Do Antidepressants Work

I'm not a big believer in medication or pills of any kind.  I never have been and that started way back when I was a little kid.  Even in my career with animals, I always tried to find other ways to treat sick animals and keep them well without using medication and vaccines.  We live in an over-medicated society both with humans and animals.

While I am not a big supporter of medications, I do believe there are times that we need things to help us through difficult times of our life.  As I say that, I'm perplexed because what one person thinks is a bad time versus how another person sees these difficult moments is so different that I think it is hard to be objective.

Do Antidepressants work?  

Are Antidepressants bad ?  

These are tough questions and what I write is not necessarily based upon objective scientific research data that I can summarize.  It is based upon my own life's experiences.  I'm not speaking from a pie-in-the-sky concept, but one that has helped me in my own life. 

Do Antidepressants Work?

It depends upon who you talk to if antidepressants work.  Pharmaceutical companies and many medical doctors will claim they work with data to back up their claims.  Others in the new age or alternative industry will claim that they do very little.  Some people will claim they are nothing more than the placebo effect.

Keep in mind that the pharmaceutical companies are trying to market and make a profit off of the antidepressants.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it has gotten carried away in our day and age.  I personally feel too many medical professionals are compromised because there is far too much money and perks thrown at them by the pharmaceutical companies.  Most likely there is a great deal of peer pressure as well and many individuals also demand that their doctors give them these medications.

Some people will state that you can do the same with your mind that the antidepressant can do in your mind.  While I don't discount that, it is far more difficult for people who are severely depressed to do this on their own will and accord.  When you are in that deep state of depression, nothing matters in life and changing how your mind sees things is not something you can easily do.

Are Antidepressants Bad For You

There are many side effects from taking antidepressants and they are not fun.  Ask anyone taking medications about side effects and most likely they will tell you how awful they are.  I fully believe that any drug or pill or medication you take that alters one system in the body, damages or degrades or alters another system in the body.

If we were meant to take these pills like this, I think we would have been born with them in our hands.  On the other hand, we do have doctors that exist to help us through life's problems.  I just don't believe you can categorically state that antidepressants are bad for you overall.  It depends upon the person.

One horrible mistake we make in our society with medications and antidepressants is that we look to them as the treat-all and end-all for our condition.  We gulp them down as if this tiny drug will magically make our life better and we in no way need to do anything else to help change our life.  We don't change our ways.  We don't alter what we do.  We just take the pill and go on about our life with the same patterns, choices, and awareness that brought us to this point.

While some new age and alternative therapies want to act as if all antidepressants are bad, they are forgetting one thing.  The individual that does not have the tools or the resources to help them through a rough part of life, needs something that will help temporarily.  The individual needs something to be able to get back on their feet and in lieu of the tools or resources, antidepressants can help.  Again, I say this with the assumption that the individual is seeking out other ways to work on their life and making choices that lifts them into a different awareness in life.

My Experience With Antidepressants

When I went through Conversion Disorder, my doctor wanted to put me on medication.  I fought him hard on this because my family told me that the doctors would brainwash me if I went on medication.  So, my doctor made a deal with me that we would try it my way (without antidepressants and medication) and if it didn't work, we would try it his way.  I made it all the way until I was discharged from the hospital and once the real world hit me, I had no choice but to go on medications.

I had unusual experiences with antidepressants where I didn't know what to expect, but I thought the sensations and feelings I was getting after being on the medications for a few weeks were somehow bad for me.  Little did I know that this is how life was supposed to be and without antidepressants, I would have never discovered that part of life.  They helped me so much but at the same time, I was doing extensive therapy work on myself.  I was not just relying on the drugs and medications to be a magic wand.  I did not stay on these for more than 2 or 3 years which I think is a good thing.

Fast-forward many years where more was beginning to surface in my life and each day I was seeking ways to actively commit suicide.  I started seeing a therapist and she suggested that I start taking antidepressants again.  At this point in my life, they helped me deal with what was going on so that I would stop trying to kill myself.  It was then that I could focus more on therapy and working through the issues I had to deal with in my life.  Without antidepressants, I'm not sure I would be alive.

As I have continued my healing in this life, I have found other ways to deal with depression, anxiety, and all the issues I have had to deal with throughout my life.  It is a different form of work, but one that takes you deep internally and makes the connection between what you feel in the body and how the mind connects to it.  It has been a challenging process, but one that now allows me the tools to deal with what comes up, even if I sink down into despair for a short period of time.

