To think that most women are taking anti depressants?

[Jambalaya76]

Hi

I have been on and off these for most of my adult life. Life is easier with them and I find I am more able to cope with life stresses. I feel normal and tend to let upsets go over my head. Life is better with them. However, I have had a lot to deal with in my little life so feel like a need a little help.

Over the years, I have met so many people who say they also take them. Not that I ever bring it up. It made me wonder if I was to ask people, I wonder how many are taking anti depressants? This seems the perfect forum to ask.

So, how many of us woman here take, or have taken, antidepressants?

Never actually

I manage through therapy , exercise and gardening . But nothing against them and would use if I felt the need

Dreamsofnr2 You cannot generalise. People take antidepressants for many different reasons eg

They are being appropriately prescribed because the person has one of a number of conditions that antidepressants treat (and yes, certain types of headaches do respond to certain types and certain doses of antidepressants). In some of these cases they are saving the person's life.

They were being appropriately prescribed but now are being continued without clear indication becuse proper re-evaluation has not been done.

They were inappropriately prescribed in the first place (eg by a GP who was not in a position to have made a detailed enough evaluation, or does not have recources to offer alternative treatments, no judgement implied of GP in most cases, psychological therapies are woefully thin on the ground in the NHS).

They were not prescribed and the person is taking them through other menas eg bought them, got from a friend etc.

@SweetSummerchild
Yes I have suffered depression in the past but I chose counselling instead of chemical support
Standard questions from GP...
"Do you enjoy doing things less than you did before"
"Are you having trouble sleeping"
"Do you find it difficult to concentrate"
Oh well if you say yes to the above you must be depressed here are some ADs....

I know a lot, but then where I live when you go to the Drs the first thing they ask is "are you depressed?" Regardless of why you are there. I have been offered prescriptions and never taken them, I don't agree with how they are so easily prescribed and for so many random reasons

I've taken them pretty much constantly since my late 20's. I'm 50 now. I work with a small group of women. There's 6 of us. 2 of my colleagues are taking them. One for a marriage breakdown and the other to cope with her husband of 39 years almost dying of a massive hear attack.

Just to answer the ‘critch’ bollocks too, if it’s a safe drug that does you absolutely no harm and there’s no long term I’ll effects from taking it, then so what if it is a crutch? Taking ADs long term will do nothing to you apart from keep your mood stable if you need them to. Literally, nothing will happen. So what’s wrong with taking them long term exactly?
My doctor explained that he sees three types of people that take ADs

1. those that take them for a short time and then are fine and never take them again.
2. those that need them sometimes but have breaks in between.
3. those that go on them and never come off. He says that there is nothing wrong with either those. One of those will work for you and that’s fine. Neither one is better or worse than the other.

There’s a lot of stupid on this thread.

Taking pills to make you feel better isn't fixing what ever is wrong it just masks it? And that way you ll always rely on them to pick you up and that's not fair on you or those around you - particular children and partners

I so don’t agree with this . For some people they are a life saver . And if people
Need them for 30 years so be it . I am
Lucky that I can handle my dips.

I know several people who use them. My STBXH because he gets the black dog, suffered from bad pain, had career problems, and SAD. My father because it helped him deal with a long term debilitating illness. A relative who is still suffering from PTSD.

I think the resistance to them - including those who are honestly saying they'd never take them - is the fact happy pills were handed out like sweets in the Fifties-Seventies, and I know several women from that generation who could have just have done with support and struggled badly to come off them (diazepam etc). One simply was suffering from sleeplessness because her husband snored and she had 5 children to look after. It's still so much easier and cheaper for a GP to prescribe a pill even now in the ten minutes they have per patient than try to find the root cause and prescribe treatment that may not even be available.

Some women taken them. Some men take them.
People may say they take them when they don't.
People may say they don't take them when they do.
I've never taken them. Some of my family members have.
I am no more nor less screwed up than they are.
So, what difference does it make

Don't forget that people take them for other reasons than a period of "simple" depression, as well.

DH takes them as a part of his medication for bipolar disorder. I take them not just for depression, but to help me keep on top of chronic PTSD, anxiety and an eating disorder. People with incurable (for some at least) mental health issues take them, not in order to seek a cure, but to enable a certain quality of life.

The pills won't cure the underlying issue, but neither imo does therapy or mindfulness or anything else. It's ALL about coping mechanisms, ways to make things easier, ways to cope better with what you need to cope with.

Taking pills to make you feel better isn't fixing what ever is wrong it just masks it?

