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.

Meh. In conversation with other mature students on my course I've discovered that the majority are taking at least one psychiatric drug, and a good third taking something else as well - sometimes pregabalin, more usually quetiapine, and quetiapine is very nasty stuff.

I am able to live a life which is pretty ok & I'm on the ball because I'm on meds.

My DD died aged 2 days almost 5yeara ago, my STBXH left me on Valentine's weekend and is now 'with' someone who I thought of as a bf, STBXH had been friends with her ex-h since he was 4, we saw them most weekends.
I need the ad's to function - all of a sudden, I'm a single mum who works full time in quite a demanding job with a lot of bereavement and betrayal to try to deal with.
I think it's good that the stigma around ADs isn't there so much now, I think they've come on a long way & help a lot of people.

In fact in one pre-class conversation, only one of us out of about half a dozen wasn't taking any psych drugs.

I haven't read the thread before replying so this may have already been said.
I think life is sooo fucking stressful! So much expected from you, you have to be all things to all people. And if something has to give, you are the worst in the world.
You have work, husband, kids, home, family, extended family, friends. Wtf??? My dad said it was never this hard raising kids when he raised us. The pressure of modern life is immense!!!! It takes a very strong person to be able to cope with it all!!! Shout out to you all, you are doing an amazing job!!!

Wow, this thread is a total eye-opener. I don't know a singlet person taking ADs.

Obviously some, or even many of the people in my life may well be on them, but I don't know of a single one.

I'm not in the UK.

God, I feel like I should be so much more grateful than I am, and there but for the grace of God, etc. I take it all for granted.

to everyone who's struggling.

I think the whole "isn't it shocking that one in x people needs antidepressants" has something to do with the stigma of MH disorders. I know a fair few people who are or have been on AD's, but I know even more people who have or have had cancer. Isn't it shocking that so many doctors prescribe cancer medication? Doesn't the fact that so many people take cancer medication prove that it is over-prescribed? Errr...not really.

And as a historian I see plenty of evidence of people suffering from anxiety and depression in e.g. the Middle Ages. They turned to saints or made pilgrimages.

cory thats a good point about history. fwiw i am not sure if ad's are over-prescribed or not. But i cannot imagine that life in the middke ages , during the time if the world wars (although aren't we heading that way now) etc was any easier than it is now. I would imagine that loke you say, they used other crutches to help or simply just suffered. Then in later times people (mostly women) would have been locked away in asylums.

I think on the whole Ads are a good thing. Like you say, you'd be pretty mad not to take painkillers if you were in pain.

I do think that there is a lot of pressure from society to be "happy". You only have to look at social media to see all the pictures posted of "our lovely family day out" of people trying too hard to be happy.

Dowager, i bet you do know people on Ads. The only reason i know is because i am very open about it and it leads to the "so am i" conversation. Most people are stunned when i say im on Ads and struggle with anxiety. "but you are so confident " loud and ott I don't think Ads allow me to be thatperson, ive always used that as a mask to my lack of confidence.

From what I've read, people took an awful lot of Valium in the first half of the 20th century. One tends to forget that now.

Also, wasn't drunkenness a far bigger problems in the past, amongst men anyway?

Posted too soon.

Alcohol was probably self medicating, against both emotional and physical pain.

I was prescribed Sertraline when I was going through a horrendous time with my dd. No talking therapies would've helped. The "situation" wasn't going to go away. I needed help to deal with it.

However, it's been over 6 months now, things are easier and I could probably come off them. The GP hasn't called me in for a review and I'm guessing I could stay on them forever!

I think short term they can be useful but I wonder how many people end up taking them far longer than is necessary? (I'm specifically talking short term not lifelong anxiety and depression which is clearly very different.)

What treacle said. I'm sure there was a reason for Gin Lane.

People have self medicated throughout history. Life is hard for many people. We have much less physical labour now, but we have other stresses.

Laudnum & gin

Valium is a good friend of mine and still used as a short term fix for extreme anxiety.

TheDowager: "I don't know a singlet person taking ADs."

You may think that! A few years ago, a study came out showing that SSRIs are no more effective than placebo for mild-to-moderate depression. I said to my DP that this was remarkable given the number of people we knew who were taking them or had taken them. He said he couldn't think of anyone taking SSRIs. I then reeled off a list of about 10 people we both knew who were on them. I was having those conversations with people and he wasn't.

Something OP seems not to understand - many are on anti d's due to a chemical imbalance in the brain. Therefore they need the meds.

There is absolutely no evidence to support this hypothesis. Yes, antidepressants change the levels of chemicals with chemical synapses within individual neurones, resulting in changed mood, but that does not mean the levels of certain chemicals were wrong to begin with.

Pregabalin and gabapentin are nerve pain medications as well as being anti seizure medications

Pregabalin is also licensed for anxiety. It also has a sedative effect if taken in large doses, and is one of the most common street drugs currently due to this reason. It is also highly addictive, unsurprisingly*.
*
I am prescribed mertizapine. The reason given with that it has a sedative effect and seeing that I was often sleeping for as little as 2hrs a night it was a welcome relief to suddenly have a full night sleep again.

And this is the problem with current prescribing practices. Why not offer you promethazine, which isn't addictive, instead? Mirtazepine isn't licensed as a sleeping tablet! And how is given you a sleeping tablet helpful anyway? Surely treating the underlying cause is a better long term solution?

For many people, they are as essential as insulin to a diabetic and the idea that mindfulness and counselling would work instead are as valid as they are for diabetes .

Again this is not completely accurate. Most antidepressants barely work better than a placebo.

I think that they can be handed out quickly my gp wanted to give me some as I was quite low after the birth of my DD turns out I was anaemic a bit of iron I was as right as rain

Like up thread there is a post stating people could be prescribed running in some cases. I believe the rise in perscribe AD is combined with the decrease in exserise, even walking more would help the body.

I don't think people yet realise the effects of exercise on the brain, how the blood flow changes and alters chemicals with the brain. How exercises can have mind altering effects and help prevent diseases if the brain, it is so very important for human well being.

There is a place for AD but there is room for other methods, how many people would take excersise over tablets I don't know?

The problem is if you are depressed, getting the motivation to exercise. If someone is there to encourage you to exercise, it helps enormously.

I think a lot of people will have been self medicating with alcohol and nicotine in the past. I think modern life is very full on and the filter on a lot of the information we are bombarded with is very negative. I also think there is a lot of pressure on people to be seen to be successful in all aspects of their lives. I'm not suprised so many people are on medication for mental health but I'm disappointed the alternatives are not really offered properly on the NHS.

It is concerning more so that people are on them long term the dose has been increased by their GP yet have never had any other support

There does seem to be changes in how they are prescribed

Beasty so a perscribe excersise class that you have to attention/encouraged to attend to give you motivation, knowing it would be with people that are in the same situation as you.

Thing is there is so much money for drug companies to make from depression.....

The cost to NHS for anti depressants is £800.,000 per day

So the drug companies are making a nice profit out if £365.000000 each year, doubt there CEO would want a change in this.

They have also cleverly marketed AD's for depression

A chemical imbalance that can be corrected by a tablet made it sound so much less complex and easy to fix