Discussion Does medication help or harm?

[neitherherenorthere]

I go through these periods where I desperately want to stop taking medication. I've tried so many different things for so many years and I'm just sick of it. Most of the time I can't tell if what I'm experiencing is a side effect of a medication or if it's just the depression. There are no studies looking at the long-term effects of psychotropic medication use, or looking at the combined effects of the various medication cocktails that so many of us are on. I don't want to make my brain more fucked up than it already is.

There's also a growing amount of research suggesting that antidepressants (and presumably other meds) become depressogenic after a certain amount of time. Something about your neuroreceptors becoming desensitized to various neurotransmitters because there's just so much of them floating around due to the effects of antidepressants, etc.

So what I'm wondering is: am I still truly depressed, or are the long term effects of the medications I'm on keeping me depressed? When you start tapering off a medication and it seems as though your depression or other symptoms are returning, is it that the mental illness is still there, or is it that your brain just needs time to readjust back to equilibrium in the absence of medication? Brain plasticity continues throughout your life, but is there a limit to how much your brain can heal itself? After a certain point, can there be permanent damage from medications?

There are plenty of people who have been helped by medication, so I'm not calling medications evil or advocating for anyone to make any changes without talking to your psych. I also freely admit that right now my meds are probably the only thing keeping me from killing myself, and as such I'll probably keep taking them, or at least some of them. I'm not anti-psychiatry, I'm just circumspect about it.

Still, I can't help but wonder if the depression and suicidality I feel are caused, or at least worsened, by the meds I'm taking. Each time I decompensate has been worse and longer-lasting than the previous time. I think the term for this is kindling. What if it's not the continuous presence of mental illness that's doing the kindling, but rather the long-term use of medication? Research indicates that the more depressive/whatever episodes you have, the more likely you are to have another episode. After 3 or 4 episodes you're pretty much guaranteed to continue having episodes forever. But again, what if the recurrence of these episodes is caused or worsened by medication rather than just being some sort of natural neurological process?

I realize that no one really knows the answers to these questions at this point, but I think about this a lot and I'm curious to see other people's opinions.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I believe it can do both. The best you can do is learn about the particular medication you are offered; it's 'side effects,' it's long term consequences, it's efficacy, and then you can make an informed choice on whether the benefits outweigh the costs. Sometimes of course you have no choice and you need certain medications to survive regardless of the cost.

https://sanctioned-suicide.net/thre...psycho-active-prescription-medications.40224/

 

[neitherherenorthere]

Thanks for sharing the thread, it was an interesting read.

You're right, of course. I didn't mean to imply that there aren't an enormous number of factors that go into making medication-related decisions. It just frustrates me that there's so much more we should know before making those decisions, but that information just doesn't exist or isn't known. It can also be very hard to tease apart cause and effect once you're on medication, which just muddies the waters further. I don't regret starting medication, but it's caused a lot of weird issues over the years and I can't help but wonder "what if".

 

[Huntfish34]

That's a tough subject for sure,. Everyone's body /system is different and will react differently with various drugs / medication..

To keep it simple and short I'd have to agree with Underscore... I believe it can do both.. Depends on the situation at hand.

 

[muffin222]

I agree- it can do both. I don't believe that medication truly "fixes" the core problem for most people; I think it merely masks or soothes the symptoms. For some people, that symptom relief is all they want, in which case, medication can help. But, in terms of truly touching the root issue, I don't believe medication truly helps. I think it just buys you time.

 

[RepressedMind]

It really depends on the person, the medication I have now is really making me feel better, so it's working for me. But a while ago I tried one other medication and it made me have a lot of anxiety, since stopping it I feel a lot better

 

[ohhgeeitsme]

Like others have stated, it depends on the person. If you've been on medication for a long time, you're likely to experience withdrawals when you quit, which would make your symptoms worse in the beginning. If it's something that can cause post acute withdrawals, you could feel worse for months or even years in some cases. So you'd only really know until you've been off it a long time. The time I tried an SSRI, I developed akathisia. It lasted a year, and is still mildly lingering. I'll never touch another one again. Before the akathisia developed, they did help, just not in the way it was intended to. I was still depressed, but I stopped caring about everything, which helped with my anxiety and brought a sense of calm. Nothing bothered me anymore and it was nice, even though I still wanted to die. It was weird. Then out of the blue, BAM, akathisia hit after a dose and that's when I learned what true hell was.

Unfortunately, none of us with be able to give you a good answer. It may be a great idea to stop, or it may be a horrible idea. From what I understand, a lot of these drugs aren't intended to be used long term and they can cause a LOT of harm when they are, but every individual has to weigh the pros and cons themselves. Good luck to you!!

 

[neitherherenorthere]

Thanks everyone for your insight. I know there's no one-size-fits-all answer, but it helps a lot to see different perspectives. From the looks of it I've got a lot to think about.

 

[Chemicalcastration20]

I can give you advice of personal experience of myself and many that I know. Once you take antidepressants there's a huge possibility you will never be the same again.. They trash your sex life and rip your emotions away, This can also last for decades after stopping them. They are very dangerous drugs to mess with

 

[Deleted member 94]

I believe it can do both. The best you can do is learn about the particular medication you are offered; it's 'side effects,' it's long term consequences, it's efficacy, and then you can make an informed choice on whether the benefits outweigh the costs. Sometimes of course you have no choice and you need certain medications to survive regardless of the cost.

https://sanctioned-suicide.net/thre...psycho-active-prescription-medications.40224/

You can go see a naturalist they say their treatments don't have side effects don't know if that's true or not.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

You can go see a naturalist they say their treatments don't have side effects don't know if that's true or not.

A naturopath? I'm currently using a combination of diet, medication that i can't do without and supplementation.

 

[Deleted member 94]

A naturopath? I'm currently using a combination of diet, medication that i can't do without and supplementation.

Same here but I'm just interested in getting the body right for its send off.

But seriously diet takes ages to work but can cure a lot of shit my niece used keto to burn fat and get rid of her depression.

Ancient Greek believed that diet can be a cure. Crohn's patients swear by the scd diet.