Introduction
This is the second part of the series I’m doing where I go over the various medications that are out there to “treat” people for mental health problems. The reason I put “treat” in quotation marks is that I believe that these medications don’t actually heal people. For this article, I will take a closer look at the effects of antidepressants on the brain and body.
I decided to start with this one because this is the medication that I’ve heard the most complaints about. Also, I have personal experience of dealing with depression for many years and I’ve never used antidepressants to help me at any point.
The role of medications is to mitigate the symptoms of the mental health disorder, so it doesn’t seem like much of an issue. However, when you do that, you aren’t really dealing with the problem. You aren’t tackling the root cause of what caused the mental health disorder in the first place.
Role of Antidepressants on The Brain
The main role of antidepressants has to do with serotonin and neurotransmitters. A large number of antidepressants are known as SSRIs or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. These SSRIs block the reuptake of serotonin, which means that serotonin does not absorb in the synapse. This means that there’s more serotonin that’s not connected and left in the gap.
By blocking the reuptake of serotonin, the serotonergic activity in the brain is supposed to “increase”. However, this effect on the brain causes certain functions to shut down completely or slow down.
Since the serotonergic activity in the brain has increased from the antidepressants, the brain produces less serotonin. It’s like a signal to the brain telling it that there’s already enough serotonin. The longer someone takes these antidepressants, the worse their brain and neurons become in creating serotonin.
Research has shown that chronic treatment with an SSRI may lead to a 50% reduction in serotonin receptors in the brain. That is a large margin that the brain has to keep up once one is off of antidepressants.
The Rise of “Chemical Imbalance” Claims
It can be confusing as to why these antidepressants are needed in the first place when there are plenty of alternatives that people can gravitate to. The reason antidepressants were made was because of the claim about depression.
The claim was that depression caused a chemical imbalance in the brain and that the effects of antidepressants help fix that imbalance. This chemical imbalance can be accounted for all mental disorders. The way to fix them depends on what psychiatric medication applies to in regard to mental disorders.
Most of the research that has been conducted on the topic of chemical imbalances tells only half of the story. These studies only show participants with a mental disorder and how the medication helps them. A brain scan is shown to see that medication changed the structure of the brain after the person has “recovered” from their disorder.
What is missing here is the fact that the medication itself created that chemical imbalance in the brain. There wasn’t any imbalance before the treatment began.
Still not convinced that antidepressants can harm the brain? Still not convinced of the damage that these medications can provide? Pay close attention to the next section to find out more.
The Damaging Effects of Long-Term Use of Antidepressants
To start this section off, I want to go over some statistics regarding antidepressants as a reference for everything. These statistics show how common antidepressants are prescribed and how many people are using them.
Statistics of Antidepressants
- 15% increase in antidepressant use since 2015
- 38% increase in antidepressant use by adolescents since 2015
- 68% of antidepressant users are adherent to their medication
- 50% of people who try their first antidepressant reports that it doesn’t work
Before we move on from these statistics, I do want to talk a little bit about medication adherence. Medication adherence refers to the patient taking their medication correctly as prescribed by their doctor.
The people that do not adhere to their medication believe that their medication isn’t working. This makes sense as it takes around 6-8 weeks for the effects of antidepressants to work. In addition, people start to feel the side effects well before they start showing improvements.
Studies Regarding Treatment of Depression
For starters, there have been many studies that have been conducted to look at antidepressant use for depression. Most of the studies that you will find involve two groups of people: one with the antidepressant and one with a placebo. The results always show either a slight improvement from the antidepressant group or no real difference in improvement.
However, there are some studies that compare previous treatment of antidepressants to current treatment. Findings include that the average rate of sustained recovery in patients with mood disorders was higher in the pre-treatment era than in psychiatry’s modern drug-centered treatment era
It’s interesting to see that more people benefitted from not using medications vs using them.
Possible Side Effects of Antidepressants
I want to start this section with a research study that looked into long-term antidepressant treatment for patients with depression. There were 180 patients that included in this study and they were taking antidepressants between 3-15 years.
The findings of this study found that around 90% of people saw their depression levels decrease. This sounds very important and goes against the general topic of this article. Even though this is a high percentage of people that are having general “success”, there’s more to the story. Along with the decrease in depression, patients reported a lot of adverse effects. These effects include
- Around 74% of patients experience withdrawal effects
- Around 72% of patients experience sexual problems
- 65% of patients experience weight gain and feeling emotionally numb
- 43% of patients became addicted
Those are just some of the adverse effects for antidepressants. Here is the full list of possible side effects from antidepressants
- Insomnia
- Fatigue/Drowsiness
- Dry Mouth
- Blurred Vision
- Constipation
- Dizziness
- Irritability/Agitation
- Anxiety
- Sexual Problems
- Weight Gain
- Nausea
As you can see, there are a large amount of side effects from using these medications. Some of these side effects create other mental disorders like anxiety and sleep, which creates a vicious cycle.