Nonsense. Firstly, if your depression is unexplained clinical depression rather than caused by obvious life problems, how are you supposed to 'fix' it?

Secondly, why wouldn't you do whatever works to alleviate your symptoms? You wouldn't tell a terminal cancer patient to refuse drugs which help them, just because those drugs can't 'fix' them.

I’ve never taken them and don’t think most women are.
Lots of women are taking them tho and as stated above feel it is a taboo they can’t talk about. People won’t realise which of their friends are taking them as they don’t talk about it.

@Luckylavender What a ridiculous thread. I've never taken them. I know some who have but not many. I may know people who have that I don't realise. Does it matter - is someone counting?

Well it kind of does matter. If more women are taking anti-depressants are you not curious as to why that might be? I think examining things like this are important. If it transpires that women are more likely to be taking ad's then is it because women are more likely to experience mental ill health, is it because women are more likely to seek help for mental ill health, is it because women are being inappropriately prescribed medication. And then looking further into the ramifications of each answer - why are women more likely to experience mental ill health, why are men less likely to seek help, why are women being prescribed ad's inappropriately?

It is not ridiculous to want to examine something that is extremely important and affects all of us. Mental ill health costs us a country an extraordinary amount of money - so even if you aren't interested in a compassionate, sociological or even just curious way, we should be interested economically surely?

Taking pills to make you feel better isn't fixing what ever is wrong it just masks it?

Members of my family have had it pretty good for the last 4 generations: interesting not over-stressful lives, supportive partners, strong family cohesion. Yet every single generation throws up at least a handful of members who suffer from severe anxiety and depression- often coupled with a connective tissue disorder which is known to be co-morbid with those particular MH issues. Unfortunately, this genetic disorder is so far incurable, so all we can is to deal with the effects according to what the present state of medicine can do. In my case I do not need AD's- so I don't, my dd does- so she does, my dm and dgf almost certainly should have- but didn't.

And that way you ll always rely on them to pick you up and that's not fair on you or those around you - particular children and partners

In my family, it was the people who didn't take the ADs who absolutely relied on children and partners to carry them: from the age of 5, I was basically a carer to my dm (who would have thought it wrong and shameful to go to a doctor). My gf in his autobiography admits that he was totally reliant on his dw to carry him through his dark patches: she never wrote her autobiography so we don't what this cost her.

My dd otoh does not dump on other people but gets on with living her own independent life. I think that is totally fair on the rest of us.

If it's a crutch- yes, well, dd also uses crutches and in the past has used a wheelchair for the condition which is co-morbid with her MH problems. Are you saying there is something shameful in using crutches? Should she have relied on me to carry her instead? Or crawled up the pavement on her hands and knees?

Never ever but never say never. I’ve been close.
I’ve been lucky.

It seems to me, from Facebook groups, that a large number of menopausal women are prescribed ADs. Is this a recent thing? Can they really all be clinically depressed? I respect their choice but it's not for me. I'd worry about coming off them at a later date.

I’ve been on them for several years and I know some of my friends and my MIL have taken them in the past. My life is 100% better since being on them and I don’t regret it for a second. I used to think it was a sign of weakness to take them but actually it takes a stronger person to admit they have a problem and do something about it. I don’t publicise the fact I take them but I’m not ashamed of it either.

Not personally

But i do know a fair few women who take them

It surprised me in some cases...only because they seemed so chipper

Which I suppose was the ADs working

If “most” means more than half, no. Between 7 and 8 million according to this:
www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/10/four-million-people-in-england-are-long-term-users-of-antidepressants
But they are prescribed for twice as many women as men.

I think when people say they don’t know anyone that takes them they mean ‘I don’t know anyone who has told me they take them’
I take a handful of shit from bipolar but I don’t tell every buggar about it. My close friends know and I would tell anyone if it came up in conversation but I’d say there are a lot of people I know who don’t know I take them!

I have (on 2 separate occassions) once in my teens and once for PND, but I haven't recently. I have known a couple of people say they were on them but I didn't tell all my friends when I was so I have no idea if friends or family take them.

I am on them and most of my good friends have been on them, in fact all the people I am good friends enough to talk about that kind of thing.

My profession is more likely than the general population to be depressed. But actually friends of mine that do not do the same job as me have also had them at some point.

And in the profession I am in I know that many people are on them who you would not expect, because I prescribe them.

I'm in my late 50s and have never taken them.

I think the reason there are more women than men on anti depressants is probably that women are more prepared to admit that they're feeling depressed? It probably explains why there are more men than women that end up committing suicide. It's the biggest killer of men under 40 from what I've read.