Anyone ever dealt with depression/anxiety?

[smy1]

I think it's the height of oversimplified ignorance to compare an FDA-approved specifically targeted antidepressant to like blowing a line every morning or something.

Not like it's gonna stay at doing one line in the morning. Usually the next is just a few minutes away

 

[MIAnn]

not wishing to derail but fuck

 

[JeffTD]

sure, there are people with chemical imbalances and stuff, but there are lots of (good, high quality) studies
that show that there are other ways and that only about 30% of the people who suffer from depression
or other mental problems could be cured by medication.

Like I said before, it's not about curing the symptoms, you should cure the root of your problems.
And this goes to almost every part of medicine, not only mental problems, for example, you could take
painkillers all your life when your back hurts, but you can also train your back and stuff and don't feel the
pain anymore-which one is better?

In my experience and in my opinion, a chemical imbalance or serotonin deficiency certainly counts as a root problem and not a symptom.

 

[mva801]

Different things work for different people, guys. Medications were terrible for me. I found other ways to deal with life. If medication works for the individual, then that's great. I can't say because I'm not in their brain. I would just caution anyone on medication to seek out other avenues in combination with/ instead of risky medications. You're definitely not going to make it worse from reading some books, counseling or doing yoga. But pretty much every medication CAN offer life altering side effects...

I have no facts or figures, I just know that I've been on anti-depressants, and I could immediately tell that they were just effing with the chemicals in my brain, and making me feel better when my mind said I shouldn't. I had to re-structure how I dealt with my thoughts, not just paste some extra seratonin on them. It's like the pills just put some frosting on a giant pile of shit and I called it a cupcake. Didn't work.

I guess wether you get some help from medication or through an awakening of your true consciousness, neither is really wrong.

 

[pitoga]

The thing with medications for most cases, is that you actually HAVE to take some kind of therapy while your taking meds. Meds aren't supposed to "cure" you. They just help to keep you "under control" while your in some kind of therapy. Actually my sister who has a Phd Psychology and finished her career magna cumlaude and as the first in her university (Giesen - Germany) Tells me that in most cases this kind of problems can't actually be cured, just controlled. So that the patient learns to deal with them, in order to not affect his daily life. And in the case of depression she tells me as most here already stated. That in lots of places patients are diagnosed with depression when in reality it could be something different. She says that depression is really extreme, not that you feel kinda down (that's probably more a case of dysthymia) and that with depression you almost don't have the motivation to do ANYTHING. I ask her very often about this topics because I have a friend (ex gf) who has some mayor issues. (dysthymia, though intrusion, obsessive compulsive disorder, some mayor fobias)

 

[mva801]

The thing with medications for most cases, is that you actually HAVE to take some kind of therapy while you're taking meds.

Not in America! They hand out pills here like it's going out of style.

 

[StefTD]

yeah Jeff, maybe my post was a bit strange, a chemical imbalance (sometimes due to genetics)
is a root problem and has to be cured by drugs most of the time, that's right. What I meant was
that only a part is due to that, if you test 100 persons with depression, only a few will have these
imbalances, and even some of them could be cured otherwise, for example by changing their diet
and stuff, but yep, in some cases, you need medication, that's true.

 

[Jind]

That's the interesting thing about cure vs. control arguments, they fall under the same general rule that some do cure, some don't and it's largely based upon the disease or the underlying cause of the disease. As has already been mentioned, if the cause was a chemical imbalance than providing that chemical artificially could be considered a cure that may have to be taken for an entire lifetime. I'm not only talking about mental health here. Perfect personal examples - my treatments for cancer have completely wiped out my thyroid function thus to replace the thyroid function I will take Levothyroxine for the rest of my life.

Another example of a case of medication not really being a cure, but as a band-aid to allow my body to overcome the natural rejection of my donor immune system seeing my body as a foreign entity, it's called Graft vs. Host Disease from the Bone Marrow Transplant(s) and is what I'm taking both a chemotherapy medication (not for the cancer but for it's added immunosuppressive action) and undergoing another photodynamic therapy to both reduce the effect the Graft vs Host Scleroderma has on my skin (it has worked to soften tissue that was becoming hard as tree bark on my lower legs) but also to hopefully keep it in check, or prevent it from advancing faster than my new donor immune system adapts and comes to accept my body. The hope is that someday I can stop both the medication and the therapy as people can basically outgrow the rejection - it really can be seen as a war of attrition. Who will give in first, the new immune system or my body? In both cases the medications are critical to my health, without them I'd have real problems. One I will be on for the rest of my life, the other hopefully I'll be able to get past the need to take if my replacement immune system comes to a level of adaptation to it's new environment (mind you - I'm 5 years out from my last bone marrow transplant so it may still be a while - but it has improved quite dramatically since treatment has started a year ago).

As I noted earlier, I do use alternative therapies to offset some of the physical side effects, but there is a clear need for the medications as well. I guess ultimately it depends upon the disease and whether something is really a disease or simply a condition, depression and anxiety could be one or the other depending on the causes. We have all felt depressed at one time or another, all have anxiety at points in our lives, but still some may also have an underlying condition that makes these things a permanent fixture in their lives, thus the one size does not fit all argument.

