this might be a personal question, and i know we have had similar threads before, but...

do any of you take meds for depression? i have been fighting depression for a while and refuse to take anything. my life is wonderful and i am truly blessed and i have no right to be depressed like i get. i am convinced it has to do with fatigue and stress, but those are things that i can't remove from my life. more and more i think about ignoring my beliefs on the evils of chemical dependence and getting some meds so i dont have to fight anymore. i beleive that human beings shouldnt have to take a synthetic substance to be chemically balanced for happiness; that the issues with depression so many people have are a symptom that we are leading our lives WRONG.

so my question is, who takes it, or has taken it and what is your take on this? i dont want to take anything because i dont want to be dependent on a drug to be happy but at the same time i dont want to fight depression for the rest of my life.

I feel you. Although when you take meds, its only for a period of time until your back to normal. Your not supposed to take them forever. Depression isnt supposed to come back once you stop taking meds.

I myself have never thought of taking meds. I dont think its necessary although it would be an easy way out. I also think people(maybe myself) would use meds when i'm temporarly sad bcuz i might mistake it for depression.


There are many things in our environment that make us depressed. Depression just doesnt show itself out of nowhere. Maybe its our family(abuse), maybe its school(your not doing good), or maybe its a relationship gone bad and you feel trapped. It can be so many things and most of the time its in combination. One thing leads to another.

BUTTERFLY, there is a way to stop depression without meds. Alienate yourself from the bad things in yourlife. And if thats not possible, go through it. When these bad influences or situations are present in our daily life, thats where depression comes from. We think about the problem way more than we should but take no action to solve the problem. The sooner the problem is dealt with, the sooner we have smiles on our face.

There is a solution for everything.

Last edited by Dave Albert on Jul-30-2003 at 14:18

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Albert I feel you. Although when you take meds, its only for a period of time until your back to normal. Your not supposed to take them forever. Depression isnt supposed to come back once you stop taking meds. I myself have never thought of taking meds. I dont think its necessary although it would be an easy way out. I also think people(maybe myself) would use meds when i'm temporarly sad bcuz i might mistake it for depression. There are many things in our environment that make us depressed. Depression just doesnt show itself out of nowhere. Maybe its our family(abuse), maybe its school(your not doing good), or maybe its a relationship gone bad and you feel trapped. It can be so many things and most of the time its in combination. One thing leads to another. BUTTERFLY, there is a way to stop depression without meds. Alienate yourself from the bad things in yourlife. And if thats not possible, go through it. When these bad influences or situations are present in our daily life, thats where depression comes from. We think about the problem way more than we should but take no action to solve the problem. The sooner the problem is dealt with, the sooner we have smiles on our face. There is a solution for everything.

the problem is society. society says i need to have money to pay rent, to eat, to save for retirement. i cant do that without a job. i am good at my job (when i am not postwhoring) and i like engineering. but i feel trapped in it. i stress over shit that i shouldnt stress over, over nto having enough time to do all the things i want to do and over being tired all the time cause i try to cram too much into my life. the fatigue makes me tired, but if i stop going out i get sad because i feel like i am not really living, just conforming to what i need to do to be able to afford to live comfortably.

so i cant really take the thigns that depress me out of my life cause they are normal parts of life. i just cant deal as well as other people. i dont know why but i know it is genetic. when my mom realized i had started seeing a therapist she told me that she had been through what i was going through and told me how she used to feel and i knew she knows what i am going through. and then she told me she has been depressed the last three years. i cant live with this for the rest of my life like that....

Let me ask you a quick question, one from which I would like to see if there's a relation to someone close to me: From what I gather, you don't experiment with drugs right now (other than alcohol), right? Was there ever a time in which you did experiment with drugs, or even use them on a regular basis? I gather that since you're a Chem. Engineer, you've got your shit together for the most part, but I'm curious to see if there's a connection to someone close to me. Thanks.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

get on the medication....trust me....they work

you will thank yourself later for it

some problems go away...clinical depression (the term used)....can last from 5-40 yrs. But taking a fucking pill..once or twice a day and not worrying so much about life...does it seem that bad?

do it for yourself mel....you need to be not worrying

tta has spoken.

