be required to make one feel okay. Using medication, for something like this, is not right, especially if it is something that lasts the entire life. Taking medication is justified if it's needed only for a period and after that the issue goes away, or if the issue is caused by an accident or something external that came and cannot be completely removed.

There's also one thing I noticed with myself years ago. I played a game, and listened to music while playing. Then quit both for a time. Then, one day, I began listening to the same music and the memory of playing the game came with it, and vice versa. Later I noticed similar in other activities, moods, voices, etc. The mind makes connections. It can happen that an innocent action, or mood, gets linked with something bad. And if the mood is constantly bad and there's no change in life, then they get connected.
To get out of it, to "destroy" those links one must think, must take it calmly and just let it dissolve. In some cases, a change in life might be necessary, but that itself wouldn't mean if things turned back to the old way things would remain good as well, 'cause the connections could still be there.

Oh... I've had my own low points as well. They never lasted long nor went extremely bad, because I've always been aware of myself. I see myself, from that I know myself. And I learned to take everything lightly, unless there's reason not to.

Yes, could. But I think an attraction to the wrong gender would or could remain as well.

 

And what's wrong with that? Negative genetic flaws are not good for our species.
Why should I not say something true? Just because it hurts some biased minds? Minds that usually claim to advocate freedom of speech and such, yet don't tolerate the harshest truths.

 

As I've said in a post already - clinical depression can be caused by a number of things. One such cause, as has already been stated, is through large amounts of stress and other negative experiences temporarily causing an imbalance of chemicals in the brain. In this instance, anti-depressants can and often are used to balance out such chemical imbalances until the person has recovered in some way on their own. They are a precaution - a temporary treatment while a person attempts other techniques, such as, for example, counselling to help them cope with the stress, trauma, or whatever situation that caused their depression. Once they are believed to be coping well with their depression on their own, they're slowly weedled off the drug as their mind acclimates to using chemicals on its own.

And, once again, something I've already said - treatment for different patients of depressions are treated in different ways. In some people, clinical depression is a temporary problem, though one that some people are more prone to, and which may recur. In others, its a permanent problem that leads to the necessity of continuous medication, counseling, and/or other treatments through the course of their entire lives.

Once again, my friend. You're cornering every victim of depression into the same hole and treating them as though they're all identical to one another.

 

This thread is getting kind of vicious. Can we tone down the rhetoric and stop offending each other, please? This thread is useful and some of our members might really get some benefit out of the ideas being brought up here - we'd hate to have to close it down.

Just keep it civil and respectful, people. Please.

 

Stringently understood.

 

Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean: yes, you think a person can change their sexual orientation at will?

As for the rest of your post, you explained your subjective understanding of the issues, but did not offer any scientific data to support your observations. Unless you have seen some scientific research that supports those observations, how do you know you are right? Much less that what is true in your case is true in everyone else's? So once more, can or can't you show some up-to-date scientific research that supports your theory? Because otherwise that's all it is, a theory based on one subjective view. I'm sorry, but it takes a little more proof than that before something can be called the one and only truth.

Okay, I'll bite just for shits and giggles.
What you see as the God-honest, absolute truth, is not necessarily the truth to others (some dumb guy once said "everything is relative").

Out of curiosity: if one of your loved ones or all of them got seriously, truly depressed, do you honestly feel they would be better off dead? Or that the world would be better off without them? Would you be happy to kill them yourself? If the answer to these questions is no, wouldn't it make you a hypocrite?
By the way, does this apply only to people with psychological disorders or do you believe the world would be better off without people with HIV, cancer, Alzheimer's, who are mentally or physically handicapped, who are too old to care for themselves (or war veterans with injuries that render them unable to take care of themselves), homosexuals (after all, many of them don't reproduce)... the list goes on. If it was legal to kill them, would you do it?

Another thing: depressed people have and do contribute to our societies. Many famous people have / do suffer of depression, yet have accomplished great things before their deaths (by suicide or otherwise). So at which point should they die in order to make the world a better place and purify the gene pool? At birth? At the onset of first signs of depression? Some time during? After all, some psychological disorders are / can be hereditary.
The same goes for the handicapped and other people smearing the gene pool, like Stephen Hawking. So would the world be better off with him dead? Or alive? What about Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Oscar Wilde, William Blake, Isaac Newton, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mark Twain, Hans Christian Andersen, Michelangelo, Mozart, Michel Foucault, Leo Tolstoy, Robert Oppenheimer, Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Johnson, Agatha Christie, John Lennon, Winston Churchill, Eric Clapton, Princess Diana, J. K. Rowling, Tchaikovsky, Charles Dickens, Emliy Dickinson, David Bohm, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoyevski, Hideaki Anno, Akira Kurosawa? Would the world be better off if none of them had ever lived? Because all of the names on that list were / are people suffering of major depressive disorder, so... two to the body, one to the head, and that's how we know that they are dead?

What was that absolute truth again?

 

You're wasting your time. Arguing with a bigot is like talking to a wall.

 

QFT.