Why do people stay on antidepressants if it makes them feel apathetic? - correct me if I'm using apathetic wrong, don't forget to call me a nigger for it.

[Recoil]

For many people, having their brains turned to mush by SSRIs or whatever is a small price to pay to get that feeling of being normal and everything being at ease.

I know where you're coming from but it's simply not sustainable to induce that 'all clear' state of mind chemically, not by any means. Many people try it and sure they pull it off for years or even decades but they all pay the piper in some way and there's no free lunch where brain chemistry is involved. All these new antidepressants (and pretty much all drugs) are just borrowing from a different neurochemical bank, and that loan will always become due. Even you said it, OP's gonna hafta up that dose at some point. Where does it end?

>Its either live for nothing, or die. Some people are fortunate enough to invent reasons for themselves to live, but those usually don't stick when the going gets rough.

It's very possible for anyone to invent their own reasons for living and make them stick around for as long as needed. Hell, even maintaining that balance that you have when everything is cool can become your reason for living. That's the whole yoga/healthy living thing in a nutshell. It's about maintenance, you have to be onto that shit long before you start feeling your life go off track. For me the trick is to practice discipline and regimentation like you would any skill. Whatever your brain is telling you that you can put off till tomorrow is what you should do right now. Just keep doing those necessary but annoying or somewhat unpleasant things that you know need facing up to. That's it. Everything else just shrinks when I live life like that and sure it sucks for a while, but so does your first day at the gym. Controlling the contents of your mind is like lifting weights - it's not easy at first but it starts with you acting on a decision to improve your life.

 

[UQ 770]

I know where you're coming from but it's simply not sustainable to induce that 'all clear' state of mind chemically, not by any means. Many people try it and sure they pull it off for years or even decades but they all pay the piper in some way and there's no free lunch where brain chemistry is involved. All these new antidepressants (and pretty much all drugs) are just borrowing from a different neurochemical bank, and that loan will always become due. Even you said it, OP's gonna hafta up that dose at some point. Where does it end?

Essentially, it more or less never ends. That metaphor though has me wondering, is there some means of being a crook with those neurochemical loans and evading the tax man once he shows up to break your legs? This is America after all.

>Its either live for nothing, or die. Some people are fortunate enough to invent reasons for themselves to live, but those usually don't stick when the going gets rough.

It's very possible for anyone to invent their own reasons for living and make them stick around for as long as needed. Hell, even maintaining that balance that you have when everything is cool can become your reason for living. That's the whole yoga/healthy living thing in a nutshell. It's about maintenance, you have to be onto that shit long before you start feeling your life go off track. For me the trick is to practice discipline and regimentation like you would any skill. Whatever your brain is telling you that you can put off till tomorrow is what you should do right now. Just keep doing those necessary but annoying or somewhat unpleasant things that you know need facing up to. That's it. Everything else just shrinks when I live life like that and sure it sucks for a while, but so does your first day at the gym. Controlling the contents of your mind is like lifting weights - it's not easy at first but it starts with you acting on a decision to improve your life.

Generally I've found that having a reason to give a shit about anything is just operating on those exact same receptors that are crippled in the first place. There's a very clear physical response and, at least as far as I've seen, it really does not last. As time has gone on I've been far less judgmental of drug addicts and pill poppers since I can see exactly why they resorted to their choice of addiction in the end. The same way your body becomes immune to added drugs and chemicals, it seems to do the same for your own native chemicals.

I've known a lot of depressives and drug addicts who managed to kick the addiction, rise above their bad circumstances and still end up offing themselves or relapsing because it seems their neurology just cannot ever be satisfied with anything. At the end of the day, you are inevitably your own worst enemy at the cellular level.

 

[Recoil]

Essentially, it more or less never ends. That metaphor though has me wondering, is there some means of being a crook with those neurochemical loans and evading the tax man once he shows up to break your legs? This is America after all.

If you stay in very good health, you can burn longer with chemical assistance before really fucking things up. Otherwise, no. It always comes back around.

