[toast0]

> Have you heard of someone getting "better" after taking anti-depressants and being able to come off them? No. They have to take them for life. That's not a cure.

Some people with acute depression can take the meds, work on the underlying issues and taper off, yes.

People with chronic depression likely need to take the meds for life.

People with type I diabetes can't get insulin one time either. People with allergies often take the allergy meds when exposed to allergens, which is always for some.

That's not big pharma being greedy, that's a chronic condition requires chronic treatment.

[smeej]

I'll raise my hand here. Took antidepressants for a year. Successfully weaned off of them. Have not had recurrence of symptoms.

I needed the boost to be able to get out of bed often enough to do the work in therapy. That led to being able to take other actions that helped my brain chemistry too, like eating better food, which reduced inflammation, and getting outside more often.

My doc said her experience was about half and half. Half of people were able to wean off successfully. Half ended up deciding it was better to stay on.

Recovery does happen. For lots of us.

[girvo]

My experience was the same; they were like a bandage we put on to allow us to heal without infection, for me SSRIs were a mental bandage so I could heal enough to get to a psychologist. I came off them, and was fine. My situation is confounded by my buprenorphine script though, as it's known to be a reasonbly effective anti-depressant in it's own right, albeit via a completely different mechanism (it's an opioid-receptor agonist, partial agonist and antagonist. Weird drug)