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?

I know a few people who are on them. Including some men. I'm not on them. Have never been. I think my brother needs them desperately, but don't know how to bring up the issuer without him freaking out.

I was prescribed them once after a very bad break up. They made me feel so bad for a couple of days when I took them, that I stopped taking them.

I repeat:

SITUATIONAL DEPRESSION IS A THING. SO IS DEPRESSION FOR NO DISCERNABLE REASON.

People saying that they don't have them no matter how crap their lives are do not understand. Even if I won the lottery and had my every whim catered for, all the friends I wanted, I liked how I looked daily, whatever food I wanted, whatever I wanted to do whenever I wanted. I WOULD STILL FEEL LIKE THIS.

I genuinely don’t understand some people’s mental block over them. As if taking them is somehow “failing” at life. Trust me i’d Be failing a lot more at life without them! I’m not someone who rushes for the paracetamol at the first sign of a headache but I had no real quality of life without anti depressants. Now I do. I don’t care if that means taking them forever. I understand not rushing into taking them at the first opportunity but why would you suffer for a prolonged period unnecessarily?

I've taken them. My mum and sister also have/do currently. Over half my female friends have taken them.

I know 1 man who (openly discusses) having taken them.

I think some of the people posting on here need to be careful of scaring people who are in need of them. If you have never taken them or taken them for a few days then stopped then you haven’t got a clue....they have helped me out of a hole I thought I would never get out of. The good 100% outweighs the bad.

I was on anti-depressant for about 6 months last year but don’t take them any longer, although I still suffer from depression and anxiety at times and suspect I might end up needing them again at some point in the future.

I have quite a few close friends who also take them, in fact thinking about it it is true that most of my close female friends do take anti-depressants, or have done in the past. But I admit I am probably more likely to be drawn to friendships with people who relate to my mental health difficulties, my friends are probably not a very representative sample of all women.

in 38 years ive never been on anything like that and tbh i have a hard life being a 24 hour carer to 2 kids with multiple disabilities that are with us 24/7

we get no professional help either as they see no one,ive also dealt with my then 11 y old being agoraphobic and going through a nervous breakdown

both boys domt sleep either,ive never thought of going on tablets ive just hd to deal with it all

I know far more men who take them, have taken them or at least admit to it. Very few women. I personally haven't, but if they're needed, they're needed.

1 in 10 women in 2018 took them, and 1 in 20 men.

People saying they would never take them. Perhaps you can say that with such confidence having never experienced mental health issues of any severity?

I genuinely don’t understand some people’s mental block over them

Some people have a lot of cause to be very mistrustful of HCPs and don't want to be beholden to someone else for their very mental stability. Others have experienced truly dire side effects from them and then had to suffer more whilst weaning off. Personally, I have no desire to be fatter but obviously the HCP didn't seem to give a fuck about that and pretty much told me to take it or leave it so I left it.

@tor8181 that's not depression is it? That's just having a difficult time because of your situation. Some people in seemingly incredibly good situations can suffer from depression. It's an illness it's not the same as just stress! Of course stress can provoke depression... but depression is an illness not some sort of weakness or failure to deal with something!
Some people need antidepressants or they will end up harming themselves. It can have absolutely nothing to do with their way of life... they could be living in a fabulous castle surrounded by family who loved them and never having to work... it doesn't matter they could still get ill and want to take thier own life. It is not the same thing as situational stress.

I only know of one man and two women who take them. My grandmother also took them in her 90s.

I think many people wouldn't reveal that they take them.

I've never taken them but I have 2 friends that I know of who have at some point in their lives.

CBA TRTFT so apologies is this has massively moved on

Yes I take them and also know others who do. Very few people who I know are aware that I take them as I tend to keep that to myself. So those of you who think you don't know anyone may also have friends who have chosen not to share that info.

1 in 10 women in 2018 took them, and 1 in 20 men

10% is a lot, I certainly didn’t appreciate how many of my friends were taking them. There is nothing to be ashamed of by taking AD and getting help.

I probably should be on them the crap life I’ve had at times, but I’d never take them.
I’d rather cry into my pillow, go into the bathroom and splash water over my face and carry on with a smile.
in 38 years ive never been on anything like that and tbh i have a hard life
ive never thought of going on tablets ive just hd to deal with it all

Yeah. I did the dealing with it, the slapping a smile on and carrying on. I did it for months, if not years. I would never have sought help for myself. But my DH finally persuaded me that maybe it wasn't that great for the kids to see me in tears every day, unable to cope with simple tasks and losing my temper at the slightest thing. I didn't want to take the tablets. I felt I was failing. It just confirmed to me that I wasn't as good as all the other mums, who could cope effortlessly and still smile. But I did take the tablets. For my kids. And I hope that when they're adults there won't be this ridiculous stigma about mental illness.

Never taken them, never needed them

they just numb the pain rather than curing it.

They really don’t numb the pain. I think this is a common misconceptionthat they somehow numb or take away the pain you feel or make you feel nothing. I guess it may be true for some people (this must have come from somewhere?!) but for myself and the many many others I know that take the same and similar drugs, this isn’t the case at all. What they enable us to do, is have a little bit of extra headspace to be able to deal with life.

