Opinion on Antidepressants? | Page 2 | INFJ Forum

Opinion on Antidepressants?

ThisIsWhoIAm said:
The average person is so affected everyday by chemicals, radiation, air pollution and all kinds of unnatural health issues.
Taking unnatural pills to even up in order to get back to balance seems fair to me.
I strongly recommend striving to live a healthy, balanced life eventually, and leaving the pills behind after a period of time, whether if it's a month, a year, or a decade.

Nutrition, physical activity, purpose, relaxing activities, hobbies. These are things many people underestimate, and it's a shame; as these things really contribute to one's mental, and physical health and balance.
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Yes.

All things work on a physical basis anyway. To ignore this is dangerous, as I've found out the hard way.

If you trip and fall, putting out your hands to catch yourself might be enough to halt your momentum. If you fall out of a plane though, you're gonna need a parachute. This is the same because your state is a physical one. There are no purely mental processes - only illusions of them.
 
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I am currently experiencing depression....and its painful to say the least...no matter how strong your try to be....you "feel" weak, overwhelemed...its an intense yet sustainable feeling; you may even feel it in your chest and guts....so it feels like i am being dragged....demotivated, and stripped of my will power...as to weither...it will make me stronger, wiser...well i guess i learned the upper limits of human capacity for pain...everything just dims in comparison...the depth of emotions and feelings in depression can be pretty extraordinary too..so depends what you can take away from it....

I have no faith in the drug industry...i have stopped taking my medication as i feel a dumbing down affect of thoughts and creativity...
 
Average said:
I am currently experiencing depression....and its painful to say the least...no matter how strong your try to be....you "feel" weak, overwhelemed...its an intense yet sustainable feeling; you may even feel it in your chest and guts....so it feels like i am being dragged....demotivated, and stripped of my will power...as to weither...it will make me stronger, wiser...well i guess i learned the upper limits of human capacity for pain...everything just dims in comparison...the depth of emotions and feelings in depression can be pretty extraordinary too..so depends what you can take away from it....

I have no faith in the drug industry...i have stopped taking my medication as i feel a dumbing down affect of thoughts and creativity...
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Hold on tight, it will disappear eventually. Good job making something out of it.
 
Depression, like many other mental disorders, seems to be more of an umbrella term for different kinds of disorders. I would've thought it's a combination of circumstance and brain chemistry.

If the bulk of the problem is caused by the chemistry, then "sucking it up" is more difficult, if possible at all. Otherwise, it IS a learning experience.

When there is a way to avoid medications, this should be done, even if it takes longer. How many of you have ever seen or designed a machine working flawlessly / a medication without side effects / any complex system explored in its entirety? I hope with the brain-mapping project things will get more predictable, but as of today, despite all the precautions, there is no way of telling what one is messing with.
 
Okay, dammit....I have to chime in.
I have struggled with depression on and off from a young age until now.
I can tell you that it can “overtake" you no matter if you are apathetic to it or if you fight it furiously.
I almost killed myself at age 19, if not for someone finding me passed out soaked in blood in my car...I would not be writing this now.
There is truth to the saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, but sometimes it can and it WILL kill you.
I can honestly say that I am a stronger person because of what happened. I can also say that it eliminated my fear of death which in some ways has been enlightening.
Killing yourself is not easy, mentally, physically, emotionally.
If you think it is the easy way out then you have never been there and should shut the fuck up. I will concede that it is selfish when looked upon in hindsight.
The problem is...no matter how much you love your friends, family, children, etc., the pain can become so great that it trumps them all. When that happens you have slipped into the deep end and can see no way out as you feel like you are drowning. You hope in your heart that they will not be angry with you....that somehow they will be able to understand...that you do love them and really honestly didn’t mean to hurt them...that you just want it all to stop.
Lithium stabilized me after I was released from the funny farm....and after a while I didn’t need it anymore.
Why I slipped into such a deep depression I still cannot find an honest answer for...I think maybe I grew up enough to really feel the weight of the world...but it was more than that...something inexplicable.
I DO think that antidepressants are overprescribed...I DO think they are given too early in life in many cases...and I DO think that sometimes people need to just suck it up, grit their teeth and get through it. There is often great reward by fighting through something and coming out on top.
But I also think that when you need it you fucking need it and you will not always know it.
I really didn’t plan that day to go kill myself....but that is where I ended up that night.
I kept it all in...I told no one...it was a surprise to everyone who knew me. That night in the hospital was one of maybe 3 times I ever saw my Father cry.
I still feel that hurt that I brought him and everyone else. One problem though is when you are so incredibly depressed (forgive my description of the indescribable) you are so sad that you become numb to all other feelings...even the thought of the pain you may bring others.
They estimate every 18 mins. someone kills themselves.
If antidepressants can help to stabilize or boost someone’s mood who is struggling to make it each day then I say go for it.
If you are upset at your job, or the kids cry too much, or you feel like an asshole because you are cheating on your spouse and want to feel better then you absolutely should NOT be taking them.
That is where I stand.
 
