The entire semester, he was taking therapy from a Harvard psychiatrist... it didn't do any good. That summer, he began taking prozac. The changes were almost immediate, and now he's only a semester behind schedule towards graduation. Did he try any other therapists or just go straight to Prozac? Different therapy and different therapists work for different people. I went to about 5 doctors for a serious back problem I had, none of whom were of any help, before I finally found someone who could help and did. Second opinions work in psychotherapy just as they do in medicine. I am always surprised when people will take the advice of a doctor with no question but get several estimates on auto repair. They'll do it for their car but not their body? As long as he was chemically imbalanced, he had problems. That medical imbalance was corrected, and he became himself again. Was he ever tested for a chemical imbalance? Did they run cat scans or MRI's? How did the MD diagnose a "chemical imbalance?" My problem is that there is almost NEVER a testing procedure done for diagnosis of a chemical imbalance in the brain. There is usually just an observation of the patient and then a prescription and more observation. ANYONE would feel better if they took Prozac. That is the job of it as a drug. However, that doesn't fix the problem. It only relieves the symptom. When we have the flu, one of the symptoms is a fever. We get a fever because our body is raising its temperature to fight off a parasite or virus. We take medication to get rid of the symptoms but the symptoms are what is curing us. Obviously, any prologned fever can kill you or cause serious long-term problems, so using medication to control it is sometimes inevitable. However, I think we are far too quick to reach for the medicine cabinet for fixes to our problems that sometimes need time to fix on their own. He didn't have any true problems. There were no reasons for him to be depressed: he came from a happy home, he was intelligent, he had a terrific girlfriend, and no social problems. How exactly do you know? Did you grow up with him or live in his house? When I grew up and my parents eventually divorced, I would tell people who had known them and me (sometimes very close friends of my parents) and they were absolutely shocked! If I introduced you to my parents today, you wouldn't even be able to believe they were married at one time! I had an alcoholic dad and a mother who wouldn't even let me leave the house to spend the night with a friend before I was 17. My father was out of work for 3 years and was arrested twice for theft and DWI. My mother carried on a long-term affair with her boss. Yet, somehow, even their closest friends had absolutely NO idea. If that isn't convincing, until my mother told me about my father's arrests and her affair when I was 24, I HAD NO IDEA anything was wrong, only that I felt like crap all the time and was depressed more often than not. Just because a person has a "happy home" or seems well-adjusted doesn't mean he/she doesn't have serious problems. In fact, most of the people I have known in my life who had the worst problems were people who seemingly had none in their family. It is impossible to determine from the outside what is going on with a person inside. You really cannot judge a book by its cover. In addition, depression has a myriad of causes - poor diet, lack of exercise, low self esteem, physical illness, etc. Just assuming it is a chemical imbalance is ignoring every potential environmental cause and dismissing them out of hand. Shouldn't we make every attempt to fix the problems naturally first before using chemicals? Wouldn't that be better for our bodies? I know anecdotal evidence can be used to prove anything... I'm sure that you've had different experiences. I wasn't just citing anecdotal evidence. Studies have been done on this and gotten similar results. Like I said, I totally agree with mrpaige in that there are different solutions for different problems. Some require medication. Others do not. I just don't think we should be so quick to dismiss the possibilities when we know so little about the human brain as it is. ------------------ And then, depression set in...
To add to what Jeff is saying your friend was in college The origin of the thread dealt with Children. While you friend may have indeed had an issue . . . If he was active and ripping and running around .. . would you say HE NEEDS RIDILIN [sp?] or that he was a normal college student? Rocket River ------------------
