Poll: Antidepressants, do people really want these?

[Frosty676]

There are many factors as to why antidepressants are popular and why many prefer them to actual help.
The first and most widespread is guess what... The movies and mass media to a lesser extent. Portraying a potentially dangerous pill as a helpful drug that helps the main protagonist get through the film and finish with a happy ending. Leaves a one sided impression. No side effects, no answers as to what happens when the pill wears of, nothing on addiction.

The second is well we the people and our love for gossip. A friend of a friend told a friend who wrote on his blog, twitter, myspace that the friend of a friend said that his acquaintance had "Problems" and was given antidepressants and then he started doing great and etc etc so on so forth. Misinformation leads to the whole depression + antidepressants = happy and healthy Mr. Positive.

On another note using antidepressant when you don't actually have depression may lead to depression.
there are about a million more reasons but I think I've hogged the wall long enough.

 

[Doive]

There is a difference between saying "I'm depressed" and having/being diagnosed with clinical depression. I have a friend who has been diagnosed and prescribed anti depressants and, while they help, they also have various side effects. My friend doesn't "want" to be on them and doesn't enjoy taking them, but they do help.

If you are being given anti depressants for pain then it would seem to me to be likely that they would affect your mood as a side effect. Why would your doctor not just give you pain medication? Giving you powerful anti depressants for pain seems strange to me.

Most if not all of the people around you who say they want to be on anti depressants don't have clinical depression and are just being a bit melodramatic.

 

[Spy_Guy]

Never used them. Sounds a lot like drugs to me.
Pretty much only delaying the time when you'll have to deal with the problem causing the depression, so they are, as such, pointless.

This is of course based on my prejudices against them, and I shouldn't really speak without having tried them myself, lest some feller feeling victimized starts complaining.

That being said, I think you die a bit on the inside while you're on those pills, since I believe that a person's flaws and other attributes are what makes them special. One could say a person's soul is the sum of their various attributes.

Using pills to change that means it's no longer the same person any more, due to external poking in the brain and similar artificial changes. How much these changes revert after one stops using these pills is up to speculation (and most likely very individual), but the net result is a person who may or may not be the same as when they started using antidepressants.

 

[Ordo Rolanberry]

Was diagnosed with Clinical dipression last year and i found that the only effect the pills had were near perminant state of hunger & tiredness.

 

[SinisterGehe]

I actually used to think I never needed them. Ever since I started using them, I am no longer feeling down all the time. Just two days ago I got rejected by 2 women on the same day. I was down for only one day and I perked up immidiately after. Before I was on the pills, I can guarantee I would be crying like a child right now. Though I will always fear lonliness, that will never change, but at least I am no longer handicapped by it.

Also to OP, it sounds like your docter is using you like a guinea pig. If you feel unconfortable using the medication, then stop using it! Also unless you signed a contract, she has no right to tell you what you should do and what you shouldn't do, unless she has a logical excuse like your body has to get used to the medication before it takes full effect. If not, then get on something else. Then again, I don't know the laws of your nation. >.> So I am only assuming.

I assume her 20 years of experience treating pain conditions along with the council of medical specialist (I am in special pain treatment clinic, paid by government). The medication I use is the standard medication for this type of pain. I could have used the other type of medication used for this but it didn't fit me at all.
And my body I used to it, I been on them for long enough.
I do what they say me to do, I am no expert on these things, they are. I am taking these willingly because long as I follow what they say, the changes that they will diagnose whats wrong with me will be greater. They have said they will try to come up with alternative medication for me when I meet them in the next control visit.
And compared to what the pain used to be before the medication. Well lets just put it like this, I would rather be vomiting every morning rather be in the pain I used to be. Now days I can use the hand, I can draw, I can write to limited amount but my handwriting is still shit, I can play games with my computer. I do not need to stay home from school because my hand hurts. I feel shit but I can do things that are my great passion. But I rather tell others that they shouldn't take antidepressants for every fight with their boy friends (most of my friends are girls).

but to recap, I am taking these willingly, the situation I am in now is better what it used to be.

