
The Challenge of Going Off Psychiatric Drugs - laurex
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-challenge-of-going-off-psychiatric-drugs/
======
GlenTheMachine
I am on Klonopin and Remeron. My diagnosis is anxiety, but really it's
insomnia. I had a horrible, multiple-year episode of insomnia that started in
my early thirties. For about three years I got maybe one night a week of
decent sleep. I was mentally and emotionally out of it; I'm kind of surprised
I still have a job after that.

A few years in, I found a psychiatrist who was willing to experiment and we
discovered that the two meds above helped tremendously with the insomnia. I
was then getting a solid eight hours most nights. There were side effects but
they were much better than suffering with the insomnia was.

Now, after a decade, the insomnia seems to be completely gone. Knowing that I
have medications available to me that can help me get to sleep is enough that
I think I don't actually need the medications any more. So I'm very slowly
going off of them. Klonopin first. There are, as far as I know, no guidelines
for how to do this. I tried cold turkey, but the side effects from that were
fairly severe. So I started tapering. I'm now down to half my original dose.
If things go well, within four months I'll be off the Klonopin for good, and
then I'll start on the Remeron.

These medications are not easy to stop taking.

~~~
captainredbeard
For the sleep, try wearing blue light blocking glasses _all day_ until you are
able to sleep reliably. It sounds ridiculous but I read a study in the Journal
of Bipolar Disorder a few years back (can't find a link right now) about this.
I've given a pair to a friend suffering from a multi-day manic phase (with
zero sleep) and it stopped it dead in the tracks, within six hours in this
case.

It makes you look a bit dorky but it's better than not sleeping (or mania).

The product used in the study (and the one that I've seen work) is:

Uvex Skyper Blue Light Blocking Computer Glasses with SCT-Orange Lens (S1933X)

~~~
wetpaws
Why just not take melatonin which is cheap af?

~~~
Aromasin
Melatonin is just a very small part of all the variables involved in sleep. If
you are excited or stressed you'll have high levels of adrenaline, cortisone,
or cortisol. Diet will affect levels of ghrelin, leptin and insulin. Low
testosterone levels, or antidiuretic hormones, can be found in many people.
All these things will affect your sleep just as much, if not more, then
melatonin does.

------
ctdonath
Underdiscussed: the horror of missing a couple doses of antidepressants.

Being on such meds may work, keeping the patient stable. Nobody mentions that
when a couple doses are missed, the result can be a week of anger & angst as
resumed medication balances back out again - living hell not just for the
patient, but for those around.

Weaning off such meds is difficult, reducing doses by literally counting out &
down individual granules of medicine daily.

Easy to get on. Nightmare to get off.

~~~
fwip
I agree that it's under-discussed. Part of the reason seems to be that people
have such variable reactions. I have friends who literally had to quarter
their pills while tapering off of them, and I also have friends who were able
to stop taking them cold turkey and felt fine in less than a week.

~~~
mmjaa
>I agree that it's under-discussed.

I think the reason its under-discussed is that there is a collective group-
think which functions as overwhelming (to the individual) reinforcement:
"there is no other way available to solve this problem than the mass sale and
consumption of pharmaceuticals".

The moment someone proposes a non-pharmaceutical (read: profitable) solution
to many of these ills, they are shut down by the group-think. This is under-
discussed, imho, because in the context of social/peer pressure to conform to
a very Western normative (consumerism), individual responsibility is shut
down.

EDIT: and the downvotes demonstrate my point, because "everyone knows
pharmaceuticals are the only solution" ...

~~~
DanBC
> to a very Western

You meant American, because in the UK the front-line treatment for depression
or anxiety is a talking therapy, coupled with social prescribing (which to be
fair has variable availability), and then medication if indicated.

