Question about anti-depressant type/class "SSRI's"

In the acute phase of treatment, the serotonin boost will give potentially suicidal patients the energy to complete the task of suicide. Often suicidal patients have no energy to end their lives, but a small boost of energy will give them that spark.

 

^ exactly what he said

 

I don't know man...The brain is still a great mystery.

 

This. Science just hasn't reached a great understanding of the brain.

 

It increases energy and willingness to try things. Many depressed patients are just soo lethargic and hate doing activities. There's another theory I heard but can't remember if the top of my head

 

Think of depression essentially as anger/rage turned against the self. Depression almost like a defense mechanism, when you get to the point that you hate yourself or something you aren't comfortable acknowledging you are angry at (i.e. being angry at your dead mother for dying and leaving you alone), the brain just goes into shutdown, like an overheating nuclear reactor when you drop the control rods in to cool it off and prevent meltdown. The problem with that shutdown is it kind of becomes self-sustaining, and the underlying issue that initiated shutdown never gets fixed, which is why people stay depressed. It is so complete in shutting you down, that it actually becomes impossible in many cases to deal with the underlying issues that caused the depression in the first place.

You push them out of the depression so you can work on the issues. The anger/rage/self-loathing issue is that the shutdown went into effect to defend against, however, again becomes a problem. The reactor can go back into meltdown when you remove the rods.

Doctors love antidepressants because they are easy, and have a quick, noticeable effect on the patient. It is very rewarding. One problem, though, is doctors sometimes consider antidepressants a complete treatment to themselves. That should not be the case. There are some people who don't see much benefit from therapy and have to stay on antidepressants indefinitely, only seeing the doctor for medication maintenance, but this should be the exception, not the rule.

And not to quibble, but what they actually do is when your brain releases serotonin into the synapse, the serotonin goes across the gap from one side, and plugs into the other side. After awhile the serotonin cleaves off, and just sits there floating in the gap. There are specific chemicals that then pick it up and recycle it. What they do is block that serotonin from being from being picked up. It floats around in that gap and eventually "plugs in" again, just as if it had been released for the first time.

This actually introduced all sorts of follow on effects, like the large amount of serotonin floating in the synapse induces the number of receptacles for serotonin to plug into increases. So, for instance, if you build 2x as many receptacles, each individual activation of a receptacle 1/2 as powerful as a fraction of the total signaling potential.

Probably more than you care to know, but it is far from being as simple as more serotonin = good.

 

Is there research to actually support this?

Sounds like something pretty self-serving for the medical community to say.

 

Thirded.

 

Pray to God to heal your depression?

 

Let it play out. nobody needs med for emotions.

 

You need a philosophy. Shreddology

 

Meds only for the gym, brah.