That's true if a person is healthy.  But some people just aren't.  There are other things that can go wrong with someone's brain other than having a bullet in it.  As an example, Down's Syndrome is not caused by a lack of willpower.  

Nay. YMMV.

My wife was having some depression issues a few years ago.  Her therapist said that sometimes chemicals in the brain get a little out of balance, and a small dose for a short period of time can reset that balance.  My wife ended up taking a small dose for a couple of months, and then stopped.  She's felt much better since, but did not like the way she felt while on them.  I would be very careful using them, and only after other options had been explored.

Personally I would avoid using them until it's a last resort.  

Not saying they don't have a place for some people, but I think a lot of people who use them can do without.

Nay.
Took them for a couple of years.
Changed me and not in a good way.
Ruined a good portion of my life that I'll never regain.

When they're needed and appropriately prescribed, they should be taken.  

I've witnessed the chaos and damage resulting from people refusing meds that they should have been taking.

^ this

Very helpful for many .


I don't use them because my mind is always right.




gd

My sister in law went from being moody and bitchy to being easy going and fun after we got her medicated.  

I agree that it we have a problem with over medicating in this country.  But some people absolutely need them and should not be discouraged.  No one is currently losing gun rights because they told their doctor they're feeling sad or anxious.  They are focusing on better tracking of people who have been committed to an institution against their will. Fear mongering on this issue is going to stop people from getting the help they need.

For the longest time my wife could function normal on antidepressants, but if you are on this shit long-term you start getting immune and have to start tweating dosages and juggling meds.

I blame the wife for the most part because she's never had interest trying to improve herself (eat healthy, see a counseler, etc) but just wants the quick fix of happiness in a pill.  Then she was on Cymbalta, after a year on that she when batshit fucking nuts.  Apparently it's common with that drug where long-term use causes patients have complete mental breakdowns...I'm talking straight jacket, committed to padded cell nuts.  Blew up in a major psychotic episode one day.  Was trashing the house in a hysterical rage and I foolishly attempted to intervene.  She put the icing on the cake by then calling 911 and saying "MY HUSBAND HURT ME!!!  I FEAR FOR MY SAFETY!  I HAVE TWO CHILDREN IN THE HOUSE!!"  What a fucking treat that's turning out to be.

Turns out she's bipolar.  Been lying on her psych exams because she didn't want anyone to think she was 'nuts'.  Her brain is probably irreversibly fucked up now, I got legal issues (cops get dispatched to a possible DV they don't want to go away empty handed), I'm still the sole responsible adult in my childrens lives, and I got a household to maintain.  Currently consulting with a lawyer on the smoothest method to permanently remove the "liabilty" from our lives.

Find a hobby
Stop hanging out with losers

Yup, you can cure Stage 4 cancer with just vitamins and a better attitude, too, right?

When you stop taking them because you think you are "healed," you are asking for grief.

If a person has diabetes, takes insulin, feels better, and then stops taking it because "they don't need it," they go back to being ill.

Mental illness is real.  Some forms are best managed with meds and counseling.  If you can only get one of those, get the meds.

I suffer from bipolar sundrome.  I and everyone around me suffered horribly from my condition.  I tried many different meds to try to get a sane life.  It took years but I found a very good MD with a specialty in Shrinkage and he changed me over to better stuff.  It saved my life.

But I am responsible for my emotions and for establishing good boundaries between my perceptions and my actions.  I am not a passive sufferer.

Frankly, if you aren't an MD, or a shrink, or a victim of mental illness, please keep your uneducated pronouncements to yourself.  Meds have done wonderful things for a great many people.  But just as chemo won't save all cancer victims, meds will not save all of the mentally ill.

Statistically, people with BPS are not more violent than the general public.

And continue to suffer more.

I am a born-again Christian.  Your advice sucks equine phalli. There are many examples in the bible where people suffer from illness because for reasons we do not fully understand, it advances the cause of Christ on earth.  Christians suffer in spite of prayer.