 

[Unspeakable]

Don't forget that some medications that are technically anti-depressants have other uses because of how they alter brain chemistry. For example, Wellbutrin (Bupropion) is used as a smoking-cessation aid because of its effects on dopamine uptake. Some other medications that technically fall under the category of anti-depressant are used to reduce the occurrence of epileptic seizures.

The social stigma that people with clinical depression should just "quit moping" and "pick themselves up by their bootstraps" is evidence of gross ignorance and a clear misunderstanding of what clinical depression really is. That's like saying people with autism should just "walk it off."

 

[BlueSinbad]

I hated it being on them, they made me feel, well nothing, I didn't feel down or up, just meh...so yeah, stupid things.

 

[meece]

fun fact: it's almost impossible to do double blind trials for anti-depressents and psychiatric medicine in general because they have such strong side effects.

They certainly have effects, do they have the desired ones? I have no idea. I get depressed pretty easily but I've yet to need drugs to bring me out of it, just need a week or 2 to get through it sometimes.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

being on anti depressants would make me depressed anyway.

 

[Ice Car]

Someone should change the poll option to "DO NOT WANT" and "DO WANT".

Anyways, I think I actually take an antidepressant not because I'm depressed but because it's supposed to make me "more social". Only started it recently. I'm a little more social now, talkative but that's it. I have Bipolar and have only been through Manic Depression once for a short period of time a long while ago and didn't take any antidepressants.

I've tried it, and am doing one now, but not because I'm depressed.

 

[Gxas]

You're forgetting that not everybody speaks English. In German, for example, there is a clear difference between being depressed and having depression. So no confusion there.

Oh shit, you're right. Damn my being American... For the "melting pot" that this place is supposed to be, we sure aren't very cultured people... Three years of Spanish and I still forget about that shit...

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

But I rather tell others that they shouldn't take antidepressants for every fight with their boy friends

Do they realise it takes a couple of weeks for antidepressants to stabilise in your system so that you have a consistent theraputic dosage? Do they realise that suddenly stopping taking antidepressants can cause more problems than never starting them in the first place? They're doing the equivalent of taking morphine to stop the irritation of a minor graze.

Oh, and if the antidepressants in question are SRIs/SSRIs, taking them when you don't need them can lead to future clinical depression as there is the chance that you'll fuck up your brain's ability to produce serotonin.

 

[Chase Yojimbo]

I actually used to think I never needed them. Ever since I started using them, I am no longer feeling down all the time. Just two days ago I got rejected by 2 women on the same day. I was down for only one day and I perked up immidiately after. Before I was on the pills, I can guarantee I would be crying like a child right now. Though I will always fear lonliness, that will never change, but at least I am no longer handicapped by it.

Also to OP, it sounds like your docter is using you like a guinea pig. If you feel unconfortable using the medication, then stop using it! Also unless you signed a contract, she has no right to tell you what you should do and what you shouldn't do, unless she has a logical excuse like your body has to get used to the medication before it takes full effect. If not, then get on something else. Then again, I don't know the laws of your nation. >.> So I am only assuming.

I assume her 20 years of experience treating pain conditions along with the council of medical specialist (I am in special pain treatment clinic, paid by government). The medication I use is the standard medication for this type of pain. I could have used the other type of medication used for this but it didn't fit me at all.
And my body I used to it, I been on them for long enough.
I do what they say me to do, I am no expert on these things, they are. I am taking these willingly because long as I follow what they say, the changes that they will diagnose whats wrong with me will be greater. They have said they will try to come up with alternative medication for me when I meet them in the next control visit.
And compared to what the pain used to be before the medication. Well lets just put it like this, I would rather be vomiting every morning rather be in the pain I used to be. Now days I can use the hand, I can draw, I can write to limited amount but my handwriting is still shit, I can play games with my computer. I do not need to stay home from school because my hand hurts. I feel shit but I can do things that are my great passion. But I rather tell others that they shouldn't take antidepressants for every fight with their boy friends (most of my friends are girls).

but to recap, I am taking these willingly, the situation I am in now is better what it used to be.

Well alrighty then, that works. Keep up the good fight.

