Your Anti-Depressant Medication Experience

Off Topic
1

Hello people,

A big chunk of the population take anti-depressant. I really don’t know if these are good or not. I am not a fool enough to listen to a doctor on this issue since this is a easy solution to a complex problem and these is potentially serious consequences. Also I think these guys are mostly only midly intelligent fuckers who knew how to fit in at the right time.

If you happened to take anti-depressors and stopped or are still taking the and now that you know their effect, would you still start to take them? What is their effect on how you feel?

2

[quote]jasmincar wrote:
Hello people,

A big chunk of the population take anti-depressant. I really don’t know if these are good or not. I am not a fool enough to listen to a doctor on this issue since this is a easy solution to a complex problem and these is potentially serious consequences. Also I think these guys are mostly only midly intelligent fuckers who knew how to fit in at the right time.

If you happened to take anti-depressors and stopped or are still taking the and now that you know their effect, would you still start to take them? What is their effect on how you feel?[/quote]

You paranoid bro?

3

[quote]jasmincar wrote:
Hello people,

A big chunk of the population take anti-depressant. I really don’t know if these are good or not. I am not a fool enough to listen to a doctor on this issue since this is a easy solution to a complex problem and these is potentially serious consequences. Also I think these guys are mostly only midly intelligent fuckers who knew how to fit in at the right time.

If you happened to take anti-depressors and stopped or are still taking the and now that you know their effect, would you still start to take them? What is their effect on how you feel?[/quote]
Must suck to have Govt health care.

4

The one thing that always makes me laugh about anti-depressants is that a side effect is suicide.

5

[quote]T11 wrote:
The one thing that always makes me laugh about anti-depressants is that a side effect is suicide. [/quote]
Do you know why?

Think about being so depressed that even getting the energy to kill yourself is to much effort?

Then start someone on anti-depressants and they are now elevated but enough to kill themselves.

6

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]T11 wrote:
The one thing that always makes me laugh about anti-depressants is that a side effect is suicide. [/quote]
Do you know why?

Think about being so depressed that even getting the energy to kill yourself is to much effort?

Then start someone on anti-depressants and they are now elevated but enough to kill themselves.[/quote]

Yeah, I understand suicide to a point. I have been a pretty low points in my life and have had friends that were on the verge of killing themselves. Sometimes life just gets so shitty that nothing is better than being alive.

7

[quote]T11 wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]T11 wrote:
The one thing that always makes me laugh about anti-depressants is that a side effect is suicide. [/quote]
Do you know why?

Think about being so depressed that even getting the energy to kill yourself is to much effort?

Then start someone on anti-depressants and they are now elevated but enough to kill themselves.[/quote]

Yeah, I understand suicide to a point. I have been a pretty low points in my life and have had friends that were on the verge of killing themselves. Sometimes life just gets so shitty that nothing is better than being alive. [/quote]
I am talking from the perspective of the guy who actually prescribes the meds.

I will not argue the last point. I do not have that chemical imbalance. But my best friend in this whole world (besides my wife) put this in perspective and I respect him with all my heart.

Just know that NOT all Drs fall into this uncaring belief of putting everyone on Meds.

Could you in 7 minutes gauge if someone is serious or not with suicide?

8

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]T11 wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]T11 wrote:
The one thing that always makes me laugh about anti-depressants is that a side effect is suicide. [/quote]
Do you know why?

Think about being so depressed that even getting the energy to kill yourself is to much effort?

Then start someone on anti-depressants and they are now elevated but enough to kill themselves.[/quote]

Yeah, I understand suicide to a point. I have been a pretty low points in my life and have had friends that were on the verge of killing themselves. Sometimes life just gets so shitty that nothing is better than being alive. [/quote]
I am talking from the perspective of the guy who actually prescribes the meds.

I will not argue the last point. I do not have that chemical imbalance. But my best friend in this whole world (besides my wife) put this in perspective and I respect him with all my heart.

Just know that NOT all Drs fall into this uncaring belief of putting everyone on Meds.

Could you in 7 minutes gauge if someone is serious or not with suicide? [/quote]

No of course not that is why I don’t agree with many prescription that have terrible long term effects but are considered okay because they help a short term problem. Its just like how they say every kid has ADHD instead of its a kid being a kid and wanting to play.

9

[quote]T11 wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]T11 wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]T11 wrote:
The one thing that always makes me laugh about anti-depressants is that a side effect is suicide. [/quote]
Do you know why?

Think about being so depressed that even getting the energy to kill yourself is to much effort?

Then start someone on anti-depressants and they are now elevated but enough to kill themselves.[/quote]

Yeah, I understand suicide to a point. I have been a pretty low points in my life and have had friends that were on the verge of killing themselves. Sometimes life just gets so shitty that nothing is better than being alive. [/quote]
I am talking from the perspective of the guy who actually prescribes the meds.