 

[Black Waltz]

lol i don't need pills to feel apathetic, it just comes naturally

 

[dopedodo]

In my experience, because apathy is better than being actively suicidal?

 

[Otterly]

Ah, this is a difficult one.

1. They aren’t supposed to make you feel fabulous. They are supposed to take the edge off the most negative feelings so that you can function enough to start a more positive feedback loop of behaviours. So maybe you feel ok to go for a walk, or see friends. Prozac for example has two actions and one is to hit the same receptors which social interaction hits.

2. Depression isn’t one monolithic thing. It can be a rational response to a shit situation, or can be almost a habit, or a response to abuse, or violence. It can be caused by physical disease.

3. We still dont really understand how ADs work. The chemical serotonin theory is at best incomplete, at worst incorrect.

4. The actual data from trials shows that roughly 1/3 of patients benefit from ADs, 1/3 have no effect and 1/3 have moderate effect. Efficacy scores have actually been dropping over the last decades and no one knows why. Possibly because of reasons 2-3 above.

There is no point going on ADs alone for the majority of patients. Depression for most people is a response to life circumstances and how they interact with your personal genetic background and personality. They are one tool in the box. Excercise, get outside more and look at what’s shit in your life.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Well I'm not sure if your assertion that antidepressants make you apathetic is correct. I imagine they could have that effect on some people, but I don't think that's just true across the board.

But, accepting the premise, apathy is better than misery, isn't it? It's like taking a headache remedy. You just want the bad thing to go away, you're not trying to make your head feel extra good, just stop hurting.

If side effects from antidepressants are just as bad as the original problem you should probably try a different antidepressant.

 

[Inflatable Julay]

Feeling apathetic is better than quitting antidepressants and feeling literally every emotion at once to the point you want to blow your brains out

 

[Slowboat to China]

Because it's better than the alternative? I like to think of them as a safety cushion. They don't solve your problem, but they help you take the edge off and give you some breathing room that you wouldn't have had normally.

When you've got a fucked-up brain, it can be like you were born with one layer of protection too few. Your emotions hit you much, much harder than they should and often don't have any relationship with what's actually happening. Being on meds can be shitty, but they can also protect you and restore some of that distance you should've had if your brain wasn't a shitshow.

And it helps your loved ones, too. No matter how merciful, loving, and understanding they are, seeing full unmedicated rages/crying fits/psychotic episodes and having to nurse the sufferer through them ... that fucks those people up, too.

 

[RetardedCat]

And it helps your loved ones, too. No matter how merciful, loving, and understanding they are, seeing full unmedicated rages/crying fits/psychotic episodes and having to nurse the sufferer through them ... that fucks those people up, too.

man that's too fucking true

 

[Masta]

This is all based on personal experience of me taking SSRIs (so please skip this if you are uninterested in my life):

I started taking them when I was 18, now I’m 21.
I was a 250lb sack of shit that had no ambition and slept for 10-12 hours a day.
For the first month of taking them I exploded, I started enjoying physical activity, lost about 90lbs, skin got clear, people said I had a glow, l wanted to do new things, I was uninterested in negative events and was more focused in my college work. People I knew from high school didn’t recognize me anymore.

Now they have stabilized me after about a year or so, I now know what the apathy these people see.
I feel less happy now, and am kinda of emotionless, but as my doctor said that while I was in the happy phase, I needed to seek coping mechanisms so I can use them when I do stabilize.

The good thing about being apathetic is not feeling the pain of loneliness, the pain of patience with work and other people, and the pain of failure.
My cons to apathy though are thoughts of suicide, I feared death before but now I wouldn’t mind, I even think it’s a better alternative at times. I used to fear death to the point where I feared joining the military but now I wouldn't mind to suffer and die in battle. It is also hard for me to relate to other people's feelings as when I generally meet people I could care less about anything about them, people may think I am taking initiative when I make decisions but it's honestly me not caring about what the outcome is. People and those that are close to me's death unaffected me at all, my dog and grandfather died recently and felt nothing. I have lost interest and the euphoria when it comes to events I enjoyed in the past like fireworks, Christmas, vacation.