Our Choices With Antidepressants

We all have to make choices in how we treat ourselves and what paradigms we hold on to or let go of in our life.  We can embrace a medication lifestyle or we can embrace a life where we get to know ourselves intimately in an internal sort of way.  The answers we need are not in a pill, medication, procedure or the advice of some other person.  These things may help us get to the answers, but ultimately the answers are within us.  We just have to stop and find them!  Unfortunately today in our society, we fail to go inside for the answers.

Feel free to ask questions if you want and I will try to answer them from my own experience.  No matter what, if you are in a bad spot in life, please seek help.  Get informed so that you make the best choices for your life.

This blog post is not medical advice.  It is more about my experience and what worked for me.  You need to seek the advice of a medical professional before making any decisions based upon the information I have shared in this blog post.

You may also want to check out my book that details some of what I went through in life.  I am working on a second book that shares a different side of the torture and trauma I experienced.  Check out my book on Amazon, Hope And Possibility Through Trauma.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
030716

Pharmaceutical Sick Care Loves Its Drugs

How dare you!  How dare you!  You're talking smack about my drugs.  They keep me alive.  They maintain my life.  They keep me and my friends from dying.  How dare you!  Just who do you think you are?

I see all the time how people talk about pharmaceutical companies and medical care providers as being evil.  In many respects, there is much truth to it, but I still believe at the heart of all that is good, there are people who want to do the right thing.  Corporate greed and profits of course get in the way and has degraded health care into a dependence upon medications.

Are all medications bad?  I don't think any of us can answer that.  If you're a diabetic, would you consider insulin a bad thing?  Probably not.  Are all antibiotics bad?  Probably not.   Are antibiotics over prescribed and over used?  Absolutely!  I don't want to take one color and paint all medications in one light or another. 

Pain, It Does A Body Good

Pain scares me as it does most humans. it often leads us to think that there is something wrong or abnormal about ourselves. In conjunction with fear, it can create doomsday scenarios in our mind. It can alter reality to the point that we barely recognize life in the way that it actually appears.

Yet, pain is a messenger. It is something that lets us know there is a situation that needs our attention. Just like there are warning flags at the beach, so is pain a warning flag to our lives. It is something to get our attention and get us to acknowledge our bodies, instead of ignoring them.

All too often, we want to avoid the pain. This is so understandable because it sometimes becomes very hard to live with. Pain affects our day, our mood and our quality of life. We usually strive to flee from it through medication, surgeries and procedures. We even use alternative health procedures to stimulate, treat or wish it away. Yet, in the end, have we really gotten rid of the pain or have we just masked it so much that we don't recognize it? Does it just return a few days or weeks or years later? Does it morph into something else that becomes the new face of our pain?

Fear is a big motivator in the desire to not feel pain whether we consciously connect to it or not. Fear is a strong force that can alter the view of how we see pain, how we feel it and how it shows up. Fear can make pain appear as being much harder to give up and let go than it really is. I'm not talking about theory either. I have faced some horrible pains and fears in my own life. I've been there, done that and got way too many t-shirts as souvenirs.

To try to avoid or ignore the pain is the same as letting fear talk you into ignoring the messages coming from the body. Yes, it would seem to be that relief from pain is the right thing to do. However, you're hiding valuable messages the body and mind are sending you.

There are times when some pain relief is needed to help us hear the messages more clearly and take care of ourselves. If we however, look to medications, surgeries, and alternative health treatments to give us our reasons for the pain, we are only letting fear fool us. There is a time and a place for different treatment methods but only if we do these in a consciously connected way with our mind, body and soul.

If you really want to get at the source of your pain, you need to feel it more - not less. Yes, it may hurt and it may be difficult to do that, but by doing this, you are able to travel deep to the source of the pain. Remember, fear is very deceptive and it alters how we feel, view, sense and understand pain.

By going into the pain through the fear, we get the opportunity to take back our power and heal parts of our life that were untouchable before. We give ourselves the moment to grow and evolve in consciousness, so we can make different choices for our life. It gives us the ability to heal our body in ways we can barely imagine. It makes us more human. It helps us discover and reclaim more of who we are.

I'm not going to state that it is easy to do this. However with courage, we all have the ability to stand up to our fears, take on our pain and discover the wisdom waiting for our life. No person, treatment or thought can do that for us. This must come from within. After all, this ability is in all of us and it has always been there. May we search our lives and find it.