OP talks about a long term prescription for clonazepam, and current advice is
that long term benzo use must be avoided.

~~~
jdietrich
_> You meant American, because in the UK the front-line treatment for
depression or anxiety is a talking therapy, coupled with social prescribing
(which to be fair has variable availability), and then medication if
indicated._

It's the front-line treatment for mild depression and mild-to-moderate
anxiety, because of the poor evidence for the efficacy of antidepressant
medicines for patients with less severe illness. SSRIs and talking therapies
are recommended equally for moderate or severe depression and severe anxiety,
because the evidence suggests that they are equally effective.

NICE guidance states that benzodiazepines should _not_ be prescribed for more
than two weeks, because of diminishing efficacy and the risk of dependence.

SSRIs are cheaper and more convenient than psychotherapy, which should not be
underestimated. The NHS certainly can't afford to offer psychotherapy to
everyone who could benefit and many Americans don't have adequate insurance
coverage. Getting psychotherapy outside of office hours can often be a
significant challenge, which is a total dealbreaker for many people. I would
certainly like to see greater use of psychotherapy (particularly for people
with chronic and/or severe disorders), but there's nothing innately wrong with
the widespread use of a safe and effective class of drugs. There just isn't
any evidence to suggest that SSRIs are inferior to psychotherapy, although it
may be the case that some patients who do not benefit from SSRIs would benefit
from psychotherapy (and vice-versa).

[https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg90/chapter/1-Guidance#ste...](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg90/chapter/1-Guidance#step-3-persistent-
subthreshold-depressive-symptoms-or-mild-to-moderate-depression-with-
inadequate)

[https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg113/chapter/1-Guidance#st...](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg113/chapter/1-Guidance#stepped-
care-for-people-with-gad)

------
com2kid
I generally am supportive of people seeking psychiatric treatment, but wow,
this woman's case seems, in retrospect, rather mismanaged.

It is like her doctors tried to medicate away an epiphany. Realizing that "the
glittering balls and designer clothing has no real underlying substance" and
being depressed that one's life is limited to such things, is not a cause for
medication.

It sounds like she was struggling to be happy in a situation in which she was
never going to find happiness.

Finding purpose, the thing she said was missing so early on, seems to
ultimately be what helped her. Her reason to get up every day is that she can
now _help others_ , instead of live just for herself.

Some people look inward, they want to be the best dressed at the party, have a
good career, and overall be successful in life. If that brings them happiness,
then good for them! They have found what makes their life fulfilling. But
different people need other forms of fulfillment, be it an artist completing
their latest work, or someone who wants to have a daily positive impact on the
world around them.

Medication cannot make people happy. (Well at least not the legal drugs, and
the illegal ones won't work long term!) They can only create the possibility
for happiness for those who need some extra help.

But, doctors need to do a better job of discovering if that extra help is just
needed, or if the road their patient is going down is not going to lead to
happiness no matter what is written on the prescription pad.

~~~
nerdponx
Psychiatry should not be front-line treatment for most people. End of story.

~~~
beenBoutIT
It should be a last resort for people who have been thoroughly screened by MDs
and neurologists. According to sleep experts at Stanford at least 25% of
people with ADHD/ADD are narcoleptics who've been misdiagnosed. That's a
shitload of people who are currently living suboptimal lives because they went
to a psychiatrist prior to being evaluated by a neurologist.

~~~
penagwin
Might not be the best example, as narcolepsy is usually treated with
stimulants and antidepressants, so adding say ritalin may still improve
symptoms regardless of if it's actual ADD/ADHD or narcolepsy

~~~
beenBoutIT
In this case psychiatry covers up the symptoms with stimulants (that further
degrade sleep) while neurology can effectively fix the bad sleep. Psychiatry
provides a poorly fitting bandage while neurology has something on par with a
cure. There's no better example that I'm aware of.

------
kmm
When I stopped taking Venlafaxine (Effexor), the side-effects were immensely
unpleasant. Brain zaps, panic attacks, hypersensitivity to light, barely any
cognitive function. My psychiatrist was a sweet lady, but she did not appear
to understand how tough it was for me. It boggles my mind she did not get it,
she must have had so many patients stop with the medication, did she just not
take any of them seriously?

In the end, I opened up the plastic casing of the pill, which turned out to
contain a few dozen grains. Over the course of 2-3 weeks, I took a few grains
less every day, until I was completely done with them. I don't know if you're
allowed to do that, maybe there is no guarantee that every grain contains the
same amount of medication? I'm not a fan of tampering with medication, but I
didn't feel like I had a choice.