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Let me ask you a quick question, one from which I would like to see if there's a relation to someone close to me: From what I gather, you don't experiment with drugs right now (other than alcohol), right? Was there ever a time in which you did experiment with drugs, or even use them on a regular basis? I gather that since you're a Chem. Engineer, you've got your shit together for the most part, but I'm curious to see if there's a connection to someone close to me. Thanks.

yes, i'll skip most of it and focus on the e though. i used to do e a lot in college for maybe a 6 month time period. it affected me more than a lot of people. not the high in particular, but the comedown quickly got unbearable and i had to stop. i was taking it weekly and it got to the point within a few months that i just never felt right. and i couldnt recover from taking a pill, so i took more. so i finally came to HATE taking pills cause i anticipated how i would feel on tuesday, and the following week. so i stopped and didnt touch it for 2 years. and ti was a good year before i felt normal again. i have taken it a handful of times since then and teh 2 weeks after i take it jsut isnt worth the high. i know that is a strong reaction but i think that has to do with whatever is wrong with me.

the other thing is, i was depressed years before i started doing e. the first time i remember having symptoms of it (and it was bad) was my junior year in HS. i was 16 at that time and had never done any drugs. i didnt do e till i was 19.

Okay, that does sound very familiar to a close friend of my wife's, especially the comdown and terrible Tuesday's part. It was living hell for her to even be around her, let alone listen to her crying and anger over the phone during that comedown week. Then of course we'd all be up and ready by Friday to do all that shit all over again, but that's another topic and one that doesn't need to be rehashed.

My thought here is that you are more affected by this than the "average" user, I guess you can say. And the fact that you mentioned that depression symptoms were occurring prior to usage also tipped me off. I think you are doing the right thing in talking to a therapist. I'm somewhat curious as to which way he wants you to go: if it's a psychiatrist you will immediately be put on anti-depression meds., but a psychologist will try to assess without meds first (usually).

Listen, you're not going to get sound advice from anyone on this board, and I think deep down you know that. Deep down I also tend to believe you're intelligent and smart enough to know that this is, unfortunately, a personal decision; one that no one can make for you. Personally, I just don't believe in meds., because I tend to think our society has depended on prescription drugs way way WAY too much. Personally, I believe our pharmaceudical companies have done a genius of a job on our culture, creating a smokescreen to the people and bribing the doctors by putting money in their wallets and convincing them to push pills on the masses, effectively creating a prescription drug-dependent society. Antibiotic resistance is a beautiful example. As a chem. engineer, I'm sure you're at least a little aware of this, which might be why you're questioning it a little bit as opposed to running up to the counter to fill up your Prosac prescription. What's worse, you'll likely be taking these things for life, because for many folks weening off these anti-depressive meds. is simply impossible. Plus there really haven't been any real longitudinal studies on these meds (like over 25 years), because they're still fairly new.

But at the same time, I haven't walked in your shoes, nor anyone else who's undergoing depression of any sort, and I can't undermine the blessing of anti-depression meds. have done for them. To be that depressed to the point of interferring with your daily life, work, and well-being, and to have a medicine available that can turn your outlook around is quite tempting - and I admit I would be very tempted to do it if the tables were turned on me. But as I said before, this is a personal decision for you. If I were to give any advice, I would say work with your therapist and explore all non-medication avenues first. I don't know if you exercise, but I do know that this does increase your dopamine levels and enhance the creation of seratonin from 5-htp as well as other body chemicals (okay, I might be talking a little out of my ass here, but bare with me...). But hey, if all else fails, you need to do what's best for you, and if that involves meds., then so be it.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

you know what is scary? i went to a psycologist and the first time i saw her before she really knew my history, she said, you should see a psychiatrist and get somethign prescribed. then i went to the doctor and he looked at me and recognized the symptoms of depression and suggested the same thing. when i said i wasnt comfortable with that, he said there ARE alternatives. i guess that is waht i need to investigate, cause when it comes down to it, i know that i really am not comfortable with taking meds.

anyway, thanks for the advice mr opus. i already knew everythign you said but sometimes you forget things that you are afraid to face.

