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.

I'm commenting on the large number not individuals. I am not in the all ADs are bad camp, if only people took a nice walk. But I do think there are too many prescribed.

Don't worry, the "have a nice walk/bath/cup of tea" crowd operate the mental health crisis lines for people who are having a psychiatric emergency, too, so if you were saying that you'd be in good company.

Newbrummie, that is probably where our experiences are very different.

Because on the whole we haven't had shit circumstances in my family, apart from the normal kind of poverty that my grandfather's generation had to experience. We tend to be make the most of any educational opportunities, be good with money, marry happily and are usually (if I may say so) very good with children.

That is not the problem. The problem is a tendency to the black dog, and a pronounced level of high anxiety which comes on periodically and is almost paralysing.

Newbrummie Ok I take your point.

Cutting a very long story short! I had to suffer violence and aggression from my teen dd. She was suicidal and then developed psychosis. She was eventually sectioned. I was just about holding it together, still going to work.

I guess if CAMHS and SS and MH professionals had been able to help more I wouldn't have got to the point of needing ADs.

My family also has a history of depression and anxiety running back to at least my great great grandmother.

I love citalopram. It has completely changed my life. I look back now at my life before citalopram and think what a terrible waste.

It isn't just about being happy. It's also about being a more loving and empathetic person who feels connected to others.

Oh IcedVanilla if I had £1 for every time they suggested my dd "try colouring in"!

"Ok, let me just get her down from the window she's attempting to jump out of."

Sorry I'm merailing. I'll get my coat!

Thornrose exactly ... I've been told repeatedly on threads where I've had problems with my kids that I need AD's I bloody don't, I need tenants to tell the truth, ex to action our divorce 4 years after splitting, I need those things to happen and then I can move to where my friends, family and support is and in the meantime whilst none of that is happening I will have bloody melt downs from time to time, no medication is going to fix it though. And in terms of getting through it the gym I believe is as good a short term fix as any. It's just typical All the shit comes at a time when the kids are in critical school years - again something that could have been prevented by other people - and so the danger of the cycle continuing is very apparent for me.

Very sorry to hear this, Newbrummie, and I do hope your situation sorts itself out.

We are getting there, thank you x

helpmitchy - how did that work for your cat? I work as a vet nurse these days and my particular interest is working with angry cats (and believe me, I see some ANGRY cats) . Always interested in ideas for helping owners appease their miserable moggies.

The trouble with saying people don't need ads they just need to change their stressors is sometimes that isn't possible. I can't magic away autism, I can't magic up good health for my mil so she can be better placed to help us. I can't change those things, I can perhaps get extra support for ds (working on that) but that stressor will always be there. I can't move closer to my family for support because we can't leave mil.

The trouble with blanket statement like too many people get prescribed anti d's is that those who really do need them end up feeling guilty that they just didn't pull themselves together.

Fwiw my GP did offer me alternatives first.

I am fed up with hearing that ADs are a "quick fix" or there to make you happy.

Before I got on meds I crashed a car at 100mph to kill myself and somehow got out with scratches. I overdosed many times and am lucky I survived. I am covered in thick white scars that I started creating when I was 12.

Now I am myself again. I am not numb, I have a great range of emotions, I just don't get suicidal anymore.

The trouble with blanket statement like too many people get prescribed anti d's is that those who really do need them end up feeling guilty that they just didn't pull themselves together

I agree with this. It's odd really that people seem so confident to judge whether other people need ads or don't. It's a decision for the individual and their doctor to take together, no-one else.

Pete Glad to hear you have now got the help you need.

Humans try to rationalize trauma and this causes anxiety and depression. Trauma is personal to an individual - what is trauma to one may not be to another - so we may not realise we've suffered it.

Also, the sense of being powerless causes anxiety I think...and in modern societies many women, children and men feel powerless in their survival - we depend on politicians, police, armies, employeers, landlords etc etc all of whom hold our happiness in their hands. This can make as all feel rather anxious on a lowish, continual, drip drip level.

Social media and images of what we should be which are unobtainable ideals are also making us feel like we're not coming up to scratch.

And finally, the isolation of living in separate homes where anything can happen behind closed doors...I have a theory that a lot of abuse would have been stopped in stone age societies who lived communally - someone would have stepped in. Or maybe they didn't, maybe they scapegoated more and let one individual take all the blame. Which would have put them all on edge hoping it wouldn't be them next.

I have a lot of colleugues who are on anti- depressants or anti anxiety meds but then we all wok in a very stressful occupation.

