I agree. I work with the bereaved by suicide and more often, than not, SSRIs have played a major part of their loved ones experience, whether that was numbing them, creating reckless behaviour, disconnecting them, creating akathisia or PSSD... essentially cutting them off from others, their humanity and their soul. Psychiatry is made up of care-less order followers and people without conscience. They are to be avoided at all costs. GPs hand out SSRIs like sweets and frankly grief is not an experience that needs to be medicated. When we've loved and lost, it needs to be felt to start to heal. ♥️
I can speak from experience that SSRIs will, sooner or later, numb one's emotions. I started taking Lexapro 20 years ago because of serious, intractable clinical depression (despite being a person of faith!), and it was a literal miracle for me.
BUT...
In recent years, rather than simply relieving the depression, I found that the Lexapro was numbing my emotions altogether. So I set out to get off of it if possible, titrating down to a minimal dose. Although I discovered that I could not eliminate it completely without a return of the crushing depression that caused me to start taking it originally, it turns out that I only need a tiny amount (2.5mg per day, which requires me to split the lowest available dose, 10mg, in half and half again). And that numbing--which should legitimately be considered an undesirable side effect--has diminished considerably.
So glad for you.... something about which TO be genuinely happy, right?
If it makes you feel better, in ALLLLL honesty, Celia, I've ruminated on this topic for a long time now, taking note of MY absence of the depth of feelings I used to enjoy - good or bad: faking happiness more than I'd like - mostly, for the sake of my 12 year-old, because I've known happiness to be infectious.... wanting him to simmer in his mom's smiles, but hiding the true gravity of moments I've felt despair because of real world problems, (big and small), yet noticing that I, TOO, have started to FEEL QUITE NUMB......WAY more often than I should.
I don't like the numbness, either.
And I'm NOT on meds. 🤷♀️
And then I curse and rightly blame the desensitization caused to me by the protective cocoon I've formed around my psyche on a very subconscious level over the course of at least the last decade of 24 hour news cycles that report mostly despair. I rightfully blame MYSELF for getting wrapped up in it at my own volition, and occasionally pull on the reins, forcing the conscious decision to "put the media device - the ultimate weapon of mass destruction down" more often than not, finding more GENUINE happiness in that retreat back into a world where we ALL used to live: in the world of IGNORANCE. ....where we DIDN'T read/see every story of despair from every state at the same time, leading to the thickening of the calluses around my brain's "pleasure centers", and (sadly) also around my heart.
I believe we hand this aforementioned "weapon" to our children wayyyyyy tooooo sooooon in their lives (Is there EVER a good time?). Even WE, as adults, have not mastered how to detach from it and from all the "joy" 🙄🙄🙄 it brings.
I have found that GENUINE happiness comes from allowing ourselves to feel genuine pain so we can feel the ABSENCE of it, as well. .... so joy can be APPRECIATED. NOTICED.
If you find yourself doom scrolling more often than you ever envisioned, based off of my experience when I've forced myself to cut back on it, I'd love to recommend to ANYONE struggling with depression to LITERALLY set a timer on the scrolling.
When I grew up, my parents shared the paper for an hour each morning, then went on about their day to LIVE LIFE.
Modeling my new Ls feed online to that degree has helped me do the same, and I'd highly recommend it ALONG with whatever YOU'RE doing, Celia: ditching the dependency on medically-induced, manufactured "happiness".
I'm sure you can attest that it's a kick in the pantaloons....a REAL joy!
Congrats on your progress! You DESERVE to be happy.
Friends in their mid-twenties who have been in stressful, sad situations seem to have been targeted with psych meds. One 25 year old woman I know was put on Lexapro at the age of 17 because her dad was diagnosed with cancer. Why? I asked. Yes, it was sad and terrifying but the emotions that come with a loved one's illness are there for a reason. They can be motivators to do things for the person, to pray, to tell him he's loved maybe in ways you never did before. Instead you want to numb this because you've been told it's abnormal to feel such intense grief! You want to be turned into a brick?
He survived, she got off the stuff, but to this day she'll pop a trazodone in stressful situations. And I know so many people in their 20s and 30s who've followed this path of medicating emotions.