So, for instance, I have actually had a pretty horrendous week this week. Nothing particularly terrible but those ‘life’ things that just put quite a feast onto your plate. Off the medication, I could deal with about half of those things badly and when it got too much I’d react negatively. Perhaps fight or flight would kick in and I’d want to take off and/or there’d be a lot of wondering about what the point was which eventually leads to ‘I can’t live with this’. Which leads to intrusive thoughts and perhaps escalates. On the medication, I can take the full plate because it’s cleared a space that was initially taken up by the disorders I struggle with. It gives me time to take a breath and choose how to tackle a situation rather than be taken over by whatever negative thing it is that consumes my brain with negative actions that follow.

If you take medication and complete a course of therapy such as CBT, it’s even better because in that space the medication has created, you can employ the skills you’ve learnt in therapy and that really is life changing. It literally blew my mind!

One of my disorders is PTSD and trust me, I feel the pain keenly every day. The medication couldn’t ever numb that pain but when I take it, I can live with the pain.

To address ‘I took them for X amount of time they didn’t work/I felt terrible.’ Taking medication isn’t an easy option. There are no easy options when it comes to MH issues. There are side effects. The general facts are:
Side effects usually last for around 2 weeks and they should lessen over those 2 weeks, so by the 14th day, you’ll be feeling loads better.
You start to see a change, usually more noticeable to others after those 2 weeks.
It does take 6 weeks for the full effect to be felt.
If you’re not side effect free after 2 weeks or there’s no change after 6, you might not be taking the right drug for you. There is a certain amount of trial and error.

I don’t want to come across seeming like I want to be some sort of leading authority on this but there is a shocking amount of misinformation on this thread and I’d hate for a struggling, potentially suicidal, person to come across this thread and read a load of bollocks, decide not to speak to a professional and put themselves in danger:

"and dont know anyone who does" bobbycat - unless you have a VERY small circle that's highly unlikely, especially given 1 in 3 people have or will suffer some form of mental illness in their lives and anti-depressants are first line treatment for most of those. That stat roughly equates to how many PEOPLE I know are or have taken them.

But people could well not have told you, there's still sadly a LOT of prejudice against the mentally ill including on mn - as shown by some of the comments on this thread.

I was first prescribed them over 25 years ago, didn't find them much help and things weren't so bad then. Became very ill over 10 years ago and been on various different ones pretty much permanently since then. Still yet to find a meds regime that actually works for me so I understand I'm at the extreme end of things - and as a result I can't really hide it (and pretty much don't care to now) so I think that may be why I know of others who've had mental health issues including being on anti depressants. Quite a lot of the people I know are on/have been on them, I know that it's not something that's known about them by others (does that make sense?) including in a few cases spouses.

"I think it’s very unhelpful for people to say things like ‘not something I would take’ because it’s stigmatising. They are just like any other medicine." Totally agree - plus if someone makes comments like that in real life that makes it very unlikely those who are taking them will "admit it".

"but I tried them once (one tablet) and it scared the hell out of me ... unfortunately with anxiety it makes it worse for the first 3 weeks, but I couldn't take another because it was dreadful." There are hundreds of different ones, this is not true for all of them by any means.

"Do you think depression runs in families?" There's some evidence it may and certain conditions where depression is an element are known to have major hereditary factors. But it's hard to assess as there's also the "shitty family" factor where certain behaviours are repeated both caused by and causing mental illness - vicious cycle. The conditions where it's strongly believed/agreed to be the case tend to be ones with quite extreme symptoms and where Dx have been traced through genetically related people who didn't live together/know each other eg adopted people.

"Can anyone offer advice on what they are likely to prescribe and how long they take to work?" Difficult to answer, depends on the exact nature of symptoms and Drs preferences (influenced by factors like when they trained, experience via patients, current guidelines & of course cost), usually the advice is 6-8 weeks for them to properly kick in but some can work quite quickly 1-2 weeks if you're lucky. Plus of course all patients react differently - just like with meds for other reasons (eg I can't take NSAIDs due to asthma issues and can't take penicillin orally as I just throw it straight back up!)

"As though suffering from the illnesses they treat is a life choice.

Would you say about potentially life-saving antibiotics "I would never take them"??" Totally agree.

"It is a chemical imbalance, therefore a medical need" to be fair that theory is now being challenged.

Some are questioning it altogether

Some are saying the levels of certain chemicals don't need to be the same for everyone but some people need higher levels of them so for arguments sake (made up figs just for illustration purposes) say "normal" is 100-300 nanos seratonin (I think that's roughly accurate but don't quote me), but person A within that range is fine, person b needs a higher level to function at the same level as person A though - because it's not just the amount but how that person responds to that amount. Again we also see this with physical conditions person A within a "normal" range of thyroxine is fine but person b still within the "normal" range when tested but at the edge of the range could still be having symptoms of thyroid disorder and benefit from medication to adjust their thyroxine levels.

Some are thinking that it's trauma/physical illness that causes the levels of these chemicals to become unbalanced and need medication to regulate.

"I take agnus castus now which helps." Yes also I know op was asking really about prescribed ones but a lot of people use natural remedies for depression too, which if it's mild/temporary/works for you makes sense and why not. I know a good few who aren't on prescribed ones but use things like St. John's wort, dietary management, vitamin supplements (certain vitamin deficiencies depression can be a symptom) exercise etc

"A lot of people just drink alcohol, smoke or take painkillers instead." Or gamble, shop, overly control food intake, over exercise...

Yep this too - which of course is not the right way to deal with it