~~~
tachyonbeam
It may be that most psychiatrist don't follow patients long term, or that when
things don't go well for a patient, they stop seeing that psychiatrist, and so
they don't hear about bad withdrawals very often. Crazy idea, but maybe
psychiatrists should take antidepressants for a short bit as part of their
training. It would give them some perspective.

------
tcj_phx
> In the course of a year, her doctors had created what’s known as “a
> prescription cascade”: the side effects of one medication are diagnosed as
> symptoms of another condition, leading to a succession of new prescriptions.

This term, "prescription cascade", should be lesson #1 at medical school. It's
the natural result of an incomplete diagnosis, and is present in every medical
field.

> At the hospital, where she stayed for two weeks, she was put on a new
> combination of pills: Lamictal, a _mood stabilizer;_ Lexapro, _an
> antidepressant;_ and Seroquel, an _antipsychotic_ that she was told to use
> as a sleep aid.

(emphasis added)

These descriptions -- mood stabilizer, antidepressant, antipsychotic -- are
just marketing terms that don't actually describe the actual function of the
drug. These marketing terms are most useful for tricking medical professionals
into prescribing these products.

'Antibiotic' is the prototypical name for a class of drug that does what it
describes: acts against bacteria.

> She saw her drugs as precision instruments that could eliminate her
> suffering, as soon as she and Dr. Roth found the right combination. “I
> medicated myself as though I were a finely calibrated machine, the most
> delicate error potentially throwing me off,” she later wrote.

I think this attitude is probably common for all the smart people who find
themselves medicated into a downward spiral.

> “It is tempting to add a second drug just for the sake of ‘doing something,’
> ” a 2004 paper in Current Medicinal Chemistry warns.

 _This_ is the trap the mental health system has fallen into: the
professionals want to help. The drug industry has FDA-approved drugs for the
various diagnosises.

Joel on Software said a re-write is something that shouldn't be done. But what
other choice does the mental health industry have? Their system doesn't work.
The modern industry is based on the flawed chemical imbalance theory of mental
illness.

Little bits of progress have been made, in spite of the inertia to treat
misunderstood behavioral problems with patent medicines. I have to conclude
this comment before I can finish the article, so I'll link to my recent
comment on the submission on the Szasz's book, _the myth of mental illness:_
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19243417](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19243417)

edit: shortened my first quote from the linked article

~~~
azernik
"Mood stabilizer" is a quite accurate description of the usual function of the
drug - in bipolar patients like me, it reduces the magnitude and stabilizes
the period of mood swings. Mood stabilizers _also_ tend to be anti-seizure
meds, and have all kinds of off-label uses because of neurological phenomena
we don't understand, but the label is a very useful one.

Same for antidepressants - often the same drugs (especially SSRIs) are both
antidepressants and anxiolytics, but both labels are useful descriptions of
the meds' common effects. Antidepressants in particular happen to be
fantastically idiosyncratic drugs, but on average they do what they say on the
label.

Part of the problem is that, due to the ill-understood nature of the brain,
good psychiatrists need to know strange drug interactions and ill-studied
minority reactions in order to serve the full range of their patients. This
edges on art rather than science, which is always a recipe for cognitive
biases to gain control.

~~~
LyndsySimon
I think what the parent was trying to say was that "antibiotic" describes the
drugs' method of action, while "antidepressant" describes the drugs' intended
affect.