Thanks for the review of this atheist's book. His "scientistic" religion makes people need to blunt their emotions. Seeing oneself as nothing more than biochemical structures is going to lead to suicides from despair. Automatons would not kill themselves from despair. His logic is self contradictory. QED.
WOW!! GOOD. FOR. YYYYOU!!! 🫶🫶🫶🫶 Doesn't it suck that we TRULY "find ourselves" so far down the road in life like that? All MY teen angst.... just wasted. if only so many of us only knew then what we know now - that most everything will work itself out: just HANG TIGHT! Welcome to your newfound (relative?) peace of mind, heart, and soul. 🤗
Very interesting! The idea that SSRIs and other meds have led to loss of faith and meaning, rather than vice versa, isn't something I'd ever thought about, but it makes a lot of sense.
SSRI use as magic pills, like all other "magic pill" copes and mechanisms, is only helpful for people who are going through a very brief and temporary moment of chemical imbalance in the brain. I seriously doubt that those people exist, but, let us say that they do just to theoretically contemplate the possibility that SSRIs have a functional and positive role for some individuals.
Because I am an atheist, I do not believe in magic. The man mentioned in the article who recommends taking SSRIs if the "knowledge" that there is no meaning, truth, reality, etc., gets you down, is clearly deluded. If SSRIs worked to "cure" that, humankind itself would constitute a meaning and a reality worth living in/for/with. Since they literally created pills of happiness that work like magic!
I agree. I work with the bereaved by suicide and more often, than not, SSRIs have played a major part of their loved ones experience, whether that was numbing them, creating reckless behaviour, disconnecting them, creating akathisia or PSSD... essentially cutting them off from others, their humanity and their soul. Psychiatry is made up of care-less order followers and people without conscience. They are to be avoided at all costs. GPs hand out SSRIs like sweets and frankly grief is not an experience that needs to be medicated. When we've loved and lost, it needs to be felt to start to heal. ♥️
So true.
I can speak from experience that SSRIs will, sooner or later, numb one's emotions. I started taking Lexapro 20 years ago because of serious, intractable clinical depression (despite being a person of faith!), and it was a literal miracle for me.
BUT...
In recent years, rather than simply relieving the depression, I found that the Lexapro was numbing my emotions altogether. So I set out to get off of it if possible, titrating down to a minimal dose. Although I discovered that I could not eliminate it completely without a return of the crushing depression that caused me to start taking it originally, it turns out that I only need a tiny amount (2.5mg per day, which requires me to split the lowest available dose, 10mg, in half and half again). And that numbing--which should legitimately be considered an undesirable side effect--has diminished considerably.
So glad for you.... something about which TO be genuinely happy, right?
If it makes you feel better, in ALLLLL honesty, Celia, I've ruminated on this topic for a long time now, taking note of MY absence of the depth of feelings I used to enjoy - good or bad: faking happiness more than I'd like - mostly, for the sake of my 12 year-old, because I've known happiness to be infectious.... wanting him to simmer in his mom's smiles, but hiding the true gravity of moments I've felt despair because of real world problems, (big and small), yet noticing that I, TOO, have started to FEEL QUITE NUMB......WAY more often than I should.
I don't like the numbness, either.
And I'm NOT on meds. 🤷♀️
And then I curse and rightly blame the desensitization caused to me by the protective cocoon I've formed around my psyche on a very subconscious level over the course of at least the last decade of 24 hour news cycles that report mostly despair. I rightfully blame MYSELF for getting wrapped up in it at my own volition, and occasionally pull on the reins, forcing the conscious decision to "put the media device - the ultimate weapon of mass destruction down" more often than not, finding more GENUINE happiness in that retreat back into a world where we ALL used to live: in the world of IGNORANCE. ....where we DIDN'T read/see every story of despair from every state at the same time, leading to the thickening of the calluses around my brain's "pleasure centers", and (sadly) also around my heart.
I believe we hand this aforementioned "weapon" to our children wayyyyyy tooooo sooooon in their lives (Is there EVER a good time?). Even WE, as adults, have not mastered how to detach from it and from all the "joy" 🙄🙄🙄 it brings.
I have found that GENUINE happiness comes from allowing ourselves to feel genuine pain so we can feel the ABSENCE of it, as well. .... so joy can be APPRECIATED. NOTICED.
