
A river of lost souls runs through western Colorado - wormold
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-river-of-lost-souls-runs-through-western-colorado/2016/11/03/154fd1a0-8651-11e6-a3ef-f35afb41797f_story.html
======
xherberta
_“It’s really hard to withdraw from antidepressants,” said New York
psychiatrist and pharmacology expert Julie Holland. In some cases, “people
feel like cold water is running down their spine. They can feel their brain
sloshing around, or electric zaps in their head.”_

Dang.

If it's true as claimed that medications only help half the time, this seems
like a strong encouragement to try things like exercise, yoga, and lifestyle
changes before going the medication route.

Unless you're so depressed you honestly can't make those changes... as
commenters have mentioned, sometimes medications are absolutely helpful,
needed, and life-saving. I've heard of cases where being on a medication just
for a short time helped people break out of a rut.

If you're getting a prescription, it seems worthwhile to ask docs for options
that are less problematic to get off of.

~~~
Bluestrike2
Especially for depression, prescribing medications is about stabilizing a
patient's mental health and building a safe platform from which the patient
can work to minimize the negative consequences of their depression (or many
other mental illnesses, for that matter) on their daily life. No psychiatrist
is going to suggest that there's a magic pill, dosage, or regimen that will
make the depression go away. What medication can do, though, is help keep a
patient's depression from overwhelming them. Ideally, medication gives the
patient both time and enough separation from those negative emotions and
consequences to make changes that become well-reinforced habits. That can be
through traditional talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, simple
exercise, changes in diet and sleep patterns, etc. Medication can serve as a
sort of barrier between emotions that can overwhelm you and keep you from
getting out of bed at all. It doesn't make those feelings go away entirely,
but it gives you the breathing room you need.

Of course, the public doesn't necessarily see things that way. There's a
common belief that the right medication will 'cure' the problem for you or,
barring that, make it go away. After all, that's how other medications work!
Blood pressure problems? Take a pill. Bacterial infection? Antibiotics, and
poof, it's gone! That's a huge problem for psychiatry, and it's one that's
probably not going to go away anytime soon. Your GP might be willing to
prescribe an antidepressant, an ethical psychiatrist is almost always going to
be the better choice precisely because treatment isn't about just receiving a
script and heading to the pharmacy.

~~~
duaneb
I agree with what you said.

Of course, I've also heard psychiatrists call me irresponsible for going off
medication that was actively holding me back from the energy and motivation I
need to work well (and feel good about my life).

There is certainly a diversity of opinion amongst practicing psychiatrists
even what the role of the medication is.

~~~
bcook
Did you go off the medication without any input or supervision from a doctor?
I've had doctors accuse me of being irresponsible for doing that, and I have
to agree.

~~~
duaneb
I think I fulfilled my end of the doctor patient agreement; I used the
medication for years and tailed myself off slowly under supervision.

The SSRI detox is no joke, but it was a relief compared to sleeping much more
than necessary.

------
ChuckMcM
_" nearly 1 in 4 white women ages 50 to 64 is taking an antidepressant,
according to federal health officials."_

This is the saddest thing. My wife remarked that there was a weird sense of
expectancy that if you were a white female of middle age you were expected by
your peers to be taking anti-depressants.

~~~
douche
Out of the other 3 in 4, how many are self-medicating with something else?

Coincidently, my mother has three sisters, and all of them are in this age
range. Two are on antidepressants. Two of them drink a bottle or two of wine a
day. There is some overlap there.

Mother's little helper...

------
soared
Worth discussing: Positive association between altitude and suicide

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114154/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114154/)

~~~
czbond
Really interesting - thanks for posting.

------
justinator
I'm just going to throw this idea out - although I have no evidence either
way, but: is there something in the water?

Durango's water supply is the Animas, which is downriver from Silverton, and
many old, abandoned mines and basically SuperFund sites (even though there's
pressure to not call them that - or get that Federal $$$ to fix the problem,
for fear of tourist dollars leaving). Are there known correlations between the
types of acidic chemicals and heavy metals found in this type of polluted
water and mental health?

I ask because Durango is a beautiful, sunny place. It's hard not to be there
in the summertime and not feel wonderful. Yes, in the winter, it's a little
more clausterphobic, and you ARE in the middle of nowhere, but it doesn't have
the depressive anxiety feeling of a place like Leadville used to have, when
their main Moly mine closed down.

