Generic Prozac costs me $4 a month. It has improved my mood greatly over the course of two months. I was afraid of side effects at first. Then, during one bad period, I remembered what exactly it was I was trying to cure and decided all the side effects that regularly come with and more are worth not going through that anymore. So is taking this stuff for the rest of my life.
SSRIs have varying levels of withdrawal symptoms (Prozac's is low, Paxil's high).One study on SSRIs shows that for many people they are not more effective than a placebo, but for the most depressed people they are extremely effective. If your girlfriend has sever chronic depression, there's a good chance the condition is genetic, and there's no very good way to fix that aside from medicine.
Dependence on a drug that is cheap, has few side effects, and can almost completely cure chronic depression is a very small price to pay for never feeling as worthless as depression can make you feel. I'm sure you can find many, many more such testimonials. If the side effects bother her, she can change drugs--there are a lot of alternatives.
Thank you. What convinced you to take the drug? And where can you inform yourself about the withdrawal symptoms and the effectiveness?
My girlfriend suffers serious depression. She has sleep disorder, anorexia, chronic pain, problems to concentrate, low selfesteem, daily low mood, listlessness and is very indecisive. On the other side she considers herself very happy apart from the "depression periods" and we have a great time together. We already consulted a psychotherapist, but there is waiting time about one month. I buyed her fishoil capsules, because she eats no fish and there is mild evidence that it helps treating depression (I don't think this will affect her depression greatly, but fishoil seems like an overall good idea). We often go on walks to catch some sunlight and get her some exercise.
She says she never want's to take antidepressants because she fears to get dependent from them. I think she might change her mind if there are very good arguments in favour of them. She is quite rational in spite of not knowing the LW-stuff. Does anybody of you know if there is any information of the succes rate of medicamentous (and psycho therapeutic) treatment available?
I highly appreciate any advice.
Furthermore i want to call attention to the topic of depression. A huge share of the population suffers at least once in their lifetime under depression (~20% in Germany). Sadly it's often not taken serious and a big taboo to speak about. Many people see it as self-inflicted. My girlfriend's mother doesn't believe in depression as a disease (see diseased thinking). It's a paradigm of irrationality that hurts people.