To be staggered at how many people are prescribed Anti-depressants.

[TheoriginalLEM]

People who seem to be pretty much on the ball with ok lives.

At my place of work there are four of us, that i know of, on the same medication (There are only about 20 employees in total)

Another mother at Dd's school, my friend who i met at dd's playgroup.

My friend from a previous job and both of her children.

So these are people who i know are on meds. People who have been happy to disclose this information to me. I don't have a large circle of friends or aquaintances so the sample group, if you like, is small.

Both my mother and my eldest Dd have both been offered Ad's.

I suffer from long term anxiety and depression and feel like the ADs help me. My Dr has expressed the view that this is something I will need for life.

Thats a lot of people who i KNOW are medicated. Why is this ? is it because life and expectations are such that people are suffering from mental illness or are people being given drugs when they are dealing with life events and should be offered strategies to cope. My personal experience is long waiting lists for counselling that wasn't that effective and given drugs to help in the absence of therapy.

I can't help but wonder why this is, what the statistics are.

Cory, I agree with your point about depression cutting out emotions, but think you are using brain zap in a different way to the pp. My doctor warned me about brain zaps as an unpleasant side effect of SSRIs. It's a description of a particular physiological experience.

ok, thanks for the correction, almond

cory
Just to explain what I meant by "brain-zapping", as I think you have taken it to mean general debilitation: it is a truly horrible physical sensation of an electric current causing a sort of explosion right in the centre of your brain, often when you are drifting off to sleep, and out of the blue, with no warning, It feels as unpleasant as an electric shock.

No 6, when there is no known cause for depression. There may indeed may nothing you can do for that but take anti-depressants, and of course if they have helped you and you have not experienced side=effects that is really good. But if GPs had more time they could look carefully into the various possible physical causes behind general anxiety and depression which is present even when there seems to be no external cause.

Drunk there is beginning to be more and more known about healthy gut flora and its relation to mental health. I agree with you.

Other physical triggers for depression I have been remembering can be:
The flu virus which can leave people feeling very, very low.
Constipation
Thyroid
PMT
Eating disorders (often started from bereavements, teenage mental problems or family problems but then perpetuated and made physiologically worse by what is eaten/not eaten & societal withdrawal & shame.)
Fluctuating blood sugar, made worse by not eating food frequently enough/eating sugarand, smoking, drinking instead of eating food.
Lack of sleep
Too much sleep.

Sorry that was a crossed post, Almond and Cory. By the way, I too agree that depression can cause a person's mind to close down more in the way you meant,cory.

Apologies for wrong use of brain zapping; didn't know this.

But point about no external causes still remain.

As I think I explained earlier, depression/anxiety has run in my family for at least 4 generations. I have never been bad enough to need AD's, but my dd is, and several older family members certainly ought to have been imho.

The other thing (as I think I also mentioned) that runs in the family is a connective tissue disorder (EDS) which has been shown often to be co-morbid with anxiety/depression: it is also known to cause some other problems with brain functioning and perception. The problem is, nobody knows why this happens, and the disorder itself is incurable.

So knowing there is possibly a physical cause doesn't really help: you are still stuck with the anxiety/depression.

Celiac disease also causes it.

There seems to be a correlation with heart operations etc. I am not sure whether that has a physical or more mental basis, or if it is both.

MsHoolies, and others in this thread who have experienced very bad depression for no reason and been helped enormously by anti-depressants - I am very sorry for what you went through and glad you were able to be helped medically. I have been posting as I have, in response to the idea that anti-depressants may be being prescribed too often. But I am aware that sometimes they are essential.

Cory
That is interesting about connective tissue disorder (EDS). I had not known about it. I am sorry your family has been affected by it and suffered so much from depression through the generations. I am sorry there is no known cure.

Cory
Re: Connective Tissue Disorder (EDS) and depression. I was looking this up and saw in particular article linked below and wondered of you had seen it ? The person writing, who also suffers from this condition, found her medical treatment for the EDS condition in itself made her suicidal. So she found another medication that helped her condition without this side effect.
themighty.com/2016/05/how-ehlers-danlos-syndrome-affects-anxiety-and-depression/

Sadly, the NHS just isn't able to do anything else in many cases. Round here there's an 18 month wait for 4 sessions of CBT and that's all they can offer. It's massively underfunded, and so GPs are having to put people on Anti-depressants because they have no other option in many cases.