Do you think that somewhere at some time someone said the prayer asking for cancer to be banished from earth?  It has been done and is still done.  And yet Christians will die of cancer day after day.

One of the stupidest comments so-called Christians make is that if we just pray harder and say just the right words, then we can fix all our worldly problems.

Bull!  Part of our mission on life is to have problems and deal with them in a Christ-like manner.  Life isn't supposed to be perfect!

You should see the disclaimers for chemotherapy.  Why do cancer patients continue to use it?  Because sometimes the side effects are worth the outcome.  

OP, don't get medical advice from a gun forum.  Get it from a doctor (preferably more than one) that you trust.  All drugs have potential side effects.  Hell, spicy food has potential effects.  But people still eat bean burritos because the taste justifies the carnage that awaits.  If you NEED the drug and have determined that the potential gain outweighs the potential side effects then go for it.

Try huge amounts of Vitamin D I take 50,000 mgs a week. Works well.

An uncle of mine suffered from bipolar disorder.  I only knew him on his meds and he was one of the most kind and soft-spoken people I can think of.  Then, about the time I left the country for a couple of years he decided to go off of his meds.  My brother told me that the uncle became an angry and disagreeable person.  A few years later his daughter was getting married and I was excited to introduce my wife to all my extended family on that side...except my uncle was missing (at his own daughter's wedding).  Turns out that the weekend of the wedding he drove up a canyon and overdosed.

If only he had stayed on his meds, I believe that he'd still be here with us.

That's an incredibly insightful and eloquent post.

Thank you.

Good answer. Working out can do wonders for serotonin levels

Without antidepressants, my SO would be a nonfunctional member of society, crippled by depression and severe anxiety.


Antidepressants allow him to live an almost normal life. He still hits lows now and again, but they are nowhere near as scary as his lows before the medication.



Depression isn't just feeling sad once in a while. Real depression is an asskicker and makes it painful to breathe, painful to be alive. It's serious shit and should be treated seriously.


Real depression doesn't go away with diet or exercise. For many, it's a hereditary condition and doesn't just magic away... no matter how much you want it to.

your sig is nonsense

I fought against taking anti-depressants for YEARS.  I have both genetic predisposition, but it wasn't really bad until a series of severe head injuries which left me with TBI and exacerbated the depression.

I alway felt they were for pansies,  and not needed, and junk science, and would make me kill my wife in my sleep etc etc etc.



until I decided to try them for a while due to a uh, bad stretch where it became severe.  


I wonder why I waited so long.  My depression issues are not as severe anymore, and they sort of fluctuate based on several factors.  I tried several different anti-depressants and hated most of them. Currently take wellbutrin,  and love it. It's fallen out of favor due to the fact it's a little older,  it's available via generic and doesn't cost a lot.  

that being said, it works very well for my two main issues: Moderate to severe ADD, and Moderate to Severe depression.  it also doesn't have any severe side effects,  including sexual side effects.

it helps a lot and I don't spend a lot of days wishing a truck would kill me as I drive,  or actively trying to figure out how I can leave the planet.  Depression, even mild depression,  affects you more than you realize.  

I still tend to be a little dark,  there are much stronger anti-depressants on the market,  but I chose this one cause if the lack of side effects, and the ability to allow me to have good days.

i'd say if you're diagnosed,  and you are struggling, I'd at least give it a try.  And I'll tell you that you can start taking them, and then come off them pretty easily, as long as you come off slowly, over the course of a couple weeks. I did this several times as I would try new meds and get frustrated and give them up.  

talk to you GP, be willing to push him a little and demand he try new stuff if  what he gives you makes you sick, kills your orgasm, doesn't help etc.  With some tinkering with meds, doses,  on-off cycles etc most people can find something that helps.

my mom is downright insane with depression, and it took her YEARS, she kept going off of them,  couple of fairly legitimate suicide attempts,  personality change etc,  finally she got a new doc who was a bulldog, he was literally calling her at home hounding her. Finally got the right combination and my mom is "back".  She's lost about 80 lbs, goes out, and is friendly and normal again.

worth a look.  i would say do your research, talk to the gP, and at least give it a try.  worst case scenario you can come back off and just feel like shit all the time again.

