[ByDesign]

I had a bout of depression years ago, that I felt helpless against, but I fought it and beat it by changing my lifestyle, diet, and gave myself a kick in the pants and told myself to stop feeling sorry for myself. Wasn’t easy, but the more you do, the easier it gets - the problems that caused my depression were under my control all along, I just had to realize that, and do something about it.

I never once thought, hey, i can just take a pill!. Why?

Because, I’d seen personally what these pills do to people. I experienced it briefly when I took Wellbutrin to try and quit smoking. These pills numb you out, grind off the peaks and valleys of normal emotion - you aren’t mad, you aren’t happy, or sad, you just...are. Zoned out. Numb. I took them for a week, and then threw them out. They scared me.

I watched other people, who needed serious therapy for things like being sexually abused as a child, get put on the pills, and never have any work done on their issues. Then, they go off the pills, and it’s a complete trainwreck, jobs are lost, relationships in tatters or abandoned, in one case ending up committed to the county psych ward. That was fun.

Now, i see most people I know on them. It’s scary. Not that they’re on them, but fearful of what will happen when they come off them, and all those issues have been simmering all along, underneath.

So, now I have a rule, and I do not break it: I will not, under any circumstances, get emotionally involved with anyone on these drugs. If involved with someone, and they start, it IS a dealbreaker.

I know there are some that NEED these pills, but I bet 90% or more of the people on them don’t need them, and are being prescribed them by their doctors to simply warehouse them in the pill zone, where they don’t have to deal with their icky problems, and can guaranteed decades of billing for doing nothing more than writing out a script, and adjust the meds once in a while.

Depression sucks, but my layman hunch is most of it is dietary in nature, combined with a lack of exercise, and a culture that encourages people to wallow in their misery and take on the victim title.

[CaptainK]

What I observed from several people I know who were on anti depressants was that they had impressive memory lapses. This lead me to believe that the pills didn't cure the depression, they just made them forgot the depression episodes.

[Cadhack]

I am currently being treated for severe depression by a Naturopath and it mainly involves life style and diet change w/o taking any drugs. The treatment is changing my life and I just wish more people would try this approach before screwing their life up with Prozac and the like.

[TNdandelion]

I agree with you to an extent. The fact that you were able to recognize and correct the cause of your depression is an excellent thing. For others, their problems may be very difficult for them to pinpoint, if they can even recognize them on their own. Additionally, the solutions to those problems may not be as simple to fix as a life style change, diet and a pep talk. Complicating matters further are the exorbitant costs of psychotherapy to help them recognize and work through the problems that causes their pain.

It's no wonder people take the pills, instead. They are cheaper and more convenient. :(

[Canedawg]

A very interesting post, but I differ on the Wellbutrin matter- it generally takes three weeks of taking it for the brain to experience the effects- however, it is not unusual to feel “weird” after the first day or two of ingesting it.

For most people, depression is due to difficult circumstances in their life (IMHO) and not so much due to a chemical imbalance.

I also have reservations about trusting the same mental health “giants” who decided to remove Homosexuality from the DSM and thereby declare it is “normal” behavior.

[1010RD]

Excellent and glad to hear about your success. I believe that we can fight our own depression and that it is symptomatic of chronic stress. Much of it brought about by our own thoughts/reactions.