I will not argue the last point. I do not have that chemical imbalance. But my best friend in this whole world (besides my wife) put this in perspective and I respect him with all my heart.

Just know that NOT all Drs fall into this uncaring belief of putting everyone on Meds.

Could you in 7 minutes gauge if someone is serious or not with suicide? [/quote]

No of course not that is why I don’t agree with many prescription that have terrible long term effects but are considered okay because they help a short term problem. Its just like how they say every kid has ADHD instead of its a kid being a kid and wanting to play.
[/quote]
Used to think the same way until I married a lady with a child with ADHD.

Are things over diagnosed and prescribe? Very much so.

Does that mean there are not real diagnosis and need for meds? No

12

I was put on Zoloft right before I started high school for a year or two. Personally, I didn’t notice any difference but I was young so maybe I just wasn’t aware enough. That being said, Junior and Senior year of high school is when I really got bit with the lifting bug and I noticed a much better effect from lifting than I had from the drugs. Not saying that they don’t help, but in my case I don’t think they made a bit of difference. Just my .02

13

I’ve been on meds before and have had and do have some manageable mental illness (Bipolar). The best advice I could give at least for people in my situation is not to just take medication, take the medication so that you can get the benefits of therapy.

To me medication is like taking pain killers when you have cancer or something. Sure the pain will go away but eventually that cancer will become so bad that no amount of medication will cover the pain. If you get treatment early enough and do the things you’re supposed to do then you have a massively increased chance of remission.

Mental illness is quite similar. Remission does not mean “gone forever”. Mental illness can be a chemical imbalance that needs tools to work with; it can also be a situational thing that just needs some tooling. Breakups, loss, other situations can cause temporary issues that should still mean you build tools to cope rather than just popping a pill.

As to my experiences I fell into deep depression. To be honest the initial diagnosis was a heart infection due to metabolic changes and lack of energy etc whilst being super fit and running regular half marathons etc. Eventually after the physical was ruled out I went on Zoloft and went to therapy. It was the best thing I ever did.

The meds to me just cleared my mind enough ( not completely ) so that I had space to develop tools with the therapist. Without the meds the therapy probably wouldn’t have mattered as I was too engulfed to care. I think after about 6 months of work I can say the revisits to that mental space are much more shallow and transient. Part of the tools are literally how to manage the high that comes from the manic cycle of being bipolar. Managing that high is much easier than managing the low.

The reason I stopped taking the medication was the disconnect from life. At some point when I felt like I was much better mentally I could almost feel the medication limiting my connection to life. Like there was a ceiling to how happy or sad I could be and how engaged I was with my friends and family. Physically I got quite a lot of tension headaches but outside of those two effects nothing much.

Hope that helps.

Use the meds to help you get therapy. There’s nothing wrong with taking a medication for the rest of your life but I think that should be a last resort - experiencing the full range of emotion with the tooling to handle it is a pretty awesome thing :slight_smile:

14

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:
As to my experiences I fell into deep depression. To be honest the initial diagnosis was a heart infection due to metabolic changes and lack of energy etc whilst being super fit and running regular half marathons etc. Eventually after the physical was ruled out I went on Zoloft and went to therapy. It was the best thing I ever did.
[/quote]

That’s very comforting to hear. I’ve been against doctors/pills for most of my life, but as of the past week my sister has been force feeding me low dosage of prozac. I know it’s just placebo at this point, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this does have a significant effect in silencing that self-deprecating voice I have in my head.

My next step is therapy for sure.

15

What you believe, you become.

I had sever depression last year to the point where I had suicidal thoughts and wondered if people would miss me. What did I do? I brought myself up. I broke it off with my ex who had many problems of her own and I let myself bring myself down to her level. Sure, I still have my off days, who doesn’t.

When you think negative thoughts or keep yourself down your brain creates pathways to make it EASIER for those electrical impulses to happen. Does it happen the same way with positive thoughts? Sure does. People told me to consider medication but I KNEW there was a better way because I never used to be this depressed. Consequently, I brought myself out through surrounding myself with people that are positive and putting myself in situations that would make me positive improving my self-efficacy.

YOU allow yourself to be in the state that YOU want to be. You don’t blame him, her or anybody. Take responsibility for what you are believing that is making your become.

16

Yup takes effort to be happy and it’s good to force yourself to get into positive situations. I’ve been depressed many times but I always pull out of it by making plans of action or planning better for the future. Some people though have mental illnesses where it’s harder to control their own thought processes, something like schizophrenia. I think some people with chemical imbalances need medication to keep them out of that messed up state, I’ve seen people have manic episodes and no positive thinking will pull you out of that. It’s definitely relative to the situation and logic most of the time does not apply to such instances,people still don’t understand that people with severe mental disorders usually can’t control it, or do not know how to.