You just have to get to the ER so they can drain the blood from your corpus callosum.  You see, they take these big gauge needles, and jam them into the side of your pecker.  

If I needed them then yes, it takes time/trial and error to get meds 'right'.
My Mother needs them, without them she is impossible to be around.
Like anything else, they are not for everyone.

 Good point.  Everybody thinks depression is just about mood, but it is physically painful.  The times I got off and back on and it started working , I realized hwo bad it hurt. My joints, muscles, and old injuries had a constant ache and I had severe headaches.. Like your brain is going to explode.  Headaches were in fact, the trigger that got me to try them and even then, it took a consultation with a neurologist to do that.

I'm on a few.

It's better for me and my family if I am.

Better in the "I'm angry all the time, borderline violent" or, on the flip side, "don't leave the bedroom/computer room for a week or so" if I don't take them sort of way.


However, it took several years of docs and a couple in-patient stays for docs to decide I needed them.

I don't agree with doctors prescribing them nilly-willy for "SAD" or other disorders made up by the pharm industry.

I'm just glad that I've never needed Cialis or anything like it.

Hey man, I'm glad to hear that you've found some balance.  If you go through a dark patch, just let me know.

Do NOT want.

IM sent, OP.


I was on them as a kid for OCD...they are poison.

They are sometimes erroneously prescribed when the doctor doesn't know what else to do.  For example sleep disorders.  Some people say depression causes sleep difficulty, other people say sleeping too much is an indication of depression.  So doctors prescribe anti-depressants to see if they will help.  They don't help if the sleep problem is genetic, then you are stuck getting off the damned things.

I would take them, but as a last resort only. I think they get prescribed way too much, but I have also seen a bipolar person on and off lithium. I guess lithium may be more of an anti-psychotic than anti-depressant, but whatever, wouldn't want to be around someone with a true case of bipolar disorder who wasn't on meds.

And now a whole shitload of folks just ended up on a "No-gun list" in NY as a result of "doctors, nurses, social workers" reports...





Yeah...  No thanks.





 

Good job with the link, I was just about to go looking. Made hot.



I love the whole "it'll never happen" crowd which then become the "it's not happening" crowd.







 

Dude...







You account for... four of them?



34,000 people a quite a fucking lot, and they're just getting started. This is new with the introduction of the Safe Act, I believe.

Give it ten years and see what percentage of the population is on there, and for what... if they even need a reason.

Remember the No-fly list, and all the people surprised by the fact they were put on it?





 

+1

I am on an SSRI and have been for a long time. There are somethings I wont talk about on open forums. PM if you want.

I really dont think you using an SSRI is going to cause any issues.

Find me the examples of people losing them for simply taking anti depressants.

There are none....

This kind of post is why the OP isn't responding anymore likely.

Stop the fear mongering bullshit,

We are talking about someones mental health.

Pretty much everybody agrees there can be problems in the functioning of your liver, kidneys, heart, spleen, lungs, gallbladder...

So why are the "skeptics" scoffing so hard at the possibility of some people's brains not working right?  Your brain is a chemical/mechanical organ just like any of the others, it stands to reason it is just as susceptible to malfunction as imbalance as the others as well.

Perhaps SSRI's are over-prescribed and even depression itself is over-diagnosed, but that doesn't mean some people don't have it or can't benefit from the medications.

this

if you're really feeling sad, down, what ever it is you're feeling ALL THE TIME for no apperant reason they give them a try

if you're depressed because your unemployed, going thru a divorce, having money issues, REAL Reasons to be sad, down, dlepressed, then
I'd wait until you've a resolution to the problem. Be very careful...