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Recovering Emotions After 24 Years on Antidepressants

madinamerica.com

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Re: Recovering Emotions After 24 Years on Antidepressants

#71

Post by kryogen1c »

dwaltrip wrote: post #63
op00to wrote: post #47

This article is absolute bullshit and quite frankly dangerous. It seems to me this woman was emotionally vulnerable and taken in by a snake oil huckster masquerading as a doctor. > Shortly after I started seeing him, my new doctor had me read the book Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. Robert Whitaker's theses in that book have repeatedly been scientifically disproven. It's anti-science drivel. > The pharmace…

Unless you believe she is lying about doing much better after quitting her meds and trying other treatments such as meditation and group therapy, the article is not complete bullshit. That being said, I would not be surprised if there is truth to what you said about that book.

> Unless you believe she is lying about doing much better after quitting her meds

This is an unscientific and inaccurate. The placebo and nocebo affects are real with actual health effects. Sometimes drugs don't make it to market because they have positive effects less effective than placebo.

Re: Recovering Emotions After 24 Years on Antidepressants

#72

Post by eugman »

JustThrowMeAway wrote: post #30

After almost 25 years of taking antidepressants, I had no emotion left whatsoever. I felt dead and wanted to be dead. I wonder how to understand this. If you have no emotions, can you still want something? Why would you want to die? I tend to understand this sentence in a way that means she was suffering. But isn't suffering the same as experiencing negative emotions? Or is this supposed to mean that she had no good…

Think of a sine wave, with the y-axis representing the positivity/negitivity. A representation of life's ups and downs.

I think what she was saying when she said "no emotion left" is that the amplitude of that wave was nearly zero. The wave didn't go up or down much. When she said, "I want to be dead", she's saying that the the average value is down in the negatives.

Re: Recovering Emotions After 24 Years on Antidepressants

#73

Post by komali2 »

throwaway-efxr wrote: post #65
towndrunk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m working my way off Venlafaxine after years of use. It’s been a horrible experience. Brain zaps. Hearing odd noises. Crazy emotions. Feeling sick etc. I backed up and started opening the capsules so I can count the number of beads I take each day and then try to reduce by a few beads each week. It’s been really tough to get off this stuff.

Weaning off Venlaflaxine was absolute hell until I started taking Prozac as a bridge. It still wasn’t great, but it was a fraction of its previous awfulness. Took me about nine months to wean off venlaflaxine, started the Prozac bridge in the middle and grateful that I eventually used the bridge. Feeling better now. Good luck to you.

I went through the above journey as well and for me it was not worth it. Psychotherapy combined with meditation was a far better treatment and thus why I am hostile to any suggestions of medication from my psych. I simply don't trust the drugs, at all, anymore.

Re: Recovering Emotions After 24 Years on Antidepressants

#74

Post by prolikewh0a »

op00to wrote: post #50
ssorina wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also a bit skeptical when strong anti-Pharma opinions are expressed, based on personal experience only. Meta-analyses have shown that for severe depression, antidepressants are a first line of attack, only seconded or aided by CBT, but not interchangeable in terms of efficacy. It's kind of stupid to counterargue with yet another personal story, but for me not being able to take SSRIs has proven to be a real prob…

I'm a legal medical cannabis patient in my state, and it has been HUGE in helping me use CBT in controlling my anxiety. Far better than Benzos.

Legal Medical Cannabis mixed with mindfulness anxiety techniques from my therapist has worked wonders for my panic disorder. I am completely free of Benzos and Antidepressants and have been for 2 years now.

Re: Recovering Emotions After 24 Years on Antidepressants

#75

Post by baumgarn »

op00to wrote: post #47

This article is absolute bullshit and quite frankly dangerous. It seems to me this woman was emotionally vulnerable and taken in by a snake oil huckster masquerading as a doctor. > Shortly after I started seeing him, my new doctor had me read the book Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. Robert Whitaker's theses in that book have repeatedly been scientifically disproven. It's anti-science drivel. > The pharmace…

I think you're stepping into a fallacy here. Of course every thought process is bound to biological processes in the brain. So we can see this as some sort of biochemical mapping of our understanding and perception of the world, and our social status in it. Why should the solution to a negative outlook be to mess with the chemistry alone, through drugs?

