Anti-Depressants: Beneficial or Dangerous?

"...in the last months of 2000, apropos of nothing-no life changes, no losses-she slid into a depression of extraordinary depth and duration. ‘It begun with a feeling of not really feeling as connected to things as usual...Then it was like this wall fell around me. I felt sadder and sadder and then just numb'" (Dobbs).

This quotation is in reference to one Deanna Cole-Benjamin, a wife and mother, who had absolutely no foreseeable reason to be depressed. The odd thing is that this quotation could have been about me, and un-married, childless, high-school senior girl. Granted, I have things that could have "caused" my depression-my parents' and sister's divorces, my brother's deployment, the general stress and fatigue inherent in being an ambitious senior on the brink of college-but it never seemed to me that any of those things depressed me. True, I was sad about the divorces, but I knew they were actually healthy moves, so it was healthy to feel sad about them. The same with my brother's deployment, and my stress-somewhat upsetting things, but necessary. No, it was never the events in my life that would make me depressed. In fact, nothing in my life made me depressed. I just was. And, like the wife-mother Deanna Cole-Benjamin, it started without any apparent cause or reason, way back in my freshman year of high school.

I can remember the day, the date, the place, of that first sickly-sweet time of utter hopelessness, utter purposelessness. In the past four years, I have had many episodes like this, where the wrenching feeling of "so what?" hits me, and I truly do not care anymore. And the funny thing is, while I am experiencing the depression, I wonder why. I know it doesn't make sense, but here I am, contemplating the utter futility of life.

I never felt like the world didn't need me, like my friends and family were "better of without me" as my depression-rating test asked. Rather, I was done with the world. I didn't need it. I was better off without existence-I truly wanted rest; eternal, dark, silent rest. Like I said, I know none of this made sense, I knew it wasn't normal to feel this way. I'd already been seeing a counselor for a few months, and while she could help me address my problems and issues, she couldn't make me feel happy. Finally, we decided I needed some extra help "to balance things out"; something to help me stay level so I would have the energy to face my life. I went on anti-depressants.

I, like so many others, was skeptical about the effectiveness of the pills. I had heard that it increased suicidal thoughts in children. I had not, however, heard that "when the agency began publicly debating suicide risk for minors taking anti-depressants, the rates of children's prescriptions tapered off. In that year, the suicide rate among adolescents rose significantly for the first time in more than 10 years, and some experts say the trends are linked" (Carey). So not taking anti-depressants caused more suicides?

The lack of evidence for anti-depressants increasing the likelihood of suicidal thoughts and/or actions continued: "'Our findings strongly suggest that...individuals who committed suicide [while prescribed an anti-depressant] were not reacting to SSRI medication,' Julio Licinio, M.D....said in a written statement. ‘They actually kill themselves due to untreated depression...' Licinio added that ‘...researchers found blood anti-depressant levels in less than 20 percent of suicide cases.' This, Licinio said, implies that the vast majority of suicide victims either never received treatment, or were not compliant with prescribed treatment at the time of their deaths..."

I have been on anti-depressants for several months now. In that time, my depression not only lessened, but it appears to have evaporated, like the water from the earth after Noah's proverbial flood. I am not listless, I do not see a lack of purpose in the things that I (now do) once enjoyed, and I am not only happy, but almost constantly exuberant, vivacious, and energy-filled, as I had been before. Gone is the exhaustion and self-imposed isolation. If you were to call my name, I would look up with a quizzical smile, rather than an irritated frown.

Skeptics argue that there is a placebo effect going on, that because patients receive anti-depressants, they expect to feel better, and therefore do. "...like a pain-in-the-ass brother-in-law, the placebo effect keeps showing, curing people at a rate alarming to both regulators and industry executives" (Greenberg). This may be true. All I know is that I had to force myself to get out of bed in the morning, I was constantly exhausted, but couldn't sleep, and I hated the very things that I had thought defined the very essence of who I was. If it was a placebo effect that "cured" me, then I say "keep on truckin'." Because there was no way I could have pulled myself out of my own misery. I needed help, help that family and friends and counselors tried to provide, but couldn't, and it appears very clear to me that anti-depressants provided that help. I was a skeptic, I hated the idea of going on pills to change who I was. But being depressed is not me. So I tried it. You are reading now the words of a convert.