It seems you can't throw a stone these days without hitting someone that has either been on or knows someone that has been on antidepressants.  They have become nearly as ubiquitous and easy to obtain as taking an antibiotic when one has a fever or taking sleeping pills when one can't sleep.  This ease of their availability and frequency and lax standards that doctors use to dispense these ‘miracle' drugs, as some call them, has unfortunately glossed over the reality that for most people taking them, they are being mis-and over-used.

Instead of dealing with the problems in their life, both long and short term, that is actually the root cause of the depression or anxiety, the person is actually taking the easy way out, avoiding the true issues and hurting themselves in the long run.  For many, antidepressants become nothing more than their ‘drug of choice' instead of alcohol, marijuana or nicotine and simply because it has a ‘stamp of approval' from the FDA and are sold by pharmaceutical companies, they believe they aren't doing themselves harm.  The sad truth is that nothing could be further from the truth.

The first thing one must remember when it comes to antidepressants, typically the SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) or SNRI (including Norepinephrine to the mix) is that these are products being peddled by pharmaceutical companies.  These companies have one primary goal...to make money.  They don't have any special interest in your health, your welfare or anything about you except to get you to buy their product.  It is in THEIR interest that you believe that antidepressants are the ‘correct' way to treat depression, even though numerous studies have shown that not only do they have no long term benefit over placebo, but that in fact great harm can be done through various side effects, as well as the distraction of the patient from tackling the problems in their life that going on the antidepressants allows.

Remember...your emotions are your warning signals in life.  They are there for a REASON.  If you feel fear, agitation, depression, sadness, anxiety, etc, there is usually GOOD reason.   The way you grow as a person...and the way your brain adapts by growing new synapses, electrical and  chemical pathways is by working through your challenges in life.  This is how MATURITY occurs.  By avoiding dealing with things and simply using antidepressants as a ‘crutch', you are actually slowing your maturity...your healing...and your progress through whatever adversity you are facing.

So then the question becomes...is there a right way to use antidepressants?  I believe that in cases where emotionally, someone is so distraught and overwhelmed, and is so un-self-aware as to how to go about conquering one's problems there is a place for antidepressants for the short term.   But only for as long as it takes for the person to get into therapy and is working with someone that helps them identify and tackle the problems that are causing the depression.   After a person has started that journey, they should be slowly taken off the drugs.

It is now known that many antidepressants in fact have very strong withdrawal effects known as an 'antidepressants or ssri withdrawal syndrome' that can make getting off them ‘trick' the person into thinking they are becoming depressed again and that they have to stay on.  In many, if not most cases this is simply not true.  After several weeks or in some cases even months, the ‘withdrawal' will subside as your brain re-equalizes and starts to produce the necessary chemicals that it was ‘relying' on the drug for.  For more information and articles about antidepressants  and depression, please visit .