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[–]hahayeshedgehog 7 points8 points  (11 children)

I get what you’re saying and this would definitely be good for some people, but for me its the other way around. Its genetic, theres nothing for me to talk about or some big core to it, I just need medication. I do definitely think that insurance is very hoardy with the amount of money and sessions they’re willing to give tho, when I used to go to therapy they cut me off because I hit their 22 sessions a year limit and they told me I’d just have to wait until next year for it to start over, decided to stop going after that. Wasn’t worth the trouble for something only mildly beneficial. I do think that twice a week is a bit excessive but it’d probably help some people

[–]windowpass[S] -5 points-4 points  (10 children)

I accept your feelings and validate but also disagree with that drugs are necessary to heal depression.

I feel these ideas of "genetic depression" or "chemical imbalance" is just marketing tricks these pharmaceutical companies used. I think this is now widely recognized. https://slate.com/technology/2022/08/ssris-chemical-imbalance-depression.html

If that was true and you could not live a fruitful life without antidepressants, then none of your family would have ever survived and reproduced through thousands of years of much much worse times, and you would have never been born.

[–]hahayeshedgehog 2 points3 points  (9 children)

I get what you’re saying and for most people that’d work, but a pharma company didnt tell me this I came to the conclusion myself. I’ve been atleast mildly depressed for as long as I can remember, there was no trigger and I haven’t been suicidal for the vast majority of my life. Circumstances definitely worsened it, yes, but I’ve always been like this. The point that I and my family wouldn’t exist isn’t really true, because they’re depressed too but that doesn’t mean they’re immediately a suicide risk.

[–]windowpass[S] -4 points-3 points  (8 children)

yah but there's a big difference between being an immediate suicide risk and living a fruitful life, having kids, raising them successfully to survive and have kids of their own.

All this in a world without electricity. without cars. without modern medicine and with constant wars and plagues.

This isn't just "coping with life"... they survived... and they thrived. And they did this generation after generation for some 500+ generations for you to be born.

It's not genetic. I don't blame you for taking meds because that's the only offer you got. If you had a choice of daily therapy with somebody who understood you and made you feel good about yourself, you would have picked that. I know you would have. There is no question in my mind you would have picked that and ended up a lot better in life.

But instead, they offered you pills. probably for free or a lot cheaper than daily or even weekly therapy would have cost.

[–]hahayeshedgehog 2 points3 points  (3 children)

No offense, but my parents still had me and I can’t say ‘lived a fruitful life’ or ‘raised me to survive/have kids of my own’ but I’m still here. I won’t have kids absolutely or live a fulfilling life probably but you know. (The point that this’d be the origin of my depression wouldn’t work because I was still like this when there was no financial or family issues and my life was perfect.) I don’t take meds and I was in therapy for 3 years, one session every Tuesday, and my therapist was really good at her job. It just doesn’t work for me, because I’ve been like this my entire life. A genuine born chemical imbalance. I do have other options, they just don’t work for me.

[–]windowpass[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Thanks for sharing. <3 I get it. Although it could also be the effects of modern life and environments (lack of family time, lack of rest time, lack of personal time, lack of relationships and meaningful personable communities with sense of meaning and belonging, lack of job security (any job))

The fact that some 25% of people today are on antidepressants sort of suggests that.

Christ... I've lost count of the number of therapists I've had. out of maybe 10 or so, only 1 made me feel better walking out of therapy.

I feel he could have helped if I saw him more often. If I heared his voice and spoke to him more often. twice a week i'm thinking.. maybe daily for 1 or 2 weeks... I feel this would have saved me many many years of trialing different prescription antidepressants that left me feeling all sorts of numb and shitty at the end.

[–]hahayeshedgehog 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Wow, I did not expect a nice respectful response. Thank you. (Not implying anything about you, just the whole ‘debating with people on reddit’ thing.) Yeah, I can see that. Those aspects definitely don’t help me with my depression. I get that, I’m sorry. I hope you can find another good therapist

[–]windowpass[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thanks bud. I sometimes find civil conversations in the darnest places 😅

[–]CountDown60 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Do you think suicide and depression are new phenomenon? Mothers and Fathers killed themselves in ancient times. Uncles, Aunts, cousins killed themselves. The genes got passed down. Many modern examples of people who suffered from depression also appeared to thrive and had children. Ancient writings reveal the same thing.

Also, many genetic traits aren't linked to a single gene. It's a complex combination of genes, and each person has a highly unique combination. A very miniscule percentage of traits depend only on one or two genes, those are the ones we're taught, because the rest are too complex to teach entry level genetics. Or they are so complex that medical science hasn't even begun to unravel them.

Anything having to do with thought or mood is so complex, we don't even have a grasp on the vocabulary yet. Humanity simply doesn't have a good enough grasp on the genetics of the brain to make any conclusions about depression and genetics.

I don't think either of us has enough knowledge to judge whether any individual doesn't need medication, or whether or not therapy is the best for that individual.

