I think antidepressants should be handled differently

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I stopped taking an antidepressant several months ago because I hated the side effects and the very idea of chemically altering my mind. It bothers me that I put so little thought into taking the medicine. The psychiatrist made a recommendation, and I started taking it the next morning. I then ended up putting up with the medicine for more than six months and essentially had an altered personality. The side effects were very unpleasant, and the medicine was not very helpful. I did not say very much for a long time, however, because I thought the side effects were just how the medicine worked. When I finally stopped taking the medicine, I had to go through withdrawals and another personality change.


Antidepressants might be appropriate for some situations, but something about my experience does not seem ethical. Famous social science experiments known as the Milgrim Studies showed that 2/3 of ordinary people would electrocute a test subject to the death if told to do so by a scientist. Obedience to psychiatrists is probably pretty strong, too. However, people tend to think more for themselves when they have time to reflect. I therefore think that psychiatrists should give patients at least a week to decide whether to take psycho-therapeutic drugs. Considering the dramatic effect, the decision should not be taken so lightly.

I was on prozac for 3 and a half weeks before I freaked out on it and threw it away, never to take SSRIs again. I would rather die than suffer that again it just made me way more anxious, more paranoid and kind of undid some of my mental barriers I built to try and counteract my extreme sensitivity to people treating me like crap or being too critical so it reduced the control I had over some of my emotion. At least that is what it feels like it did.

I completely disagree. I've been on virtually every antidepressant under the sun, and none of them made me crazy, made me sick, and I have never had withdrawal symptoms. They did not change my personality.

If anyone is considering going on an antidepressant, do your research. Think about it, and then ask your doctor.

If you have reservations about antidepressants, don't take them. If you don't like the way they make you feel, try another kind or quit entirely. If you feel you can't trust your psychiatrist or you think he/she is acting counter to your interests, don't see him/her.

Just because the three of you had bad experiences doesn't mean we need to put up road blocks between all those who are suffering and relief.

Paxil, Effexor and Cymbalta are well known to have bad "discontinuation syndromes." And SSRI's are known to indirectly damp down dopamine-related circuits in the brain which likely leads to the "emotional anesthesia" effect.

But, not all people experience those effects. SSRI's leave me so zombified that reality doesn't seem real (so I could run people over or slam my face against a wall because nothing is really real) so I can't stand them, but for some other people SSRI's are great, or even life-saving.

For me, Elavil (a tricyclic) works well and doesn't have intolerable side-effects.

Doctors could probably better warn people of what they're getting into, but they hardly have enough time with patients as it is. And they have to worry about under- or not- medicating someone who might really need it.

Sometimes I wonder if a lot of psychiatrists prescribe meds because their hands are tied; that is, legally, they have to show they did something for your complaint of depression or anxiety or mania.

I don't quite get how they change your personality. They do have an emotionally flattening effect, but your emotions are not YOU. I see SSRIs as a way of dealing with the symptoms of depression, when the symptoms get so bad that you're willing to put up with the side effects to treat them. My depression is severe enough to need SSRIs. They don't solve the problems I have, but the wait for therapy is very, very long in my country and I'm still on the waiting list.

I think they should be handled the way the doctor and patient decide to handle them on a case by case basis.

I'd be dead without them. I've been on lots of different ones, given them the proper amount of time to work, and some did nothing, some made me suicidal, and some just had other side effects that I refused to put up with. I knew that it may take some work to find the right ones, or combination of them. I was willing to go through that because I felt that it was try the meds to find the right ones or simply be depressed. Therapy alone did not help me.

When we found the right combination, it was great. Once they started kicking in I felt better each day. My personality didn't change, I just was able to see things without the negative fog around them, and had motivation and was able to enjoy life again.

I think that some people don't give them enough time to work, or for the side effects so even out, or they may not be willing to try several ones before they get the right one. That's their choice. I think that some people go to the other extreme and feel that antidepressants are no stronger than Tylenol because so many are on them now. I think that anyone who is a medical consumer should have the opportunity to make a fully informed decision about any meds except in life threatening situations where time is short.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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I definitely think they're given out too easily. More-so in America. But in England when I was younger I kind of wanted them. And because I wanted them I was just able to get them. Looking back it's probably something I should never have done. The anti-depressants do help, I took a drug which completely fixed my problems with sleep which was great. But they have their downsides. They definitely start to mask the symptoms and you realise how potent a drug they are after a long while of taking them. My depression was never really that severe so I don't think I should have been taking them. But after a while I started getting really apathetic and just lounging around. The drug I was on was a heavy sedative. Now I've started coming off it I feel alot better.

So in conclusion I think they're definitely given out too easily. All other avenues should be exhausted before placing someone on ADs. Especially when they're younger patients. I think ADs should only be reserved for severe cases.

I was on them & other psych meds for 5 years because of a sever depression that turned psychotic & I felt better after weaning myself off all the meds than I ever did on them & I think they caused some long term side-effects for me. I do think I needed to be on them thou because I was having bad crying spells & mood swings every night. My depression & other emotional issues were caused/triggered by circumstances in my life & meds helped hold me together so I could deal with things but the meds were only making things worse for me in the end. I do think antidepressants & other psych meds can be helpful for some people but I think docs & psychs are too quick to prescribe them. They should talk to the person more about what problems they are having & what's going on in their life to try to get a better idea of what the depression or other problems/issues are related to & they should try to help the person address those causes.

I took an srri (selective seratonin reuptake inhibiter) for a couple of months several years ago and had to discontinue because it was giving me near insomnia. Its absence made no difference and I am better off without having taken it because of its deleterious effect on neurons. Considering that medical researchers are considering using antidepressants and similar drugs to kill tumor cells in the brain, these products are not harmless to normal neurons. A lot of medications for depression and other mental health disorders function by altering the flow of neurotransmitters, which could impede neurogenesis in developing or even adult brains if the treatment does not match the illness, since neurons die if they are not stimulated. At the very least antidepressants do not use dangerous things like meth, which is found in treatments for "adhd".

Chemicals already control your mind and feelings. There's nothing wrong with using that to your advantage.