Antidepressants

If the truth is harsh, then that's your problem.

It's called "Chronic Dysthymia," as well as "Persistent Depressive Disorder." It's in the DSM 5

I've had depression since I was 13. I'm now 21. I got it from genetics. I've had amazing points of my life where everything was going great and I was still depressed. Most times, people are depressed because of bad circumstances. But there are some people who are depressed because their brain simply does not produce enough serotonin. Don't erase those people. Just because you never experienced it does not mean it doesn't exist.

I wasn't the guy you were replying to mate.

>It's in the DSM 5
The DSM is just a categorisation of behaviours and nothing more. Even gambling addiction is in there. It still doesn't mean that these behaviours are necessarily permanent.

>I got it from genetics
EVEN IF you've had your genome sequenced, and EVEN IF you have the maximum number of genes that are associated with depression, that would only count for 40% of your disposition to depression from my understanding. So that's the first issue. 60% of your disposition would still be due to your environment and other factors.

But the second issue is that I wonder whether you have had your genome sequenced in the first place. Have you? And if not, on what possible basis could you be claiming that you're genetically disposed to depression? What evidence do you have to make that claim? It's possible you have some genes that are associated with depression, but unless you have your genome sequenced then you can't possibly know whether you do or don't.

>But there are some people who are depressed because their brain simply does not produce enough serotonin
By what mechanism? Head injury? Abnormal brain development? Microcephaly or something?

this isn't worth a new thread but it's related so here i am

i'm coming to terms with the fact that i'm genuinely bipolar, and the only related med that seems like it's actually tolerable to the human body longterm is lithium, and its own side effects all seem like they could be related to the general shittiness of the western diet and people having chronic hypotoxicity that's just barely okay enough to not get classified as misdosage - kidney damage, diabetes insipidus, having to pee an unhealthy amount, etc, and my diet is pretty good so it's the only one that doesn't literally scare me to death
which only leaves one more thing - does it reliably turn you into a zombie, or does the internet just make it sound like it does?

>i'm genuinely bipolar
Just because you are displaying those behaviours now doesn't mean that you always will. With lifestyle changes you might be able to get on top of your emotions.

>lithium
I've never taken any mood stabilisers, but I know a guy who takes sodium valproate, another mood stabiliser. He does seem a bit drowsy all the time if I'm being honest.

Anyone else with parents who took antidepressants?

My dad was on them for years and this is why I think they suck. He actually has a good life, so I don't think he needs to take them at all. But maybe he's too scared of losing everything (e.g. his new wife) if he came off them.

But the reason I think they suck is because - and I know this myself because I've been on them, so I can attest to this - they lull you into this false sense of comfort. They make you falsely believe that the world is rainbows and happiness when it isn't. Which I suppose is the entire point, but the harshness of the world is supposed to MOTIVATE you to do things, and if this pill is clouding your mind from reality, then these motivations won't kick in.

Like I say, my dad actually has a good life - clearly he was still motivated to work and everything even on the antidepressants. But I do think he is pretty detached from reality and maybe too artificially content.

I'm sorry. I missed it, what were your qualifications to make such factual claims again?

I'm sorry user but avoiding the questions I posed you isn't an argument. Have you had your genome sequenced? Because unless you have then what evidence are you using to justify your belief that your depression is genetic? And like I said, at least for major depressive disorder which is very closely related, it is thought that less than 40% of your personal risk is due to genetics.

>Family and twin studies find that nearly 40% of individual differences in risk for major depressive disorder can be explained by genetic factors.[51]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder

Now why don't you answer the question. In fact, the several questions I posed.

Not the same guy, schmuck. Now answer MY question.

four words for everyone involved here: gut flora, gut-brain axis

Go join a Facebook group somewhere else with your pseudoscience bullshit.

Surely that's five words. "Gut-brain" might be hyphenated but surely it's still two separate words. I don't think "gut-brain" is in the dictionary.