Side Effects of Antidepressants Create More Mental Health Problems
Since your brain is already being altered from the antidepressants, more problems are being created. Anxiety and sleep problems can be difficult problems for someone to manage effectively. If someone is unable to manage those problems, they may reach out for help. They will go to a mental health professional about it. After that happens, most likely, the professional will give them a prescription for anxiety and sleep medications. Now you have 3 sets of medication that you’re taking.
Don’t forget that those type of medications have their own set of side effects, which can cause other mental health problems to occur. Next thing you know, someone has a rotation of medications that they’re using for their problems. This wouldn’t be a huge problem if more mental health professionals look into alternative solutions or even offer it. Did you know that treatment and prescription are forced?
Look at the case of someone that is suicidal and at high-risk of ending their life. Usually what happens is a mental health professional or even a friend or family member contacts emergency services. These emergency services take the suicidal person in and gives them a bunch of medication to relieve the intense feeling they have.
Most of these people become emotionally numb and become apart of that vicious cycle I mentioned earlier. No real beneficial treatment is being done here. It’s just used to block or mitigate the suicidal thoughts even though they bring more problems with the side effects.
Alternative Solutions for Antidepressants
As I’ve stated in my previous blog post on psychiatric medications, antidepressants do not get rid of what’s causing the mental health problem. It has very little to do with a chemical imbalance and more to do with some form of unresolved trauma in their lives.
Unresolved trauma, primarily childhood trauma, is the root cause of most mental health problems we have today. If you look at current therapeutic treatment and medicine, very few actually dive deep into this. The most common form of therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, does not look into the past to help people. This therapeutic philosophy focuses on the here and now and disregards anything significant that happened in the past.
Even though I present this to you as a bad thing, there are quite a few things out of CBT that are helpful for people when dealing with unresolved trauma. These things include
- Mindfulness
- Self-Reflection Through Journaling/Thought Records
The list is short, but I thoroughly believe that these two are the most important, and in fact, essential to recovering from unresolved trauma.
Mindfulness & Journaling
To start things off, being consciously aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions and how they’ve changed after trauma affected your life is key. It’s important to note that the journey of healing from unresolved trauma is a lifelong process.
First of all, there will always be moments that trigger us into having an emotional flashback of a traumatic event. Lastly, there will always be moments where we aren’t prepared to deal with those flashbacks. However, we learn how to manage them effectively.
Other alternatives to antidepressants include
- Therapy/Counseling (Find one that isn’t heavy on giving out medication)
- Exercising (Physical health can improve mental health)
- Eating Healthy Foods (Junk Food and other unhealthy sources of food causes a lack of energy which leads to negative thoughts)
- Journaling (Personally, the best coping skill for self-reflection)
Important Factors That Can Help With Unresolved Trauma
These are some of the most important factors that can help you deal with your unresolved trauma.
Having ONE person as that go-to support system
The reason why I leave it to one person is that there is a higher chance for others to give up on your journey. Similarly, there is a higher chance for others to not keep up with your life or always be there when you need it. In most cases, that ONE person truly matters and it is essential for healing and growth. Unfortunately, a lot of people (sadly) don’t have that ONE go-to person, so they go to therapy or counseling, which is a good choice.
Consistently engage in self-reflection
This part is essential because it helps you recognize certain unhealthy or negative patterns that you’re dealing with. This is where the mindfulness and journaling comes to play. Whenever you’re feeling off or having a bad thought, write about it and report it. Learn exactly what it is that triggers you and makes you not act the way you’d like to. Learn about the things that help relieve the stress that you may feel when engaging in an emotional flashback.
If it’s possible, get out of the negative environment that elicited the trauma to begin
For childhood trauma, this is something impossible to do since the child cannot move out and live on their own. This leaves the child stuck in this terrible cycle of not dealing with their trauma. If you’re able to get out of that environment, then get out as fast as possible. It’s very difficult to heal and recover when traumatic events continue to occur.
Engage in positive self-talk on a daily basis
It is important to keep yourself up while doing this kind of heavy work. When dealing with unresolved trauma, most people feel worse starting out. In order to heal and recover, you have to unpack all of the negative things that’s happened to them. Once you’re dealing with all of that negativity, it can be easy to give up on yourself or believe that it’s useless.