> due to the ill-understood nature of the brain,

I think this is exactly the problem. We have a bunch of drugs that seem to
work, and we _think_ we know how and why they work, but we're not able to
directly measure the problem in those terms. If someone has a bacterial
infection, we can culture it and prescribe the correct antibiotic. If someone
has a mental health condition, we almost always have to consider the way that
it's presenting and make an educated guess as to which drug is going to be
effective. It's not at all uncommon for that first guess to be incorrect,
which leads to either iteration or a "cascade" depending on the practitioner.

------
empath75
> Laura had always assumed that depression was caused by a precisely defined
> chemical imbalance, which her medications were designed to recalibrate. She
> began reading about the history of psychiatry and realized that this theory,
> promoted heavily by pharmaceutical companies, is not clearly supported by
> evidence.

This is the most harmful idea in psychiatry and it's pure marketing bullshit
-- everyone knows it, but they still sell this to people.

------
abstractbarista
I found this to be a very intriguing read. Upon finishing it, I am _terrified_
of these drugs, _terrified_ of pharmaceutical companies, and _terrified_ of
the cognitive dissonance in the study of mental illness. I would try
absolutely anything before these drugs. It's a freaking nightmare, thrust into
reality.

~~~
thanatropism
That's a shame. Most of these pieces are hysteria. Journalists and lawyers
never go after people who seem to be fine with medication.

Here's hoping you don't have serious mental health problems in the future.

~~~
abstractbarista
I definitely understand where you're coming from. Surely there are a lot of
people that this stuff actually helps really well. In the past I did have
serious issues, but I was able to bring myself out of it over time, by myself.
And now, I have nurtured a far more stable and enduring mindset. :)

EDIT: By far the biggest part in me getting better was moving on to a
different way of life. Basically, changing the set and setting. Which I think
is underrated by the professionals described in this article, hence the
problem:

 _Treating the symptoms, not their source._

------
tylerjwilk00
I was prescribed a benzo for insomnia and thought nothing of it.

I went from enjoying a good night's sleep to completely dependant on it just
to function.

The only way to describe it was that I became "psychologically fragile" such
as if things didn't go exactly according to expectations I would be in a state
of panic and fear. It was horrible.

I decided then to go cold turkey (no one told me otherwise) and it was hell! I
thought I would die or lose my mind. To say nothing of the electric shock
sensations that were constant and the feeling that my skin was buzzing. After
a couple months I felt like myself again and my mental fortitude had returned.
I will never take another.

For me the benzo class of meds are way more dangerous than helpful.

~~~
bobowzki
I'm curious what type and dosis you were prescribed? (I'm an MD).

~~~
tylerjwilk00
I believe it was temazepam. I do not remember the dose.

------
throwaway55254
This terrifies me. I've been trying to get up the nerve to talk to my doctor
about my mental health for years now. I've been depressed on and off for a
large portion of my life. I've always been really wary of pills though and
reading things like this makes me worry even more. I wonder if the efficacy is
actually there or if the withdrawal is worth it.

~~~
gwbas1c
Look up the history of heroin, or methamphetamine. They both were marketed as
safe in the early days.

Drug companies like to sell drugs like soda companies like to sell soda.

The conflict of interest is so awful that sometimes I wonder if we should ban
for-profit drug companies.

~~~
CPLX
History? We’re still giving massive quantities of amphetamines to children,
and massive quantities of opioids to large swaths of the country.

