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Happiness isn't necessary to pass on your genes. Most animals, especially prey animals, spend much of their lives scared, because death is inevitable otherwise. We've now created a safe and pleasant environment our ancestors could only dream of, yet many of us are still unhappy. There's no real evidence we were broadly happier in the distant past either, we're just a different kind of unhappy now.
Seems to me we've developed a tool that makes people feel better and function better, perhaps by blunting some of the vestigial leftover emotions we needed when every tree might have had a sabre-tooth tiger hiding behind it.
I have known many people in my personal life in the united states who have an extremely stressful and depressing life due to external stressors (job, debt) and in response are on powerful psichiatric meds with the sometimes-severe withdrawal problems mentioned in this thread.
In some ways, certain problems seem to emerge from modern lives being too comfortable for the environment our brains are adapted for, but it's not as if unhappiness is a new thing, we just have better tools to treat it now. My life is about as good as any life can reasonably be expected to be economically, and I have as much social interaction as I want... but I'm still anxious (without sertraline).
It really seems like humans have been fairly unhappy throughout history, are fairly unhappy now in the best societies, and are fairly unhappy now in the worst societies too. We're a pretty unhappy species prone to quite a lot of mental health problems. Only difference being that in the past, eventually hunger would override your unhappiness and you'd have to get up and do something about it, which would take your mind off worrying about dying from that worsening foot infection and mourning over the twelve kids you've had die in their childhood.
I would also suggest that being overly negative around psychiatric meds itself can be harmful. I know many people who lived deeply unhappy lives and avoided taking them for years over fears of side effects and things they'd read about, only for them to eventually give in and wonder why they hadn't done it years ago. They do have side effects, but man, as a N=1, all I can say is sertraline improved every single aspect of my life. It's indescribable how much I owe to that compound.
What if, indeed. You are in a thread that discusses the side effects and addiction.
>Seems to me
Are you a good candidate for a control? Let me ask you seriously… could you stop taking them and function?
“Seems to me” that you are at best a little biased here.
About 80% of people are prescribed psychiatric medications at some point in their life. Add in how many people use non-prescribed ones (smoking, alcohol, illicit drugs) for psychological support and you're going to have a hard time finding a control.
Not sure what you're basing this on -- hopefully not just your impression after reading things online.
Actually, you know what? Tracks.
I got some other news for you, buddy. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49444514