Antidepressants, Good or Bad?

An argument around the issue of antidepressants

Recently I was talking about my experience with depression with someone, and they told me I need to focus on therapy rather than antidepressants since I cannot rely on antidepressants all my life. And I wondered why.

I am not debating the importance of therapy. I have benefited a lot from therapy and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is struggling with aspects of life. But therapy alone doesn’t manage anxiety or depression. I’ve tried that. Although it helped a lot, it didn’t solve the problem. Six months of medical intervention has made my anxiety disappear. And for depression, the mixture of therapy and medical intervention has resulted in me feeling much better and accomplish a lot.

And as for long-term use of antidepressants, there are two arguments. One argument is that there are side effects to long-term use. Another argument is that long-term use creates dependency.

If you are concerned about side effects, make sure your psychiatrist is concerned too. I’ve been on antidepressants for a little over a year now and I have had two blood tests to check the adverse effects of antidepressants on my body; so if any side effects are to manifest, I’ll notice them in time. I also trust my doctor to know what to do when that happens, it is her expertise after all. Bottom line, I’m not going to stop what works for me because something might happen in the future; I’ll deal with it if and when it happens.

And if you believe long-term use creates dependency, I want to ask you “What would be wrong with that?” The fact is that people with blood pressure disorder take medication for their condition for life and if they ever stop, they will face the risk of heart attack; but you never hear about people questioning the dependency those medicine create. So why do we fixate on the dependency antidepressants cause? I believe it’s because we think that depression is a fault with our mind as opposed to a physiological fault with our brain as an organ in our body. We think it’s in the mind, so it should be cured with the mind. But if start thinking about it as it is-a physiological fault of an organ- we will be able to accept the use of medication as a long-term solution for a chronic disease.