[http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/12/opinions/pagel-animas-river-
po...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/12/opinions/pagel-animas-river-pollution/)

~~~
sertsa
The city of Durango does not normally pull its water supply from the Animas
River but rather the Florida River which is not known for a large heavy metal
load. Animas river water is used as a backup supply.

------
chmaynard
Long ago, a cousin of mine and her husband raised their family in Durango. I
think they all felt it was a great place to grow up, especially because they
were passionate about exploring the wilderness around them. Attempting to
settle there as an adult with only a high school education and build a life is
another matter. Three of their four sons moved to the Front Range to go to
college, raise their families, and pursue careers.

------
findyoucef
Having traveled through this area of colorado, I'm not surprised that
depression runs rampant. There is literally nothing out there, no industry, no
jobs, nothing. When travel through these towns it's as if you travel back in
time and the majority of these people are stuck there. They have no way out.
I'm not sure what solution is for towns like these.

------
DanBC
> according to a Washington Post analysis of federal health data.

I wish they'd released this.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Ask them to.

EDIT: I just emailed the article author asking if they'd release the data in a
Github repo [1]. Default to action.

[1] [https://github.com/washingtonpost](https://github.com/washingtonpost)

~~~
bnjms
[1]. Default to action.

There is a maxim worth adopting.

~~~
clarry
That is one way to end up with too much to do.

~~~
bnjms
Maybe depending on the person and which side they come from. Personally I come
from the side of defaulting to doing nothing. Deciding against action is easy
to me. Defaulting to action means avoiding the doldrums of apathy. I imagine
more are like me than otherwise.

------
kennethh
Am I the only one who react when they write in the article

"Although more men than women take their own lives, the rate of suicide has
nearly doubled among middle-aged white women since 1999..."

And the whole article is about women who take suicide. The writer is a woman
but this is typical for big publishers like Washington Press. They very seldom
write about mens problems and challenges.

~~~
DanBC
Men die more often than women. But women have started using more lethal
methods than they used to, and women make more attempts. This combination -
increased lethality of method and greater number of attempted suicide is
worrying.

Newspapers often report the fact that rates of death by suicide are rising.
(It's a bit more complicated than how they report it - there was a decline in
rates for many years). Most of the rise is in women. In the UK rates of death
for men have dropped a bit, but rates for women have risen a bit, causing the
overall number to rise.

Washington Post has written before about the disproportionate number of male
deaths by suicide, so they're not ignoring it.

A couple of examples:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-
science/the-h...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-
high-suicide-rate-among-elderly-white-men-who-may-suffer-from-
depression/2014/12/05/2bad6ea0-222e-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-
life/wp/2016/08...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-
life/wp/2016/08/31/men-die-by-suicide-at-alarming-rates-this-hashtag-tells-
men-its-okay-to-talk-about-mental-health/)

If you want an anti-feminist article that mentions in passing male suicide:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/06/30/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/06/30/feminists-
treat-men-badly-its-bad-for-feminism/)

------
ChrisNorstrom
[http://www.livescience.com/50813-low-oxygen-increase-
depress...](http://www.livescience.com/50813-low-oxygen-increase-
depression.html)

High altitutes can increase suicide and depression in certain people. While in
others, they get a sense of feeling "at home".

~~~
jhayward
Altitude apparently shows up both as an increase in depression and a decrease
in ADHD. One researcher hypothesizes that altitude affects both serotonin and
dopamine production, decreasing serotonin and increasing dopamine.

[https://mic.com/articles/104096/there-s-a-suicide-
epidemic-i...](https://mic.com/articles/104096/there-s-a-suicide-epidemic-in-
utah-and-one-neuroscientist-thinks-he-knows-why)

------
lcall
There is really no substitute for family, and for coming to know God. The
government or this-or-that philosophy will not give our lives purpose and
direction. The Mormon missionaries can help. Really.

~~~
DanBC
Do you have any evidence that there's a lower rate of death by suicide for
people in the LDS church?

One group at increased risk of death by suicide are LGBT people (at all ages).
Religious groups tend to do badly by these people, and anecdotally there's a
few news article about deaths by suicide of LGBT teens who were part of LDS
church.

[http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865646414/LDS-Church-
lead...](http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865646414/LDS-Church-leaders-
mourn-reported-deaths-in-Mormon-LGBT-community.html?pg=all)

~~~
lcall
Thanks for your polite response. I've seen references debating general suicide
levels in Utah, USA (one interesting, later debunked I think), but I think
people tend to believe what they want, and I haven't researched it. My
personal experience seeing a wide variety of situations in my own family and
others, including many problem types that people experience in life, strongly
bears out the quote (Tolstoy?) that happy families are all alike, and
miserable ones are each miserable in their own way. Following certain
principles leads to the predictable results. We all have hard problems; having
the life tools available to deal with them and use them as building blocks
instead of being crushed by them, makes me feel very fortunate.

