# AHunter3-SHUT THE FUCK UP about psychiatry! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 11, 2006, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926 "2006-03-11T08:21:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/141 "2006-03-14T20:30:50Z")
> [@kimera](#): > > I did not say that. I am in agreement with you on this first part. Drugs can help you get out of the lows, but you need more than just drugs to get you to where you are close to being a functional member of society. > > It was implied that that’s what I was saying. I’m not. I’m not saying that drugs and docs don’t work for a lot of people, I’m just saying that they can make it worse and I’ve found that you can’t rely on them alone. > > Did you read the links I posted? It’s not just “snapping out of it,” it is stimulating the under stimulated part of your brain which causes depression in the first place. It’s not just happy thoughts but a concentrated effort to change the patterns of your brain waves which naturally increases the levels of serotonin. I didn’t mean to imply that this is the case in all states of depression. I have no idea what it’s like for those with clincal depression, my depression is entirely biological. I don’t know if this treatment would work on those with clinical depression as well. > > The people who helped me out of my crazy/depressed state were not those that coddled me. I’ve seen people who’ve been on various drugs and to various doctors for their entire lives and haven’t managed to accomplish shit. They are in their 30s and still live with their parents and manage to blame everyone and everything else for their situation but themselves. For these people, drugs and docs did nothing for them. They use their depression as a crutch and blame everything on their condition. (Just a nitpick…clinical depression is any depression that requires a doctor’s intervention…biological or otherwise – though I think most/all true depressions are biological to some degree). I agree with you. I think some people get so wrapped up in the “me! me! me!” of depression that they don’t realize they’re their own worst enemy. Getting your mind off of yourself can do wonders for your general well-being. You can get a feeling of accomplishment and self-worth by focusing on someone/something that isn’t YOU or your ILLNESS. I realize this is hard for deeply depressed people, but many people can benefit from pushing themselves (or having a family member help with the pushing) into motion. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/142 "2006-03-14T20:54:20Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > … > I agree with you. I think some people get so wrapped up in the “me! me! me!” of depression that they don’t realize they’re their own worst enemy. Getting your mind off of yourself can do wonders for your general well-being. You can get a feeling of accomplishment and self-worth by focusing on someone/something that isn’t YOU or your ILLNESS. I realize this is hard for deeply depressed people, but many people can benefit from pushing themselves (or having a family member help with the pushing) into motion. This has been so true for me; from age 15 to 22 I use to swing from very High to very low like a classic Manic Depressive or what they now seem to call Bi-polar. I learned to recognize both swings and I learned to decrease them. I guess I was just lucky but I was able to learn to catch myself before the peaks happened and eventually the cycle became very mild. Now after a day of feeling low, I notice and I head down to my workshop and build something for my kids. It knocks me out of the downhill slide so well. I do miss the highs, but I know that the highs were always followed by lows. So I guess I hit upon what Kimera was saying without reading into it or really knowing what I was doing. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/143 "2006-03-15T02:23:20Z")
> [@What Exit?](#): > > It gets you on the treadmill. You see a doctor, they are not a very good Doctor and he prescribes the Pills that the Drug companies are pushing that month. This now throws you even further out of whack as he prescribed a drug for depression when you were really just in a long funk as \*\*Kalhoun \*\* so well put it. > Now the drugs really throw you off and you end up on others drugs and seeing a mental health specialist and the treadmill is moving quicker. I get what you’re saying, but not going to a doctor because of a fear that he MIGHT be a quack and he MIGHT do something wrong isn’t very good logic. I believe I already said it would be like avoiding have a lump in your breast checked out on the off chance the doctor would immediately call for a masectomy. IF one goes to a crappy doctor, and IF he immediately starts pushing pills and making you feel uncomfortable, like he’s not listening, you get a second opinion. The first shrink I visited was terrible. Then I found my therapist-who, btw, wasn’t a psychiatrist or even a psychologist. She was a licensed counselor. I saw a psychiatrist she reccomended (REALLY nice and wonderful doctor, btw), but I mostly talked to her. Part of what I learned was-don’t start worrying “what if”. Take it one step at a time. Yes, change things in your life. But don’t be afraid to talk to your own physician. **kimera** -indeed it has worked. And actually, my life has taken a turn for the better lately. