One in 10 Americans use Antidepressants

One in 10 Americans Use Antidepressants, Most Don't See a Therapist I guess I'm old school and one of those who is horrified by anyone thinking that this is okay. To me, taking antidepressants and not seeing a Therapist would be like deciding to put a plug in your butt and thinking that is okay rather than going to a Therapist (laxative). It gives "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" new meaning.  Basically, if you just take antidepressants you are just pretending whatever real problems you have just don't exist.  For example, if you put your hand in the driveway and let your mother or friend run over it with a tire over and over again and then said, "Oh. I'm taking an antidepressant. Everything will be okay now." But eventually, your hand would fall off from being run over by your friend or mother in the car. So, everything will not be okay unless you don't want your hand anymore. But, I have always found logic and common sense has absolutely nothing to do with people who take antidepressants. For example, my friend was depressed teaching in East L.A. (Los Angeles) so he took Welbutrin so he could continue to teach until he died. No one found him until one or two weeks later. I'm not saying Welbutrin had anything to do with his death. But I am saying that psychologically it had something to do with his death because by his choosing to take it it only masked and hid  his problems from him rather than addressing them and this eventually caused his  death.  There is a class of drugs of which Prosac was one of the first. But they are all similar in that they completely rewire a human brain's neurons. So, feeling that you are not yourself anymore is a common experience and symptom of all people who take any of this class of mood altering drug. Unfortunately, just like when some people freak out on LSD when looking at themselves in a mirror this same effect of feeling like you are not yourself anymore can lead to some people becoming so alienated from themselves that they commit suicide. So this appears to be a similar kind of freak out that people have on mood altering drugs. If you are taking a mood altering drug I'm sorry you have to read about this or hear this. However, if you are not taking a mood altering drug presently, then please think about what I am saying. Most people don't do well if they can't relate to themselves anymore or even worse some people never related to themselves because they were taking mood altering drugs since before puberty. So, often kids like this never can relate to being themselves psychologically. I find this as very unfortunate. Even though drug companies make incredible money on mood altering drugs, that doesn't really mean that they are useful if you ever want to be a self aware person who is ever capable of rational thought or logic or common sense or knowing who you are as a human being ever.  Here is the most depressing quote of all from this article:  23 percent of all women ages 40 to 59 reported taking antidepressants.  end quote.  So this basically means that almost 25% of all women(1 in 4) in the U.S. between 40 and 59 are on Antidepressants. God help US!  When Is the Best Prescription no Prescription?  Later: My wife just gave me a different take on this. Her perspective as a 56 year old professional with 3 degrees is that the 40 to 59 year old women doing this are often the breadwinners in their family since 75% of the jobs lost since 2007 have been men's jobs. So, what she thinks is happening is that the father is out of work, the kids are out of work if they are under 30 and this woman is literally "the last man standing" so to speak in the war of survival here in the U.S.  I must say that this is a very sad state of affairs that women are sacrificing themselves now like men have always done on the battlefield of life. Later: When I was most likely a candidate for antidepressants I had already worked with Emotionally disturbed teenagers who were on Prosac and other Antidepressants. I had to administer the drugs myself and saw what it did to them. Some of them would just sit in a corner and drool. After a few months of this I was completely against Prosac and other antidepressants for life after I saw how it ruined the lives of these teenagers. I heard horror stories of kids coming off these antidepressants and trying to commit suicide. One of the kids used to jump off the roof and put paper clips through his wrist and hand and break glass and then chew it and swallow it. But then was taken out of the system and later was working at McDonalds. I thought to myself and made a mental note that I never would eat anything at that McDonalds ever. So, I am completely against antidepressants because basically you become non-human. In other words you no longer will process information the same way and if you come off the drug and then go back on sometimes you may commit suicide.  So, I was working for a place  counseling emotionally disturbed teenagers when my now ex-wife and I broke up the last time. I knew I was having serious issues. At the time I didn't know that both my now ex-wife and I were dealing with serious undiagnosed health issues. She was deep in post par tum depression and I was dealing with serious problems caused by an undiagnosed hypothyroid condition. The way I found to deal with this was to take megadoses of B-complex with added herbal stuff like valerium root and other things. This allowed me to function better and not freak out so much during my divorce and custody battle after having been married 15 years. So, I began taking at first megadoses of super B complex and then after I almost died for 7 months in 1999  starting in 2000 I just started taking a regular B-complex and saw palmetto caps to keep my prostate healthy because my Dad died from prostate cancer. So now for about 20 years I have taken B-complex pills or caps every day as well as Saw Palmetto Caps to keep my prostate healthy. Finally when I was 58 in 2006 my physical trainer listened to my symptoms and told me I probably was hypothyroid like her. Sure enough when I took my T3 and T4 blood tests that was my problem. So, I started taking Armour thyroid which was then also made in the U.S. Since then I have to now get it from Canada or England. But it is the safest thing to take with NO negative side effects at all. I feel in my mind like I'm 20 years old again. It comes directly from pig thyroids and since pigs are so close to humans genetically there is really no difference at all in how people feel taking it than what people normally feel like in their 20s. I still have the same aches and pains of a 63 year old but in my mind I'm 20 again. It's really great.