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Depression Chemical Imbalance Doesn't Exist
- Thread starter DMT Psychonaut
- Start date
joedirt said:
NOBODY CAN, He must do this himself, he has to help himself walk the lonely path.
Look, Joe. I strongly reccomend someone who is depressed to check out websites that are specific to Depression and Stress. This is not the place to be for this information, too many untrained people with their own views, too much arguing, no real clarity, just a mash up of ideas. Depression is too serious a condition for this site.
All i can do is advise, and that is the best advice i can give!:roll:
corpus callosum said:
ok, ok, if you are depressed please see your doctor for advice, for he has a responsability to help you back to good health. Depression is a serious illness that needs medical attention. Without treatment it can get much worse and become much harder to treat. Seek medical advice A.S.A.P.
I don´t think that anybody would deny that antidepressants are being pushed too much by pharmaceutical companies.
That doesn´t mean that some people don´t realy need those med´s and that those med´s realy have SAVED LIVES.
It´s totally clear btw, that med´s are most effective when combined with some form of therapy. This is a well established fact.
I think it´s saddening to see that an ever increasing number of people is suffering from adepressive disorders. Why would that be?
My guess is that it has to do with the fact that more people live in city´s these days, then ever before in history. I think city´s are relatively speaking, lonely places. people move to the city to escape the boredom of their village, drawn like moths by the big city lights. They leave their old environment, their family and friends to enter a new exciting world of shiny rolexes and ferrari´s, only to find themselves working hard in a concrete desert where nobody knows them.
That would be my explanation.
That doesn´t make all medication worthless. If you´re so fucked-up that your brain isn´t able to respond anymore, to all of the things that would normally help, and THAT is basically what a serious depressive disorder is, then anything that can get you´re brain back on track, needs to be taken into consideration. Some people need electroshocks even. Only when the most serious chemical imbalance is fixed, you´re receptive enough to respond to all of the wise advice like going oustide, visit friends, talk to people, etc.
IMO that´s where antidepressants are for. They´re that first step to get your brain running properly again. The next step is to do all of those other things mentioned. Thinking positively also affects your brains chemistry. Bt you need to be able to take that step..hence the med´s.
No-one would say that these are nice things. They´re serious medicines with serious side-effects.
btw..i think that most of the negative stories about med´s are because they´re not described or taken properly. Most antidepressants take some time to work. During that critical period, where the side-effects are most severe, while the healing effects have not kicked in yet, people need to be monitored AND they need to be properly informed about the time it takes for the med´s to work, the side-effects, etc. I believe that this is where doctors (and maybe even psychiatrists) often fail. Especially teenagers do not have that 'skill' of patience yet...patience is a skill, linked to certain area´s in the brain that have not fully develloped yet in early adolescence. That makes teenagers extra vulnerable. They need extra attention.
That doesn´t mean that some people don´t realy need those med´s and that those med´s realy have SAVED LIVES.
It´s totally clear btw, that med´s are most effective when combined with some form of therapy. This is a well established fact.
I think it´s saddening to see that an ever increasing number of people is suffering from adepressive disorders. Why would that be?
My guess is that it has to do with the fact that more people live in city´s these days, then ever before in history. I think city´s are relatively speaking, lonely places. people move to the city to escape the boredom of their village, drawn like moths by the big city lights. They leave their old environment, their family and friends to enter a new exciting world of shiny rolexes and ferrari´s, only to find themselves working hard in a concrete desert where nobody knows them.
That would be my explanation.
That doesn´t make all medication worthless. If you´re so fucked-up that your brain isn´t able to respond anymore, to all of the things that would normally help, and THAT is basically what a serious depressive disorder is, then anything that can get you´re brain back on track, needs to be taken into consideration. Some people need electroshocks even. Only when the most serious chemical imbalance is fixed, you´re receptive enough to respond to all of the wise advice like going oustide, visit friends, talk to people, etc.
IMO that´s where antidepressants are for. They´re that first step to get your brain running properly again. The next step is to do all of those other things mentioned. Thinking positively also affects your brains chemistry. Bt you need to be able to take that step..hence the med´s.
No-one would say that these are nice things. They´re serious medicines with serious side-effects.
btw..i think that most of the negative stories about med´s are because they´re not described or taken properly. Most antidepressants take some time to work. During that critical period, where the side-effects are most severe, while the healing effects have not kicked in yet, people need to be monitored AND they need to be properly informed about the time it takes for the med´s to work, the side-effects, etc. I believe that this is where doctors (and maybe even psychiatrists) often fail. Especially teenagers do not have that 'skill' of patience yet...patience is a skill, linked to certain area´s in the brain that have not fully develloped yet in early adolescence. That makes teenagers extra vulnerable. They need extra attention.
Why isn´t this thread merged with the other depression thread? It´s basically the same debate.