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re definitely improving and getting better and better. It may not be where it quite should be, but it’s getting there. As for the meds, like I said, it’s not so much depression as an anxiety disorder. The depression was caused by my untreated anxiety disorder. I had had bad episodes previously, but this was a full on breakdown. For an example of how bad it can get-and this was years before I was diagnosed-when I was about ten years old, I caught a bad case of stomach flu, and threw up nine times within about 8 hours. After that, for months, every time I felt the slightest bit of pain in my stomach, I’d panic and think I was going to vomit. I started drinking glass after glass after glass of water at night, thinking that if I did so, I’d belch and then I’d feel better. Makes no sense, right? Well, that didn’t matter. I’d wake up every night at 1 am and I thought if I could just make it until oh, 4:30 (when I first got sick the last time), I’d be okay. If I heard someone had stomach flu, I’d freak out. It was awful. And of course, my stomach would be upset-from NERVES. Eventually, I got over it (strangely enough, after I got stomach flu a SECOND time and realized I was making myself feel even worse by obsessing.) OCD cannot be reasoned away by telling oneself that your fears are ridiculous. In fact, trying to do so only feeds the obsessing, so you make it even worse. Trying to reason with it is the last thing you want to do. In my case, what worked best was total distraction. I started buying tons of _Star Wars_ novels and reading them. Yes, it sounds hopelessly lame, but that was a HUGE help-I could get lost in a novel, and forget everything. Another was breathing exercises to help myself calm down. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/144 "2006-03-15T02:36:55Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > OCD cannot be reasoned away by telling oneself that your fears are ridiculous. In fact, trying to do so only feeds the obsessing, so you make it even worse. Trying to reason with it is the last thing you want to do. In my case, what worked best was total distraction. The thing about OCD, as Guin said, is that knowing you have it isn’t enough. With many mental disorders, once people accept that they have those problems (often difficult in itself), they’re able to consciously “fight” those impulses or behaviours. A person with OCD can’t do this - we know we have OCD, we know we’re acting illogically, and yet the compulsion for whatever behaviour remains. The mental “fight” against that compulsion leaves us stressed even if we are able to temporarily beat that urge. Distraction is my method of dealing with it as well - if i’m on autopilot, then new, obsessive thoughts don’t tend to enter as frequently. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/145 "2006-03-15T02:43:14Z")
> [@Revenant Threshold](#): > > The thing about OCD, as Guin said, is that knowing you have it isn’t enough. With many mental disorders, once people accept that they have those problems (often difficult in itself), they’re able to consciously “fight” those impulses or behaviours. A person with OCD can’t do this - we know we have OCD, we know we’re acting illogically, and yet the compulsion for whatever behaviour remains. The mental “fight” against that compulsion leaves us stressed even if we are able to temporarily beat that urge. > > Distraction is my method of dealing with it as well - if i’m on autopilot, then new, obsessive thoughts don’t tend to enter as frequently. Look, I don’t know anything about OCD beyond the little I can glean from a few epsiodes of Monk. I thought we were talking about Depression. I think Kimera, Kalhoun, myself and others were all talking about depression. Kytheria was posting about depression. Where did OCD suddnely come from, did I miss something? 🙂 Jim ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/146 "2006-03-15T02:53:12Z")
> [@What Exit?](#): > > Look, I don’t know anything about OCD beyond the little I can glean from a few epsiodes of Monk. I thought we were talking about Depression. I think Kimera, Kalhoun, myself and others were all talking about depression. Kytheria was posting about depression. Where did OCD suddnely come from, did I miss something? 🙂 Sorry, just thought i’d back up Guin on a couple of points. I apologise for the hijacking. Re: Depression, I sort of agree with **kimera**. Drugs can make you worse, but at their very best effect only help with the _symptoms_ of depression - they don’t have any effect on the actual _cause_, whatever that may be. A better, more permanent solution would be to change whatever the cause of your depression is - and if it’s source is, as **kimera** says, that a region of the brain is relatively unstimulated, then therapy or forced mental training/forced distraction could indeed be of benefit. If that’s not the source, it won’t be as helpful. Drugs are effective no matter what the cause of depression is. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/147 "2006-03-15T03:08:33Z")
> [@Revenant Threshold](#): > > Sorry, just thought i’d back up Guin on a couple of points. I apologise for the hijacking. > > Re: Depression, I sort of agree with **kimera**. Drugs can make you worse, but at their very best effect only help with the _symptoms_ of depression - they don’t have any effect on the actual _cause_, whatever that may be. A better, more permanent solution would be to change whatever the cause of your depression is - and if it’s source is, as **kimera** says, that a region of the brain is relatively unstimulated, then therapy or forced mental training/forced distraction could indeed be of benefit. If that’s not the source, it won’t be as helpful. Drugs are effective no matter what the cause of depression is. Hey that fine, I just have to admit total ignorance about OCD. If that’s where this thread heads next I will gladly bow out. Depression I understand. Thankfully I did get over it with just a little help from my friends. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/148 "2006-03-15T03:14:58Z")
Sorry, I was just explaining why I, personally, am still on meds, even after the depression is gone. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/149 "2006-03-15T03:45:26Z")
