Reply #105: You weren't addressing me, but I'll speak up [View All]

I remember my depression beginning as a kid. My parents (who were very anti-medicine and anti-doctor in general) took me to a psychiatrist when I was four. Attempted suicide three times in my life. I have been officially diagnosed with dysthymia, periodically with double depression - major depression on top of the dysthymia. I also usually get SAD as well. I have a whole lifetime of dealing with depression. I have taken antidepressants. I have tried almost all of them. I was on Wellbutrin for a few years; that one worked the best for me. I finally stopped taking it when it became clear that I was gradually becoming more agitated and paranoid, but it took my spouse pointing it out to me for me to be able to see it. My spouse didn't advise me to quit the meds, by the way, but that was my own decision. I am far happier OFF the medication, believe it or not. But I didn't just quit the meds and hope everything would be okay. I am taking fish oil, eating a better diet, seeing friends more often, and doing yoga. I do light therapy in the winter. I'm not saying these would solve everyone's depression. I do think that diet, exercise, and an active network of social support IS crucial though, because I think poor diet, lack of exercise, and isolation are factors that exacerbate natural tendencies toward depression.

Look, I understand why people take meds for depression. Because I did too, I can't just tell people with depression to "get over it". But I think that the extremely high rate of depression in our society is related to many, many factors, and taking meds may make it easier to ignore those factors but it doesn't solve the problem. Just as I've managed my depression with meds, I've also managed it without meds. The choices aren't be medicated and be happy, or be unmedicated and be suicidal. There are indeed more options, and the people who are telling "us" (ie society at large, psy docs, pharmaceutical companies) that we need drugs to fix the problem have a vested interest in keeping the factors in place that lead to a high rate of depression.