# If you take antidepressants when you are not clinically depressed. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 20, 2012, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376 "2012-02-20T00:59:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/1 "2012-02-20T00:59:31Z")
Bouncing off of this thread, > **[If you're non-psychotic and take anti-psychotic medication what happens?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=358854)** > > If you’re non-psychotic and take anti-psychotic medication what happens? What would the medication do to you if you’re not psychotic or otherwise mentally disturbed? what happens with antidepressants? If I, not being clinically depressed, start taking antidepressants, what is likely to happen? Will it make me very happy, or will it just have typical antidepressant side-effects with nothing else? ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/2 "2012-02-20T01:23:10Z")
It won’t make you happy. The theory is that clinical depression is a result of a lack of serotonin. The brain can only make use of a certain amount so If you have “enough” than “more than that” isn’t going to have any effect. You’d still get the side effects. Most SSRIs don’t have any that are desirable, but tetracyclics and tricyclics can make people sleepy, so they’re sometime prescribed for that purpose. Cymbalta also has a different on-label use, for chronic pain. So antidepressants are used a bit in people that aren’t depressed, and it doesn’t make them all happy happy… ---
**Author:** ![moejoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@moejoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moejoe)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/3 "2012-02-20T01:46:03Z")
> [@Mdcastle](#): > > It won’t make you happy. The theory is that clinical depression is a result of a lack of serotonin. The brain can only make use of a certain amount so If you have “enough” than “more than that” isn’t going to have any effect. > > You’d still get the side effects. Most SSRIs don’t have any that are desirable, but tetracyclics and tricyclics can make people sleepy, so they’re sometime prescribed for that purpose. Cymbalta also has a different on-label use, for chronic pain. So antidepressants are used a bit in people that aren’t depressed, and it doesn’t make them all happy happy.. Huh, I took Welbutrin (sp?) in an effort to stop smoking and it definitely had some effect. I’ve never thought of myself as depressed, but there was a strange sense of being more, I don’t know, present in the world. As if everything was turned up juuust a notch, color, sound, intensity. I stopped taking it after two days because that feeling was so uncomfortable. That stuff is actually an antidepressant, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/4 "2012-02-20T02:03:07Z")
> [@moejoe](#): > > Huh, I took Welbutrin (sp?) in an effort to stop smoking and it definitely had some effect. I’ve never thought of myself as depressed, but there was a strange sense of being more, I don’t know, present in the world. As if everything was turned up juuust a notch, color, sound, intensity. I stopped taking it after two days because that feeling was so uncomfortable. That stuff is actually an antidepressant, isn’t it? Ditto here. I took it when it was first being used to stop smoking. I had to stop taking it after a week or so because I was becoming very emotional. I would listen to a song on the radio and start crying! This coming from a 6’1" 230lb non-emotional man. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/5 "2012-02-20T02:11:18Z")
There are different antidepressants with varying mechanisms, but taking any of them without having depression is basically going to just render you susceptible to the side effects without any benefit. By the way, when drug makers warn about “sexual side effects”, they are not talking about _positive_ effects. So don’t expect a swinging time with Paxil. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![ExcitedIdiot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ea5d25/32.png) [@ExcitedIdiot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExcitedIdiot)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/6 "2012-02-20T15:33:17Z")
> [@moejoe](#): > > Huh, I took Welbutrin (sp?) in an effort to stop smoking and it definitely had some effect. I’ve never thought of myself as depressed, but there was a strange sense of being more, I don’t know, present in the world. As if everything was turned up juuust a notch, color, sound, intensity. I stopped taking it after two days because that feeling was so uncomfortable. That stuff is actually an antidepressant, isn’t it? It was developed as an antidepressant, the smoking benefits were discovered during those clinical trials. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/7 "2012-02-20T15:49:18Z")
“Antidepressant” and “antipsychotic” are clever names but they’re not magic bullets for those conditions only; they’re also blanket terms for a variety of drug categories. They have chemical effects in the brain which may affect other conditions too. I took an antidepressant for migraine prevention and didn’t notice any other effects; I have been depressed in the past so I know what it’s like to feel that emotional blunting lifting off of you when an antidepressant drug does work. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/8 "2012-02-20T15:58:13Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Bouncing off of this thread, > > [If you're non-psychotic and take anti-psychotic medication what happens? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=358854) > > what happens with antidepressants? If I, not being clinically depressed, start taking antidepressants, what is likely to happen? Will it make me very happy, or will it just have typical antidepressant side-effects with nothing else? Please note the medical opposite of depressed is not “happy”, it’s manic… or “hypomanic”… and that is a very very different thing from being happy. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/9 "2012-02-20T16:29:41Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Please note the medical opposite of depressed is not “happy”, it’s manic… or “hypomanic”… and that is a very very different thing from being happy. Good point. Although could make a nitpick about “opposite.” ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/10 "2012-02-20T19:47:33Z")
Yeah. And antidepressants can introduce mania in someone who’s actually bipolar, but was misdiagnosed as major depressive and given antidepressents instead of mood stabilizers. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/11 "2012-02-22T05:15:12Z")
