Are antidepressants warranted in this scenario?

[Feelinglow1]

I've suffered first with primary infertility for years, then we had our wonderful DS. Tried for a second, first I was very chilled about it but as the years have gone on I've become increasingly desperate/ depressed about it. I'm immensely grateful for the one we have but I'm at the point where if anyone just announces a pregnancy I'm breaking down in tears. I tried therapy, sports, being busy, the works- I feel down and guilty and somehow less than, and I just cannot help it. Add to this I'm so anxious about my one precious child and if he gets as much as a fever I'm panicking. Im generally very anxious but this whole thing has made it so much worse. I sometimes get heart palpitations and stomach upset from the worrying. AIBU to get antidepressants for this?

How do they help something that isn't there? It cannot!

Which is exactly what I said!

So for some people it might involved AD’s

Because we’ve established it’s not about serotonin doesn’t negate the fact they are effective for many people.

I don't speak on the behalf of everyone. I very clearly said it depends on your situation as to how you deal with it. Why not read what I wrote before making statements that are untrue.

You can believe in the genetic but I do not. You are perfectly within your rights to believe in the genetic model or the medical model of mental health - which do you think you believe in? I believe in the trauma informed model. There are many models to mental health. None of the pathology ones have been proven to exist yet. However we do know the history of mental health as a field and how it grew around oppression and stigma. Not a single gene has been proven to linked to any mental health issues. It makes sense that families living together experiencing the same trauma will all have responses to that trauma.

I also feel the genetic model is deficit based too not strength based and given that people do recover then it surely cannot be the gene issue.

Do you get genetic testing when you get tested for ADHD? What medical tests occur? None! Interestingly ADHD is a label given quite often to those who have suffered trauma. I had one child who was abused and then it was suspected she was being abused again in her new home when the child was offered support for her trauma the new family said no. They refused and said her behaviour was nothing to do with the horrors she had been subjected to. The family pushed for an ADHD label and to this day that child says she is being abused and is not ADHD.

Also if it is genetic how come bipolar diagnosis have dropped 90% and ADHD up 80%? Would that be saying that they were wrong before and drugged people for no reason if they didn't have bipolar? We haven't suddenly found a cure for bipolar have we? So why the sudden drop?

Effective in doping certainly but given anxiety isn't proven to exist in the brain what is it doing in there as it can't be treating something that isn't there?

If people want to dope themselves up for no reason crack on! Same as using a recreational drug in effect.

You know that we don’t know the mechanism by which they help - but that their efficacy has been established nonetheless. They aren’t sedative either. That’s your own assertion.

It’s not for “no reason” it’s to treat a medical condition.

But what are they actually helping as there is no proof anxiety exists in the brain so why use something when there is no proof of it so what would it be acting on if nothing is there to act on? Then it would have to impact on something else. Which they do.

Nope that isn't my own assertion, that is the assertion of scientists who have studied this.

It isn't a medical condition. There is nothing medical about anxiety. If there was we would have the pathology there to prove it is medical.

Even those who created the diagnosis have said there is nothing medical about it! They have specifically said in their words "There are no biological markers". Mental health is created out of stigma that is all.

The same could be said about schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s. Do you think they have also been created out of stigma and aren’t medical conditions?

HRTFT but my experience of ADs was that they stabilised my mood, but didn’t help me to feel better. I found yoga very effective at making me better, personally. But the ADs help to lift you enough to get to a point that you can engage with therapy or yoga or rock climbing or art or whatever, to actually change your brain chemistry/responses and feel better in the longer term.

Schizophrenia used to be called 'black man's disorder'. The history of this condition is very interesting and certainly it has come from drapetomania - which was a mental health condition which made black slaves run away from white owners. It means 'runaway slave mania'. In the past they treated drapetomania with physical punishment. Then there was 'protest psychosis' which was a condition which was all about those who protest about things such as civil rights are suffering from a psychosis called protest psychosis. This was then added to the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. And schizophrenia developed along these lines that people who were black, aggressive and angry suffered from this condition. Thus you could diagnose anyone who marched in civil rights protests against white oppression. Convenient eh?