"The trouble with blanket statement like too many people get prescribed anti d's is that those who really do need them end up feeling guilty that they just didn't pull themselves together."

I couldn't agree more, MrGrumpy. Self-criticism/self-hatred is a huge part of my depression - my CBT therapist was shocked at how unkindly I spoke about myself - and threads like this, with views like NewBrummie's play right into my belief that I am a total failure.

What I hear is this - If I wasn't such a pathetic failure, I could sort myself out - lose the weight, get out in the fresh air, find new hobbies, and I'd be happy and normal and right. Other people believe it is possible so if I can't do it, I must be the worst sort of failure.

It is worth remembering that even when depression is caused by things that someone could change, depression robs you of the ability to make those changes, so a short course of antidepressants may be necessary, to get the person to a point where they can function well enough to make the changes. Like a splint, to support a broken limb while it heals.

Why is it that people struggle to see antidepressants and other psychiatric medication as being the same as other medical treatments? Somehow, taking them is seen as an admission of failure - you should be able to manage without. No-one would say that to a diabetic about their insulin. No-one would say my dh should be able to manage his arrhythmia without the beta blockers, or to my mum about her thyroxine.

The difference is that diabetes, arrhythmia and underactive thyroid are physical conditions, with measurable physical signs and tests to demonstrate the presence of the illness. Depression isn't. It is all in our heads, and there are no blood tests or electrical traces that can demonstrate it. But that doesn't mean that it is not a real illness.. It doesn't mean that people with depression do not need proper treatment - and that may be drugs!

I would agree with people who say that more people could benefit from other forms of treatment, and that many people are let down but he paucity of mental health services in this country.

Research suggests that depression doesn't spring from simply having too much or too little of certain brain chemicals. Rather, depression has many possible causes, including faulty mood regulation by the brain, genetic vulnerability, stressful life events, medications, and medical problems.

Only read as far as page 5 so far but at least 3 of those things sound like things which one could reasonably expect to be helped by medication.

Like some other posters, I owe my life to the existence of anti-depressents.

If I lived 100 years ago, I would be debilitated by "nerves", in an asylum or, most likely, dead.

I was thinking the same as you, Startled- at least 3 of those are not about external factors at all.

I had severe PND after DD was born. I was filled with overwhelming despair, and life seemed pointless. I felt frightened 24/7.

I was successfully treated with ADs. However, I was never told why I had ended up with PND.

It was only years later, when I saw a consultant gynaecologist that I was told why. Apparently, your hormones plummet and/or fluctuate massively after giving birth. Oestrogen has a complex relationship with the production of serotonin (our feel good chemical). Hormonal fluctuations can also interfere with the neuro transmitters in your brain too.

So, my PND + severe anxiety was absolutely caused by a chemical/hormonal imbalance in the brain.

There is also overwhelming evidence that there is a genetic link for hormonal depression that runs through many of the women in my family.

A great aunt was institutionalised after the birth of her first baby, eventually recovered but was readmitted after the birth of her second child. Nowadays, she would have been diagnosed with post partum psychosis.

My grandmother suffered terribly with PMS. Once a month, like clockwork, she would spend several days in a red rage or would threaten to throw herself in the canal.

My Mum inexplicably began 'suffering with her nerves' as she neared her forties. Terrible anxiety. Pacing the house for hours. Unable to drive anymore. Numerous trips to A&E thanks to panic attacks. Then at 42 she had to have a hysterectomy, and virtually overnight her nerves disappeared.

All of the above caused by hormonal fluctuations causing havoc with brain chemistry. No therapy, or exercise regime was ever going to help, in just the same way no one ever 'talked themselves better' from diabetes.

Is there any other medical treatment which people who, presumably, have either not needed it, or have found it doesn't work for them, feel entitled to say that other people don't really need and/or to say that, even though people taking it say it helps them, that it has no effect. I am struggling to think of another, any suggestions?

I think it's we'll know that some GPs offer drugs when counselling would be a better, but more expensive, option.

We all know that....

"What I hear is this - If I wasn't such a pathetic failure, I could sort myself out - lose the weight, get out in the fresh air, find new hobbies, and I'd be happy and normal and right. Other people believe it is possible so if I can't do it, I must be the worst sort of failure."

Me too!

Also agree with those saying as I did - you really wouldn't get comments like this about physical illnesses. That's a big part of WHY people don't disclose that they're mentally Ill/on ads!

or done for murder!