 

[moretimethansense]

I was on a mild anti-depressent for a while, it helped with my depression, my self esteem and it made it so I didn't feel so afraid to go outside, the problem?
It made me agressive, for a while I was fine but one day some jerks started haveing a go at me, normally I'd simply walk on with my head held down and fell like shit for a few days/weeks, however I decided to confront them, I was forced to back down however as there were three of them and I'm not an idiot.
I exploded, on the way home I crumpled the bonnet of some stranger's car, when I got home I started throwing things, I just coulddn't get my anger under control, I even hurt my mother, throwing her across the landing.
Suffice to say I stopped taking them after that.

 

[SinisterGehe]

But I rather tell others that they shouldn't take antidepressants for every fight with their boy friends

Do they realise it takes a couple of weeks for antidepressants to stabilise in your system so that you have a consistent theraputic dosage? Do they realise that suddenly stopping taking antidepressants can cause more problems than never starting them in the first place? They're doing the equivalent of taking morphine to stop the irritation of a minor graze.

Oh, and if the antidepressants in question are SRIs/SSRIs, taking them when you don't need them can lead to future clinical depression as there is the chance that you'll fuck up your brain's ability to produce serotonin.

I think most of them don't. Like one of them though that antidepressants would help her issue of bursting in to tears when even there she was being accused of something. I told her that no they wont help her on that issue. This is a common theme amongst the people I have spoken to, they do not realize what they are, what they are meant for and what can they do to you.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

This is the first time I've admitted this, as I know there's a fairly vocal set of people on here that hate the welfare state and those who need it. However, I'm going to speak because, lets face it, it's the internet and people have wished me dead for thinking Halo wasn't so great, so I figure I can handle people wishing me non existent for a more closely linked reason, if perhaps not a pleasant one.

Yeah, I'm clinically depressed and there's a real image problem with it, part of it being that on a good day, I'll leave the house, maybe meet people, and to all looks, I'm a completely normal, healthy guy.

However, in the bad times I'm pretty much incapable of doing anything useful, it's almost like a literally depression, as tho there's some kind of weight pushing down on you, making it a supreme mental struggle to get up, never mind actively do anything of any use.

Of course, because it's less visible that say, having no legs, it's very to scapegoat me and others like me as just lazy, leeching welfare scum.

Which of course, being someone who feels shame at being in a position, after 15 years solid work, of being unable to support myself, feel even worse and in a state of near constant guilt about my situation.

I'm sure there's people out there overplaying their mental state so they don't have to work, just as there are people claiming a bad back yet get caught playing golf, painting their roof, or in one case, holding regular judo classes.

However, blaming the sick of any kind for a minority who abuse the situation surely isn't a healthy state for a nation to be in?

I've tried a fair number of anti depressants, to get back on the main subject, and all but one had minimal to zero effect, the one that did just made me feel dead inside, made me feel nothing at all. I suppose from that viewpoint I could have maybe even gone out and got a minimum wage job, as I wouldn't have felt disappointment, boredom, rage,hate, anger, failure, shame, or anything else.

Perhaps that's what we'll move to tho, after all, you're of zero worth if you aren't making money, right?

Showing humanity is an expensive luxury and maybe we can't afford it any more.

Bring on the Futurama suicide booths and maybe we can get rid of all the useless people, it'd be cheaper than trying to cure them, after all.

without wishing to sound like a hippy, I think we need to look at the root causes of depression, not just hand out tablets to mask the effects enough to get people back on the production line again.

 

[Macabre9037]

I was on a moderate dose of Lexapro for a while. The side effects sucked, I gained 20 lbs in 2 months. I stopped taking them and went to counselling. They worked for me, but much like the OP the side effects seem to, at least for me, outweigh the benefits.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

9 people so far want to try anti depressants? You either need them, or you don't. They're not a damn toy. They may work for some but not for others, but they're certainly not an alternative to a case of beer.

Go try chemotherapy first. If you find that fun, we'll sign you up for the prozac.

Of course that isn't aimed at anything who thinks they might actually need them but haven't tried being on a prescribed course of them. It just sounded to me like some people wanted to 'have a go', and that rather flared up as a stupid idea.