In the past they used this same stigma to then forcibly sterilise black women. 85% of all black women sterilised were labelled with a mental health condition borne from this diagnosis. Today 90% of all psychiatric care beds in the USA are in prisons. Guess who disproportionately populates those beds with schizophrenia diagnosis? So yes this diagnosis has a very clear history to show it was borne from stigma and oppression which still continues today. Being black is not abnormal. Being angry about being oppressed and standing up for wanting rights is normal. Who wanted to label such individuals as mental to justify locking them up and abusing them?

Dementia is not a mental illness.

There is no brain chemistry issue. It has been proven not to exist.

panic attacks have a physical response and so does anxiety? So although there’s no evidence it’s a “brain condition” it still has physical markers.

I am not disputing that. Of course people display reactions I've not said that isn't the case.

A reaction isn't a biological marker.

A reaction to a broken leg is to cry - that isn't the pathology of a broken leg if you get what I mean?

So would you not treat a broken leg because the brain doesn’t display a reaction? Because you’re essentially say that because we can’t see the brains response to AD’s we shouldn’t treat it 🤔

I would treat a broken leg because an xray would prove it was a broken leg.

Nope I am saying because there is nothing for the AD to treat.

Why would you treat a response to AD with more medication?

So you’re saying depression and anxiety doesn’t exist? But you have suffered trauma yourself? What did your brain scans show re trauma? How do you know it existed?

I am saying that of course people suffer with what you call depression and anxiety but I just think that they are not conditions just normal reactions to situations. I do not believe in calling someone abnormal or saying to someone who for example was robbed at gun point and was distressed after that the robbery wasn't the issue and their distress came from an issue in their brain not the robbery and that they are abnormal. I do not believe it is abnormal. You can do?

I never had brain scans I don't need any as there is no diagnosis. Trauma is something you experience, such as poverty, rape etc. It is an experience. So no brain scan would show up a 'raped' part of my brain as that isn't a thing.

How did I know rape existed. I felt the penis inside me and was conscious throughout.

Would you pathologise being excited for say going to Disneyland? Do kids have 'jumpy disorder' when excited and need treating to stop it?

Depression and anxiety are both experiences? I don’t believe they’re abnormal. But you do not need to be irrational (which is what I think you mean by abnormal) to require treatment.

So you’re saying if it’s a rational response it doesn’t warrant treating? Or that’s not what you’re saying?

Bleeding is a normal reaction to a cut - you still treat it.

Excitement is just a heightened emotion - If children were excited or had such heightened emotions all the time it would be an issue, yes. Because it would interfere with their ability to function, like learning and their everyday life. Why have you used that as an example?

Depression isn’t feeling sad on a rainy day or because your trip to Disney is over - it’s an extended period of feeling low, which is interfering with your everyday life.

Your trauma was only problematic because it was subsisting, if you just felt a fleeting moment of trauma you wouldn’t have needed to address it.

Nope they are not experiences - what you would call depression I would call a response to an experience. However people do experience a response so it is both a response to an experience and an experience itself.

Nope by abnormal I mean labelling someone abnormal and 'disordered'. It isn't abnormal.

Would you put a plaster on your finger if there was no cut and no bleeding? So why do we do that with the brain? Try and put a plaster on something that isn't there?

So you think being excited for Disneyland is a problem and a disorder? Why have I used this as this is the same as any other response - it is a response to something they experienced. Why would you want kids to stop being excited for Disneyland?

No one said depression is feeling sad on a rainy day. By all means if you think that crack on. I believe what you would call depression as being an extended period of feeling low. Such as if you live in poverty day in day out. So we agree on what it is - I just do not think it is abnormal whereas you do. I think it is normal.

You mean I addressed it in that I got someone to say the rape wasn't an issue it was my brain that was at fault and the rape just coincided with the brain issue coming out? In the way that Drs do and then pretend the event isn't the issue but the brain is? Keeps you looking towards yourself as the problem and not people looking at the problem in society such as rape eh? Blame the women for being raped not the rapist? Nice!

I can see I’ve lost you now - because you’ve totally misread what I’ve written and continued on your own personal tangent. Have a good day.

I also mentioned up thread I’ve been raped but carry on like that gives you ultimate authority over the interpretation of absolutely everyone’s mental health. 👏🏻