what to do with a depressed friend?

[who_knows]

However you will find, not in all cases but most, that depressed people do have lack of neurotrasmitters such as seratonin in the brain and are much more prone to depression.

Depressed people can usually pinpoint the reasons why they feel bad all the time, but it is not these that make up the depression, it is the fact that they dwell excessively on these which does stem from a neurological imbalance

 

What is this based on?

 

Everyone knows the Chemical Imbalance theory is a weak one."Oh it must be an Imbalance" the Doc says ,but won't give an answer as to why

From personal experience of Depression I can tell you it is caused by none other than enviromental factors,stresses of life,negative thinking and failure etc...Not one day my brain decided to pack up and send me nuts

 

"There is no evidence that any psychiatric or psychologial disorder is caused by a biochemical imbalance." Peter R. Breggin, M.D., in his book Reclaiming Our Children (Persues Books, Cambridge, Mass., 2000), page 139.

"Contrary to what is often claimed, no biochemical, anatomical, or functional signs have been found that reliably distinguish the brains of mental patients." Elliot S. Valenstien, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, in his book Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health (The Free Press, New York, 1998), p. 125

[navynuke]

What is this based on?

 

Everyone knows the Chemical Imbalance theory is a weak one."Oh it must be an Imbalance" the Doc says ' date='but won't give an answer as to why

From personal experience of Depression I can tell you it is caused by none other than enviromental factors,stresses of life,negative thinking and failure etc...Not one day my brain decided to pack up and send me nuts[/quote']

 

Then you must be everyone....causes are biological, genetic, and environmental, and treatments with drugs have been shown to be effective even if medical science does not clearly understand the mechanisms of the cause or the cure....

[who_knows]

Then you must be everyone....causes are biological, genetic, and environmental, and treatments with drugs have been shown to be effective even if medical science does not clearly understand the mechanisms of the cause or the cure....

 

The all Drugs do is mask up the underlying problem by numbing the brain and causing more damage.The Schizophrenics still hear the voices but turn into

Zombies on Anti-Psychotic drugs(this stuff gives people permanent brain damage).The Anti-Depressants might hide their problems for a while,but they soon loose effectiveness and after you stop taking the things you end up worse than you were before.

[boxhead]

Hi.. i have this friend' date=' she's really young, only 16 and she has been depressed for over a year. she started going to the psychatrist and she is under prescribed meds. she says these aren't helping at all and they make her presure go down so that she's always weak and dizzy. tomorrow they are taking her to the hospital and her doctor says she might be there for one to two weeks.

I don't know how to help her and I'm relaly worried about her but I don't want her to notice because she is really sensitive and doesn't want to see her friends worying about her but like, are there any things I could do to help someone as depressed as her? I fear being in the hospital will make it even worse but I don't think my opinion will be heard against the psychiatrist's advice...

on general terms does it make it worse if i show concernfor her or should I try to be as cheerful as possible with her?

i know it is diffiers and varies from cse to case but i would still like to hear some advice... thanks:-([/quote']

 

 

it dosnt matter whether it is home or hospital, doc is rite i think .... we should understand that they know things better than us atleast about body and mind.

 

sorry for your friend, but it the present state we live in it is very common and i think in future we need more psychoanalyst and psychatrists to deal with such problems. stress and hard working culture(work hard - party harder) is not good for mental health atleast

[Zingaro]

I think the term for seasonal depression is 'Seasonal Affective Disorder' which is quite fittingly abbreviated to S.A.D.

 

I had friends that suffered from depression. Scotland has long dark winters, having kept their curtains drawn against the cold they neglected to open them in the Spring. I would visit, see them depressed and simply insist they open the curtains and let the sun in and this helped tremendously. People with depression their serotonin drops - exercise helps this every time. Getting out and about distracts people from sitting at home with depressing thoughts looping about their minds.

[scicop]

To who-knows...what do you thing stress and enviromental factors do to your brain? It is well known that environmental stressors can change brain neurochemistry over time(pioneering this field today is Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller U), and as someone eluded to before, impact the serotonergic and norepienergic transmission in various areas of the brain.

 

Sometimes the stressors are hard for the patient to pick up on, although somatically, the stressor is making a physiologically differents.

 

Luckly we have drugs available that can treat the symptoms of depression, and there is NOTHING wrong with taking a drug to help you feel better.

 

Sure, physicians often misdiagnois, or may miss subsymptomatic signs of depression. A multicenter clincal trial study is assessing real-world efficasy anti-depressants (STAR-D trial), and their first report revealed only 25% patients achieved full remission from depression where as nearly 50% responded to therapy. Now, not all patients repond the same to same drugs (patient heterogenity), however the study authors did note that physcians often don't know how to properlly measure patient recovery from depression! This is something that pharmaceutical companies are spending alot of money on to fix (through CME initiatives).

 

So the point is that drugs are not bad, and yes, physicians need to know how to measure reponses and treat patients more effectively. So sometimes its the physician that needs changing..not the drug but that is hard to gage, and the only way to assess this is to get a 2nd opinion (or 3rd).

 

 

Patient awarness is also a big deal. To blindly take a drug without knowing its effects is dumb. Furthermore, its is the patients responsibility to know of their treatment options. So for, if patients don't respond to one drug, their be 2nd line drug (such as Wellbutrin, a SNRI). So the patient should actively participate in thier treatment.

 

So for the 16yo, be supportive of your friend, and let the doctor do what he has to do, until 2nd or 3rd opinions are obtained.

[GutZ]

They have created recently a device like a pacemaker that sends electrical pluse to a specific area in the brain. Although I was very skepticial of it myself watching the surgery on TV it's hard to believe it didn't help to say the least, therefore there is some connection to neurological problems and it's not difficult to believe either considering thats how the brain works.

[Kedas]

A strong-willed person can't be forced into being happy about an environment they are unhappy with. Only an understanding of it can be attained. The greater understanding of the environment' date=' the greater a person is enabled to get out of "depression." But then again, some people just see things for what they really are and will not creat a false reality.[/quote']

 

So believing in 'magic' (=better than what is expected) is the most obvious way to cure a depression, right?

[iglak]

the problem with the chemical imbalance idea is that it should be obvious that it's a chemical imbalance.

 

that's part of the definition of depression. depression is in the brain. the brain works by balancing chemicals to regulate electrical signals. a chemical imbalance in the brain is what we call "emotion".

treating depression by correcting the balance that deals with the emotion of depression can be effective.

but, the person had that imbalance for a reason, it was a reaction to stimuli of some sort. as long as the stimuli still exists, the balance will try to tilt toward depression.

[sabbath]

the best thing you can do for her is probably to not change. be her friend. dont try to cheer up a depressed person, it doesnt work, it just makes them feel like you dont understand. just be there for her, however shes feeling.

 

I vouch for what he says.