Wondering about depression

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I’ve read a lot about depression, I’ve experienced it, etc. I always thought it was a simple matter of being a chemical imbalance, something fundamentally wrong with my brain I had no power over. But this one statistic sort of kept coming back to haunt me and it’s that 1 out of every 6 people in the US are on an antidepressant. And it’s been discussed-do that many people really have a mental disorder? Or is this a product of the society we live in?

There was one video I saw that looked at the numerous different causes that can play into depression and talked about the overly broad DSM category that allows ADs to now be prescribed even to people who are grieving over the recent loss of a close relative. Trauma is also a huge factor behind the depression of many. To me I just question how many people have true clinical depression that seemingly comes out of absolutely nowhere, and how many of those people are experiencing legitimate responses to painful things in their lives that they are being told to get over and just expected to function despite?

I started thinking about my own life. I realized that not a single time was I ever depressed without reason, like I initially thought. In middle school, I didn’t understand why I was so profoundly depressed. I was clueless. But looking back now, I can see it’s because I had recently moved which was a huge stressor (missed all my old friends badly) and my home life was really rocky because it’s when my dad was at his worst and was verbally and emotionally abusive to my mom and freaked out on the rest of us as well. I was also dealing with fear from psychosis on my own, thinking evil spirits lived in my bathroom and stuff.

My next major depression, again I didn’t really understand why I was in so much agony I wanted to die and everything was overwhelming, once again I had moved recently, had ptsd from the recent very traumatic period in my life which at the time I didn’t know I had, still was dealing with psychosis symptoms unsupported, etc.

In college I’d be hit seemingly out of the blue with them. No. I was extremely unhappy with my degree and academic experience in college. It was CONSTANT stress, emphasis on numerous subjects that I didn’t care for or were extremely challenging to me that made me feel inadequate, I worked at a lab where I wasn’t appreciated and my skills weren’t being utilized (I was in denial of allll of that) and I had untreated narcolepsy that made functioning itself extremely difficult. And I was dealing on and off being tormented by demons, psychotic episodes, etc.

There was NEVER a time in my life looking back where I could claim I was depressed for no reason, due to a spontaneous chemical imbalance. I wonder how many people, if they were to carefully look back on their lives, would find the same.

That doesn’t mean that depression isn’t a serious phenomenon at all and that absolutely doesn’t mean some of us won’t need medication for it. At certain points in my life, if I hadn’t had medication I would have been a danger to myself. I have been crippling can’t get out of bed even to turn the lights on when the sun set depressed, haven’t showered for days or cleaned or eaten anything depressed. What I find dangerous is saying depression is simply random and can strike at any time for no reason deprives the person experiencing it of power and means society never has to change or do anything. More attempts should be made to find the root of a depression, if it exists (I am sure there are a minority who really do just have their brains go haywire for reasons yet unknown to us too) before prescribing medications. Furthermore, even if medication is deemed necessary for that time period because the person’s symptoms are severe, there should be a set time period (noting when the stressor that may be causing the depression may end) for going off the med.

Does any of that make sense? Sorry it was so long. Everything I write is too long :weary::weary:

Summary: If 1/6 Americans are on an antidepressant, are that many people truly afflicted with a messed up brain that sends them into severe depression for no reason at all, or are we medicating unnecessarily because short term it is the easiest and fastest solution rather than dealing with complex and potentially terribly unpleasant aspects of life in general and our own personal lives?

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Low levels of vitamins B6, B9 and B12 are tied to depression. Here’s a study on B9 and B12, about it.

I find myself getting unreasonably depressed when I miss my multivitamin that has high amounts of B-Vitamins in it, but otherwise when I take it, I feel pretty decent, although my life is kind of a mess.

A B-100 vitamin is worth a try for depression.

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Yes malnutrition can also result in depression. It is so complex.

Some people who experience depression become deeply offended when told to exercise or make sure they are eating better, etc. But this is not bad advice, it is heavily backed by research to help relieve (and prevent!) symptoms of depression. I was never offended by this advice, even though I knew during some of my episodes I was incapable of going to the gym or feeding myself well. These can also serve as preventative measures, and you don’t necessarily have to start them in the middle of an episode. Also, for some people they really work and help them and that is what they need. That doesn’t mean those people were not seriously depressed, or that they wouldn’t have qualified for a diagnosis w current DSM standards. It just means that they found a different thing that worked/works for them and I don’t like the snobbery in the mental illness community that looks down on people who get better by changing their lifestyles and say they “weren’t really ill”. They complain that those people don’t acknowledge their illness when they are doing the same to them!