17

Yes, I would. After a few weeks, I felt better than I had done in years. I’m off them now, but if I was in a similar situation again, I’d do what the doctor said and take them.
I wish I hadn’t tried snorting them though.

18

I started taking anti-depressants at 19 and am still on them 16 years later. If I could go back, I would not have gone on them. I have tried in the past to stop taking them, but I can only go so long before I have to get back on them. I’ve done the “clean living” route to get off of them, but even in the best of times, I still have to be on them.

There is no fast and quick answer that fits everyone, however, here are a few points I have learned over the years. The prevailing theory on depression is that the brain is not producing enough chemicals (be it serotonin, nor-epinephren, etc). The problem is that there is no way to measure what these chemical levels are in your brain. Yes, depression could be caused by a chemical imbalance, or it could be an outside factor that needs to be dealt with.

Even after taking meds for a while, there is still no way to measure whether the chemicals have increased. Scientists know the chemicals are increased because they crush up the brains of animals and analyze the levels, but they don’t know HOW the levels are increased.

This leads to an important point about the human body, it wants to be in balance. Take, for example SSRIs. The idea is that the receptors in the brain that are responsible for re-uptake of serotonin are suppressed resulting in higher serotonin levels. However, the body wants to retain its balance of serotonin so one theory is that the brain increases the amount of receptors. This increases the re-uptake of serotonin which will lower the level back down to where it was. It is not known whether or not the body can “turn-off” these additional receptors once you stop taking the medication which means that without the aid of drugs, your body will not be able to produce enough serotonin naturally. Basically, if you weren’t chemically imbalance before, you are now.

And, of course, that is only one theory about how anti-depressants work. The truth is that there is no clear cut answer out there, but I tend to agree with this one based on other things we know about the body.

I am not saying that anti-depressants are horrible for everyone. They can be very helpful, but I believe they should be used as a last resort and not prescribed after 30 minutes of talking to a person. And some are certainly more “damaging” than others. Do a little search for Effexor withdrawal. That shit is horrible and one of the main reasons, I believe, I still need to take meds today.

I would never presume to know what is going on with another person so you need to do what is best for you. If you honestly believe that they will help you and you are OK with the idea of potentially being on them for your entire life, do what you need to do. However, don’t buy the line that a lot of therapists like to throw out that they will put you on them temporarily to help you until therapy starts to work. I have yet to see that work for anyone.

19

I have been diagnosed with a condition called dysthymia. Over the course of my life I have been on several different SSRI/SNRI. Lexapro, cybalta and viibryd. I have also been to many different therapists and types of practice (CBT,DBT,traditional).

Because the nature of dysthymia is less severe than an episode of MDD, I always, without fail, end up going off the drugs within less than 6 months. Why? I can’t stand the sexual side effects. When on those drugs I am always horny and can never get off. If you have a girl, she probably doesn’t want to have 90 minute fuck sessions everyday until her vagina is so sore she can do nothing but complain about it. Trust me, it sounds cool and macho, but it’s not. It causes problems and gets real old real fast, especially if you can’t even reach orgasm. My mood however, tended to be much better when on the drugs.

I have an aversion to the drugs because of the silver-bullet approach. IMO the thing that works best to improve your mental condition is putting forth the effort to be honest about it and confront it which brings me to…

Therapy. I’m a strong believer that good therapy is always the best idea. See a couple of therapists, find out which one works best for you. It’s important to choose the right therapist. They’re not all good, and not all are a good fit for you, so explore the options a bit.

20

Some here are equating depression with sadness. Although depressed people are generally sad, this is not always the case. I became severely depressed at a time when things were going well for me. I didn’t have any feelings of life being worthless, or anything like that.

At first I had frequent occurrences of nausea, loss of appetite, feeling weak/faint, and trouble sleeping due to frequent hypnic jerks. One odd symptom was that my hamstrings were often slightly sore for no reason, but it wasn’t normal soreness since it could increase or decrease quickly.

This came and went in two week cycles for several months, gradually getting worse until I couldn’t eat or sleep at all. Of course not sleeping and eating for long periods will cause anxiety and other mental symptoms, but even so I was never sad, I just felt horrible and wanted to get better, like you would if you had a bad and long-lasting flu or other illness.

After initial treatment with sleeping pills and anti-anxiety meds to get me stabilized, I continued on mirtazapine which worked extremely well for me (side effects include sleepiness and increased appetite, so it was a good choice by my doctor).

I adjusted my dose constantly to keep it as low as possible without me having symptoms, and tapered very gradually for two years, at which time I was able to feel normal without it. If I ever start having the same problems again, I would get back on it without a second thought, and quickly to prevent things from progressing.