Another point on depression and OCD: certain drugs prescribed for depression will also relieve the symptoms of OCD, as I discovered with Zoloft. Maintaining myself on the smallest therapeutic dose has made a significant change in my moods and functioning, with no apparent side effects. Worked for me. May or may not work as well for anyone else. As **Guin** pointed out, OCD is one form of diseased thinking that benefits from _not_ thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/150 "2006-03-15T03:51:21Z")
> [@What Exit?](#): > > Hey that fine, I just have to admit total ignorance about OCD. If that’s where this thread heads next I will gladly bow out. Depression I understand. Thankfully I did get over it with just a little help from my friends. After a while, there’s nothing your friends can do, and I for one feel guilty for burdening them with it when things get bad. For some of us, going to the doctor and getting on meds IS helping ourselves. Don’t you think we’d “modify our brain waves” if we could? It would certainly save me some money. Suffice it to say, everyone handles depression differently. I’m not going to subscribe to an anti-psychiatry stance and I wouldn’t try to convince anyone to go on meds. I also don’t think it’s wrong to suggest someone go to a doctor, so sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/151 "2006-03-15T03:56:48Z")
> [@Revenant Threshold](#): > > Drugs are effective no matter what the cause of depression is. I am sure you didn’t mean that drugs are always effective, did you? Because they have an efficacy rate that is [only slightly better than placebo](http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/11/ma_565_01.html): > [@](#): > > Psychiatrists and other mental-health professionals (I am a practicing therapist) know that any given antidepressant has only about a 50 percent chance of working with any given person. But what most people – patients and clinicians alike – don’t know is that in more than half of the 47 trials used by the Food and Drug Administration to approve the six leading antidepressants on the market, the drugs failed to outperform sugar pills, and in the trials that were successful, the advantage of drugs over placebo was slight. As it would hardly help drug sales, pharmaceutical companies don’t publish unsuccessful trials, so University of Connecticut psychology professor Irving Kirsch and his co-authors used the Freedom of Information Act to extract the data from the FDA. What they found has led them, and other researchers who’ve investigated antidepressants’ relatively poor showing against placebos, to conclude that millions of people may be spending billions of dollars on medicines that owe their popularity as much to clever marketing as to chemistry, and suffering serious side effects – not to mention becoming dependent on drugs for healing they might be able to do without them – in the bargain. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/152 "2006-03-15T04:01:59Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > I agree with you. I think some people get so wrapped up in the “me! me! me!” of depression that they don’t realize they’re their own worst enemy. Getting your mind off of yourself can do wonders for your general well-being. You can get a feeling of accomplishment and self-worth by focusing on someone/something that isn’t YOU or your ILLNESS. I realize this is hard for deeply depressed people, but many people can benefit from pushing themselves (or having a family member help with the pushing) into motion. But that’s the nature of the disease-it IS selfish. You can’t see beyond the pain, and in fact, telling people they’re being selfish only makes it worse. They KNOW that, and that just feeds into it. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/153 "2006-03-15T04:29:44Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > But that’s the nature of the disease-it IS selfish. You can’t see beyond the pain, and in fact, telling people they’re being selfish only makes it worse. They KNOW that, and that just feeds into it. **Guin** and **Kalhoun** , I just wanted to say thank you for that. Really. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/154 "2006-03-15T04:41:23Z")
> [@Kythereia](#): > > **Guin** and **Kalhoun** , I just wanted to say thank you for that. Really. Oh, well you’re welcome I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/155 "2006-03-15T06:58:46Z")
People who have long-term depression often have trouble maintaining relationships because we _are_, by the nature of the illness, very self-absorbed and moody. We can also be sleepy, confused, forgetful and isolated. > [@](#): > > \*\* Fear Itself\*\*: I am sure you didn’t mean that drugs are always effective, did you? Because they have an efficacy rate that is only slightly better than placebo The same article in **Mother Jones** goes on to explain that these studies may be flawed: > [@](#): > > But many doctors remain convinced that antidepressants do work, that the flaw lies not in the capsules themselves but in the studies used to evaluate them. Clinical trials can consume half a drug’s patent life. And so pressure to bring the medicine to market leads researchers to adopt strategies – such as recruiting people whose depression is too mild to yield powerful results – better suited to clearing regulatory hurdles than generating useful scientific knowledge. That, and not the power of suggestion, is why antidepressants barely outperform placebos, these scientists say. There’s still more. A full reading of the article gives a more complete picture. (The blurb at the beginning is really an overstatement.) I have been on continuous medications since October of 1989. I had my first diagnosis of depression in the early 1960’s, but I didn’t even know really what that meant except that I was “down and out.” I continued to have low grade depression with bouts of heavier depression. I went through lots of kinds of treatments. Nothing had a lasting effect for me until 1989 when my physician asked my current psychiatrist to see me. I have been seeing him every 4-6 weeks, but that has just recently changed to every 8 weeks. We talk only for about 20 to 30 minutes. We focus on the present and not on the past. We’ve adjusted my medications over time several times and I take quite a bit. Only once have I had to be hospitalized and that was at my request and lasted about five weeks. That was over ten years ago. I have memory problems and trouble with concentration and sleepiness. But I feel centered and strong – not weak and vulnerable like I did for all those years. Two years ago I overcame a thirty year phobia of flying and without any special phobia training or classes, calmly got on a plane and took my granddaughter to Paris. Life is good. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/156 "2006-03-15T11:05:53Z")