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I just don’t know how antidepressants will help me personally. First I worry about side effects and coming off them. Secondly i have recurring troublesome thoughts that make me depressed. Antidepressants can’t remove those thoughts.
Also I just feel like the motivation energy issues etc which antidepressants are said to tackle… I just get a gut feeling it won’t work in me so I don’t take them.
In the UK GPS are now more encouraged than before to prescribe antidepressants cos of some recent trials saying how well they work. But still I just don’t want to risk going on them.
Sure they work for others but not me. I think people who take them it’s good if it works for them or even just helps them overall.

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I mean I’ve been put on all sorts of ADs that didn’t work at all and just were bad experiences to be on, when in reality my extreme depression where I become a danger to myself is a direct result of my ptsd. Same with my mood swings, which come about when something reminds me of my trauma. All this time I was being treated symptomatically instead of doing work that could heal me in the long term which was trauma therapy. I’m doing that now and honestly I wish I would’ve known to start it years ago.

SSRI’s have a ridiculously high relapse rate, something like 75% of people who go on them will eventually go back to having depressive episodes, and I think that could very likely be because 75% of people prescribed them have deeper-seated situational issues, not random chemical imbalances.

But again I am not anti-med at all, like I said at times in my life I would have been a serious danger to myself without them. I am still on a mood stabilizer to this day because I haven’t really gotten my ptsd under control yet and until I do I will likely need to stay on one.

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I think that one can have both adverse life circumstances (I mean really, who doesn’t have adverse life circumstances???) and clinical, biological depression. My family on both sides have long histories of depression - my grandfather committed suicide; on the other side of my family, my grandmother, aunt, mother, and sister all have depression. I also have adverse life circumstances, which I work out in therapy, but I believe that while it can exacerbate my depression (which I was showing signs of at as early as six months), it isn’t necessarily the cause of it.

I guess my concern about this kind of talk runs the risk of delegitimizing clinical depression, or portraying those on anti-depressants as drug seekers or “not really sick”.

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I guess that’s it they can be a good crutch for some people whilst in therapy. Others need them for life.

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Yes that is not my intent to say at all. If you are unable to function, are a danger to yourself, or even if your life quality is just garbage, that is absolutely a serious issue that should be dealt with.

I think what varies with people is the intensity of the depressive response and that is what really interests me, why that is. That is I think where genetics comes into play, but also environmental factors as well. I’ve studied things about emotional regulation for example and how it is poorly taught or promoted in US culture. My dad’s response when we were upset for example was to scream at us and threaten to rip our heads off and be generally terrifying. Actually that was his response to really any kind of strong emotional response we had. I think that lead to us growing up to be extremely inhibited when it came to emotional things, never telling anyone and never openly expressing pain we felt. For me this became a serious issue.

I don’t want to de-legitimize anyone’s experience, I just think saying it’s (always) a random chemical imbalance greatly oversimplifies the problem, which is going to create a whole load of other problems.

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Yeah, in my family it isn’t random at all. It has a very consistent, well-established pattern, regardless of life circumstances or reasons for happiness. Therapy works great for adverse events and coping skills, but it doesn’t touch depression itself for us.

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That was my issue as well, CBT and DBT gave me helpful coping skills but did not stop my episodes or take away the pain. I eventually went on medication because I’d tried so many therapies and had them all fail :disappointed:

I guess we definitely have to take into account with situations like these that are environments can have permanent effects on the way our genes are expressed. And through epigenetics (which is like our parents passing down not just their DNA but also how it is expressed) this can then happen to children as well.

I suppose until we have a solution for this, medication is our best option.

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And it also can be a naturally occurring process, that doesn’t require environmental triggers. I can agree with you that ads are overprescribed - and often the reason they are prescribed is because they work for anxiety as well as depression - but you really seem to be saying fundamentally that depression doesn’t exist. Which is taking a good idea far too far.