Just some more food for thought.

 

[JeffTD]

yeah Jeff, maybe my post was a bit strange, a chemical imbalance (sometimes due to genetics)
is a root problem and has to be cured by drugs most of the time, that's right. What I meant was
that only a part is due to that, if you test 100 persons with depression, only a few will have these
imbalances, and even some of them could be cured otherwise, for example by changing their diet
and stuff, but yep, in some cases, you need medication, that's true.

Ahh OK, totally misread your post in that case! Every mental health issue I've had has turned out to be hereditary and present in a lot of my mothers' family; cousins and uncles with the same issues, some much worse and some a bit better. Shit sucks!

 

[Morgan C]

I don't have much to add to this, but I'm amazed by the number of people who are not only affected by this, but have used medication for it too. Note that I'm not by any means against medication (in the right circumstance), but I can't help but think that many of these cases are environmentally based (or genetically based but environmentally triggered). Obviously a small percentage of people will be affected by mental illness, it seems crazy that such a huge portion of the population has at some point been clinically depressed. Maybe it's just something that we need to change our mindset on - a broken bone, the flu, etc. it's totally acceptable to take medication to cure, but there's always debate when it comes to mental illness. On the other hand (and not to sound too New Age faggy), maybe this is the mental equivalent of the physical issues stemming from a generally sick society. A family friend of mine, who is a psychologist, seems to think this way too - that we have far more diagnoses of mental illness than ever before, and far more handing out of dangerous drugs, and not just because we're more aware of these illnesses.

Perhaps relates to Amarshism's post, which I think is interesting and valid.

Whilst i 100 percent support all appropriately approved chemical and holistic treatments, do you ever get the feeling that maybe this is where art has gone? The people that once were crazy and depressed drew on bizarre creative outlets for their minds. I have psycho anxiety but it drives me to reach far. Not that im saying dont do what you need to to have peace in your mind, just a weird thought that dawned on me.

 

[viralz]

I want to thank everyone for their input, it means a lot. I also see that there is a debate on medication,morality, life etc...

After reading all your posts, I think that none of you are wrong or right. By that I mean that everyone reacts differently to mental illness, life situations,medication and so on. I think as human beings everyone goes through though times and we all seek balance in our life. Some will need medication to level chemical imbalance and some will find other ways to overcome difficulties.

IMO mental illness is like cancer of the soul, its an everyday battle.

 

[xFkx]

IMO mental illness is like cancer of the soul, its an everyday battle.

Oh come on, sure, having schizophrenia or something like that is a terrible thing, but anxiety or depression ? don't make it a bigger monster than it really is

 

[StefTD]

Oh come on, sure, having schizophrenia or something like that is a terrible thing, but anxiety or depression ? don't make it a bigger monster than it really is

it really depends on how strong anxiety and depression "hits" you, there are cases of light shizophrenia
that you won't realize on a person most of the time, but there are also cases of depression or anxiety that
will lead to suicide, it really depends, like I said before, my gf works in a secured ward atm, and most
of the people there suffer from extreme cases of anxiety or depression, some are bipolar or manic-depressive,
only a few are shizoprenic or got other mental health issues, biggest part suffers from depression.
At the same time, you shouldn't forget, that in most cases there are different kinds of mental
problems affecting the person.
It's not like "this person isn't able to move his leg because it's broken" where the doc knows what happened
there are even cases where somebody is cured from one mental illness just to realize that there's another
one "underneath".

Maybe someone is interested in this:
The USA are the most depressed country in the world, at least the country where the most people
are diagnosed with depression and at the same time it's a popular opinion that medication helps against
depression, maybe there's some kind of correlation...

This is just a thought from me and didn't meant to offend anybody here, it's still interesting imho.

 

[MIAnn]

it really depends on how strong anxiety and depression "hits" you, there are cases of light shizophrenia
that you won't realize on a person most of the time, but there are also cases of depression or anxiety that
will lead to suicide, it really depends, like I said before, my gf works in a secured ward atm, and most
of the people there suffer from extreme cases of anxiety or depression, some are bipolar or manic-depressive,
only a few are shizoprenic or got other mental health issues, biggest part suffers from depression.
At the same time, you shouldn't forget, that in most cases there are different kinds of mental
problems affecting the person.
It's not like "this person isn't able to move his leg because it's broken" where the doc knows what happened
there are even cases where somebody is cured from one mental illness just to realize that there's another
one "underneath".

Maybe someone is interested in this:
The USA are the most depressed country in the world, at least the country where the most people
are diagnosed with depression and at the same time it's a popular opinion that medication helps against
depression, maybe there's some kind of correlation...

This is just a thought from me and didn't meant to offend anybody here, it's still interesting imho.

watch that theroux docu i linked in page 2 of this thread, you may find that interestin dude

 

[Fox Mulder]

Wouldn't Klonopin be overkill along with Lexapro? The latter's recommended for anxiety as well if I'm not wrong. You will gain weight on Lexapro btw, working out would only help so much. I wouldn't recommend messing around with your eating habits. Good luck!

Edit:
Never stop asking yourself what bothers you, and why they bother you. One day you will find the answer and not be bothered about shit no more.