> [@Mdcastle](#): > > It won’t make you happy. The theory is that clinical depression is a result of a lack of serotonin. The brain can only make use of a certain amount so If you have “enough” than “more than that” isn’t going to have any effect. > > You’d still get the side effects. Most SSRIs don’t have any that are desirable, but tetracyclics and tricyclics can make people sleepy, so they’re sometime prescribed for that purpose. Cymbalta also has a different on-label use, for chronic pain. So antidepressants are used a bit in people that aren’t depressed, and it doesn’t make them all happy happy.. Rubbish. SSRIs flood the 5-HT receptors in everybody who takes them, and this has a predictable, though varied, set of effects. Some people will experience a tolerable mood shift (usually positive, from what I’ve heard), and a few experience significant negative effects (usually a loss of emotional control – mania or hypomania, anger, anxiety, or extreme reactivity on all fronts). For the relatively large number of clinically depressed patients who don’t have a genetic “serotonin deficiency,” the reaction to increased serotonin is still pretty positive, but not as “just what the doctor ordered” as for those who do. It’s still using a hammer to drive in a screw, but it’s what we have. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/12 "2012-02-22T05:35:36Z")
I once took [5-HTP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-Hydroxytryptophan) when I was stressed at work - I was responsible for delivering a huge government contract without enough staff - but not depressed. One of my underlings took it regularly and she recommended it to me. It’s available OTC in health shops in the UK. Fuck me sideways. It should be illegal. I went completely off my rocker. From another thread: > [@](#): > > - started tripping out in meetings, jumping around in my chair, feeling like I was upside-down on Planet Zog, not able to speak because I was so spaced out. The worst thing was they were my meetings - I was the boss! > > Then during lunch I just had to get outside - and ended up walking around the city aimlessly in a state of high agitation until I came to my senses and found myself going up and down an escalator in a shopping mall, flapping my hands and laughing to myself. Crazy shit! Never ever again. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/13 "2012-02-22T14:08:21Z")
I was given low-level anti-depressant to try and control my migraines. It didn’t work and I went off. I seem to recall some minor side effects. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/14 "2012-02-22T14:11:58Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Fuck me sideways. It should be illegal. I went completely off my rocker. From another thread: Just because you had a bad reaction doesn’t mean it should be illegal. I’ve taken 5-HTP many times in the UK, it can help with mild mood disorders and has other legitimate uses. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/15 "2012-02-22T14:13:39Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Just because you had a bad reaction doesn’t mean it should be illegal. Hyperbole hyperbole. However given the strength of my reaction, and assuming that it may affect others in that way, I do think it should be controlled somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Mitchconner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mitchconner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mitchconner)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/16 "2012-10-16T03:03:26Z")
I was given Paxil for depression, when it turned out to be a symptom of generalized anxiety disorder(gad). I felt great all the time just didn’t really care about anything else, including my career. Turns out showing up for work really was important and it took me 3 years to figure that out, so I quit taking it. 9 months later I’ve recovered from taking Paxil, but my anxiety is back. I was prescribed the anti psychotic seroquel in low levels for sleep recently.Started at 50mgs, and got up to 200mgs a night near the end. I was told it would be safer than taking benzo’s turns out that wasn’t true either. With benzo’s (klonopin, which I used for years) if I didn’t need it I didn’t take them, so I thought I could do the same with seroquel. Went to sleep one night without it and pretty much woke up 5 days latter sicker than I’ve ever been in my life. Now I’m over the withdrawals from Seroquel, I’m going back to klonopin for now, seriously considering moving to a state that will allow me to use medical marijuana. It doesn’t have death listed as a side effect, or as a withdrawal symptom. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/17 "2012-10-16T08:47:49Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Just because you had a bad reaction doesn’t mean it should be illegal. I’ve taken 5-HTP many times in the UK, it can help with mild mood disorders and has other legitimate uses. It’s available in the US, too. I’ve tried it, didn’t notice any significant effect one way or another. I have better results with tyrosine. ---
**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:** [October 16, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/18 "2012-10-16T18:47:02Z")
Depression is not a serotonin-deficiency disease. That was a strong hypothesis that has not, in fact, been supported by the evidence. [Cite](http://www.bettyphillipspsychology.com/id138.html) For depression patients and nonpatients alike, serotonin reuptake inhibitors do what their name suggests; and then the brain gradually compensates (if you keep taking it) by releasing less serotonin or reducing the density of receptors for serotonin. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/19 "2012-10-16T20:06:32Z")
When I was (involuntarily and falsely) locked up because someone stated I was suicidal with no evidence whatsoever, I was forced to take an antidepressant. A half hour later, I was offered a sedative because I was bouncing off the walls. Hey, you forced me to take an upper, then you want me to take a downer? You trying to get me hooked or something? ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376/20 "2012-10-16T22:37:41Z")
> [@Poysyn](#): > > I was given low-level anti-depressant to try and control my migraines. It didn’t work and I went off. I seem to recall some minor side effects. I was given that as well. The major side effect I remember was constipation. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-take-antidepressants-when-you-are-not-clinically-depressed/613376.md?page=2)