To think that anti depressants and time off work are suggested too freely to life's problems

[reallytired]

Depression and anxiety are real illnesses and when there is medical depression or anxiety then medication can save lives. I feel medication should be reserved for those with moderate or servere depression.

I have just left my job with nothing to do go to. It was hell on earth where I worked. I have made a scary step, but I feel it was the right decision. I feel a massive wieght has been lifted off my shoulders.

There were people who went off sick or took medication because they could not hack where I worked either. Where I worked there was a culture of taking a few days off just because the working enviroment was stressful. My boss (who is not a doctor) suggested medication when I told him I wanted to leave. I think he meant well, but I did not have a medical problem.

I feel that GPs should be suggesting self help books and self help websites for mild depression or anxiety or possibly limited councelling. Being unhappy is not a medical problem and anti depressants do not help true unhappiness. I also think that being happy is not always the default state for a healthy human being.

If you are in a situation that makes you stressed and unhappy leave it, like a shit job for example. Leave it.

Depression caused because of a chemical imbalance like PND needs medicating. MEdicating yourself because your job makes you miserable wont change the situation.

it is no longer classed as pnd. i have it nearly 3 years now and subsequent things happening in my life prolonged it.

I've read your OP twice.

I think what you are really trying to say is this:

If you are being exploited in a non-supportive job it would be nice if your GP was able to a. press a red button that summons the ninja-liberal-revolutionary-tactical-support-group to accompany you to Head Office, where they demand better work conditions OR ELSE

or

b. press a green button and unleash the revolution full stop.

rather than c. give you a drug that will alleviate sypmtoms of depression and stress brought on by alienation and exploitation. Not quite "soma" but close.

You may have a point. but I think the way you have expressed it comes awfully close to making light of other people's suffering.

Scuzy, what is considered the cut off length of time for your depression to be classed as PND? I have known people who have been told they had PND years after having children I thought it was to do with it being onset at the end of your pregnancy not how long you had it?

southernfriedtofu - yes because it's that easy for people to leave a difficult or stressful job, or unhappy relationship, or come to terms with traumatic experiences ... 'Leave it' isn't an option for a lot of people.

perhaps so but in counselling i found out i had it before i was pregnant. i went in to gp and was told it was pnd.anyways thats neither here nor there. anyways am bowing out of this thread as its making me mad.

laters.

Also, how can you tell the difference between a 'chemical' depression and a situational one? How do you know a difficult and stressful situation doesn't cause a 'chemical' depression?

Most GPs do suggest self help strategies in tandem with anti depressants. The medication is thought to give an opening in the depressive state so the self help (Moodgym, books, therapy 'homework', exercise etc) and therapy can work.

Sometimes, like any other medication, ADs are prescribed incorrectly. My BF was given them in conjunction with CBT but the medication was so effective the CBT became an academic, theoretical exercise. She had had no episodes of depression during the weeks of therapy so had nothing much to work with during the sessions. However, we were thankful she was on the ADs the week her father died and she got evicted from her flat.

I suffer from anxiety and after an anxious episode, depression. I chose not to take the medication as I felt I needed to be feeling anxious for the therapy to work. Each week I keep a diary of my anxious episodes and it's providing good, real things to work with during each session instead of memories and what ifs. On the scale of how both illnesses can work out, my symptoms seem quite mild so this is an option for me.

All that said, I do think YABU. Unhappiness is a world apart from depression. ADs provide for many, many people the break in an ever tightening spiral of misery. They provide a window through which all the other things are able to operate.

there did used to be a perceived difference in classification of depression between endogenous and reactive depression. i haven't seen this used in clinical practice in years. more significant in terms of treatment options is whether the depression is mild/moderate/severe. any mild depression, whether endogenous or reactive, is more likely to be self-resolving than a severe depression, which will almost certainly need intensive treatment of some sort.

there used to be a myth that patients with endogeous depression responded better to antidepressants than those with reactive depression, but this has been shown not to be the case. by and large combined treatment of ADs + talking therapy has shown to be most effective in treating episodes of moderate to severe depression.

inflames read what you want in to my post, but don't put words in my mouth for others to read. Did I say it was easy to leave a traumatic situation?

So what do you expect drugs to fix if it is the situation you are in is causing you difficulty? If you had a job that causes you physical injury would you keep treating the symptoms or take you self out of the job? 18 years of parental abuse left me suicidal would pumping me full of tablets at the time made it better? No don't be stupid. I had a job where 2 of my team members were on leave for depression, it was a shit job where they used you and treated you like garbage. I felt miserable every day I went to work. I had to leave my job. Medicating myself and taking time off work wouldn't have fixed the fact that the management treated you like shit and paid you peanuts to put up with it.

If your child was being bullied at school, they came home crying everyday? Would you say well I'll just bandage up the bruises and cuts and dose them up so they don't get sad about it? No because you would see the situation is upsetting them.

SouthernFriedTofu

Yes I agree. You have to either fight or flee in those stressful situations otherwise you end up highly anxious and traumatised.

I think Anti-depressants can also help to restore equilibrium, as does talking therapy to figure things out.

I also think that time out helps you think more clearly. Being out of there temporarily means you can get your head together and make a right decision. Do you leave, or do you fight it.

Sorry southernfriedtofu I read that implication from your 'leave it' full stop - seemed a bit simplistic in tone to me.

I think antidepressants can and do give some people the emotional strength and resilience to enable them, in some circumstances, to make necessary changes or to cope with unchangeable situations. This is what I've witnessed in clinical practice for well over 10 years and researched as a research fellow.

Choice of treatment should be entirely individual - many people who could not, for example, leave a job may well opt for antidepressants to enable them to halt a slide into a more severe depression - right or wrong it's their choice.

Many people in my experience also benefit from medication to ease their low mood, including suicidal thoughts and feelings, pre and during theraphy for childhood abuse, too. It doesn't change what happened but it can be the gateway for talking treatments to effect changes.

That's Ok I can see why you read it that way. I am not one of these people who think you can just "snap out" of things but I do worry that with the recourses not being there for people to change their situations or for doctors to spend adequate time with people that drugs are being peddled to people as a cure all or even as the first stop to dealing with depression.

I had horrible PTSD related health anxiety and the first thing my GP did when I went to her after suffering for the best part of a year was give me a list of self help books to buy on amazon.. I did, they helped about this much.

I had some counselling.. It helped about that much

I put off taking antidepressants for another 9 months, while all the time thinking I was dying of (insert rare medical condition) because I didnt want to be seen as one of the people you are talking about in your op.

Then I had such a vile panic attack that is lasted 3 days. I went to the dr and got a prescription. I felt like shite for 2 weeks while I was getting used to them and then felt better, then better, then even better! within 10 weeks I felt NORMAL. I was on them for 9 months and weaned myself off them and still feel normal, despite some family shit going on. I can't tell you how much they helped me.

I wish I'd taken the prescription at my first appointment tbh. Antidepressants WORK. I didn't want to take them because of the stigma.. What bullshit that is.