Anti Depressants wrong?

[Mintaka]

Exactly. Anti-depressants for the severely depressed are much like vitamin supplements are for people with malnutrition. They provide stuff that the normal body in a normal situation would already have available. Some people will get to the point that they no longer need the anti-depressants and can be weaned off them by the doctor, while others have to keep taking them for life.

Vitamins are of course often abused, but nobody suggests that they are evil and artificial just because somebody managed to poison himself with a megadose of Vitamin E!

Either way, serious depression’s a medical problem. Yes, it has psychological, spiritual, and lifestyle components which also need treatment, but then, so does the flu.

 

[kellie]

vera dicere your argument is exactly what I was saying. Look I’m not saying the use of anti depressiants is neccessarily immoral, but that they are merely a temporary solution, thank God we have this solution, but it never really hits at the source. It’s like your regular cold medicine, it covers the symptoms enough that you can function, and hopefully get better more quickly due to that proper functioning, but it never actually cures the cold. I’m sorry if I came across having no caring sympathetic side, for I did not mean to. I understand dark saddness and desperation myself and know that its a terrible place to be in, but I also know that I would never screw arround with my own head; that is where I draw the line, for at that point I (for and only for myself) would cease (in my own oppinion) to be me, and that I concider a fate worse than death.

God Bless

Just like diabetes is the result of an organ of the body not producing what it should (pancreas not producing insulin), depression is another organ of the body not producing what it should (brain not producing seratonin).

For some, and I stress the word some, depression is a permanent illness, just as some people have to learn to live with diabetes for the rest of their lives.

And just as a diabetic has to inject insulin in to their blood stream, people with depression have to swallow tablets to allow seratonin to enter their blood stream.

Both diabetes and depression can be seen to be a spiritual trial though as I am sure, like myself, many a diabetic sufferer has cursed God for inflicting them with an illness that requires daily care, and I am sure, like myself, a diabetic has wondered whether to give up on God, and I am sure, like myself, that a diabetic has embraced God, prayed to God, and come to realise God is with them through every injection.

Just as God is with me every time I take my medication.

 

[TOP]

What test , if any, allows the Dr. to come to the conculsion that a person has a chemical imbalance? I have seen alot of diagnosis being thrown around and mind altering drugs being prescribed, but haven’t seen a single test to come to the conculsion that these drugs are needed because of a chemical imbalance. What if the problem is purely spiritual? Does a Dr. still see the need to prescribe medication in place of what a good spiritual director can do? I’ve heard that a spiritual experience is really a result of Frued’s superego theory and not really a real spiritual experience. Can the wrong use of prescribed drugs CAUSE a chemical imbalance that the body has to adjust to? IMO I have found modern psychiatry as Godless, blind and closeminded to someone who is experiencing spiritual warfare, too ready to use outdated theories to prescribe dangerous mind altering drugs to deaden the mind. Its a joke. Tim

 

[Mary59]

I am a Catholic physician that began suffering, and I mean truly suffering, from depression at age 11. I started to have suicidal thoughts at age 15. It is only through God’s grace that I have gotten to where I am today. I thank God that scientists and physicians have discovered the neurobiological basis of “mental” illnesses. I lived within a Black Hole for so many years until I took medication. Then I began to feel brighter and alive. Wow, that was my personal resurrection! Prayer and faith help, as do other lifestyle issues, but, when the brain lacks adequate amounts of neurotransmitters, medication is life-saving. My suffering created the person that I am, and made me stronger, but it almost killed me as well. And, my brain and personality do not feel altered, but normalized!

Would we deny insulin to a person with diabetes, or inhaled medications to a person with asthma? Of course not!