------
mnm1
Tapering off over the course of a few months or longer is especially important
for benzodiazepines. Not doing so can lead to seizures or death. Luckily,
it'll be pretty obvious to the patient if they are going too quickly and
tapering slowly should lead to minimal side effects. Cannabis can also help
some here. Unfortunately, most psychiatrists and doctors have no experience
with this and will even discourage patients. Often, patients will have to just
get a supply and do this on their own.
[https://www.benzo.org.uk/index.htm](https://www.benzo.org.uk/index.htm) is a
great resource of people who are doing this and probably the most valuable out
there. Psychiatrists, in my experience, are not your friend in this process.
They're the pill pushers and dope dealers. Of course they don't want their
patients to taper off and discover a better life. Where would they get their
money from if people stopped buying their bullshit about 'chemical
imbalances?' What this industry has perpetrated on millions of people is
downright inhumane, all so a few doctors and pharma companies can get rich. It
is very possible, however, to taper off this garbage and get back to leading a
normal life afterwards. That includes benzos, SSRIs, and other 'anti-
depressant' garbage like Welbutrin. I know from experience. If this is
something you want to do, don't let these vile doctors keep you addicted to
their garbage and their bullshit, away from a real life.

------
eecc
Well, haven’t read through more than the first intro paragraph and whatever
hollowness Miss Delano might have felt can be also attributed to the spleen of
a comfortable yet purposeless life, planting daffodils and watching them
wither.

With this I don’t want to disparage her personal odyssey or that of people
suffering from psychiatric difficulties, but the framing of this article is
unfortunate. Very much

------
colesdefectum
I rarely comment on anything but this hits rather close to home. After a
rather severe bout of depression my doctor started feeding me drugs. SSRIs,
NDRIs, benzos, and a handful of misc other prescriptions that were the flavor
of the week. I felt like every visit was a game of 'lets try this new drug!'
which would lead to negative side effects more often than not.

Fast forward a couple years and I'm realizing that medications aren't the
answer for me. So what do my doctors do? They try to push yet another pill or
three down my throat. Finally I'd had enough of it and told them I didn't want
to take anything anymore. Their idea of a tapering plan from over 2 years of
medications was a week and a half. They were sure to tell me that if I stopped
treatment I wouldn't be given any more refills and one doctor condemned me for
even showing up to my appointment with the intention of discontinuing
medications. He said I was wasting everyones time.

Anyway, I figured sure, I got this. I can get myself off these meds. I was
very wrong. I made it about two weeks before withdrawals really kicked into
overdrive. Dizzy, brain zaps, tinnitus, profuse sweating all hours of the day,
insomnia, numbness in my face and arms, racing heart, involuntary muscle
spasms... I started stuttering and couldn't force my body to stop twitching
and shaking. My mind was completely fogged over and at times I couldn't even
articulate words to talk to someone. It was a state of being in a perpetual
panic attack multiplied by 100. After I thought I was actually going to die I
setup an emergency appointment to try and get a prescription refill and a
longer tapering plan only my doctors wouldn't have it. They flat out refused
treatment and told me to go to the ER if I thought things were getting that
bad. I was floored. Here this doctor got me physically addicted to powerful
mind altering medications over the course of a couple years and now that I
want out they treated me like a drug addict and dismissed me.

In the end I sourced some darknet meds and very slowly tapered myself down. To
this day I'm still not even close to being back to normal, whatever that is. I
get random panic attacks out of the blue on a daily basis. Sometimes the left
side of my body will go numb. Other times I'll just start sweating while my
heart beats like I just finished running a marathon. The ringing in my ears is
horrible. I'm now extremely sensitive to stimulants of any kind (no more
caffeine, meh) so I've had to make some significant changes to my diet.

The good news is I've been 100% off any medications for two months now and I'm
finally getting to where I can get more than four consecutive hours of sleep
several days a week (so much better than zero sleep every day). I feel as
though being able to enjoy coffee, sugary drinks, and having the ability to
actually sleep an entire night has been permanently removed from my life now.

At any rate, if there's anything anyone should get from all this rambling,
it's that you should exercise extreme caution with pill pushing doctors. They
have the ability to drag you into your worst nightmare of existence and leave
you high & dry when you want the ride to stop.

~~~
tylerjwilk00
I had the left side numb thing too! It was like a line ran down the center of
my body and everything on the left side of that line was numb.

(I have a pet theory that some psych meds "de-integrate" the left and right
hemispheres of the brain)

Dr. said I was crazy and it had nothing to do with the meds. Sent me for MRI
for that and the "brain zaps".

Eventually the left side numb thing went away.

Good luck and wish you well!