I would say it's worth it, feeling of not caring about almost anything now, is much better than the feeling of sorrow, pain, and sadness I would dope over.
If it weren't for my coping mechanism I found through my happy phase, I probably wouldn't make it through the day, so if someone can take advice from this, it's to find something, anything that can bring you happiness, it will be hard to find because everything is meaningless, but there is something out there for everyone.

 

[Terrorist]

It makes a certain kind of sense, apathy is better than wanting to kill yourself. Still shitty but not as painful I guess.

 

[Niggernerd]

I just watch cowboy bebop and tell my depression "see you later space cowboy"

 

[Bum Driller]

I would rather suggest the OP to self-medicate with alcohol and cannabis on your free time, and get a heavy dose of non-smokable nicotine(pills, chewing gum, spray etc.) to keep you dosed to the gills while working. That way you most likely can both handle your depression and not completely fuck up the rest of your emotions with SSRIs and other long-term zombie drugs. Even taking benzos or heroin is better than taking something that completely shuts down all of your emotions constantly.

Edit: You should also be constantly working on your depression, not just numbing it away with drugs, but I guess you know this already.

Right, this sentiment rings true on a personal level. But considering the reported efficacy of ketamine, there's got to be something about it that enables this human determination to take over and work its magic, in a way traditional antidepressants often can't. But what? All depression treatments come with the "it sometimes works but we don't know why" caveat. If researchers of ketamine were able to pinpoint these specifics, that'd be spectacular.

Well, ketamine, just like its somewhat similar relative dextromethorphane are both extremely powerful dissociative psychedelics that literally tear your ego to shreds, catapult you to the dimension of platonic ideals and make you behold the most extravagant shit imaginable, and often things which aren't even imaginable, like the specifics of how exactly god created the world. It can certainly cure any kind of mental ailment you have, but it can also plaster the rest of your sanity to the fucking wall. I know people who have went totally, permanently bonkers from taking them, and I know people who have come back...somewhat wiser.

 

[Recoil]

I've known a lot of depressives and drug addicts who managed to kick the addiction, rise above their bad circumstances and still end up offing themselves or relapsing because it seems their neurology just cannot ever be satisfied with anything. At the end of the day, you are inevitably your own worst enemy at the cellular level.

My problem with this is that I think that this dissatisfaction is our given challenge, we either beat it or we die.
So it goes, right? That's kind of what we're here to find out.

 

[UQ 770]

My problem with this is that I think that this dissatisfaction is our given challenge, we either beat it or we die.
So it goes, right? That's kind of what we're here to find out.

It seems to me in people with depression that this natrual process has malfunctioned severely. Alternatively, there's a common theory out there that depression is an evolutionary trait that's designed to make unproductive members of society dispose of themselves to conserve resources. This theory posits that since society is now a highly unnatrual environment with different objectives in mind, people are more depressed than ever because their wetware thinks they're being useless and thus deserving of disposal.

I'm not sure precisely how I feel about this theory to be honest. It seems to me that human beings just weren't designed to work 8-12 hour shifts, especially on tedious tasks. How our hard-working and hard-laboring ancestors managed to do this just fine while those darned kids are crying in the bathroom at work every day is pretty simple actually. Drugs are far more tightly regulated than they ever were. The first organized factories and timecard machines came about in an era where you could buy cocaine and heroin over the counter at the pharmacy. Even in later decades where maximum work hours were reduced via regulation I can guarentee you my grandfather was probably drunk off his ass 24/7 and doctors handed out valium and painkillers like candy. I dunno how we expect the younger generations to perform the same work on the same shifts when we've outlawed everything that enabled those work hours in the first place.