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Antidepressants are horrible and way over-prescribed. Avoid them as much as possible.
 
When I was still on Celexa, I would have told you that I needed it to function. Now that I am off of it I realize how horrible it was. It was preventing me from feeling my emotions, which is what I thought I wanted. I hated my feelings because they were so strong. And yet after 5 years on antidepressants I still wanted to kill myself. I had no purpose in life. Probably because my feelings are what give purpose to my life.

A few months ago I stopped taking the drugs and found a new therapist, and my depression finally lifted. The key for me was rejecting two foundational beliefs I had: (a) that all people (including me) are either purely good or bad and (b) that I always have to strive for 100 percent (probably to prove to myself that I am a "good" person).

The drugs may have kept me feeling "normal," but I would have never been fulfilled on them. Now I'm back to expressing my feelings through music and I'm OK with being my dark, emotional self (though I still hear the voice that says, "They're all going to laugh at you!"). And yes, I have to deal with my bursts of inappropriate, white-hot emotions on occasion, but I'm learning to love that part of me instead of rejecting it because--let's face it--living without feelings is so fucking boring.
 
I am not a doctor. This is only my opinion. I think there is great risk in putting any chemical into your body that alters brain function. In many cases people are given these drugs to help them better "fit" into society. Not for the patient but for the people around them.

I am currently taking too many prescription drugs. I dont like it but they do help me get through the day. Previously I would have no energy. I actually had to think about putting one foot in front of the other for a while. A person cant live their life that way. I suspect there are times where some of these drugs actually help people in a way thats needed. Just that, drugs are prescibed way to often without the in depth research into an issue that is needed. Think about it. To truely help someone, they may need years of someone talking and diagnosing them daily. Hugh resources of information at their disposal, second and third opinions. But lets be honest, our society isnt set up to do that and never will be.
 
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Have you heard of vitamins B3 and B6?
 
Shaqie said:
Have you heard of vitamins B3 and B6?
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If directed at me, yes. I am currently doing B12 injections to help combat exhaustion or lack of energy among other things.
 
They definitely are dangerous for at least some people. I took celexa years ago and it worked really well…at first. Six months later I was a manic, raging lunatic. I wish doctors would look for physiological reasons for depression symptoms more often. I recently found out that I have celiac disease and it led to hypothyroidism, so those two disorders alone could completely explain my mood swings.
 
