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Comment by 16bitvoid | Hacker News Reader

> Second, get off your drugs.

No offense, but I'd rather leave any advice related to medication to a doctor, albeit one that you trust. While SSRIs (and SNRIs) do tend to make symptoms worse, this is typically just during the onboarding period and lasts 2-6 weeks before the actual relief comes. This is also why a lot of people don't stick with them. Just to throw my personal anecdote, I was on Zoloft for years and the onboarding period sucked, but I eventually found relief after about 4 weeks that nothing had or has come close to, including seeing a psychologist weekly and CBT. The only reason I'm not currently on it is because I'm on a scholarship for a graduate program, which forbids working and my stipend doesn't cover a good enough insurance plan for me to afford seeing a psychiatrist and medication on top of rent and necessities.

I can't speak for benzodiazepines or other psychotropics.

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Once again, "The only reason I do not take my medications is that I can not afford it." seems like a thrid world country thing to say, while you're most likely from USA. It is absolutely crazy to me that you do not have public healthcare.

My understanding is that the danger of SSRI’s is that initially it fixes depression’s side effect of lack of initiative while suicide ideation is still happening.

Different SSRIs affect everyone differently. My guess is that this is primarily because the underlying cause and mechanisms of depression vary between people. For example, some people may find no relief because their depression isn't caused by a "chemical imbalance" or insensitivity to serotonin, but rather issues with functional connections in the brain.

Suicidal ideation remaining intact on SSRIs is definitely not universally true. SSRIs eliminate suicidal ideation for many people. I can say, thankfully, that my suicidal ideation was reduced after a few weeks and then gone after a few months. It didn't just improve my lack of motivation, but also reduced my negative thoughts and emotions.

I will say, however, that it also dulled my positive emotions. I'm more inclined to believe that this "zombificafion" is closer to being universally true of SSRIs than suicidal ideation remaining intact, based upon my own experience as well as the reported experiences of others. I used to be part of a clinical neuroimaging lab that studied depression and anxiety. While I didn't do any research on medication or even treatment, I have clinically interviewed a lot of participants that suffer from depression and medications/effects were a major focus point of those interviews.

So, I personally feel confident in saying that the effects of SSRIs vary greatly between people and that different SSRIs can affect the same person differently. It's also why I would rather rely on a psychiatrist (that I trust) who I can routinely report the effects to and tailor my treatment rather than some person on the internet telling me to just stop.

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