Nigel 
July 15th, 2009“Those tablets are poisoning your system. Chuck them away and fix your depression using natural methods.”
Interesting advice. It makes a number of assumptions.
For a start it assumes you can just stop taking an anti-depressant or mood stabiliser. In fact this can be dangerous. It really is quite important to only change medication guided by a professional. If you are determined to give up the tablets completely then do make sure you find out the safe way to come off them.
It also states that such medicines are ‘poisoning’ your body, but that is a terribly vague accusation. What does it mean? A poison is something you take into your body in some way which either worsens your health or damages part of your physical body. A medicine may have some negative effects, but these should be balanced against any improvements. If something makes me a bit nauseous but takes away my depression then it’s probably worth continuing with. If it makes me vomit several times a week and is slowly damaging my stomach lining then probably not. There’s a sense in which the depression itself is a poison. Maybe a trade-off is acceptable.
And what are ‘natural’ methods? Can they ‘fix’ depression?
There’s a range of methods that have been developed which do not involve tablets. They can be helpful. They can make a dramatic difference. One course of counselling I had was very helpful indeed, but it was an hour a week for eighteen months, I did not enjoy the sessions, and the therapist was highly trained and very experienced. On another occasion (a two day NLP course) I enjoyed trying with one of the other students a technique involving colliding two sets of anchors. It gave me a tool I could use to reduce nervousness in a range of situations, but I was not seriously depressed at the time and I did have expert tuition and guidance.
One problem is that when you’re very depressed you probably cannot cope with most types of psychological or counselling help. For some types of counselling you need to be able to think reasonably clearly if the techniques are to help. Some time back a friend was referred to a psychiatric day ward with severe depression and a constant desire to commit suicide. The nurses had almost no time to work with the patients (What is it psychiatric nurses do all day? Obviously something, but aren’t they there primarily for the patients?). My friend was given an excellent book of CBT exercises and told to work with it on her own. She simply was not able to. She was still too ill, and anyway CBT needs to be assisted by a trained and sympathetic counsellor.
If you’re at a a mild phase in your depression you may well be able to benefit from the right type of counselling, but if you’re bad then it makes sense to take prescribed drugs in order to feel well enough to do something for yourself. I could argue that this is all the medication should be for, but I know I’ve needed antidepressants to cope with normal life for decades. Without them I could not have taken advantage of other therapies.
In most cases depression requires a holistic approach. Medication may be needed to improve your brain chemistry. You may need to look at all aspects of your current life, maybe change your job, learn problem-solving skills, deal with internal conflicts, and so on. Maybe you should change your diet and get regular exercise. The different approaches work together to help you make permanent improvements. Respect all of them.