Pull up a chair. Take a hat. Any hat you want to wear will do nicely. Now, put the hat on your head. If it doesn't fit right, fix it. There are plenty of hats to go around.................................................There was a man killed in a hospital from the wrong medications being given to him by a stand-in surgeon. He had his other leg removed a couple of days earlier. The surgeon promised his son he had taken care of his pain meds when talking with him directly after surgery. It did not happen. The son took a day off from the hospital because the man's daughter was there. One and a half days after surgery, she told her step-brother the pain meds were not working and had not been working. They were giving the man Percoset instead of his normal 2 MG Morphine. Son called the surgeon who wasn't in and raised heck for the situation to be taken care of immediately. Female surgeon did not look at the patient's files, just gave him an IV drug she used almost all the time on her other patients. He was out of it all night long when the surgeon gave him more the next morning while he was still out of it. Late that afternoon, he aspirated; filling his lungs and sending him to ICU where they stopped all pain meds because they said they would kill him. The patient screamed they were torturing him to his son. The next morning they removed the meds and he died. Congestive heart failure was written on his death certificate. He was his son's best friend. My best friend.............................................................................Two daughters and two sons took things totally differently. Grandchildren took things differently. I could not lay down to try and sleep without hearing "They're torturing me, "just me"." I could not function at work, at home, in the bed, could not concentrate. Two years later I am a little better. Mourning takes different amounts of time for different people. Depression affects people at different levels with different intensities. Each pill affects people differently. Each person expects different results. Each prescribing doctor does not know exactly how a pill will work with someone's dynamics and other meds. People have to try and test what might work best, if only but for awhile......................................Show me someone thinks Prozac is like ecstacy, and I'll show you someone thinks it is causing them problems....................................Exercise. Read. Study something. Enjoy something in life. We never can realize what someone else is going through; just being there and listening works nicely. Stopped my meds last week for several days. Taking them again, just not as many. Would like to add I had bad health problems, too, with my back.
 
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toska said:
They definitely are dangerous for at least some people. I took celexa years ago and it worked really well…at first. Six months later I was a manic, raging lunatic. I wish doctors would look for physiological reasons for depression symptoms more often. I recently found out that I have celiac disease and it led to hypothyroidism, so those two disorders alone could completely explain my mood swings.
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Actually they need to discard the incorrect notion that there is a mysterious difference between psychological and physiological in the first place. As with dynamic systems, there is only state function and path function. State function being how you are, and path function is how you got that way. Things of psychological nature are simply a difference in path function - the result is always a physical one.

Also substances are just substances. They are collections of molecules without necessarily being inherently good or bad. A lack of thyroxine production (hypothyroidism) is just as physical as introducing Celexa into your system. Both depend on your reaction to substances (or lack thereof), and there's nothing psychological about it in either case.
 
My opinion is that they're over-prescribed and because everyone and their great aunt Sally is practically on some kind of mood-regulating medication, health care practitioners as a group are rather laissez-faire in their attitudes towards treating patients with depression. Generally, all it takes to get an antidepressant or anti-anxiety pill prescribed to you is to ask for it. Some doctors might do a courtesy drug test, but there's really no rigorous screening process and few bother to sit down and discuss non-pharmaceutical options. What's worse is that the drug you're prescribed isn't even guaranteed to work and each comes with a mile-long list of side-effects. If the first meds they put you on don't work, they take another shot in the dark and prescribe you another drug and keep doing it until you find something that works. Problem is, you're supposed to be on the drug for at least six weeks to judge if there's any effect and by then, you've already been exposed to some mind-altering chemistry. So they take time to ween you off the drug, have you experience the joys of pharmaceutical drug withdraw and then you're given a new medication... or two or three... and maybe even an entire cocktail of them to shoddily patch up any grossly uncomfortable side-effects. You essentially become a lab rat and most of the time, you don't even know if you need the drugs in the first place.

The other things is that patients on these drugs aren't even all that closely monitored. A lot of these anti-depressants come with blackbox warnings, including a risk of developing suicidal thoughts. Yet, most docs will just shoo you out the door and refill your prescription over the phone when you ask for it. There's no follow-up appointment. There's no more blood tests. It's just take the meds and get on with your pill-popping, hopeless little lives.