~~~
colesdefectum
Thanks, the tingling and numbness really does mess with ones head. It's
disheartening just how out of touch a lot of healthcare workers are with
prescription medication withdrawal. Glad to hear you're doing better.

------
transfire
Prescription Cascade with psychiatric drugs is out of control. Seen it first
hand. Had to step in and put a lot of pressure on doctors (and change doctors)
to finally get my finance off the worst of the meds they had her on -- and
finally "cure" her -- they just wanted to keep playing new drug musical
chairs.

~~~
LyndsySimon
I've had similar experiences with myself. After high school I was prescribed
two drugs in combination (Lexapro and Abilify) that helped me deal with and
get a handle on my (serious) depression, and that was really easy. When I told
them that I hated the way they made me feel and wanted to taper off of them
once I was stabilized... that wasn't so easy.

At the end of the day I had to issue a sort of ultimatum: I was going to
discontinue those drugs with or without their assistance, but recognized the
risks of doing so and would prefer to do it with their oversight. I did it
"against medical advise, but with medical supervision".

Years later I asked for and was once again prescribed Lexapro, but at a lower
dosage and for a different issue. Apparently it was either Abilify or the
combination of the two that caused my issues before.

~~~
clydethefrog
The high mention of Abilify in the article and your comment makes me worried.
I am currently on Abilify (10mg) for antipsychotic reasons. It seemed to be a
"new generation" safer antipsychotic. Reading the Wikipedia article about it
makes it sound a lot of research is unclear about the side effects.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aripiprazole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aripiprazole)

~~~
tcj_phx
Abilify is one of the least-bad of its class. But it doesn't address the
metabolic problem that is at the root of psychosis.

Coconut oil, niacin/niacinamide (vitamin B-3), and other pro-metabolic
interventions help get at the actual causes behind the diagnosis.

Coconut oil is helpful because it can be directly metabolized by the cells,
whereas longer saturated fats have to be ... processed somehow before they can
be used for energy (I forget the exact name of the step). Coconut oil is also
helpful for alcohol cravings.

Cortisol deficiency is now associated with psychosis [0]. This is one of the
manifestations of the metabolic problem at the root of the behavioral symptom
(psychosis).

[0] [https://psychcentral.com/news/2016/06/04/low-morning-
cortiso...](https://psychcentral.com/news/2016/06/04/low-morning-cortisol-
levels-linked-to-psychosis/104266.html)

Sometimes metabolic problems are caused or amplified by emotional stress.

~~~
DanBC
You can't cure psychosis with fucking coconut oil. PLease stop peddling this
dangerous advice.

~~~
tcj_phx
Your profile says you have some experience in the mental health world.

> You can't cure psychosis with fucking coconut oil.

The person I responded to said in a later comment that his psychosis was
related to alcohol use. This being the case, coconut oil is an appropriate
treatment to help keep his alcohol use under control.

> PLease stop peddling this dangerous advice.

People like HN user clydethefrog (above) and my girlfriend (my comment
history) are hurt by the mental health industry's standard of care. Someone
probably told clydethefrog that he has now has a chronic condition and that
he'll have to be on "antipsychotics" for the rest of his life to keep from
becoming psychotic again.

One case study acknowledges the possibility that people who made themselves
psychotic through alcohol withdrawal can be made delusional with Abilify [1].
The actual experience of patients is that maintenance antipsychotics makes
their condition worse [2].

I think in the very near future the mental health system will have no choice
but to listen to the resistance's complaints.

[1]
[https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/26502575](https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/26502575)
\- "At first, we regarded all the symptoms as alcoholic hallucinosis, by a
clinical standpoint, in spite of no auditory hallucination in this case.
However, taking the overall clinical course into consideration, withdrawal
syndrome could have been affected by some factors. _One of the possibilities
is that delusion might have been induced by aripiprazole._ " (emphasis added)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardive_psychosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardive_psychosis)

------
limeblack
"Lamictal, a mood stabilizer; Lexapro, an antidepressant; and Seroquel, an
antipsychotic that she was told to use as a sleep aid."

Lamictal and Seroquel can cause an often permanent condition called tardive
dyskinesia[1]. Basically the dopamine receptors tend to permanent up scale
leading to sleep disorders. This is fairly unique compared to most Psychiatric
drugs out there.

[1]: [http://www.onlinelawyersource.com/tardive-
dyskinesia/seroque...](http://www.onlinelawyersource.com/tardive-
dyskinesia/seroquel)