Society might also have an emerging problem with hypersensitivity. The biological kind, where someone's hearing, vision and sense of smell are keener and thus they become overwhelmed more easlly by external stimulus. I've got nothing to back that one up though, but it would explain why some people are inexplicably in a state of high anxiety for no particular reason. Again, this kind of thing was drugged out of existence back in the day.

 

[What This Old Thing!?]

I will argue with you qbout the word "apathy". Apathy is an emotion from the anger family: "I don't give a fuck."

The problem is instead "anhedonia", the inability to feel pleasure. It's a killer.

What Is Anhedonia?

Anhedonia is the inability to feel pleasure. It's a common symptom of depression as well as other mental health disorders.

www.webmd.com

(Web md mentions ketamine therapy btw)

I agree with previous poster who said when using medication for mental health postpones whatever is causing the depression.

Lifestyle changes are usually necessary. For example, you grow serotonin in your gut, so diet is very important. Exercise turns out to in the long run have better life outcomes than meds. Exercise in nature--even more.

The word "attitude" used to refer to body posture as well as cognitive states. Altering your physical position and habitual movements can free your tissues from your issues.

Pruning and purging elements from your life that no longer serve you clears the air and opens space for better things.

A sense of meaning and purpose, and a connection to a greater whole turns out to also result in alleviating depression, or at least ripening its acidity into a fine, vintage sublimation.

And weed, plenty of weed......

 

[UQ 770]

Lifestyle changes are usually necessary. For example, you grow serotonin in your gut, so diet is very important. Exercise turns out to in the long run have better life outcomes than meds. Exercise in nature--even more.

The word "attitude" used to refer to body posture as well as cognitive states. Altering your physical position and habitual movements can free your tissues from your issues.

I've always questioned this line of thinking since it seems to be the opposite dynamic. Seems to me that the chemicals secreted by the brain tend to cause things like lack of appetite and lethargy. I doubt the solution lies totally in demeanor. That really only works for people who are easily convinced of things, either positive or negative. Also a common problem with talk therapy and the like is that its effects only last for a little while. For a bunch of people, once they leave the session, they stop feeling any of its positive effects and go right back to being depressed. That points to some kind of chemical cause from what I can tell.

 

[What This Old Thing!?]

I've always questioned this line of thinking since it seems to be the opposite dynamic. Seems to me that the chemicals secreted by the brain tend to cause things like lack of appetite and lethargy. I doubt the solution lies totally in demeanor. That really only works for people who are easily convinced of things, either positive or negative. Also a common problem with talk therapy and the like is that its effects only last for a little while. For a bunch of people, once they leave the session, they stop feeling any of its positive effects and go right back to being depressed. That points to some kind of chemical cause from what I can tell.

I am refraining from powerleveling but suffice to say there are new treatment modalities other than meds and talk therapy.

You're 100 percent right that demeanor isn't everything. Only everything is everything. Mind/body are not a dichotomy, they both serve the organism as a whole.

Here's a small example of how a simple behavior can stimulate a better mood state in the brain:
When you notice you are tensing the jaw or gritting your teeth, frowning, or whatever, take a deep breath into the diaphragm, and then do a half-smile, aka a Mona Lisa smile.
Here's the first article I got when I googled this technique right now:

Smiling can trick your brain into happiness — and boost your health

A smile spurs a powerful chemical reaction in the brain that can make you feel happier.

www.nbcnews.com

Mindful awareness, then, is key. First in noticing the physical attitude of tension.
Consciously choosing to shift that by practicing a technique (breathing, smiling.)
Reflecting on outcomes of the behavior.
Using any tiny improvements as uplift, inviting more frequent application of effective strategies.

 

[HM 935]

I've been on several different anti depressants. You have to decide if total apathy feels better then the pain of anxiety, loneliness and depression. Everyone is different. Some want the apathy as a numbing relief, some want to still FEEL, just not like shit all the time. Personally, for all my issues, i don't take anything anymore. They don't actually help or improve the problem, just numb it out. I could drink or smoke weed to get the same effect, and frankly i just don't trust that doctors have patients best interest in mind anymore.