I do think mental health sucks because of how awful modern life is. There was a time when your time at home was your own, but now jobs want you to work longer and longer, they want you out for drinks after work for team spirit, they are able to contact you at any time of the day via email or text - you basically never get to finish work. Add into that that most people are renting and their landlord could sell up at any moment and people are having to account for every pound.

We've been sold a lie that we should all have a nice house by now with two cars on the front drive, a foreign holiday every year and a job that's 9-5 with plenty of days off. It's not possible for so many people and they wrongly feel like failures.

I agree that access to talking therapies is appalling. Even when I was an inpatient, I couldn't get any! There were 20 women on the ward, and only 2 could be under the psychologist at any one time. Absolutely ridiculous. The psychiatrist (the second one - the first was awful), the mental health nurses and HCAs were wonderful, and did their best though.

I was very, very lucky in that my family have paid for a private clinical psychologist for the last 18 months (and at £70 a session, it's certainly not cheap!). My DM used to pick me up from the hospital and take me to see her, & I've continued to see her since discharge.

I also just can't see what can be achieved in just 4-6 sessions. Iirc, I spent the first few months with my psychologist pretty much just sitting in the chair, giving the occasional grunt. As I think I've said, I was severely depressed, suicidal and hearing voices. 4-6 sessions would have been a stressful waste of everyone's time.

Similarly, there are many different types of therapy, and CBT doesn't suit everyone at all. Mine does a mixture of all sorts - CBT, DBT, schema therapy, mindfulness etc - depending on the need of the patient at the time.

I feel very lucky to have been able to access such help - after decades on masses of meds & multiple inpatient stays, it's the only thing that's helped. And also rather sad, and angry, that others are unable to access such help.

itsmine, I guess its a case of your mild depression might be my severe depression, and vice versa

I'm learning a lot from this thread.

I dont think CBT was for me, I understood what the counsellor was saying/meaning, but she didnt seem to use any insight with me, it seemed to be one size fits all.

I think if you are stuck in a pattern of thinking, you need to figure out how you started the pattern in the first place, not just look at the established pattern and figure it out from there

DrunkonEther Thank you for sharing your experience of massive depression, being treated with many anti-depressants, but being helped by a good psychiatrist and a good clinical psychologist.

I'm also learning a lot from this thread. It is great that so many people have shared experiences.

Part of the problem may well be that mental illness is too complex to be dealt with successfully by the current GP model of patient care-short appointments you have to wait 2-3 weeks for, little continuity.

If the NHS were doing it properly, it would probably have to be like cancer care: patients guaranteed to wait no more than 2 weeks to see a specialist to be assessed, treatment taking place in dedicated clinics with specialist staff of all levels led by consultants.

Prescribing medication is a particular difficulty. I don't blame any GP for not being conversant with all the medications and variables, but it does cause problems.

CBT is not the cure-all politicians have promoted it as being, and 6 weeks is woefully short anyway. Different patients may respond to different therapy types, but many people (including medics and politicians, the latter for cost reasons) are resistant to the very idea of long-term therapy. Which is odd, given how we accept it takes a long time to recover from many things, with 2 years being cited for a major bereavement, for example.

Indeed, Sensei - my therapist told me that, given how long my anxiety had been going on for, 2 years of working at it would probably be what I needed.

A psychologist I know wrote a really good article for The Guardian about CBT. She wasn't slagging it off but was saying that it isn't the panacea it's painted as. IAPT (increasing access to psychological therapies) work in primary care and usually offer 6 sessions which I agree is a bit shit. If you are referred to secondary mental health services, you generally get 12 sessions. The government like CBT because it's short term and measurable - patients complete a questionnaire at the beginning and end of treatment so psychologists can produce lots of statistics to show that it works. Our trust does offer psychodynamic therapy for up to a year.
Psychiatry desperately wants make out that it is just as scientific as other branches of medicine but it simply isn't. Other medical disciplines have an array of tests they can use to make a diagnosis- X rays, blood tests, biopsies, MRI scans etc. Psychiatry relies on what the patient tells them and what can be observed and sometimes on collateral information from family and friends. Hearing voices is a classic symptom of psychosis but there is no way of 'proving' that someone is hearing voices- I have interviewed patients who will keep looking around the room and intermittently burst out laughing but will deny hearing voices. It's very common for psychiatrists to disagree about a patient's diagnosis.
Mental illnesses are diagnosed using a manual called ICD 10. For every illness, there is a list of symptoms and to 'qualify' for that diagnosis, you need to have a certain number of symptoms. Sometimes, the symptoms are broken down into 'clusters' and you need to have a certain number from each. With depression, it's rated as mild, moderate or severe depending on how many symptoms you have.