~~~
darpa_escapee
Dopamine blockade isn't significantly induced by doses of Seroquel used for
sleep. Although it and its metabolites do have action at certain dopamine
receptors, lower doses will first occupy other receptors that they have a
higher binding affinity for. Its metabolites are partial agonists at 5HT1A
autoreceptors that induce downstream release of dopamine, which theoretically
reduces the risk of tardive dyskinesia from direct dopamine blockade.

If you're curious about this, Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology textbook
goes into detail about this and is written in a way that some idiot (me) on HN
can grok it.

~~~
limeblack
> Dopamine blockade isn't significantly induced by doses of Seroquel used for
> sleep.

True at typical low dosages.

I have been on Seroquel at very high dosages for sleep and the doctor gave me
the explanation above. I have after multiple attempts failed to taper off of
it. I have even tried liquid. I will definitely check out the book. The key
issue being that the receptor up scale permanently.

------
dmortin
Does depression go away after a while if taking meds? Or does the person
having depression need to take meds for the rest of his/her life to avoid
relapsing?

~~~
empath75
Depends on whether the depression is situational. People don't like to admit
that sometimes people are sad because their situation, and not because of
something inherent to themselves. Sadness -- even persistent sadness -- can
sometimes be a healthy response to an unhealthy environment, that drives you
to try and change your situation for the better.

The problem is when the sadness becomes the crippling kind that prevents you
from acting to change the situation that's making you sad to begin with. It
can be helpful, I think, to take anti-depressants long enough for you to be
able to enact positive change in your life.

My wife was taking anti-depressants as she finished up college, then she went
traveling, met me while we were both backpacking, we got married, have two
kids. She weaned off the anti-depressants while we were engaged. She gets
transitory anxiety attacks every once in a while, but she's told me she's
never had a relapse of depression. I think she was just bored and lonely and
stressed in college -- a temporary situation.

This is all just my personal opinion, i'm not a psychiatrist.

~~~
mrguyorama
>Sadness -- even persistent sadness -- can sometimes be a healthy response to
an unhealthy environment, that drives you to try and change your situation for
the better.

Depression is sort of different than generic sadness as it DOES NOT drive you
to improve your situation, due to the severe hopelessness it causes. It's the
massive problem with depression, and why medication can be so helpful.
Depression can cause you to stop functioning, even at your situationally
reduced level, essentially fucking you over even worse.

As you show, it was an external event that kicked your wife out of her rut.
Sometimes that required kick is helped by medication

~~~
empath75
I don’t disagree. I think people are too often diagnosed with depression when
they’re actually having a normal reaction to a bad situation, but I’m very
familiar with the kind of depression that is long standing and seemingly
unconnected with your current situation. I was just trying to give an example
of how medication could only be needed temporarily.

------
tamaharbor
Supplemental iron and magnesium saved me. No more GAD, panic attacks, night
sweats, or insomnia, and no more RX drugs!

~~~
noamelf
Can you elaborate a bit? I'm looking into supplements as well to replace or
enhance my meds