It was not mergerd because I locked the origional "depression chemical Imabalance Doesn't exist" due to exactly the way this is all going now..many people who dont really understand what they are talking about in relation to such a complex topic just spouting out unempathetic and somewhat irrelevant personal opinions. Anrchy wanted to keep talking about it so started another depression thread and some people wanted the origional topic unlocked so I unlocked it.
What I have seen here is people going off on tangets about depression when in reality it seems they dont undertand the phenomenon enough to make these sort of judgements. The whole thing started with the idea that chemcial depression does noe exist..which is what that origional article suggest..then when evidence was put forth that suggests it does exist people wanted to argue that the article linked was not saying that it does not exist but that medication is not the best approach etc..people just playing around with words making things up or making things out to say something they clearly are not saying.
Some people do have real depression, some people have real chemical imbalances and some of them probly go through things that none of you could ever understand..reading this thread just makes me thing people like to talk but they dont think first.
Read the hard facts that are out there and listen to the very few people in this thread who actaully are doctors.
What I have seen here is people going off on tangets about depression when in reality it seems they dont undertand the phenomenon enough to make these sort of judgements. The whole thing started with the idea that chemcial depression does noe exist..which is what that origional article suggest..then when evidence was put forth that suggests it does exist people wanted to argue that the article linked was not saying that it does not exist but that medication is not the best approach etc..people just playing around with words making things up or making things out to say something they clearly are not saying.
Some people do have real depression, some people have real chemical imbalances and some of them probly go through things that none of you could ever understand..reading this thread just makes me thing people like to talk but they dont think first.
Read the hard facts that are out there and listen to the very few people in this thread who actaully are doctors.
I cant believe how many side topics that have been brought up during this thread.
what causes stress
medical diagnosis
fibromyalgia
chemical imbalance or not
ect. ect. ect.
I just realized how much of a broad topic "depression" is.
So anywho, this is my take/experience with Depression.
I myself have not taken anti-depressants. Nor would I. I have, however, been around/talked to people who have. They all had real problems that caused the depression, they were all "mostly" aware of what was causing it. The anti-depressants did not help them in the sense that it should. It masked there emotions from them and they never noticed until seeing what its like without them.
Upon quitting, they received a flood of emotions they havent felt in years. Emotions they didnt even know they had. And they didnt know how to handle it and it would cause them to cry and hide from the world under there blankets. We are not treating depression properly. It isnt even well known how SSRI's even work or what exactly they are doing! This is not right. This is the wrong way to go about science.
You could say that they have saved lives. I would agree with you to an extent. I would agree that it saved someone from killing one's self. But did not save their life.
It keeps them from feeling the emotions that your body is trying to make you feel. This is all part of a system, a system designed to keep your thoughts flowing correctly. And if you interrupt the way in which your brain works normally, due to the fact that something happened to start the mechanisms that cause depression, especially in masking your emotions you are not truly living.
Alot of time anti-depressants cause a different kind of depression. I would say that it stems from the lack of emotional response to yourself. Without feeling emotions you are emotionally incapacitated.
what causes stress
medical diagnosis
fibromyalgia
chemical imbalance or not
ect. ect. ect.
I just realized how much of a broad topic "depression" is.
So anywho, this is my take/experience with Depression.
I myself have not taken anti-depressants. Nor would I. I have, however, been around/talked to people who have. They all had real problems that caused the depression, they were all "mostly" aware of what was causing it. The anti-depressants did not help them in the sense that it should. It masked there emotions from them and they never noticed until seeing what its like without them.
Upon quitting, they received a flood of emotions they havent felt in years. Emotions they didnt even know they had. And they didnt know how to handle it and it would cause them to cry and hide from the world under there blankets. We are not treating depression properly. It isnt even well known how SSRI's even work or what exactly they are doing! This is not right. This is the wrong way to go about science.
You could say that they have saved lives. I would agree with you to an extent. I would agree that it saved someone from killing one's self. But did not save their life.
It keeps them from feeling the emotions that your body is trying to make you feel. This is all part of a system, a system designed to keep your thoughts flowing correctly. And if you interrupt the way in which your brain works normally, due to the fact that something happened to start the mechanisms that cause depression, especially in masking your emotions you are not truly living.
Alot of time anti-depressants cause a different kind of depression. I would say that it stems from the lack of emotional response to yourself. Without feeling emotions you are emotionally incapacitated.
America - the antidepressant nation?
Published on 14 Jul 2012 by RTAmerica
A Recent study on antidepressants has shown that the drugs have some serious side effects: those taking certain prescriptions could lose their sex drive. It sounds like the whole nation's sexuality is under a threat as, according to the statistics, one in ten Americans takes antidepressants. And it's not only libido people are losing - many of these meds induce anxiety and double the risk of suicide. Psychologist and author Bruce Levine joins RT's Liz Wahl to discuss the issue.
