Would you ever go on antidepressants?

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While I haven't seen that movie, it's most likely a glamorized, purposeful presentation of depression. I myself didn't necessarily have "outward" projections of depression that people around me would notice. Many other people I know don't either. You'd be surprised how chipper someone can be with you on a day to day basis even if they are suffering.

exactly.

 

[MaenadsDance]

Anti-depressants are not happy pills. This is not the sort of thing I normally go about correcting, but it seems relevant here. Anti-depressants do not make you happy; they do not get you high; they will not give you an edge studying like some of the ADHD drugs that people abuse now. Anti-depressants take the edge off of depression. And if you've never been really and truly depressed before, a serious depression is far out of the range of normal human experience.

Second, stress and mental illness are intimately connected. Stress can exacerbate an already existing mental illness, or can cause the first breakout episode of a mental illness. Habits that form during a time of great stress - habits of depressed thinking and depressed acting - may persist long after the particular stressors have faded away.

While I haven't seen that movie, it's most likely a glamorized, purposeful presentation of depression. I myself didn't necessarily have "outward" projections of depression that people around me would notice. Many other people I know don't either. You'd be surprised how chipper someone can be with you on a day to day basis even if they are suffering.

The movie depicts a woman who is no longer able to be outwardly normal. I have certainly experienced the sort of depression where outwardly you can put on a brave face but inwardly you are being eaten alive; but I have also passed from that into a more profound depression where the ability to function evaporates. I'm not going to fault a movie for depicting someone who is nonfunctionally mentally ill, though I do think it's a pity that there aren't more portrayals in film and literature of the functionally mentally ill. It would be nice, just for me, to get to see more!

 

[touchpause13]

A DSM-IV entry is one thing, an accurate visual portrayal (or maybe not, hence my question) is another. If it were that easy, anybody w/ a DSM-IV in hand could be a walking psychiatrist.

what i am saying is that you should do a little research about the subject. asking someone with depression what its like and comparing it to really silly and idealized media represetation of the disease is kinda insulting. from all your posts it seems like you really dont have a clue about depression as a medical diagnosis.

 

[MaenadsDance]

William Styron's Darkness Visible is probably the best personal memoir of depression I've read; Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind is a good memoir of bipolar disorder (she's also a leading researcher and PhD clinician, so she knows her stuff).

 

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I've always found literary works involving mental illness to be more accurate than film representations and more interesting.

 

[punkedoutriffs]

what i am saying is that you should do a little research about the subject. asking someone with depression what its like and comparing it to really silly and idealized media represetation of the disease is kinda insulting. from all your posts it seems like you really dont have a clue about depression as a medical diagnosis.

You have got to be less touchy. It was an innocuous comparison and you just flat out attacked me for it. Would you be less insulted if I referenced the melancholic depiction of Romeo in Act I of Romeo & Juliet?

 

[MaenadsDance]

Do you have any favorites? I'm currently reading The Brothers Karamazov, which, while it isn't explicitly about depression, is a Russian novel, so it's there...!

 

[punkedoutriffs]

Anti-depressants are not happy pills. This is not the sort of thing I normally go about correcting, but it seems relevant here. Anti-depressants do not make you happy; they do not get you high; they will not give you an edge studying like some of the ADHD drugs that people abuse now. Anti-depressants take the edge off of depression. And if you've never been really and truly depressed before, a serious depression is far out of the range of normal human experience.

Second, stress and mental illness are intimately connected. Stress can exacerbate an already existing mental illness, or can cause the first breakout episode of a mental illness. Habits that form during a time of great stress - habits of depressed thinking and depressed acting - may persist long after the particular stressors have faded away.



The movie depicts a woman who is no longer able to be outwardly normal. I have certainly experienced the sort of depression where outwardly you can put on a brave face but inwardly you are being eaten alive; but I have also passed from that into a more profound depression where the ability to function evaporates. I'm not going to fault a movie for depicting someone who is nonfunctionally mentally ill, though I do think it's a pity that there aren't more portrayals in film and literature of the functionally mentally ill. It would be nice, just for me, to get to see more!

Shakespeare's Hamlet is a good one I think. Goethe's Faust at the beginning.