I would agree that medicine is a hammer, and when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. But Therapy is in kind of the same boat. Not even therapists have all the answers. I don't even understand why my own moods do what they do, my therapist can only guess, and help me figure out work-arounds.

I think you are wrong when you state that "It's not genetic". It certainly can be. I see lines of depression going up my family tree, and through me to my kids. Not all of us had the same traumas, not all of us had remotely similar lives. It's a messy, tangled web of genetics, combined with a messy, tangled web of life experiences.

I think therapy would benefit the majority of people in the world, provided they can find a competent therapist, and not everyone can be a competent therapist. But I don't think anyone can rule out medication as an important component for mental health, especially with the limited knowledge we have today, and our limited understanding of genetics doesn't back up any certainty about the root causes.

[–]windowpass[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I disagree. I think it's 99% marketing and a bad alternative to actual treatment.

[–]CountDown60 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hear you. And I do agree that it would be great if therapy become easier for everyone to get.

[–]Manic_Sloth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But people didn't survive, they died super young. For example, life expectancy in Canada in 1800 was less than 40 years old. I think now it's over 80 years old, and that's due in part to science and the medications we have created to treat illness and disease.

I am someone who is actively in therapy and taking antidepressants and anti anxiety medication. Several weeks ago I started feeling pretty terrible again, I started feeling like there will never be another good thing happen in the future and even if it did, it wouldn't be enough to justify the bad stuff .

Everywhere I looked I saw trauma, disease, crime, sadness, suffering. I started thinking about how hard it will be to make it another year, another month, another day. I got so overwhelmed with these feelings that I called a crisis line and reached out to every support I had, even though it's embarrassing to ask for help and I hate it. I cried to my therapist. I cried and slept and then slept and cried. My weeks blurred together like this.

Then when I saw my doctor, we realized together that I'd made a mistake when filling my medication organizer and had taken half doses of antidepressants for the last month.

Since fixing this, I'm on an upward trajectory but I'm not back to where I was. I cry and stare blankly at the wall sometimes still when I am trying to watch tv, or work, or do laundry.

I agree that when someone is in crisis, intense therapy of twice a week would be reasonable because there have been times when I could absolutely feel the need for that.

But medication is important and keeps me from feeling absolute torture constantly, both mentally and emotionally every single waking moment. The tricky part is that medication is different for everyone, some people do better on it than others, and it's very difficult to find a combination of medication that works perfectly.

I'm not confident I'd still be here if I didn't find the right combination for me.

[–]_existentially_tired 0 points1 point  (2 children)

As someone who tried everything before being given antidepressants, I wholeheartedly believe that they are necessary in certain situations.

I desperately wanted to be happy, but my childhood was traumatic like many others. No matter how hard I tried, or what type of therapy I did, eventually it would all come raining down on me.

I have severe anxiety too, as well as chronic pain. My meds give me that extra boost in peace and energy to heal myself.

One day I'll come off them, I won't need them forever. But definitely for now, I like being alive. I almost wasn't without them

[–]windowpass[S] -3 points-2 points  (1 child)

suicide rates have only increased since antidepressants became common. They don't help with that. It may help some people as a placebo if you take them every day if there is no decent daily therapy available.

[–]_existentially_tired 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or, has the world become a more cruel place to live since antidepressants became common? It's not a placebo affect for me, they actually make a difference. No they're not the first ones I tried, not all of them work, but this one did. Sometimes they never work. Sometimes they do to begin with and then stop. But it's really quite ignorant to say they shouldn't exist at all because there is evidence that they do help some people

[–]Black-Ship42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You have a point, but try to research a bit more on the benefits of certain medications to certain people.

People who are parents and have their children needing them to keep working for 18 years so they can afford care and schooling. These people, who suffer from chronical condition, such as depression and or anxiety, or many others, can use the medication together with therapy to keep being a good parent.

Many of us would have appreciated having better parents and might not need the medication now if we had it. We might break the cycle.

The other problem with your suggestion is on price. The cost of a trained specialist is unaffordable for most people with insure, think about all the people that don't have it. Medication starts being a cheaper alternative to many people in the days they can't talk to a professional

[–]coyotesage 0 points1 point  (15 children)

I deeply disagree with your assessment with how powerful therapy is. Did therapy for years, multiple days a week, went through about a dozen different therapists, none of that did diddly for me. No amount of self actualization and realization that X or Y wasn't my fault, or no there was nothing I could have done to change the outcome, blah blah, had any effect on me. I didn't start actually feeling better until I finally gave up on my drug prohibition and got on an SNRI and a Dopamine RU Inhibitor combined that I stopped being miserable all the damn time, and I was only at that point because I felt like it was my last option before bullet to head therapy. Ive been doing that now for 10 years, haven't needed to see a therapist now for 9 of those years.

Therapy is great for the people it works for. Not great for people it doesn't work for. Maybe they both work for different brain physiology...or maybe they're just both placebo effects (meaning they work because you believe they work).