I've been taking zoloft ever since I had a severe nervous breakdown, anti-depressants are a GOD SEND. I don't think I would be here right now without them.

Seriously.

And you're not on them forever, you take them until you get balanced out again. They aren't addictive. You really shouldn't be afraid of taking them. I haven't noticed any major side effects, besides being tired more then usual, and regaining your appetite.

Well best of luck too you, and I hope you feel better soon.

Take Care,

-Tim

___________________
"We did not choose to become robots. There was an accident in our studio. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 a.m. on September 9, 1999, it exploded. When we regained consciousness, we discovered that we had become robots."

quote:

Originally posted by placebo And you're not on them forever, you take them until you get balanced out again. They aren't addictive. You really shouldn't be afraid of taking them. I haven't noticed any major side effects, besides being tired more then usual, and regaining your appetite.

i dont think i have ever been balanced out so that is why i am scared.

well, here's my $0.02:

On the one hand, I agree with you (Butterfly and Mister Opus), that we are an overmedicated society, largely to the benefit of big pharmaceutical companies pockets. I think we could do without a lot of the crap that we take, especially anti-depresants. I am a firm believer that the way out of depression is to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, nobody else can help you out of it. One day you just realize, that gee, this sucks, and you climb up out of your hole. At least that is how it works for me, and I've never taken anti-depresants. For me, it's usually some sort of thing i have to remedy, like a girlfriend i hate but am still with, or a job i hate and am still with, or a an addiction to something that i know isn't good for me. Once i get rid of the offending nuisance in my life, then i am happy again.

BUT

I feel that anti-depresants can play a valid role for SOME people. For instance, my sister (age 20), was diagnosed with schizophrenia about 2 years ago. It's a very serious condition (it's not multiple personality disorder), she goes on wild mood swings, sometimes euphoric, and sometimes (like now) almost completely despondent. She's tried many drugs, from prozac to zoloft to clanazipan (sp?) and a bunch of others i don't remember.

My opionion used to be that mental disorders like schizophrenia are merely a label for someone, a label that may not always be correct. and that as such, a treatment could not easily be specified, due to the varying nature of the subjects mental states. I believed that it was something she could "work through" or "get over".

The hard reality is, it isn't. it's been over 2 years now, and it isn't getting any better. When she is off her meds it is even worse. In her case, I think that medication is an unfortunate but neccesary solution.

Now, what you have to ask yourself Butterfly is, are you a person like that? I don't think you are. You seem very well adjusted (well aside from the aforementioned postwhoring), and i think you can manage yourself very well without drugs.

___________________

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quote:

Originally posted by butterfly this might be a personal question, and i know we have had similar threads before, but... do any of you take meds for depression? i have been fighting depression for a while and refuse to take anything. my life is wonderful and i am truly blessed and i have no right to be depressed like i get. i am convinced it has to do with fatigue and stress, but those are things that i can't remove from my life. more and more i think about ignoring my beliefs on the evils of chemical dependence and getting some meds so i dont have to fight anymore. i beleive that human beings shouldnt have to take a synthetic substance to be chemically balanced for happiness; that the issues with depression so many people have are a symptom that we are leading our lives WRONG. so my question is, who takes it, or has taken it and what is your take on this? i dont want to take anything because i dont want to be dependent on a drug to be happy but at the same time i dont want to fight depression for the rest of my life.

A couple things:

1)If your depressed despite having everything in life necessary for relative happiness but are depressed than theres a decent chance it's chemical based. If thats what your doc thinks than thats the problem.

2)You don't become dependent on anti-depressents. What they do is correct the levels of seretonin and other chemicals your body produces/creates. When you get right down to it happiness isn't about situations, no emotion is, its about the chemicals your body releases, and if it's not releasing them properly than your not, repeat, not going to change that. The meds are nothing more than a correction, to make those chemicals back into preportion, releasing the proper number of them isn't "cheating" either.

3)More people suffer from this stuff than you think. And more people suffer from it than the studies think. And all too many people lead unproductive lives, or don't live to their full potential because of these problems and the stigma's they have associated with them. I've wasted so much of my life refusing to believe what I'm saying now, and I really regret it. Don't make the same mistake.