antidepressant : Gay & Black Glossary

When you take an antidepressant, say one that increases serotonin, such as Prozac, your body tries to pull the level back down to normal. If you stop taking the drug, your body keeps pulling and drags the serotonin level way down below normal, creating a super depression. Thus it is hard to get off anti-depressants. Further, over time anti-depressants stop working. My advice is, avoid them for mild or short term depression. It will be hard to get off them later. Research shows that placebos are 75% as effective as the actual drug. These drugs work primarily because the expectation that things will get better cheers you up.

100 years ago depression was rare, affecting about 1% of people. Yet today depression is on track to be the #2 disability by 2020. Why? I can think of two reasons:

• We are bombarded with terrible news from all over the earth, most of which we can do little about.
• Drug companies flog these drugs which are effectively addictive.