Reply #4: I haven't, but I can tell you this much. [View All]

[Berry Cool]

They are lifesavers for some people.

I don't think "we all" are taking them, but some people are, and they are making both negative and positive differences.

Different medications are different for different people. SSRIs, for example, don't "dope you up," if by "doping up" you mean rendering someone woozy or impaired in function, which is what I think of.

Nor are they "feel good pills." They don't so much make people "feel good" as take the extremity away from "feeling bad." As in, they won't make a person instantly happy, nor render that person permanently happy or insensate to things that would make a normal person unhappy. What they will do is make the unhappy feelings proportional and bearable, rather than disproportionate and unbearable.

Example: Let's say you're in college and you're clinically depressed and you are on an SSRI. You fail a test in one of your classes.

Without the SSRI, your reaction might be "Oh God, I failed a test. I'm going to fail the course, and then I'm going to fail all my courses, and flunk out of school, and have to go home, and be a nobody the rest of my life. I might as well kill myself now."

With the SSRI, your reaction might be "Oh God, I failed a test. If I don't do something, I'm going to fail the course. I'd better go to my professor and try to get some help so I can make sure I do better next time."

See? PROPORTIONATE response. Response that makes things BETTER, not worse. Response that results in constructive ACTION to resolve problems, not and endless cycle of despair thoughts.

Or your SO might break up with you. Reaction without SSRI: "I can't live without this person. I will never find anyone else. I am going to sit in my room alone all day in the dark and cry." Reaction with SSRI: "It hurts like hell, and I cry every day. But I still get up and go to class. I still let my friends comfort me. I'm trying to get through every day until things get better."

Of course, the great irony--and what makes headlines--is that SSRIs can actually MAKE people, especially young people, suicidal. Brain chemistry is an inexact science. And not every SSRI is right for every person. It's a matter of trying to find the right one in the right dosage for the person. If someone is on one that is making them feel worse instead of better, they should wean away from it and ask for something else and keep trying until they find a good one.

SSRIs also don't work right away. It takes a while for them to build up in the system and have an effect, and for the effect to go away, too.

Not everyone needs them for life, either. For some, they are like crutches that can be thrown away when the broken leg heals.

I think they're a useful tool for people with problems. Overuse or inappropriate use is an issue, but so is misunderstanding what they do in the first place, and gathering all your knowledge of them from sensationalized newspaper and magazine articles.