If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
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It depends on the type of local optimum. I am reasonably sure that becoming too depressed to do enough work to stay in was the only was I could have gotten out of graduate school given my moral system at the time. (I hated being there but believed I had an obligation to try to contribute to human knowledge.)
Also flat affect isn't at all a universal effect of antidepressant usage, but it does happen for some people.
Isn't flat affect also a rather common effect of depression?