Depression is not a disease. It is your subconscious warning you that you are going the wrong direction.

If you're feeling depressed or anxious, taking drugs will not address the root cause of your depression or anxiety. You are feeling 'low' because you either don't know what you want out of life or you don't know how to achieve what you want. This paralysis will manifest itself in a chemical imbalance that leads to feelings of depression. You can alleviate these feelings by artificially altering the chemical imbalance, but this is a short-term solution with significant drawbacks.

 

First, getting hooked on drugs (and this includes both illegal drugs and legally prescribed antidepressants) is an expensive habit. Antidepressants cost a lot of money, especially the latest and greatest brand name drugs that psychiatrists keep pushing (because the drug companies keep trying to influence them). Second, all drugs have side effects. Antidepressants in the SSRI and SNRI class are known to cause impotence, can increase the risk of suicide (ironically) among children and teens, and can interact with a wide variety of other medications leading to serious harm. For example, Cipralex is a commonly prescribed antidepressant that can cause a life-threatening arrhythmia (i.e. your heart will cease to work properly) if taken with commonly-prescribed antibiotics such as levofloxacin. This is a rare interaction, but the risk increases if you have a pre-existing heart condition, if you're old, or if you're a woman.

 

A third reason to avoid antidepressants is that they cause physical dependence. Antidepressants such as Paxil (paroxetine), Effexor (venlafaxine), or Pristiq (desvenlafaxine) are known to cause significant withdrawal symptoms if you suddenly stop taking them. Why would you want to put yourself through this?

 

At the end of the day, feelings of depression is your brain's way of telling you that you're not living the life that you want to live. You can mask these uncomfortable feelings with drugs and pretend like everything's okay, or you can figure out what's wrong with your life and fix it.

 

Are you a university student on antidepressants? Do you feel like you're wasting your time and money on a useless degree only to end up jobless and penniless? Have you ever considered that taking that an antidepressant isn't going to magically make your degree more valuable?

 

Are you a divorced single mom who's taking antidepressants to help you cope with the stresses of struggling to raise your children while simultaneously working two jobs? Have you considered the possibility that taking antidepressants isn't going to make your money problems go away?

 

Are you a broken man whose ex has taken your money and your children, and now you're living hand-to-mouth, one pointless day after another, waiting for the day you can finally die? Do you think antidepressants will change the hell that is the reality you've dug yourself into?

 

Perhaps the answer to your broken existence is finding a cause that you believe in. Do something challenging. Give yourself a big goal, and have several little goals that serve as stepping stones to your big goal. Achieve real, measurable success, and maybe things will get better. If not, at least you can say that you died trying, and that will give you some solace on your deathbed.

 

To all those who suffer from depression, your enemy is not the chemical imbalance in your brain. Don't kill the messenger. The messenger is doing you a great service. Your depression is telling you that you need to change your life. By drowning your depression in a cocktail of drugs, you are essentially plugging your ears and closing your eyes while shouting 'la la la la la!' And to all those who claim that you can live a perfectly good life and still be depressed, I call bullshit. Dig deeper, find out what's wrong, get up, and change your life.