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Do antidepressants work?
Hopalong:
Our culture is so amped-up (I blame media sucking up our lives since TV became ubiquitous, much less all the other devices)...that I think what we now think of happiness is more like mania, sometimes.
I did have a T once tell me that if he could get to a steady state of mild hypomania, he'd be delighted.
Anyway, because I think the culture is sick and our saturated entertainment tells us that happiness is manic, we (the general "we") -- miss out on what I now think it really is, which is peace. Contentment. Ability to be present.
None of those involve shrieking, jumping, errr...boinking, acted elated, high-fiving, singing like the mic is your first bite of food after starvation, doing anything in front of a camera or on FB...
Anyhow. I think happiness has gotten confused with mania.
I now think it's peace.
Which is really nothing more or less than me arguing with myself about language.
(Happily.)
Hops
BonesMS:
Thanks, TT.
I wish there was an answer to my question.
Bones
SilverLining:
I sometimes think my entire life has been a series of experiments with anti-depressants of various sorts. My trial of prescription chemical AD's lasted 4 years. At first they seemed a miracle and I was firmly in the Peter Kramer camp. Then the positive effects started to fizzle out and I went on a four year roller coaster of prescription adjustments. Every change in the type of medication or dosage seemed to have some positive effect, for a while, but the "poop-out" effect always happened in the end. And I was left with nothing but a variety of negative side effects, such as weight gain. While taking AD's, I was gaining weight at the rate of a pound a month. This abruptly stopped when I stopped taking the pills. At age 40 I dropped the chemical experiments and started to try some inner work and real lifestyle changes.
Over the years I have known many people who have taken prescription AD's It doesn't appear to me that any of them have been helped in the long term by drug therapy alone. Many have gotten a lot worse, and this includes both of my siblings. My sister has been struggling to stop taking Cymbalta for years and can't do it. The two sibs together go through about $30k a year of prescription chemicals. I have to wonder if a program of cognitive or other "talk" therapy might have been more effective and much less expensive.
I believe there are biases in the medical system which prevent recognition of the actual failure rates. I am still on record as a great Prozac success story, because I quit on my own without consulting my MD. When one prescription failed, he just prescribed something else, and the general concept of chemical therapy never got called into question. There are now huge amounts of money at stake, which is great incentive to overlook or downplay the negatives. Not that the purveyors are completely to blame. The general belief in the possibility of a no effort "happy pill" drives the whole process.
Hopalong:
Hi TT,
I'm no doctor (just play one in my head) but your symptoms rang a bell.
Do you think you might possibly have something -- even a variant -- on this spectrum?
http://www.sleepassociation.org/index.php?p=aboutnarcolepsy
If it strikes you that way, perhaps you could make an appt. with an expert in this field.
(I've had 2 overnight sleep studies, for different issues--apnea and RLS. They were pleasant experiences.)
xo
Hops
BonesMS:
--- Quote from: Hopalong on August 05, 2011, 01:50:03 PM ---Hi TT,
I'm no doctor (just play one in my head) but your symptoms rang a bell.
Do you think you might possibly have something -- even a variant -- on this spectrum?
http://www.sleepassociation.org/index.php?p=aboutnarcolepsy
If it strikes you that way, perhaps you could make an appt. with an expert in this field.
(I've had 2 overnight sleep studies, for different issues--apnea and RLS. They were pleasant experiences.)
xo
Hops
--- End quote ---
That makes sense, Hops!
I've seen a case of Narcolepsy when I used to work at a residential school. A student was showing all the symptoms but the people in charge refused to believe that was anything wrong with him and labeled him as lazy. The school authorities went so far as to publicly humiliate him several times, in front of his classmates, because of his symptoms. When I commented about the possibility of Narcolepsy, I was curtly informed by my then-boss that I was only a secretary and knew nothing! (He ignored the fact that he had hired me because I had just recently completed a Bachelor's degree in psychology.) The school administrators' excuse was to claim that the nearby hospital couldn't find anything wrong with this student. (I tried to point out that the hospital only had him in their E.R. for only a few hours before releasing him and that testing for Narcolepsy requires an extensive period of time.) Finally, the poor kid's mother got fed up with the way her son was being treated and transferred him to a school closer to his home AND had her son hospitalized for extensive testing.
Guess what they FINALLY diagnosed him with? Narcolepsy!!!
I was so pissed off at the school administrators for the way they treated that kid!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
Bones
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