If you tilt your head a little, and then put your glasses on upside down and squint, you could make out a case that anti-depressant medications are just "gratitude pills." There's a case to be made (as opposed to a maid to be chased) that 'depression' is just the inability to appreciate all you have. "Gratitude pills" open up the mind to counting one's blessings and reveling in them, no matter how humble they may be. A strong enough "gratitude pill" would allow you, as the Ebola virus dissolved your entire body into putrescent blob, to love the fact that you just took a breath... "Wow, I just took another breath! Isn't this wonderful?"
Maybe pharmaceutical science could even cut it so fine as to market "anti-comparison" pills! People taking such a wonder drug would not compare their Tojorama 32" flat screen HDTVs with the 60" Sony their neighbors just bought, thus cutting off 'depression' at its headwaters.
Right... I can see that all I did was turn around and look at the river flowing at me, rather than watching the river flow away from me.
But I'm grateful that my brain chemistry has me positioned not to give a rat's ass about the fact that my fly is open. In fact, I'm grateful it's open!
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I have a friend who began taking Prozac because she was depressed. If she had gotten off her ass and got a life, she might not be depressed, but hey. Now, she is happy that at 50, she still lives in her mother's house and has a minimum wage job. Instead of marrying the man she was madly in love with, she married a young kid whose parents can't stand her. And when a close friend died, she grinned. But she's got rose colored glasses so no prob.
Boy, I went through one major depression, about ten years ago. It's really nothing to take lightly. There's no "oh, suck it up" or "get over it" involved - it's a serious thing. Sadly, due to my depression, most of my friends avoided me - the same friends that could have pointed me in the direction of professional help.
But I managed to get through it - the longest two years of my life.
I've seen friends go through the same thing since then, and I've had the same thoughts - "oh, get a life - just get over it already," but I know that it's about twenty times more frustrating for the poor schlob who's depressed than it is for his friends. They want to get over it, but it's not that kind of thing. It's sort of like telling someone with the measles to "just get over it."
Anyway... I'm happy I survived it. It really and truly sucked.
I'm not saying there is no such thing as 'depression.' I believe that brain chemistry determines our personalities and how we respond (or fail to respond) to stimuli. Prozac, et. al., have their place in the world. What I'm saying is that it would be even nicer if "Science" (meaning science for profit) could fine tune things so that you could ID your problem and then be given the brain chemistry changer that would end that problem. Imagine a teenage girl who suddenly doesn't like her face or her weight and you give her a pill every morning and she no longer thinks about her looks or weight...
Scary, huh, because this would lead to a world of mind-numbed robots. Happy mind-numbed robots, but robots nonetheless. You'd be born, grow up happy, produce & consume happily and then, at the proper, government-approved time, dig your own grave, climb in and die. You wouldn't have had one unhappy, insecure, depressed day in your life!
I struggled with depression for the better part of my life... until I decided I couldn't stand being depressed...
so, if I wake up feeling out of sorts I just know it's a thought away. I think sometimes depression is a choice.. people choose to indulge it..I chose not to give into it.
People who are depressed because of chemical imbalances do need meds... though that doesn't always help. My mum is a perfect example. Nothing helps... but she also has a tendency to brood. Not good.
you are one thankful person!!! you must be good company, your having a grateful spirit could rub off on those other unappreciative locos.
Drugs have their place in a crisis: antibiotics for a severe infection, antidepressants for someone seriously suicidal, etc.
Medications are over prescribed. Doctors hand out antibiotics for colds and Prosac for people who are unhappy with themselves.
I have suffered from bouts of severe depression since puberty, so I know depression is no piece of cake. I also know that antidepressants like Prosac are prescribed the way Valium was in the sixties. Behavior modification produces better and more long lasting results for most people than these drugs, but it requires harder work and most people do not want to do the work.
I'm with Inco on this one. Everyone has to want to 'come out of it'.
We all have choices when it comes to our personalities, -even though alot of it was influenced by parents, friends, schooling, etc. Not all people go into deep boughts of depression, but some do, and some do but choose to do something about it.
As for chemical imbalances, I'm not a scientist or a head doctor so I have no educated thoughts on that -other than don't over-pursue drugs, because most of the time they give you a very false sense of security. And what's worse is when you don't have those drugs, it gives you an excuse.
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