Your argument from authority is a form of the genetic fallacy. If you wish to make a non-fallacious argument then please identify something in my post that you disagree with and explain why you disagree with it. Which bit don't you agree with?

I was on a mixture of Lexapro and Abilify for about three years. They literally saved my life, and I hate that I had a stigma against them for so long.

It look several months of trail and error with a Psychiatrist to get the right meds, but once I did, it helped so, so much. I got better, graduated college, and actually have progressed and been off of them completely since about April of 2017.

It takes your doctor a while to get the right meds, and I promise you, if your doctor thinks you may need them, then work with him/her. It could change your life, sincerely.

The side effects for most people are minimal. Usually some weight gain/loss or maybe tiredness/restlessness, depending. Mine were minimal. The scary "turns you into a zombie" shit is largely for people super fucked up than have to go on, like, lithium or spend months in a psych ward. Very, very, very few people have to experience that.

I encourage you to try it.

But it does turn you into a fucking zombie. Its funny though, before I started paxil I was depressed but at least had some will in me to better myself, worked out, studied (albeit very difficult when the only thing you think of is dying), had plans. All that went away on the pill, including my ability to cum and depression. I wasn't depressed, but couldn't even give two fucks about vacuuming my room which I hadn't done in weeks, when I used to every other day when I wasn't on meds. Anyway, I've reduced my dose (not that I planned to, but couldn't even give a fuck about taking them regularly as perscribed so I took then whenever I felt like I was gonna pass out from a lack of dose) and now I actually feel my emotions returning and there's again a will to move forward on life. Youre depressed cuz ur life is shit, pills arent a cure nor solution to the problem, but taking action to improve your life is.

There's a lot of disinformation here.

One, you're not necessarily depressed because your life is shit. Clinical depression really, truly, can be a chemical imbalance in the brain, made worse by circumstance, sure, but it's not JUST circumstances that lead to actual depression. Don't write off the science behind it.

Secondly, if you "turn into a fucking zombie," you're on the wrong medication. Plain and simple.

Finally, not everybody needs the same solution when dealing with their depression.

Thank you user for being the voice of reason

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>One, you're not necessarily depressed because your life is shit. Clinical depression really, truly, can be a chemical imbalance in the brain, made worse by circumstance, sure, but it's not JUST circumstances that lead to actual depression. Don't write off the science behind it.
That's funny BECAUSE THERE IS NO SCIENCE BEHIND THE "CHEMICAL IMBALANCE" POP SCIENCE BULLSHIT WHATSOEVER

>The chemical imbalance theory has never been proven.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder#History

And this is from an actual scientific paper that notes that while antidepressants can be useful especially for severe depression, the "chemical imbalance" theory behind their effect is COMPLETE BOLLOCKS
>However, the chemical imbalances often invoked to explain clinical depression have never been shown to exist. Years of propaganda from drug companies and their paid consultants from academic psychiatry have convinced clinicians that this theory is well grounded in empirical data. The reality is that we could be decades away from understanding the neural basis of diatheses for depression.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4079242/

There IS a biological component to depression - people's genes can add to their risk factor, but genetics are thought to be responsible for under 40% of your risk. So over 60% of your risk is due to your environment / other factors.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder#Genetics
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11007705

YOU'RE DEPRESSED BECAUSE YOUR LIFE IS SHIT
STOP LYING TO PEOPLE
YOU'RE SAYING "DON'T WRITE OFF THE SCIENCE" WHEN YOU HAVEN'T EVEN READ THE FUCKING SCIENCE
YOU FUCKING MORON

Don’t take them the only thing it did was make me numb to the world and make me lose my personality pretty much it made me more depressed but too zombie to kill myself. I’d recommend will power and going outside more.

You're an actually mentally ill idiot.
Consider professional help.

>he doesn't have an argument
Thank you for conceding that I'm right.