!
Published on 14 Jul 2012 by RTAmerica
A Recent study on antidepressants has shown that the drugs have some serious side effects: those taking certain prescriptions could lose their sex drive. It sounds like the whole nation's sexuality is under a threat as, according to the statistics, one in ten Americans takes antidepressants. And it's not only libido people are losing - many of these meds induce anxiety and double the risk of suicide. Psychologist and author Bruce Levine joins RT's Liz Wahl to discuss the issue.
Link ---> Types of depression
You guys keep talking about SSRI's. There are many things people refer to as 'anti depressants". Passiflora is an herbal anti depressant..many people claim caapi and harmel are antidepressants..others use St.Johns wort..which is an herbal SSRI..you can find articles online that claim salvia divinorum is a useful antidepressant at the right doses..
To claim that anti depressants only mask peoples true feelings is a gross generalization..again, how do you even know this? Anrchy can you please post some peer reviewed study that found this to be true in all cases?
If you are not that person, and have not lived their life and have to deal with what they deal with than why pretend to have all the answers and claim to know how their depression is working or how or why a certain medicine works for them?
I dont take SSRI's and I dont personally think they are all that great either..I would rather take something like passiflora if I was depressed. I think there is enough evidence to suggest that taking SSRI's the way they are prescribed often can lead to other problems, but that does not mean that for some people they may be useful. I dont have all the data and neither do you, so to say it is all just masking a persons real feelings is a bias that is not fully informed.
We should also be more specific here in relation to what you mean when you say "anti depressants"..what you are referring to is pharmaceutical SSRI's. This is important because not everyone who takes "anti depressants" are taking pharma SSRI's.
To claim that anti depressants only mask peoples true feelings is a gross generalization..again, how do you even know this? Anrchy can you please post some peer reviewed study that found this to be true in all cases?
If you are not that person, and have not lived their life and have to deal with what they deal with than why pretend to have all the answers and claim to know how their depression is working or how or why a certain medicine works for them?
I dont take SSRI's and I dont personally think they are all that great either..I would rather take something like passiflora if I was depressed. I think there is enough evidence to suggest that taking SSRI's the way they are prescribed often can lead to other problems, but that does not mean that for some people they may be useful. I dont have all the data and neither do you, so to say it is all just masking a persons real feelings is a bias that is not fully informed.
We should also be more specific here in relation to what you mean when you say "anti depressants"..what you are referring to is pharmaceutical SSRI's. This is important because not everyone who takes "anti depressants" are taking pharma SSRI's.
jamie said:
I apologize as i have not been very precise. In particular I have been speaking of SSRI's. The data i have is from personal experience with close friends, and my GF and I are currently dealing with this as she has been prescribed Paxil.
I know there are articles (i will try an find) that bring up how they arent dealing with the emotions in the correct way, ie masking them, but your link the the lower levels of oxytocin is one example. With SSRI's, you are only dealing with lower serotonin levels, which IMHO isnt the only chemical that is lacking.
Ive become extremely busy so I apologize for not being able to pay more attention and supply better links. Got a beach trip this weekend
Also when talking about depression, SSRI's are THE MOST commonly prescribed treatment for depression. So its only natural that a lot of discussion is on the number one medication.
I think just the fact alone that someone can take mescaline, ayahuasca or ibogaine etc and be completely rid of their depression afterwords and have their whole outlook on life rearranged is evidence enough to assume that chemical intervention can be a powerful treatment for some people.
"I know there are articles (i will try an find) that bring up how they arent dealing with the emotions in the correct way, ie masking them, but your link the the lower levels of oxytocin is one example. With SSRI's, you are only dealing with lower serotonin levels, which IMHO isnt the only chemical that is lacking."
I dont disagree with you that in many cases of people taking SSRI's constantly that is what is going on..I am just careful here because I dont think that is enough evidence to suggest that that is true in *all* cases..
I dont disagree with you that in many cases of people taking SSRI's constantly that is what is going on..I am just careful here because I dont think that is enough evidence to suggest that that is true in *all* cases..
Well I would say that I am the living proof that serious depression can be entirely a chemical imbalance, can develop with no external cause whatsoever, and can be completely cured with antidepressants.
My depression came out of a clear blue sky. My life was completely perfect in every way - wife, children, good enough house, useful work, liveable income, plenty of exercise/outdoors time, spectacularly healthy diet, no past traumas etc.....but almost every minute of the day was spent thinking of ways to kill myself, I was completely unable to experience pleasure of any kind and my heart was filled with melancholy and intense sadness 24 hours a day. It got to the stage where I could do nothing but sit in a chair all day with my head slumped on my chest. Pretty bad!