But wait... there's MORE! What most doctors fail to do is explain to their patients that the drugs by themselves won't do shit if you don't put in the work to change the patterns of behaviour and thinking that either contribute to or create the problem. Most people seem to be under the impression that if they pop a pill, all the bad feelings are going to magically go away and you're going to go about your daily life wearing pastel coloured clothing, walking through the sunshine and smiling at the camera just like all those people in antidepressant commercials. The truth is, either a self-guided program (like CBT) or assisted therapy psychological therapy is a must, otherwise, you're just training your brain to think and behave the same way on a higher dose of serotonin. You'll feel better at first, but it's always mind over matter. Before long, you'll be back to the doc's office for another spin on the medication merry-go-round.

Essentially, meds are just here to assist those who are either a danger to themselves or unable to function. They're also a good jump start for the people who can't get out of bed or who can't concentrate long enough on any task to begin retraining their focus muscles so they can get back on track. However, again, meds are a temporary solution. The real hero when it comes to treatment of depression is behavioural therapy combined with implementing a healthy lifestyle (diet, exercise, sleep, personal goals and a social support system).

tl;dr: Meds can help (if you're lucky enough to find any that work in the first place) but given all their complications, they should never be taken as a first line of defense unless you're really desperate, done all your research, and have exhausted all other options. They also shouldn't be the only treatment you employ as meds just don't work as a long-term treatment option by themselves.
 
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Eventhorizon said:
If directed at me, yes. I am currently doing B12 injections to help combat exhaustion or lack of energy among other things.
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First thing is hello. Second Have you researched vitamin D? Research shows that many people do not get enough vitamin D. Which can effect you're body's absorption of other key vitamins. Vitamin D has been show to be a little more important then people first believed. Hope this helps, plus I would try Wild Alaskan fish oil. It's helped me a bunch, I take 2 capsules TID religiously.


Cigar? Oh Ya. :m114:
 
I don't like antidepressants. I think it's a cheap way out.

I'd prefer to change the situation and what is making you depressed.

For me it was diet, exercise, leaving my old world behind and starting a new one.
 
First let me start of by saying I have never been on antidepressants. I have, however, been through bouts of depression. In my mind, when I am depressed, I know that I didn't get that way spontaneously. I know there has to be something I am doing in my daily life to cause that depression. I know in order to get out of depression, I have to change my life in some way.

If you are anything like me, you are also needing to know the reason why you are depressed. When I went through depression, I had to know. I filled 3 notebooks full of notes about myself. I would write in a journal everyday listing all of the possibilities of depression. I would list ways to get out of the depression. I would also keep track of all of my progress in these journals. It took almost a year to get out of the heavy gloom I was feeling. I used no medication. I just used will power and determination. I dug up all sorts of dirt on myself. I dug up childhood issues, teenage issues, current personal issues. I had to know why I felt the way I did. I had to know why I acted the way I did.

I finally came to my conclusion. I am INFJ and I didn't understand myself. Figuring out that the reasoning for my actions was linked to my personality was a life changing event. My journey was the most mentally challenging thing I have ever conquered. It was a year long journey of my mind always running on hyperdrive. I basically would wake up and think and sleep. I had no energy to do anything else.
 
@ chango[QUOTE/]I finally came to my conclusion. I am INFJ and I didn't understand myself. Figuring out that the reasoning for my actions was linked to my personality was a life changing event. My journey was the most mentally challenging thing I have ever conquered. It was a year long journey of my mind always running on hyperdrive. I basically would wake up and think and sleep. I had no energy to do anything else.[/QUOTE]

Although I'm on a happy med. That's exactly what happened to me. But the med actually really works for me so I won't stop it. I'm scared of it but it helps. But knowing the INFJ personality has really helped me more. I didn't believe it at first, but after reasearching and putting together all the past. I concluded that I'm INFJ, and I believe it. I worked in the medical field for a while and I did a lot of vet/human doctor stuff. So my thinking I believe plus with that experience help me to come to a educated diagnosis of INFJ. There so much more I want to say but I'm limited do to my writing skills at the moment.

Cigar? Oh Ya. :m114:
 
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