You can just as well ask the other way around, what kind of world and experience is leading to such a detrimental biochemical mapping. The woman in the article describes this herself, she was called fat and ugly by her father throughout childhood. This has to do with social status, not brain chemistry. I find it quite frankly disturbing that the solution to such a learned insecurity should be just drugs.

Re: Recovering Emotions After 24 Years on Antidepressants

#76

Post by curun1r »

op00to wrote: post #47

This article is absolute bullshit and quite frankly dangerous. It seems to me this woman was emotionally vulnerable and taken in by a snake oil huckster masquerading as a doctor. > Shortly after I started seeing him, my new doctor had me read the book Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. Robert Whitaker's theses in that book have repeatedly been scientifically disproven. It's anti-science drivel. > The pharmace…

> Which basically says that when we deplete the body of certain neurotransmitters, people get depressed

Your statement represents a logical fallacy. I can also prove that depleting a car of gasoline causes it not to run, but fixing the fuel situation won't make all non-running cars functional. Just look at the more recent research that shows a connection between our microbiome and mood disorders to see that depression is often far more complex than the simple neurotransmitter model favored by big pharma.

The causes of depression are varied and what works for some won't work for others. As someone else that lost a decade of my life to the numbness of anti-depressants, I've seen first-hand the psychiatric industry's strong preference for directing patients towards medication-based approaches. Taking medication was the worst mistake I've ever made in my life and I believe that more people need to hear messages like the one in this article. In particular, I very much wish that I, like the woman in the article, had started meditation much earlier as it has become, by far, the most effective thing I've done to deal with my depression.

Re: Recovering Emotions After 24 Years on Antidepressants

#77

Post by chrisweekly »

throwaway895237 wrote: post #36
ssorina wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also a bit skeptical when strong anti-Pharma opinions are expressed, based on personal experience only. Meta-analyses have shown that for severe depression, antidepressants are a first line of attack, only seconded or aided by CBT, but not interchangeable in terms of efficacy. It's kind of stupid to counterargue with yet another personal story, but for me not being able to take SSRIs has proven to be a real prob…

> I hope big pharma comes up with something else than benzos and SSRIs for anxiety, so that I can be relieved from the task of living my life spiting anxiety 70% of the day. Have you tried psilocybin mushrooms or DMT? I'd been on meds for years treating depression and anxiety. A few mushroom and DMT experiences have basically cured my depression and anxiety and opened up a whole new way of looking at things.

How'd you get access to the psilocybin mushrooms?

Re: Recovering Emotions After 24 Years on Antidepressants

#78

Post by patrickg_zill »

How did people deal with mental illness before these drugs were around?

I recall that melancholia was a real diagnosis a long time ago.

My personal view is that in some cases physical exercise can be helpful. I have family that are on Wellbutrin etc., and others that studiously avoid any drugs.

Re: Recovering Emotions After 24 Years on Antidepressants

#79

Post by throwaway895237 »

epmaybe wrote: post #49
throwaway895237 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope big pharma comes up with something else than benzos and SSRIs for anxiety, so that I can be relieved from the task of living my life spiting anxiety 70% of the day. Have you tried psilocybin mushrooms or DMT? I'd been on meds for years treating depression and anxiety. A few mushroom and DMT experiences have basically cured my depression and anxiety and opened up a whole new way of looking at things.

While psilocybin and DMT are being actively researched, I would shy away from recommending people try and use schedule I drugs until they're legalised or at least scheduled differently.

Speak for yourself, I have no regrets about curing myself and can only share what worked for me after years of struggles. In my opinion, it is a crime against public health that these drugs aren't already legalized and widely available. Of course everybody takes a different experience from them, but when used therapeutically in a safe environment, they are extremely powerful and safe.
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