is anyone on anti- depressents? im curious cus a friend is going to be on them soon and i dont want her to be. why? well because its highschool pressure not depression. so can anyone give me some experiences with these medications. a couple of my friends have been on them, the ones that still are i cant really talk to them about it cus they feel akward. so any advice would be appreciated.
Most modern anti-depressants have no effect (except for side effects) on people who do not have a mood disorder. So even if it is just highschool shit, it's not going to hurt her to take them. There are some that are the exception to this, but they are not often prescribed unless the other ones fail.
i want to know if people actually feel better when they take them. if it actually helps their feelings not just the outward appearances? if they are a victim of 'prozac nation' type symptoms. in that movie the girl almost commits suicide by the end and she says she feels no emotion at all. ive seen people just become zombies on these medications and i dont want it to happen to her.
Yeah don't fuck around w/ Prozac. I know one person who used it and not only were the side effects awful, but it fucked them up a bit in the head while they were on it. Not perminant or like brain damage or anything, but they were just... different. But as far as most of the others, all they do is this: Ok, your brain has chemicals that control your mood. Multiple ones, in fact. Our brain releases these chemicals, and certain receptors pick them up and make you feel happy. However, depressed people very often don't have as many receptors as normal people, so even though their brain is producing enough Dopamine and Seritonin to make them happy, their brains just don't pick it up. Kinda like shouting at a deaf guy: a depressed person's brain can try as hard as it wants to produce enough dopamine (IDK if i'm spelling that right) to make the person happy, but without the receptors, it's a lost cause. That's where anti-depressants come in. _Most_ work by blocking the "re-uptake" of the Seritonin and Dopamine (in other words, when the brain has a bunch of seritonin sitting around that isn't being picked up by the receptors, it removes it), which in turn causes more receptors to form. Because there are now a normal amount of receptors, the person can feel happy when the brain releases dopamine and seritonin. The drug itself does not cause those chemicals to appear when a user isn't feeling happy, so in essense, they cannot be abused because they do *not* CAUSE the person to feel good: they just enable their brains to feel good when they are supposed to. That's also the reason that a doctor can prescribe them to just about anyone who walks in the front door without too much worry about negative effects: if the person already has enough receptors, then the reuptake inhibitor doesn't work (very little seritonin left floating in the brain because it's binded to receptors), which then does not cause more receptors to form, which then causes no change in the brain. FYI: Not all antidepressants work this way, but many do, particularly the modern ones. I've been on Zoloft, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Neurontin... um... Cymbalta, Lithium..., Trizodone, I think there's at least one more. The bottom line, for me, was that they can work, but for me often they seemed to not work after a while, say 6-12 months, which is why I kept switching. They don't make a person feel any different, except perhaps feeling normal instead of feeling blue for no reason. But other than that, there's no high, no 'messed up thinking', nothing. There are side effects too though, so your friend might not feel completely normal at first but they do go away. Also they take a few weeks to even start working since it takes that long for new receptors to form. I know a lot of people, and by a lot, I mean at least 3 dozen people who've used or use antidepressants, and among them not a single one has ever acted like a zombie, or any of that other stuff. They act normal. You'd never know they were on it, even the ones on Prozac. However, a girl I knew (also on antidepressants) had a sister who took Prozac, and from what I've heard through the sister I know, that girl was fucked up. I don't know if it was the Prozac or what, but she was on it and she was weird.
I was on Prozac for 2 years in highschool and I can vouch that you are not the same person when you are on it... My whole attitude and perspective on life changed, and not necessarily for the better... Everyone who knew me said how much I had changed since I got on it... it was because of that that I decided to stop taking it.. I couldn't just stop, I had to slow down my dosage; Just in case... I went from taking one every day to every other day, then after about a week of that I dropped to every two days, every week I waited another day before taking another one, until I was able to stop compleatly... I don't reccomend Prozac at all, even if you do have ligitimate issues... it really depends on what they give her... I hate how now a days it can't possibly be that as parents we need to sit down and actually talk to our kids, no they have to have some sort of mental problem! What a crock! ~ Terpsichore
wow you guys have made me feel a bit better. im pretty sure she has some other kind of pill not prozac or the generic brand so that makes me feel a bit better. and terpsichore: yea this girls parents never talk to her about her problems, its usually me that talks to her about shit. this silly world has become soo materialistic that we forget its all an illusion.
Personally, I would never take anti depressants, they are prescribed without the long term effects being know, and they vary from person to person. If it's high school pressure, I'd advise her to sit down and make a list of what would make her life better,and then try and fulfil one a day...