Is it common for depressed people?

Question

to not want to take anti-depressants? and why not, when they feel so bad?

Answer 1

yes its common as they are scared they will become addicted to them and rely on them and never be able 2 do without them

Answer 2

Sometimes they can't imagine feeling any differently than they do, so why bother? Sometimes they have used them in the past and didn't like the results. Most anti-depressants don't make you feel happy, they make you feel numb -- you don't feel depressed as much but you aren't not-depressed either, it's a flat-line, a numbness. Anti-depressants work well for some people, they work some for some people, and they don't work at all for other people. They aren't necessarily the across the board solution to depression. And if you stop them suddenly after you have been taking them awhile, watch out, it can be worse than the depression ever was.

Answer 3

It's a big problem: Too many people don't take antidepressants long enough to get the full benefit.

"A few weeks into it, people think 'OK, I feel better, I don't need to keep taking it anymore," says study researcher Scott A. Bull, PharmD, a pharmacy research analyst at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif.

However, depression has a high rate of relapse -- which very often occurs in the first year, according to Bull. "The goal of treatment is to prevent these relapses." It can take 9 months of treatment -- maybe up to a year -- to help prevent a relapse.

But why do patients quit taking antidepressants? Bull sheds some light on the problem in the Sept. 18 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

In their study, Bull and colleagues interviewed 99 doctors and 137 people with depression. People who had seen their doctors less than three times after starting their antidepressant were more likely to stop treatment because of side effects and because they did not clearly understand their treatment.

More patient-doctor visits are the answer, says Bull. "They provide an opportunity for these discussions to occur."

"People who are depressed are not very motivated anyway," he says. "They need to be encouraged, to get past the negative thinking -- that this drug won't work, that it costs too much. Side effects can be upsetting. Plus, there's still a stigma about having to rely on a pill to feel normal."

"These medications are very effective for treating depression. However, the body takes time to get used to them. They're changing your brain's biochemistry," Koenig says. Patients need to know that if one medication doesn't work, another one might.

Getting past initial side effects requires "toughing it out," Koenig says. "A lot of times people have to get over a hill -- side effects -- before they get to the valley. It can take a month to six weeks to get past that period. But that doesn't happen until you take the pills religiously -- every day -- because they have to build up in your system."

If this is the first depression -- and it's clearly linked with an event like divorce or job loss -- antidepressants may be necessary for no more than a year or so, Koenig says.

For people who have been depressed before, the drugs may be about the only way to get past depression. "Every episode actually creates permanent changes in the brain," he says. "Antidepressants are very effective in treating severe depression."

When you start to feel better, don't stop taking your medication or else the positive benefits will go away.
Most of these medications must be taken for eight to 12 months. Don't stop before then unless your doctor tells you to.

Answer 4

Many times the depressed person doesn't realize or just doesn't want to face the fact that they have an illness (and depression is an illness). People who start taking the medication generally want to stop after the medication begins working because they feel like they don't need it. They feel better so in their mind there is no need for the medicine anymore. In actuality, the medication is what made them feel better and once they stop taking it, they feel bad again very quickly

Answer 5

It's NOT common. Anti-depressants provide the chemicals that aren't being produced in your brain, which causes 'the black pit'
of despair.

There's NO addiction problem; when the depression goes away, the need for the medication will go too.

Answer 6

there is a fine balance between you think you are depressed and you are not depressed. Better to ask a doctor to actually to find out if you are really depressed. In general, no one likes medication really if they arent suffering from something. Anti-depressants or otherwise.

Answer 7

Well, I don't know about others, but I'm reluctant. I don't want to be dependent, and I'm also paranoid it will work. To think my problem can be fixed with chemicals somehow really depresses me. Not only was my sorrow a lie, so will be my happiness. So what's the point if it can all be changed with a little pill?

Answer 8

When I toook them I felt good for a while but then when I decided screw this I don't need a pill to make me happy, I wwent off the meds and haven't been on themselves course now I cry uncontrolablly sometimes and other times just feel like **** but for the most part I just think I cn be happy I can be happy I don't know if that answered your question...

Answer 9

Some have undesirable side effects. Also, no one really wants to be dependent on pills to feel better. Deep down we all know that isn't natural. And actually, some people, deep down don't want to feel better. That is out of your control