There has been a lot of publicity lately concerning the drug companies handling of their campaigns promoting anti-depressants and their misuse of scientific data, the so called “cherry picking” of favorable studies while ignoring studies that show less than favorable results. The obvious question this raises then is ‘do they really work?’ The answer is also obvious, I think. If the drugs work for you then the answer is ‘yes’. If they do not then they do not. What must be emphasized, in my opinion, is that they do work on some significant portion of the population and the drug companies being less than honest should not affect how you view your individual situation. This would be a very bad thing for those patients for whom they do seem to have a positive result. On the other hand, this controversy with the testing protocol can also be of some comfort to the many, many people who try drug after drug with little or no good result. These people tend to sometimes be looked at as ‘problem patients’, as are many patients who seem to refuse to be ‘cured’, so they can take some comfort in not being categorized as hopeless, or somehow flawed. It is the drugs that are less than satisfactory, not the patients.

It is my opinion that the drug approach has its’ flaws. It presupposes that depression is due to a chemical imbalance, when it might also be said that the depression is causing the imbalance or that the two may work together in a vicious cycle. So little is really known about the functions of the mind that trying to say anything definitively is pointless. What we do know though is how we feel and those feelings cannot be defined or manipulated so easily. So, my thought is that we stop looking at these drugs as a cure so much and instead simply consider them as a tool, as that thing that gets you through the night, whatever that might be. It may be that one of these drugs can turn your gut wrenching emotional agony into ordinary, everyday sadness. That may not be too much cause for celebration but it could increase your life span, and save me a reader in the process.

This is a subject of more than simply academic curiosity for me. I’m interested in hearing your stories, your situation, the drugs you have tried and what has worked and what has not. What side-effects did you notice and did those effects cause you to stop taking the drug? I’ll write more later about individual drugs but I’m more interested right now in how they worked or didn’t work for you as a whole. Let us know, how do you make it through the night exactly?

Something else to be considered, especially in teenagers, is the increase in suicide and suicidal thought processes that these drugs seem to cause in some cases. I’ve read no good studies or even heard any scientifically based theories as to why this occurs ( teens were not tested initially), but it seems to be a real danger. Even if the numbers of these cases are low by percentage, it deserves further investigation.

So, let us know. I encourage you to share your stories. You can do this as a reply to this post or you can email me personally through this site.