Depression Medication

[flow]

I'm wondering, how many INTPs take medication for depression? Personally, I've came close to considering it due to the fact that I get down on myself and my life seemingly weekly. But at the same time I'm convinced being on prescription drugs isn't going to help me. Both my mother and my sister are on depression medication, and I'm just not sure it's the answer for me...so what do you guys think? Does your average week consist of a high and low? Do our moods just cycle like that naturally? I'm getting tired of the weekly roller-coaster.. so am I a normal INTP, or a depressed one?

 

[Dissident]

Maybe a normal INTP is a depressed one?
Yeah, I know what you mean by the ups and downs, but I think mines are smoother. The downs dont reach depression and the ups certainly dont reach happyness, but I do have them.

 

[Decaf]

My personal opinion is that depression medication is like pain medication. It can make life a lot better, but when the pain comes from a broken leg, its doing more harm than good. If life is not satisfactory to you, medication won't make it better. It'll just make it more tolerable.

I would advise soul-searching and trying to figure out what you want in life, and making a plan to achieve it (sometimes it takes a while).

 

[Waterstiller]

I have no formal education, so please take the following with that in consideration. If you're wanting any information on medication, please consult a professional.

I've tried depression medication. It lasted two weeks and literally took me through the floor instead of helping. Instead of trying a different medication I decided that it would be too risky to do while living alone. There was no doubt that I was depressed both before and after the medication, but it made me truly realize how much brain chemistry influences our perceptions. Talk about a downward spiral.. and the medication didn't do much except cut the brakes. I imagine that other medications would do just the opposite - allow me to have better control.

What led me to try medication was that I was depressed to the point where I couldn't eat or get out of bed for days at a time. A good indicator of whether you should be considering depression medication is usually whether or not you're functioning how you need to be. Medication was described to me as something that would give you the motivation and strength to start to deal with your issues.

I'm with Decaf on this - depression is a symptom. However, in order to sort out the source of the depression, sometimes it's necessary to use depression medication to deal with it. Sometimes. Further, anyone who is willing to see a psychiatrist should also be getting some therapy. I can't stress this enough. In most cases, depression medication should be temporary. In many cases, unfortunately, depression is a symptom of brain chemistry and meds are a necessity for life. I'm really thankful I'm not bipolar and that my depression tends to be situational.

As for the ups and downs, I still have them. Every couple of months it gets pretty bad, and lately it has been largely dependent on hormone cycles. Perhaps INTP's are more likely to be depressed, but we're also more likely to be eccentric and excited about certain things. In many ways, I think we have the potential to be very positive individuals. Life's an amusement park more-so than a roller coaster.. if a ride is making you nauseated, stop riding it and find something else that's more suited for you. And sometimes you need Scopolamine to ride anything.

 

[Agent Intellect]

i've mostly delt with my own depression by self medicating with alcohol and/or painkillers. i don't think i would recommend this.

besides alcohol, talking to someone (for me, my only friend) helps. i know its difficult for INTP's, but if there is someone to talk to about it, its better then keeping it all inside. "keeping it inside" is probably the main cause of depression, or at least the main cause of its perpetuation, in INTP's.

if talking to someone isn't an option, artistic expression is a pretty good form of release.

 

[Chimera]

I agree with Decaf on this. I think of depression medication as a sort of painkiller, which is more or less what it is. I believe that our society is overmedicated; we turn to pills and whatnot to cure anything. For example, it's proven that many Americans get headaches from dehydration. Many people don't think about drinking water and resting for a bit--they pop an Aspirin and head out the door. We're geared to take medication to fix everything.
I don't mean to say that medication is bad. Of course it isn't. But the way that people treat it is starting to get on my nerves.
...Oh. That's a rant just waiting to happen. Lemme back up.
Naturally, depression isn't exactly the same as just getting a headache. There isn't a quick fix for it. I think that you have to find your own way to best depression... Speaking from my own experience, it took the support of friends and taking time out of my day to notice the good things in my life. But people react to pains differently, and they get through them just as differently. I don't doubt that some people need depression medication to help them. But I think that you really need to consider how you have dealt with other (not necessarily related) pain in the past, and incorperate that into how you plan to deal with depression. Whether you turn to meds or therapy or herbal teas all depends on what you think is best for you.​

Sorry if this post is scattered and random. I just woke up; I might edit it for clarity later. ​

 

[Ermine]

I'm sure that if I visited a psychiatrist I would be medicated for depression, among other things, but I'm fine. I just have an overall more somber demeanor. No big ups or downs.