I hope you don't mind if I add, to to try to somewhat dissuade others' anger:
Some people respond harshly when one who is not atheist simply says what one
knows personally from experience. It's usually good to hear a variety of
viewpoints. I just know what I see, etc and how it all relates. So I just try
to keep going forward with purpose and direction, because I know where it
leads, and the things I can't control will be OK eventually.

~~~
lcall
ps: I certainly don't mean all sadness is one's own fault, or that medication
is never warranted, nor do I wish to minimize the realities we can all face as
individuals. But life decisions, perspective, forgiveness, knowledge of
purpose and answers to the big questions, support systems, etc etc, seem to
matter most of all.

------
peterwwillis
So women are now committing suicide at the same rate as men?

~~~
DanBC
No. Men are still dying more than women.

But women attempt suicide more often than men. And women have started using
more lethal means than they used to. And the combination - more suicide
attempts, more lethal methods, is worrying.

~~~
xherberta
Right. The way I look at this, suicide attempts are just the tail, the extreme
cases -- even more people are not quite that desperate, are suffering at a
level that's only _almost_ unbearable.

------
cowardlydragon
Women aren't the demographic with a suicide problem in that age range...

But my compassion is gone after the election.

~~~
throwanem
If all it takes to destroy your compassion is losing an election, you never
cared to begin with. You only claimed you did.

------
zepto
Depression is not caused by a deficiency of medications, but by a deficiency
of hope, so medications cannot cure it.

~~~
sgt101
Depression is a label for a wide range of complex illnesses. I am sure that
what you say is true for some people, but in some cases it simply isn't. I've
got friends who have been helped by medications, and I've got friends who have
tried medication and it didn't help. One thing that is counter productive is
to assert that these medications don't work ever, because they do appear to be
extremely effective in some cases. Which figuratively and factually is a life
saver.

~~~
zepto
You aren't responding to what I actually said.

I didn't say medications doesn't help some people. I didn't say medications
don't help ever.

I did say that medications can't cure depression.

~~~
Retric
It works around half the time. So, yea it can cure depression though it does
not cure everyone of depression.

It's kind of like rebooting a computer, it does not always work and sometimes
it makes things worse. But, comparing the cost vs benefit it's generally worth
trying.

~~~
zepto
Can you provide any evidence that medication cures depression at all let alone
50% of the time?

~~~
smacktoward
Your insistence on evidence for a "cure" is nonsensical.

Doctors don't have a cure for depression at the moment, it's true. They also
don't have cures for HIV/AIDS, or diabetes, or asthma, or lots of other
chronic medical conditions (see [https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-
and-Systems/Sta...](https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-
Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/Chronic-Conditions/CC_Main.html) for a
list of the most common ones).

But they _do_ have medications that can make it possible for people with those
conditions to lead long, productive, more or less normal lives. Are you
suggesting the people with these conditions should be turning those
medications down? That they should refuse any treatment short of 100% removal
of the underlying condition, even if by doing so they reduce the length and
quality of their own life?

Why, exactly? Why on earth make the perfect the enemy of the good like that?

~~~
zepto
Nice strawman.

I did not suggest that people should turn down medication, or refuse
treatment.

I didn't say anything other than that medication doesn't cure depression -
which I stand behind.

Let me turn the tables on your indignance for a moment - why don't you care
about the causes of depression? If the incidence is on the rise, the causes
must be getting stronger. How can you condone simply restoring people to
productivity with drugs when there is an increasingly serious problem harming
them in the first place?

~~~
Retric
You are trying to redefine terms here. Depression is not the same as _the
underlying cause of Depression._ You can go from Depressed to not Depressed
without becoming normal or happy.

Further, it's not clear that the actual incidence is on the rise or if this is
reversion to the mean etc. We have shifted what people call Depression and how
willing people are to seek treatment. The age adjusted suicide rate was
actually higher from 1950 - 1980 than it is today.

In 1950 the rates of suicide for 75–84 years old people was 31.1 in 2010 it
was 15.7. If you look at the actual rate by age it's all over the map.
[http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html](http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html)

~~~
zepto
It's actually unclear what your argument is here. Remember that these comments
are in response to an article about rising incidence of depression treated
with multiple medications.

It sounds like for some reason you are now just trying to say that depression
isn't really on the increase in certain places.

Why would you say that?