 

[MaenadsDance]

Can you blame folks for being touchy, though, when people on this thread have talked about antidepressants as lifestyle drugs and happy pills? There is a helluva lot of stigma about mental illness in the world and on this forum. It gets wearing, and people get touchy.

 

[punkedoutriffs]

No, guess not. Was just clearing the air.

 

[punkedoutriffs]

Oh, I forgot - the two main characters, forgot their names, in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.

 

[Ashley1989]

I was tired all the time so my doctor gave me a prescription for antidepressants. I am literally one of the jolliest people to ever walk this planet, so if she was ok to give me the medicine for feeling tired, I would take them if she prescribed them for depression.

I took them for a week and stopped, so I don't know what they're like.

 

[touchpause13]

Do you have any favorites? I'm currently reading The Brothers Karamazov, which, while it isn't explicitly about depression, is a Russian novel, so it's there...!

probs the bell jar....gotta love plath

 

[def1]

Can you blame folks for being touchy, though, when people on this thread have talked about antidepressants as lifestyle drugs and happy pills? There is a helluva lot of stigma about mental illness in the world and on this forum. It gets wearing, and people get touchy.

There's really no need for the oversensitivity. This is a public forum where people come to blow off steam, this is not a relief forum to make people feel better.

I understand why you would want to clarify certain misconceptions but to get up in arms is a bit silly. Also happy pills was a joke. But I'd hope if they are effective they'd make you "happier" relative to your previous condition.

 

[MaenadsDance]

Lol I am not up in arms. You have yet to see me up in arms. I was - politely - correcting your misinformed statements, because perpetuating misinformation is harmful. But please, tell me more how I'm oversensitive.

 

[touchpause13]

There's really no need for the oversensitivity. This is a public forum where people come to blow off steam, this is not a relief forum to make people feel better.

I understand why you would want to clarify certain misconceptions but to get up in arms is a bit silly. Also happy pills was a joke. But I'd hope if they are effective they'd make you "happier" relative to your previous condition.

I really don't see how my comment was oversensitive.

 

[def1]

Lol I am not up in arms. You have yet to see me up in arms. I was - politely - correcting your misinformed statements, because perpetuating misinformation is harmful. But please, tell me more how I'm oversensitive.

I wasn't referring directly to you but to your general statement defending people being touchy about any subject on an open forum. I understand the stigma that comes with mental illness, but that doesn't mean its okay to get pissy anytime someone says something you don't like, as in the case of the previous poster comparing depression to that movie. Not everyone spends time reading up on the symptoms of depression and instead of providing knowledge on the subject, the other poster just decided to attack him.

I had no problem with your correction other than the fact I thought what i said was obviously a joke.

 

[touchpause13]

I wasn't referring directly to you but to your general statement defending people being touchy about any subject on an open forum. I understand the stigma that comes with mental illness, but that doesn't mean its okay to get pissy anytime someone says something you don't like, as in the case of the previous poster comparing depression to that movie. Not everyone spends time reading up on the symptoms of depression and instead of providing knowledge on the subject, the other poster just decided to attack him.

I had no problem with your correction other than the fact I thought what i said was obviously a joke.

I just don't have any desire to spoon feed people information that they could easily find by themselves. Come back with a basic understanding of the disease and I will be the most helpful person in the world.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Anti-depressants are not happy pills. This is not the sort of thing I normally go about correcting, but it seems relevant here. Anti-depressants do not make you happy; they do not get you high; they will not give you an edge studying like some of the ADHD drugs that people abuse now. Anti-depressants take the edge off of depression. And if you've never been really and truly depressed before, a serious depression is far out of the range of normal human experience.

Second, stress and mental illness are intimately connected. Stress can exacerbate an already existing mental illness, or can cause the first breakout episode of a mental illness. Habits that form during a time of great stress - habits of depressed thinking and depressed acting - may persist long after the particular stressors have faded away.



The movie depicts a woman who is no longer able to be outwardly normal. I have certainly experienced the sort of depression where outwardly you can put on a brave face but inwardly you are being eaten alive; but I have also passed from that into a more profound depression where the ability to function evaporates. I'm not going to fault a movie for depicting someone who is nonfunctionally mentally ill, though I do think it's a pity that there aren't more portrayals in film and literature of the functionally mentally ill. It would be nice, just for me, to get to see more!