I eventually went to the doctor, and was prescribed Fluoxetine. Within a few days (yes, I know doctors say that is not possible, but that's what happened) I experienced happiness for the first time in years. I stayed on the medication for ten years, as any attempt to reduce was impossible. After those ten years it suddenly felt like I was "cured", and I tapered off the tablets easily over a couple of months.
Nothing in my life had changed in the meantime. My past and my lifestyle were exactly as they had always been. It just seems that something had gone wrong in my brain, and I seemed to need that time of experiencing happiness as a sort of retraining to get me back on track. (When people say that antidepressants dull your emotions, I feel they haven't experienced the full-on nothingness of true depression before they started taking them...for me my time on antidepressants was when I started to feel a range of emotions again.)
So yes, that's my story - hope it provides a counterbalance to some of the rather sweeping opinions/judgements here. Sometimes serious depression can appear with seemingly no cause from the outside world - in which case therapy would be entirely useless, because there are no particular 'issues' to resolve. Well, none that relate to the depression anyway! .
My depression came out of a clear blue sky. My life was completely perfect in every way - wife, children, good enough house, useful work, liveable income, plenty of exercise/outdoors time, spectacularly healthy diet, no past traumas etc.....but almost every minute of the day was spent thinking of ways to kill myself, I was completely unable to experience pleasure of any kind and my heart was filled with melancholy and intense sadness 24 hours a day. It got to the stage where I could do nothing but sit in a chair all day with my head slumped on my chest. Pretty bad!
I eventually went to the doctor, and was prescribed Fluoxetine. Within a few days (yes, I know doctors say that is not possible, but that's what happened) I experienced happiness for the first time in years. I stayed on the medication for ten years, as any attempt to reduce was impossible. After those ten years it suddenly felt like I was "cured", and I tapered off the tablets easily over a couple of months.
Nothing in my life had changed in the meantime. My past and my lifestyle were exactly as they had always been. It just seems that something had gone wrong in my brain, and I seemed to need that time of experiencing happiness as a sort of retraining to get me back on track. (When people say that antidepressants dull your emotions, I feel they haven't experienced the full-on nothingness of true depression before they started taking them...for me my time on antidepressants was when I started to feel a range of emotions again.)
So yes, that's my story - hope it provides a counterbalance to some of the rather sweeping opinions/judgements here. Sometimes serious depression can appear with seemingly no cause from the outside world - in which case therapy would be entirely useless, because there are no particular 'issues' to resolve. Well, none that relate to the depression anyway! .
jamie said:
See this is the thing, that doesnt work for everyone although I AGREE with you completely in the way that THOSE should be what are prescribed rather than beta testing on people with chemicals we have no idea what they really completely effect.
Entheogens are a much better approach. But they dont work for everyone. I think that simply learning to deal with your problems should be the other approach. Therapy or some kind of communication of the outlined issues.
Talking about something is extremely important in being able to understand it.
Limeni said:
I am glad that they helped you and in no way mean to impose that they dont help anyone.
But you need to be careful when stating that the reason they didnt work for someone is because they didnt feel the full on nothingness of TRUE depression.
This can be seen slightly offensive. As in my case my gf and I are battling her depression. And believe me she has felt the full brunt of "full on" depression.
taking one look at the typical mainstream western diet it is not hard to imagine why chemical imbalances could just come out of nowhere and cause people to go downhill quickly.
Did they test your levels of serotonin before prescribing this? Thats my point, they throw some pills at people thinking thats the issue.
In your case it worked. I am VERY happy for you as your case seems very serious and yet you came out on top. My gf has been on and off of paxil and related SSRI's for 10 years. They are definitely not helping her depression. As when she is off them she is down constantly and gets angry easily and cries sometimes when its overkill.
When she takes them she feels dull to emotions, and has trouble feeling love and expressing it. Overall happiness is dulled/non existent.
It is different for everyone and there are many many things that cause depression it seems. Not just experiences of the psychological.
In your case it worked. I am VERY happy for you as your case seems very serious and yet you came out on top. My gf has been on and off of paxil and related SSRI's for 10 years. They are definitely not helping her depression. As when she is off them she is down constantly and gets angry easily and cries sometimes when its overkill.
When she takes them she feels dull to emotions, and has trouble feeling love and expressing it. Overall happiness is dulled/non existent.
It is different for everyone and there are many many things that cause depression it seems. Not just experiences of the psychological.
Sorry, we're posting across each other here.
I am so sorry for your gf, I could just weep - the whole business is devastating, and I truly wish she finds a way through it.
This is an excellent quote, and should be the conclusion of the thread really!
I am so sorry for your gf, I could just weep - the whole business is devastating, and I truly wish she finds a way through it.
anrchy said:
This is an excellent quote, and should be the conclusion of the thread really!