If you find yourself doom scrolling more often than you ever envisioned, based off of my experience when I've forced myself to cut back on it, I'd love to recommend to ANYONE struggling with depression to LITERALLY set a timer on the scrolling.
When I grew up, my parents shared the paper for an hour each morning, then went on about their day to LIVE LIFE.
Modeling my new Ls feed online to that degree has helped me do the same, and I'd highly recommend it ALONG with whatever YOU'RE doing, Celia: ditching the dependency on medically-induced, manufactured "happiness".
I'm sure you can attest that it's a kick in the pantaloons....a REAL joy!
Congrats on your progress! You DESERVE to be happy.
🥰
I just
Excuse the typos above. Not being able to figure out how to go back and to correct typos on SUBSTACK has brought me TRUE sadness! 🤪
I found the triple dots on the right side alongside my avatar, name and post time:
... Touch and discover EDIT (or delete).
Hugs.
WEIRD! When I hit the 3 dots, it offers only "Share, hide, or delete". 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️ Meh. I was destined to be a foooooolllll. 😄
No indeed!
I don't use the app, and didn't get choices unless I was subscribed (free) and signed in. It's a vast techno conspiracy, I tell you!
Friends in their mid-twenties who have been in stressful, sad situations seem to have been targeted with psych meds. One 25 year old woman I know was put on Lexapro at the age of 17 because her dad was diagnosed with cancer. Why? I asked. Yes, it was sad and terrifying but the emotions that come with a loved one's illness are there for a reason. They can be motivators to do things for the person, to pray, to tell him he's loved maybe in ways you never did before. Instead you want to numb this because you've been told it's abnormal to feel such intense grief! You want to be turned into a brick?
He survived, she got off the stuff, but to this day she'll pop a trazodone in stressful situations. And I know so many people in their 20s and 30s who've followed this path of medicating emotions.
Thanks for the review of this atheist's book. His "scientistic" religion makes people need to blunt their emotions. Seeing oneself as nothing more than biochemical structures is going to lead to suicides from despair. Automatons would not kill themselves from despair. His logic is self contradictory. QED.
Ok. This post hits home.
I reply with my experience summarized:
1. Teen trauma, onset manic-depression, family history.
2. Medication merry-go-round (must be 15 or more anti-depressants in my 20's) and self destructive behavior.
3. Therapy: group, solo, in-and-outpatient.
4. 30's: Numb. SSRI plus. Plus.
5. 40's: Amphetamine? Really? NO.
6. Therapist can't remember my name because she's focused on grants for trials.
7. Tardive disco-nesia.
8. Ditched it ALL.
9. 50's: where did that decade go? Sad, isolated and reflexively numb as a modus operandi.
10. 60's: Here am I. Faithful. Reclaiming my priorities.
Shocked too. I thought I was just defective.
WOW!! GOOD. FOR. YYYYOU!!! 🫶🫶🫶🫶 Doesn't it suck that we TRULY "find ourselves" so far down the road in life like that? All MY teen angst.... just wasted. if only so many of us only knew then what we know now - that most everything will work itself out: just HANG TIGHT! Welcome to your newfound (relative?) peace of mind, heart, and soul. 🤗
Traded more years than I care to have lost.
Glad to be alive and awake.
Thanks for the encouragement. We all have burdens.
Very interesting! The idea that SSRIs and other meds have led to loss of faith and meaning, rather than vice versa, isn't something I'd ever thought about, but it makes a lot of sense.
Beautifully said and absolutely true!
Excellent Sir as always!! 🎯
thank you! much appreciated
SSRI use as magic pills, like all other "magic pill" copes and mechanisms, is only helpful for people who are going through a very brief and temporary moment of chemical imbalance in the brain. I seriously doubt that those people exist, but, let us say that they do just to theoretically contemplate the possibility that SSRIs have a functional and positive role for some individuals.
Because I am an atheist, I do not believe in magic. The man mentioned in the article who recommends taking SSRIs if the "knowledge" that there is no meaning, truth, reality, etc., gets you down, is clearly deluded. If SSRIs worked to "cure" that, humankind itself would constitute a meaning and a reality worth living in/for/with. Since they literally created pills of happiness that work like magic!