[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
I am certainly no expert but I know a few people that have committed suicide.
They were all on anti-depressants and the doctors seem to prescribe this stuff like candy.
A guy from my old gym killed himself almost 10 years ago. He had been “depressed” for years. He saw a psychiatrist almost on a whim because his company had a new mental health program. He was prescribed some anti-depressant and within months he killed himself.
I also knew a kid from my town (he was a catholic school kid) that blew out his brains playing Russian Roulette. His friends said he did it a bunch of times before he hit the loaded chamber. He too was on medication.
While you certainly are correct about your chicken and the egg point it seems to me that anti-depressants and suicide go hand in hand.
I am sure they are wonder drugs for some that really need them but I think they are over-prescribed and would stay away from them if I were the original OP.
I don’t think this guy is depressed because of a chemical imbalance in his brain. He is depressed because of his pain, lack of mobility and the thought he will never achieve his specific life goals because of these physical problems.
i do appreciate the primer because I do not understand how the mediaction works.[/quote]
I agree with you that these medications are massively over prescribed. As I stated above, I believe that a geat deal of other work must be done first for them to be effective in relieving depresion and not just making it easier to “ease the pain” by offing yourself. This is not being done in most cases it seems, part of our “a pill for everything” mentality that even healthcare professionals buy into.
We must stop taking the easy way out through pills alone and learn to work through the real issues that underlie the problem.
However, I must respectfully point out a few things. When you say anti-depresants go hand and hand with suicide, it does come off sounding as though as though you are discounting the numbers of people who kill (and in the past before drugs, killed) themselves quite nicely without drugs “helping” them. perhaps not your intent…
As to the reason the depression is there, yes it is in your head. Depression basically is a change “brain chemistry.” It comes from our internal components’ interactions with our external environment.
I personally have health problems which have shut down my goals not just in lifting and health but also in finances, family stability and all our futures. Is my current state of depression situational? Certainly.
It is also due to my biochemical reactions to the external stressors. I have a very low tolerance to psychosocial stress that has often led to depressive episodes and this massive assualt on me by circumstance is more than my body can deal with without exhibiting signs of depression, even with all the things I’ve learned to use to help: medication, supplementation, exercise, stretching, massage, diet, etc…
Just give me a huge sack of money to pay off all the bills that pile up when dealing with chronic pain issues, move, get the ball rolling again on my education and keep my health in better shape with top of the line treatments and “poof” the situation is better and the depression goes away.
Because the chemistry in my body will have altered, in response to a lessening of the massive stress reaction from my environment.
We experience EVERYTHING through the biochemistry of our bodies (that’s what we are after all biochemical reactions, whether or not you wish to add a “soul” or other component to it), why would depression be any different?
The book: WHY ZEBRAS DON’T GET ULCERS (3rd edition)by Robert Sapolsky is a great primer for understanding depression and other stress reactions by our bodies from our interactions with the environment. I can’t recommend it highly enough.