> [@Kythereia](#): > > **Guin** and **Kalhoun** , I just wanted to say thank you for that. Really. I’m not sure if that’s a sarcastic “thanks” or not, but my point was that if you can’t push yourself, someone else might be able to help you put the focus outside yourself. Once you take a step, it can open the way for another. And another. And another. I’m not saying this is true for all people, but for mild depression, it can certainly help. Laying around stewing in depressive thoughts isn’t going to be good for you, no matter how many pills you take. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/157 "2006-03-15T14:45:01Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > I am sure you didn’t mean that drugs are always effective, did you? Because they have an efficacy rate that is [only slightly better than placebo](http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/11/ma_565_01.html): No, you’re right, I didn’t - drugs are of course not always effective, but when they are, they will aid in reducing the symptoms of depression no matter what the underlying cause is. I apologise for not being clear. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/158 "2006-03-15T15:19:37Z")
I think there’s no denying that antidepressant drugs work some of the time — we’ve got plenty of anecdotal evidence here on this board. But there are also people for whom the meds are not effective, and there are also still a third group of people for whom the meds are actively harmful — some in a direct fashion (paradoxical effects, other bad medicinal side effects), others in an indirect fashion (internalizing a sense of self as “mentally ill” can, for some people, really put them on a self-defeatist path, as several people in this thread have noted; and having _other people_, in your family or otherwise, begin thinking of you as “mentally ill” can still be a handicap, even in these days where “depression” isn’t thought of the same way as “schizophrenia”). > [@](#): > > drugs are of course not always effective, but when they are, they will aid in reducing the symptoms of depression no matter what the underlying cause is. I would not say that. If the symptoms of depression are due, for example, to hypothyroidism, antidepressants aren’t going to put much of a dent in them. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/159 "2006-03-15T15:27:11Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > People who have long-term depression often have trouble maintaining relationships because we _are_, by the nature of the illness, very self-absorbed and moody. We can also be sleepy, confused, forgetful and isolated. > > The same article in **Mother Jones** goes on to explain that these studies may be flawed: > > There’s still more. A full reading of the article gives a more complete picture. (The blurb at the beginning is really an overstatement.) > > I have been on continuous medications since October of 1989. I had my first diagnosis of depression in the early 1960’s, but I didn’t even know really what that meant except that I was “down and out.” I continued to have low grade depression with bouts of heavier depression. I went through lots of kinds of treatments. > > Nothing had a lasting effect for me until 1989 when my physician asked my current psychiatrist to see me. I have been seeing him every 4-6 weeks, but that has just recently changed to every 8 weeks. We talk only for about 20 to 30 minutes. We focus on the present and not on the past. We’ve adjusted my medications over time several times and I take quite a bit. Only once have I had to be hospitalized and that was at my request and lasted about five weeks. That was over ten years ago. > > I have memory problems and trouble with concentration and sleepiness. But I feel centered and strong – not weak and vulnerable like I did for all those years. Two years ago I overcame a thirty year phobia of flying and without any special phobia training or classes, calmly got on a plane and took my granddaughter to Paris. > Life is good. It sounds like you’ve found the winning combination. If it’s not too personal, may I ask what meds you take? I took a wide array of meds before I settled with Prozac. I took it for about a year and then for about 6 months a few years later. I had a horrible time on Welbutrin, Desiprimine and Imiprimine. The side effects were awful. Luckily, I am medication-free now (for many years) and I’m able to spot the signs before crisis mode kicks in. Life is indeed good! ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926/160 "2006-03-15T16:04:51Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I would not say that. If the symptoms of depression are due, for example, to hypothyroidism, antidepressants aren’t going to put much of a dent in them. Good point. I’ll take back _all_ and replace it with _more_. Your post sort of shows what I meant - if your depression is caused by hypothyroidism, then there’s a specific set of treatments that can help you with that. Antidepressants are useful in that the don’t have to be (as) specific - there’s a wider range of possible causes that can cause depression that antidepressants could help with. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ahunter3-shut-the-fuck-up-about-psychiatry/347926.md?page=9)