I wondered what that questionnaire in CBT was about, now I know! When I filled it in every week I was aware I should have been getting better so didnt want to disappoint the therapist and make it seem like her efforts werent helping. I made a mistake in the middle when she said usually people dip a bit when they are finding it hard, but mine got better and better. I had 8 sessions and had a lot of paperwork to fill in between times, which had the answers already written in them.

I dont know.

I recommend Emotional Freedom Technique for anyone who is depressed but feels strong enough to try. You can do it yourself. It works in the mind like peeling an onion, revealing and releasing points of anguish with each layer if you keep going. You often yawn or cry in involuntary reactions of released tension.

www.amazon.co.uk/Emotional-Healing-Minutes-Acupressure-Techniques/dp/0007112580

But for what I've read since and personal experience even the ratings/symptoms aren't that dependable - it depends on the patient.
Personally when I was a suicidal I was putting on a front - I didn't want anyone to know how bad I was because then they might stop me - and I wanted to die. Not be 'saved'.
So I was washing myself to go out if I really had to - to keep up the pretence eg go to the doctors (left on my own I didn't wash /get dressed/get out of bed for days) and I was eating - really eating - crap and lots and lots of it - I ate until I felt sick and then carried on eating...almost enjoying feeling so sick, punishing myself - a kind of self destruction.
I went to local shop for my food, unwashed and in clothes over my pjs. (When I was really better I was too ashamed to go back into that shop - not just my appearance but the amount of shit I bought)
I never attempted suicide (not then - actually I did when I was a teen - a cry for help really) because I wasn't going to fail. If I tried and failed I might never get another chance - I had to get it right, first time. No overdose - tried that once before ....hanging might work but I had nowhere in the house I could do it, would have to go somewhere else -tricky. I could jump in front of a train but that doesn't always work and traumatises the driver. I could slit my wrists - but that would leave a mess for someone else to clean up- no- one else should suffer because I was such a shit person. If only I could just disappear from the world. Then again I also wanted it to look like an accident then it didn't upset my grandparents because they just wouldn't understand and they still didn't know what I was really like. (I was sent to my grandparents a lot as a child to keep me away from my mother - we didn't get on - she hated me. She would tell me my grandparents spoilt me, they liked me and they wouldn't if they knew what I was really like -- how evil and wicked I was etc. They would hate me too.)

imcracking I am very sorry That sounds terrible and no doubt the whole problem stemmed from what happened to you as a child. I hope you are feeling you want to live now.

Imcracking I wonder if you have read anything by the well known British psychologist, Sue Gerhardt? She knows a great deal about the effects of an abusive/unloving/unesponsive relationship in early childhood. It apparently literally changes the brain's structure and responses. You may have constant anxiety from a state of hyper alertness I think. That may remain even after you have mentally left the evens behind you.

This pdf by her is a brief outline of her views, expounded more fully in "Why Love Matters."

www.ecswe.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/QOC2-Chapter3-Why-Love-Matters-How-Affection-Shapes-a-Babys-Brain-by-Sue-Gerhardt.pdf

Thank you kind - I'm fine now (well I'm not I'm currently depressed, on ADs ...but I'm not suicidal- no where near as bad as I was).
I actually have made my peace with my mother (she wasn't very well mentally and I was difficult - like I said pretty sure I have ADHD -being assessed). She has apologised and I have more or less forgiven her. It isn't 'fair' but she was doing the best she could with who she is and her mental health.

Probably why I don't like my current therapy - it stirs all that up and other stuff and it can't be changed...

I recognise certain thoughts about myself and I KNOW they aren't true and stop myself going there - tell myself that is nonsense and I am worth more and I believe that. Same with certain behaviours -I pick myself up on them and recognise them for what they are. That is how therapy helped me all those years ago - giving me the ability to understand myself and do that. (And it wasn't CBT!).
Current depression - I recognise it for what it is .. I see as it as separate to me - it is the depression talking/thinking...and the physical side - the aching chest pain and panic and overwhelming sadness and lack of energy I just want them to go away. I hate depression.

Imcrackingup Yes, depression totally sucks and it's really impossible to describe to anyone who hasn't experienced it. My DM is relentlessly positive and cheerful. She has been supportive when I've been ill but she doesn't really 'get it' and I'm sure there's a part of her that thinks that I don't have anything to be depressed 'about'.