| >The reality is that most (but not all, obviously) people don't have terrible side effects from modern antidepressants. I wonder how many of those side effects might be from people put on antidepressants who may not actually be chronically depressed. I've known people who have been prescribed antidepressants after going through periods of depression, rather than it being an ongoing chronic problem and they have sometimes had some troubling personality changes that lasted even after stopping them. But I have met people who have taken them long term because of chronic depression that seem a lot better on them. I really do feel like we take too much of a 'one size fits all' approach when it comes to mental health. Every person's mind and brain are unique. I know, as humans, we like to put a factual, observable cause to things, but I really don't think mental health always works like that. Two people who may be suffering from long term depression or any other, mental health issue(I personally dislike this term greatly, but can't really think of a better one.), may have very different reasons and causes for their depression and the same approach may not be helpful to both. It's great we have access to medications that are helpful in improving people's lives, but I do wonder sometimes if we should focus more on addressing why someone's experiencing these mental states that are causing problems, rather than just working on correcting it. I can't speak too much about it suppose, I don't really know. But I had a good friend who I feel like was neglected by the system and didn't get the help that would have been good for him. His mom was going through cancer treatments and he didn't take it well. He got pretty depressed and didn't get out of bed for a couple of years. He started getting these worries about getting the urge to walk into traffic. So he went and tried to get some help. He was immediately prescribed seroquil, Zoloft, ativan and some other things. And...I have no other way to put it...it fucked him up... I'd get phone calls from him randomly asking what time of day it was, he'd forget things that happened moments before, he hallucinated watching new tron movie 3 times in a 4 hour period...the movie's like two and a half hours long or something, he managed to unplug my internet around 1am so, he wouldn't have even been able to finish it the first time. It was really sad seeing what happened to him and I couldn't help but feel like maybe if someone had just talked to him for a while before prescribing him those drugs, they could have helped him without him ending up like that. |