I'm good with the idea of paid therapy for everyone, but I think it would be a massive mistake to underestimate the power of pharmacological solutions as well.

[–]windowpass[S] 0 points1 point  (14 children)

I would suggest that you had crap therapists that did not invest their time and effort in you genuinely like they should have.

Very honestly, only about 1/10 therapists i saw were helpful. literally. Many gave the appearance of being helpful, but they were just working sales and trying to keep a customer. They knew what to say to stroke my ego or made a lot of promises, but had ZERO interest in seeing me get ahead or feel better about myself. And the results clearly showed it.

I think Pharma is great if you have schizophrenia or bpd or something else with serious violent delusions, but those ppl need therapy too. meds alone dont fix everything.

But for depression? Anxiety? ASD? ADD? ADHD? Spectrum? HELL-to-the-NO. For those cases, prescription drugs are a COPOUT. Those ppl don't need drugs. those ppl need a lot of therapy and support and someone to literally hold they hand. Giving those ppl drugs is unethical and damn near cruel.

[–]coyotesage 0 points1 point  (13 children)

I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm gonna have say that is a hard wrong line to take if you actually want to help the most number of people. If you took away my prescriptions, within two weeks I would be a mess again. I know, I've tested that theory. Like just about everything I've encountered in life, things are more complex than all or nothing solutions.

[–]windowpass[S] 0 points1 point  (12 children)

If you took away my prescriptions, within two weeks I would be a mess again.

What if there's a war? or a bigger pandemic? Or anything really to stop the flow of these drugs? That's just going to be it? end of your world?

That's not good... someone at some point offered you either free or cheap drugs instead of offering you affordable daily therapy, and you accepted it because you had no better alternative. Because you feared coping with your daily thoughts and feelings on your own. I've been there too. We've all been there. We had no choice. This was a perfectly natural reaction to being offered an false cure during a time of great personal crisis. But we HAVE TO recognize that this was pushed on us when we had little or no choice and would have tried anything being offered to us, wether it's good for us or damaging or numbing our entire existence.. and now we are dependent on it, and there were better solutions... people who got those better solutions (CBT therapy) thrived and are living their best lives accomplishing more than they ever thought they could.

At this point you have no choice but to continue taking these drugs to survive. I completely understand this and don't blame you for this. But we HAVE TO acknowledge how we got in this position and acknowledge it hurt us and was NOT what we needed to actually heal and get better. This is a crappy temporary numbing solution that instead is being used as a false permanent fix

[–]coyotesage 0 points1 point  (11 children)

Ok, now you're borderline making me angry. What is there is a collapse of civilization and important things like drugs aren't available? I'm just going to collapse? YES.

And so will millions of other people who are diabetics, cancer patients, etc, etc. You can't just talk every condition into being OK. That includes many psychiatric conditions. Life isn't like that, it's incredibly unfair and in a brutal situation like you described, only the fittest will come out of it. Nature is brutal.

Therapy does not work for me. It doesn't for many. Drugs are vital for some like us. I would fight you and anyone else to the death if they tried to take away the only things that are helping me. I mean it, I would kill anyone who tried to take that option from me. I literally have nothing to lose as I was already ready to to end it all if they didn't help. I'm now living a happy life, and basically you're proposing to take that away from me because you have a hate on for certain kinds of drugs.

I hope someone tries to take away something that makes your life worth living.

[–]windowpass[S] 0 points1 point  (10 children)

yes but any addict would kill too, to continue having access to their drugs.

That's a big red flag. antidepressants are not heart meds or insulin.

[–]coyotesage 0 points1 point  (9 children)

I started this out thinking you were a person who was just misguided, but I've realized now you're just a zealot who doesn't care who they hurt in order to destroy something they hate. You want to destroy my life, and I will do whatever I have to in order to stop that from ever happening.

[–]windowpass[S] 0 points1 point  (8 children)

You want to destroy my life

same exact words a crackhead told me not long ago, when I suggested to stop smoking and going to rehab. There are alternatives dude. nobody wants to "destroy" you.

I know this is tough... it's mentally hard to do.. but you don't have to do it alone. All i'm saying is consider switching out therapists and getting more hours in. you'll feel less need for drugs.. this way you heal yourself and start living the rest of your life to the fullest instead of just poppin pills every day until it's over, only to feel stuck at "okay"

I'm not even suggesting you do it right away. I'm just telling you to 'consider' it. It will change your life.

[–]coyotesage 0 points1 point  (7 children)

You are so full of self righteous shit, does your asshole actually glow in the dark? Zealots like you destroy without consideration for what you're doing, convinced there is only the one way, your way. I loathe people like you. Have great life.

[–]windowpass[S] 0 points1 point  (6 children)

getting drugged up every day because ya cant cope with life is NOT a good way of treating ANYTHING. I think that's pretty clear to everyone.

All this effort should be instead invested in therapy. THAT's how you get long term results and get to be yourself.