Does it just make them “happy”?
It dampens the extremes. So you have enough mental energy to seek other help.
Just as a clarification; depression isn’t sadness.
Depression is the lack of anything, it’s feeling every moment of your existence scrape by while nothing seems worthwhile or interesting.
Depression is the lack of anything, it’s feeling every moment of your existence scrape by while nothing seems worthwhile or interesting.
That, and feeling completely alone in the world
And it’s really annoying when doctors prescribe antidepressants when you’re just feeling sad about something like, say, the death of a loved one.
They don’t make me “happy” but I’m also not simply “sad” without them. They stabilise my mood, they prevent the big dips, the deep abysses, where everything is stupid and bullshit. They enable me to deal a little better with bad shit happening so that not every little fuck-up makes me crash.
Some people might call that “dulling” or similar but I really prefer this over despairing at every little thing.
However, it’s worth noting that, especially in case of psycho-active drugs, everybody reacts differently to them. Most people try a handful of different drugs before they find one that fits. That’s to be expected so if the first one doesn’t work or causes intolerable side-effects, there are plenty alternatives.
Mine don’t make me feel happy. They just make me feel not depressed and kind of “blah”.
It’s not great but it’s better than feeling depressed all the time.
When I was on them, it just kinda made most things feel more “worth it”. Like before I’d make myself food and just think, “this tastes like crap, it’s barely filling, and took forever, why do I even bother making myself food” whereas the same meal on antidepressants still had me feeling like I’d accomplished something, even if it wasn’t Michelin star worthy.
I can only explain it from my point of view but it was almost like the fog lifted from my brain, so that I could think more clearly.
I became way more productive. Cleaned up and organized everything. Just made me go.
Inside Out is actually an excellent depiction of depression, where regular emotions are absent or suppressed.
Anti depressants can reduce the severity of the depressive influence and provide space to address the underlying stressors.
It keeps me from “spiralling” when I get caught up in negative emotions. It can also do the same for positive emotions as well, so I take a mood stabilizer to help smooth things out on both ends.
Half of them make your dick not work on top of whatever benefit you get!
I’ve been on Citalopram for a long time. I still get happy, sad, angry etc. Though I never got back into the black holes I sometimes got before I started taking it. Only downside is I sometimes have nocturnal bruxism, but that’s a trade I’m happy to make.
Edit: spelling
I have that without medication.
They affect everyone a little differently, but generally they actually dull your emotions. A small dosage is to take the edge off, larger dosages are for more severe cases and can give people the “zombie” feeling (that is, complete lack of feeling).
Source: on Prozac
For 50% of people they do nothing. The other 50% has a range of how they’re effected.
What’s important to understand is that Depression isn’t “sadness”. It a dead feeling.
It’s not a dead feeling because of anything particularly bad happening. But it is a dead feeling that isn’t fixed by pills. But pills are, in some cases, a requirement for even being able to start trying to fix yourself.
Your brain has two positive reinforcement tools, Seratonin and Dopamine. Both of those work together. Dopamine affects how we respond to things, both good and bad. Seratonin affects mood, motivation, energy levels.
So when we say that “Depression isn’t sadness”, for example, we mean that we lack the dopamine to even think about things in terms of good or bad. They just…don’t…matter.
That leads to a kind of spiral. Things kind of fall apart when they just don’t matter to you. And as things fall apart, you start to feel like a failure and a piece of shit because things are spiraling, which just adds to the lack of dopamine and it keeps going down and down and down until you’re body is quite literally just not capable of producing those two chemicals naturally. They kind of forget how.
As cliche as it sounds, both Seratonin and Dopamine are boosted by “thinking good thoughts”. And I know that that sounds like bullshit, but it’s true. That’s why the fix (there is no cure) for depression is C.B.T (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). It’s things like, keeping a negative thought challenge notebook, where whenever you have a negative thought, you write it down and you challenge it; actively asking yourself why you think that. If something good happens, but you always think “Oh this isn’t going to last”, you ask yourself things like “why do I think that?” and “What are the other possible outcomes”. Or writing down “three good things that happened to you that day”, for example. Cheesy things that your depressed and negative mind is likely to dismiss as “hippie bullshit”, but they work.
CBT is also about making habits. As things fall apart, as things don’t matter, dishes might not get done. Lawns may not get mowed. work might suffer because of lack of focus. And you wake up every morning and all of those things not being done, just make you feel like more of a piece of shit and drop the spiral further. And so you say “Okay…I’m never going to go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink. I’m going to walk my dog every morning. etc…” Small things. All of those things slowly but surely start to build the Seratonin back in your system, and the Dopamine starts regulating properly again. Thinking good thoughts, having a sense of pride and accomplishment, having fun…all of these things are what create your Seratonin and Dopamine.
But the kicker is, that when things have *not mattered" for such a long time. When you’ve lacked any of those things for such a long time, even starting to practice CBT sounds like utter bullshit. It’s cheesy at best. Worthless and pointless at worst. And so the drugs are there to act as sort of a tow truck that you call in to give your battery a boost so that you even have the motivation to start down the path of actually “battling”.
This Blog Post is what finally made me realize that I was indeed depressed, after denying it for many many years. I consider it a must read, not only for people to understand depression, but to understand me.
https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html
They gave me the ability to laugh about stuff again. I had post natal depression for 3 years. When I finally got on fluoxetine I remember being able to finally laugh at something (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) for the first time in years.
Sadly it also gave me permanent hyperhidrosis.
Nobody knows. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