Shut up already

Don't feed the obvious troll. Let him act fucking stupid and no one will hang out with him.

>3 bad qualities on a thing means there are no good qualities on said thing

Okay there doc

Based

Truth

Saying something is a "chemical imbalance" is a completely meaningless cop-out. Yes, of course a mood disorder is going to involve abnormal levels of certain brain chemicals. That doesn't mean it's genetic.

Here's another example of a chemical imbalance. The other day, I went to the bar and saw a hot girl. I wanted to go talk to her, but unfortunately could not because the cortisol levels in my brain were too high and the dopamine levels were too low, which means that my nervousness was stronger than my motivation. However, I was able to remedy the situation by consuming an alcoholic beverage which corrected the chemical imbalance in my brain. Science backs this up and shows that alcohol instantly alleviates the symptoms of anxiety by altering levels of neurotransmitters in the brain. Therefore if you are anxious you should drink alcohol every day because even though it has side effects, it corrects the chemical root of mental illness as shown in scientific studies.

>no arguments whatsoever
What did they mean by this? Do you think the scientific paper that I quoted is wrong? If so which part of it is wrong? If you think it is wrong then it should be really easy to say why you think it is wrong, shouldn't it?

I think you definitely have a point. ALL emotions are instantiated with different forms of brain chemicals. But it is incorrect to start blaming the brain chemicals as if they're the root cause. They're not. Like you say, you had certain chemicals in your brain because you were nervous. Your body was reacting to the environment. But you have a large degree of control over how you react, you're not a bloody passenger, you're a human being with agency and autonomy. You might have chemicals going on but you can still choose between a range of different responses to your situation.

If someone sees someone with a knife coming towards them who looks like they have an intent to harm, their adrenaline will spike. Does this mean the adrenaline causes their subsequent reactions? In a way, yes - but the adrenaline is not the primary cause. The event in the real world is the primary cause. That's what caused their body to release all of that adrenaline.

If someone wants to say "brain chemicals are the cause of my depression" then it's just pushing the question backwards. Because now the question is "okay, what's causing the brain chemicals to be different then?". As I quoted in one of my posts, scientists think that only up to 40% of your risk of depression is genetic. So the other 60% is other factors. Also I don't think they even know what those genes do and how they might increase someone's risk factor for depression. Maybe those genes make you less physically fit, and that then causes people to be less happy with their lives. At this point we don't know.

Depressive moods and the associated brain chemicals have a very obvious cause. A shit life.

I took them for 2 years, high doses. They made me into a zombie. I didn't accomplish anything in those 2 years. I decided to quit the meds because I prefer untreated depression. Now I'm untreated. I want to kill myself.
I hate my life, I want to kill myself.

I'm on the lowest "effective" dose
I've experimented with not taking them and I find I go back to having intense anxiety and sadness and when I'm on it, those feelings are less intense and manageable.

I don't get why you wouldn't at least try them. If you dont like how they make you feel you just tell your doc and get off them.

>depression is just a result of one's life situation
That is fundamentally wrong, you can have everything and still be depressed.
It's like a permanent dissatisfaction with everything all the time.

saying
>Saying something is a "chemical imbalance" is a completely meaningless cop-out.
is ITSELF a copout because you're presenting it as a complete conclusion and one-step treatment plan when it's not meant to be, and only ever is as such when mental healthcare is practiced by low-functioning normies who read a book and get a degree because they can put two and two together linguistically

basically you're saying that because we're at a Newtonian physics tier understanding of neurochemistry and neurophysiology, literally nobody is trying to understand anything further and experts spend their days throwing apples at anyone asking further questions

Total zombie sorry bro. Was with a girl who went on this. She was so cool beforehand and afterwards just watched netflix and drank wine and slept. Also messed up her libido. Sad stuff.

Then she was on the wrong meds

My doctor recently perscribed me Paxil, I think. Any reason I should decide to turn it down?