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Comment by TheGrumpyBrit | Hacker News Reader

Traditional antidepressents are like the friend who gives you a hug when you're feeling bad. It helps, but it's only designed to address how you're feeling. Psychedelics are more like the therapist who will help you realise why you feel that way, and allow you to look at things from a different perspective. When the immediate effect has worn off, antidepressents just return you to baseline, while psychedelics leave you with the memory of your experience and the ability to take that step back from yourself.

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>> When the immediate effect has worn off, antidepressents just return you to baseline

Not really. When an antidepressant's effect wanes, most people experience severe withdrawal symptoms and side effects (e.g. hallucinations), and many patients find it impossible to cope with the withdrawal and live without the mind numbing effect.

What most antidepressants will do is actually get you to a baseline state where you're feeling numb and having a mild existence of not experiencing happiness/calm or sadness/anxiety, but in a strange/empty place between the normal ups and downs of life.

Saying things like this is really really dangerous in my opinion, because in addition to being totally false it can discourage someone struggling with depression / anxiety / whatever from seeking treatment because they don't want to feel "numb." I'm sure I can speak for not just myself but many others here and say that without antidepressants I'd probably be dead, and the only part of life they've eliminated are the lowest valleys of depression. At one point I considered not taking them because I believed in this same misconception (I was afraid to lose my creativity), but I'm very glad now I did not give in to that fear.

Please do not spread misinformation about potentially life-saving medication.

Medication can be necessary in extreme cases, to stabilize a patient whose thought processes are too disorganized to undergo therapy. This is the professional opinion that I've received from multiple therapists. More professional opinions at [2] and [3].

It's hard to believe that all the thousands of people that are prescribed antidepressants are going through severe (i.e. crippling) depression. I'm glad that you experienced only mild/no side-effects, but that it appears this is not the case with the majority of patients [1].

Someone struggling with depression/anxiety/whatever should seek treatment for the causes of their suffering, of course.

However, the common mantra is that a pill will solve your ill, the fact that antidepressants are prescribed like candy (second only to antibiotics) should hint on this. The problem is that, at best, the pill will help you with symptoms and will not solve the underlying causes (often related to trauma handling or with how one deals with the hardships of life).

[1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/are-antidep... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-antidepressant... [3] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/many-antidepressa...

Well, I should have taken more anti-depressants. When I came across an article how anti-depressants have been shown to at least counteract the physical effects depression can have on your neurochemistry / wiring / etc, why I kept struggling with bouts of depression made more sense.

What I was really focused on was psychological understanding through the use of psychedelics. They certainly helped, along with the therapy, but a more judicious use of both treatments would perhaps been more efficacious. But... the crap they kept recommending to me was Effexor and I had read far too much on how problematic it was. A milder antidepressant like Wellbutrin would have been better, but I spoke to too many idiots... From an engineer's perspective, starting out with a sledgehammer instead of seeing if the rubber mallet might work first is stupid. And being treated like I was an idiot was ... bedside manner indeed.

So you're not entirely wrong, I am remembering what was discussed in the book Talking Back to Prozac, but what you said is very simplistic. Depression is a very complex issue and the individual themselves is a significant factor. Every instance of depression has to be handled like it is an unique case, there are no blanket solutions like blindly giving everyone a drug (or a variety of drugs like lab rats...)

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