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Oh goodness that is not what I’m trying to say at all :disappointed: Especially since I’ve battled depression since I was a child and it also runs in my family. Not sure where you got that from. I’m having trouble explaining myself I guess. I think because this is such a complicated thing.

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I take antidepressants for anxiety and obsessive thoughts, I did not really know what depression felt like until I stopped taking my Paroxetine. And after 3 days I had real depression. Not due to my circumstances but just due to a change in brain chemistry.
I had no interest in watching tv, reading or going on the internet, I felt very tired but couldn’t sleep, it was horrible.
Clinical depression is not just a psychological thing, it is real illness.

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This is really the part that troubles me. It’s not random. It’s pervasive. I’ve done plenty of therapy that has helped me immensely with trauma, and I would be unable to fully function even on antidepressants if I had not worked through these things. But it doesn’t matter when you set the end point, if I try to go off, I am right back where I started - unable to get out of bed, unable to take care of myself, unable to meet obligations, simply unable. So this blanket statement about how people should follow an abbreviated treatment plan because therapy should be able to solve it is truly undermining and dismissive. Sometimes there is no stressor.

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I never said it was just a psychological thing. I don’t even believe in purely psychological things. That doesn’t make sense. Everything is based in the brain and our genes. We call something psychological when we don’t understand the biological reason behind it yet.

We’re using one method of symptomatic treatment for a complicated issue that can have an ENDLESS number of sources. It is not ideal. But as rhubot pointed out to me, there is often no other choice and medication is often the best we have. I just worry that this may prevent more specialized care and distinction between different kinds of depression (none less legitimate than another) from ever developing.

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Even for cases that have no known environmental stressors , there would be numerous subgroups of people with different mutations/causes. For example the recently discovered PANDAS. People with this disorder-caused by bacteria-were always grouped together under the diagnosis of OCD. Research lead to the recognition of the true cause behind the OCD symptoms in these people, and this lead to more targeted treatments. I had a friend who struggled with depression, lethargy, just a ton of serious things and then he ended up discovering (through testing) he had a gluten intolerance. It changed his life to discover this. Many autoimmune disorders and even food allergies can cause symptoms of depression. Yet how many people are tested for these when they mention their symptoms. My friend went years without proper treatment because of this simple neglect.

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I think there are many situations where therapy is the right answer. Especially for things like grief and situational depression.

Because I feel like most of the time the underlying causes of these depressions is swept under the rug and pushed aside.

I feel like its possible people get overprescribed AD’s. And let me be clear I’m talking about mild to moderate depression. But I feel like brains are supposed to have some fluctuations almost like mild depressions are supposed to happen sometimes.

I almost feel like medicating certain mild depressions could be unhealthy for the brain and possibly lead to more severe depressions.

That being said I think combinations of meds and therapy would probably lead to a better prognosis for moderate and severe depression

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If other causes can be found and more precise treatments can be devised, that’s fantastic. But your argument up there was that people should plan to stop ADs as soon as school isn’t so stressful. Which is incredibly dismissive and misrepresents the reality of what living with depression is like for many, many people.

When I’ve tried to come off them, it has caused massive setbacks in my life. Stating that even in severe cases, people should plan to stop them is frankly dangerous.

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Cool. My life saving AD treatment was unnecessary and the east way out. Noted.

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personally i do have transient episodes of depression but theyre short lived and usually follow hypomania. the one time i had sustained depression was when i was living in an abusive environment and being bullied at school. once i got out of those environments the depression went away. but for someone like my grandma, on the other hand, their depression seems to have nothing to do with environment and is just mental illness. so i would wager that while plenty of people prescribed antidepressants truly do have clinical depression i would wager theres atleast a minority for whom it’s a situational thing, and if the stressor could be removed it would remit. then im sure theres people who fall in both categories, who simply have clinical depression but its amplified by a poor living environment. as for prescribing them to people grieving, i think there should be a window where its totally normal to feel depressed, and ad’s shouldnt immediately be prescribed, but if it persists past a certain point then i think antidepressants would be a good option. im not great at speaking on the topic because depression is something ive never been diagnosed with and while i do experience as a part of suspected schizoaffective disorder, its very brief and doesnt last long so it doesnt rule my life like it sadly does for some people