*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

High Tolerance To Pain OR Numbing Out

At one time in my life, I could endure a lot of pain. It had to get to the level that was so high before I would really pay attention to it. Usually in those situations, the situation was so dire that it would require going to the emergency room or a doctor for muscle relaxants and pain pills. I remember a few times that I was barely able to drive myself to the emergency room to get medical attention. Can you imagine that?

Not too long ago, I would have thought this was all a normal and standard part of living in life. Everyone gets pain, right? Everyone learns that you just have to suck it up and move on, right? After all, our jobs, families and other responsibilities don't allow us to be down with pain and physical problems. How many times have you heard someone tell you to just "buck up" or "suck it up" and move on? I bet if we were given a nickel for every time we heard that, we'd all be rich and wealthy.

Now I'm learning in life that there is another way. Of course, it took me going to the point of paralysis before I woke up a little. Yes, you heard me correctly. I was paralyzed from a Conversion Disorder, which is where you take various traumatic events in your life and just stuff them deep down inside until you can't function any more. It is rare to be in this psychological state, but unfortunately I'm living proof that it does happen. And if you want a wakeup call in life, trying being paralyzed and almost seeing your life end before your eyes. If that doesn't wake you up, not much will!

I suppose you're sitting here reading this and thinking, "what is this guy suggesting"? I'm glad you're asking that question. Then I'm assuming you're probably thinking - what's next, he's going to tell me to feel the pain? Wow, how did you hit the nail on the head so quickly? You're exactly right! And now I'm sure you're most likely sitting there reading this and probably uttering under your breath that I'm just plain nuts. Nope, this is first hand experience I am writing from here, and it isn't just a pie in the sky concept.

See, our bodies have a built in mechanism to help get our attention, and help us evolve or work through things in our lives to move us forward in life. That mechanism is "pain", "discomfort" and various other things. So often though, when the pain comes along, we say "we don't want to feel this", and we look for ways to numb it out, attempt to get rid of the pain, do surgeries to eliminate the pain and so on and so forth. However, in the end, we really didn't get rid of the pain, we just put a Band-aid on a gushing wound and thought we solved the problem. The source of the pain (the message) is still there in the body. All we've done is tried to silence the pain by applying Band-aids to it.

I know, I know - this concept may be totally foreign to you and you may be laughing so hard at me, but like I've said, I've experienced this concept over and over in my own life. If you think you have a high tolerance to pain, I would suggest that it is most likely your ability to numb out the pain - to not feel it, to act as if it doesn't exist. However, as I have learned in my own life and that of others, the more you try to numb it out or act as if it doesn't exist - the more the body says "I'll Get Your Attention". And the body will get your attention in some way or another. It doesn't give up. It keeps trying to say "hello, pay attention to me, I've got a message for you".

Most medical procedures, drugs, supplements, and many of the "feel good holistic therapies" out there just work to numb the pain. I get some information all the time in the mail about massage training that emphasizes “we get rid of pain or we eliminate pain”! I'm sorry, but that's not what is going to help anyone heal. It is by going into the pain, that we allow ourselves to heal. Yes, that is not easy to do and no, it is not comfortable, but when you connect the mind and body together as one without the fear, you can then go into the pain and find healing at the source level.

I'm not suggesting that you can do this on your own in the beginning, but I am merely trying to raise the bar of possibilities within our human culture. You may need someone that has already walked down the road, you are traveling to help show you the way. Ultimately, each of us has the ability to go past the fear, into the pain, and find healing for our lives. Healing doesn't come in some therapy, or some new age philosophy or a drug, doctor or surgery. Healing comes from within us. It is part of us and we are a part of it.

For legal purposes, please don't go stop what you are doing that was medically prescribed by your doctor after reading this. Check things out and take care of yourself in the proper way before you make a major change. There is a time and place for doctors, medications, surgeries and alternative treatments, but there is also a time and place for each of us to learn just how powerful the fears are in our lives and how much they prevent us from listening to our own bodies and our own internal health.

Learning to listen to your body and learning to go into the pain is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. It is the gift that keeps on giving. We were not put on this earth to exist in our human form. We were put on this earth to reach our full potential and to grow, learn and experience all that life has for us. Yes, many of us have been beaten down pretty bad in life. I am one of those, but the rewards of learning to be at one with your body are so much greater than the struggle through the process.

If you only remember one thing from what I’ve written, I hope you will remember that true healing comes from within - not from outside sources!