 

[James Black]

My understanding of most medications is that they work solely by changing various things. They add or remove something. This is obvious, and can be accepted by most people as the truth. Therefore, to take medication, suggests something is wrong. Sometimes I will submit to that truth. If I have a headache, if I have a stomach ache, etc, I will take the appropriate medicine in most cases, to fix the "wrong" that is causing me pain. But when the "wrong" that comes under scrutiny is my mind, my brain, I disagree very much with changing it. Most pharmacists, psychiatrists, and other forms of doctors, will most likely tell you that Depression, as well as other mental 'problems' are caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. To submit to depression medicine would not only be to submit to this chemical unbalance being wrong, but to submit to the changes that "fixing" this balance will cause. Although I may remain very much the same, I will be different. The brain is a picky thing, and playing with it the littlest bit can alter various traits. If you stop and think - how much of your life is based upon your pessimistic depressed view of things? What percentage of your actions are at the very least, affected by these feelings? -- I am very happy with who I am, including many of my faults. I would probably be more depressed knowing in the end, that the medication I have taken has changed me, even if only slightly, from who I truly was.

 

[Waterstiller]

Again, I completely agree with the idea that people turning to pills for all their problems is a bad idea in general.


But I feel I should put in another 'pro meds' post in here. There is a huge gray area regarding this that most people don't understand if you're not going through it. Some otherwise happy and well adjusted people with positive outlooks on life are pretty much spun around by their own brains(my sympathies to those who are bipolar). To the point of being unable to function. I think that's the key thing: Is your depression just pessimism? Are you able to do your homework, go to work, talk to people? Can you leave your house to get food or would it just be easier to sit and starve, cuz.. hey.. you're not even hungry anyways?

I remember this one time where I had missed a week and a half of classes and then decided to finally go to the store to get some tylenol PM and duct tape. It was the only thing that could get me out of bed.

Is this over an extended period of time for no reason you can verbalize? 5 months after the death of a loved one and you still can't eat and want to die?

There's a reason these things are manufactured. Yeah, they're wayyy overprescribed. But don't count them out, and realize that they're always there to try before suicide if it gets that bad.

 

[Jennywocky]

I took Wellbutrin for six years and it really helped.

But I consider many drugs to be "crutches" in that their aim is not to fix you but to take the edge off so you can heal and fix yourself. Crutches are good things in that context; they can be bad if you use them to avoid the hard work of emotional healing.

(Note: This doesn't apply to all drugs, it's just a general statement. Sometimes we might need medical inventions long-term.)

What happened, though, was that the Wellbutrin helped me keep my life together until I finally reached a point where I could make positive choices and change my life, and once that happened, I could stop taking the drug.

Because some depression is caused by untenable life situations that one doesn't know how to cope with otherwise... or is too scared to cope with.

 

[grey matters]

According to the disease theory of psychological illness, Depression is caused by a chemical imbalance and the cure is medication (this is not a direct quote it is a very brief overview of the theory, it is not exact). From what I recall there are proven correlations between certain brain chemicals and depression. I do not like this theory because it suggests that depression is something we can't control except through drugs.

I have my own elaborate theory about choice, behavior, brain chemicals, and chronic depression, but I won't bore you with it here in this thread.

I will explain my beliefs in a simpler way. I believe depression is a behavior issue. We choose to act to a situation, that situation does not make us react. For example people who internalize a nasty comment made about them instead of considering the source of that bad comment and then not letting it bother them, will feel bad about themselves. In other words if some mouthy jerk calls you an ugly worthless pinhead you might choose to believe it instead of considering the fact that the person who made the comment does this all the time and it is bad character on his part which caused him to say those words. If we screw up on a project we can just think "oh well live and learn I will do better next time" or we could say to ourselves "what's wrong with me? Why can't I do anything right?". I could go on to say stuff about self esteem and blah blah but I think you get the picture.

We are human, not animal we have the ability to choose. If we behaved our way into depression then it is only logical that we must behave our way out of it. As for medication, I say use it if it works (with the warning that some depression medications are very dangerous). Use it like a crutch until you can get back on your own two feet again. While you are using your crutch do the things that you need to do to heal (in the example of a broken leg it would be physical therapy). In other words get some therapy either through a professional therapist or some good self help books and change your behavior (learn to change your thought process).


If you have been depressed for a while (chronically depressed) you may still have feelings of depression even though your behavior has changed. This has to do with the effects of long term exposure to the brain from the chemical imbalance and is part of my elaborate theory. Don't let this stop you, it will take a while for your brain to adjust to normal levels of brain chemistry.

This is my opinion.

 

[Jennywocky]

...If you have been depressed for a while (chronically depressed) you may still have feelings of depression even though your behavior has changed. This has to do with the effects of long term exposure to the brain from the chemical imbalance and is part of my elaborate theory. Don't let this stop you, it will take a while for your brain to adjust to normal levels of brain chemistry.

Hmm, that is a good intuition, I will store that one away.

 

[grey matters]

There is a little bit of my life story in my last post here on this thread. I learned some of that stuff from experience.