All anti-depressants do is return you to a relatively normal state, they are not dopamenergic drugs and they can't really cause over stimulation/modulation of dopamanergic pathways . Which is why they're not drugs of abuse and which is why they have absolutely no effect on people who are not depressed, other than causing weight gain.

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Shakespeare's Hamlet is a good one I think. Goethe's Faust at the beginning.

Opthellia's suicidality and depression is talked about so little that it's not that great of a description of mental illness.

 

[punkedoutriffs]

Opthellia's suicidality and depression is talked about so little that it's not that great of a description of mental illness.

I was more referring to Hamlet himself. His inaction, his incessant philosophizing. His suicidal ideations, "To be or not to be..."

 

[touchpause13]

I was more referring to Hamlet himself. His inaction, his incessant philosophizing. His suicidal ideations, "To be or not to be..."

honestly i read shakespeare's plays mostly for dick jokes and scatalogical humor but I see what you are getting at. typically ophelia gets cast as the loon though.

 

[punkedoutriffs]

honestly i read shakespeare's plays mostly for dick jokes and scatalogical humor but I see what you are getting at. typically ophelia gets cast as the loon though.

Please don't let the implication be that Shakespeare was misogynistic...

King Lear - Loon.

Cleopatra - Boss.

 

[touchpause13]

Please don't let the implication be that Shakespeare was misogynistic...

King Lear - Loon.

Cleopatra - Boss.

my only implication was that shakespeare enjoys toilet humor. In modern represenations Ophelia gets cast a lot weaker than I think was intended by the original author.

 

[MaenadsDance]

All anti-depressants do is return you to a relatively normal state, they are not dopamenergic drugs and they can't really cause over stimulation/modulation of dopamanergic pathways . Which is why they're not drugs of abuse and which is why they have absolutely no effect on people who are not depressed, other than causing weight gain.

Yes, exactly. And oh, the weight gain.

 

[Procyon]

My personal experience with psychiatric medication - particularly anti-depressants - is that while they appear to have some beneficial effects during a crisis, as prophylactics or maintenance meds they just aren't that useful. Anti-depressants have got me through crises so that I was alive and alert enough to get some kind of benefit from intensive therapy; the therapy is what allows me to live a more or less normal life.

Funnily enough, anti-MANIC drugs are (at least for me) highly effective. Why it should be that it's easier for psychiatry to get rid of euphoria than depression I don't know; it's one of life's cruel little quirks, I suppose!

This. Some of the talk in this thread has been of "starting it before medical school to avoid depression" or that idea that they should be taken short-term to help someone who is depressed. (Which, in both cases, antidepressants wouldn't do much good.) I think what's happening is people have different definitions of what "depression in medical school" is. We probably all seen stressed out and/or depressed med students here on SDN, but if we're going to be talking about medical students on depression medication, I think it's important to draw the line between self-described, transient instances depression, and clinically-evaluated, chronic depression.

I didn't think Melancholia was terrible. I liked it a lot, actually. What about it did you dislike?

Haha, my problem with the movie was not so much with Kirsten's portrayal or what it said about depression, so much as what it was saying on a philosophical level. The film seemed to embrace this sort of empty nihilism that just gave me the willies.

While I haven't seen that movie, it's most likely a glamorized, purposeful presentation of depression. I myself didn't necessarily have "outward" projections of depression that people around me would notice. Many other people I know don't either. You'd be surprised how chipper someone can be with you on a day to day basis even if they are suffering.

I understand what you're saying here, and I totally agree. Often depression presents itself in the small things of every day life that people don't even notice. I especially relate to that idea of being able to present yourself "normally" but internally having a festering puddle of negative emotional luggage all the time.

I've always found literary works involving mental illness to be more accurate than film representations and more interesting.

Haha, it's funny you brought up The Bell Jar, that's what came to my mind as well. I think depression in film can be depicted just as poignantly, though. Revolutionary Road comes to mind, for some reason. haha