> They can also increase suicidal ideation.
A very close family member committed suicide, after Prozac dosage adjustments made his brain chemistry go haywire.
This happened 30 years ago, and it has been known to us that Prozac can cause this, since then.
The Guardians headline is way, way understating the real situation here.
Medications almost always target symptoms and never address root causes.
I’m bipolar and a lot of the medication I take does not become fully effective for months. For me, my medication slowly became more effective over years as my brain no longer had to compensate for hardware problems.
I'm not sure what kinds of studies have been done about it, but I've had a few therapists same similar ideas. If it's not a studied phenomenon, then it has folks that believe it exists.
But is the only true cure to the suffering. We’d have to undergo a massive reorganization of society (and upset a few hefty profit margins) to prioritize that, so we settle for the messy symptom management we have.
I grew up in a stable household with a loving family and both parents present and supportive. I’ve never had financial hardship, either as a kid depending on my parents to provide or as an adult providing for myself and family. I did very well in school, had plenty of friends, never had enemies, never got bullied or even talked bad about in social circles (so far as I know…). I have no traumatic memories.
I could go on and on, but despite having a virtually perfect life on paper, I have always struggled with depression and suicidal ideation. It wasn’t until my wife sat down and forced me to talk to a psychiatrist and start medication that those problems actually largely went away.
In other words, I don’t think there’s a metaphorical “cow” that could have helped me. It’s annoying we don’t understand what causes depression or how antidepressants help, and their side effects suck. But for some of us, it’s literally life saving in a way nothing else has ever been.
I went through a frankly terrible few months on my current meds because they removed the emotional numbness before removing the bad feelings. However, once that was over they effectively gave me my life back after 10+ years of continual exhaustion and brain fog.
Though, I am curious about the, "otherwise have very good lives" part.
Whose definition are you using? It seems the criteria you laid out fits a "very good life" in a sociological sense -- very important, sure. You could very well have the same definition, and perhaps that is what I am trying to ask. Would you say you were satisfied in life? Despite having a good upbringing, were you (prior to medication) content or happy?
I am by no means trying to change your opinion nor invalidate your experiences. I just struggle to understand how that can be true.
As someone that has suffered with deep depressive bouts many times over, I just cannot subscribe to the idea that depression is inherently some sort of disorder of the brain. In fact, I am in the midst of another bout now. One that's lasted about 3 or so years.
To me, I have always considered emotions/states like depression and anxiety to be signals. A warning that something in one's current environment is wrong -- even if consciously not known or difficult to observe. And if anyone is curious, I have analyzed this for myself, and I believe the etiology of my issues are directly linked to my circumstances/environment.
> I don’t think there’s a metaphorical “cow” that could have helped me.
The smart-ass in me can't help but suggest that maybe medication was your cow?
To be honest, I've never really thought about it... I suppose I mean in both a sociological and self fulfillment way.
> Would you say you were satisfied in life? Despite having a good upbringing, were you (prior to medication) content or happy?
I would say "yes" overall. Aside from the depression (typically manifesting as a week or two of me emotionally spiraling down to deep dark places every month or so), I was very happy and satisfied. That's what makes the depression so annoying for me. It makes no sense compared to my other aspects of life.
> In fact, I am in the midst of another bout now. One that's lasted about 3 or so years.
*fist bump*
> To me, I have always considered emotions/states like depression and anxiety to be signals. A warning that something in one's current environment is wrong -- even if consciously not known or difficult to observe. And if anyone is curious, I have analyzed this for myself, and I believe the etiology of my issues are directly linked to my circumstances/environment.
I think that's a great hypothesis so long as it's not a blanket applied to everyone (which I don't think you're doing, to be clear; I mention this only because it is what motivated my original response to the other commenter).
I don't want to go into private details of family members without their permission, but I will say that given the pervasive depression in my family and mental health issues like schizophrenia and bipolar disorders (neither of which I have, thank goodness), I feel like there's something biologically... wrong (for lack of a better word?)... with us, particularly since you can easily trace this through my mother's side.
> The smart-ass in me can't help but suggest that maybe medication was your cow?
Ha fair. I interpreted the story to be about depression being a symptom of your situation (job, health, etc.) and if you just fixed that then there's no need for medication. That definitely makes sense in some (many? most?) situations. But not all, unfortunately.
The medication is the cow for you. In this story your support system figured out what would work best for you, which was medication, and facilitated that.
It’s a story about a doctor that serves patients in rural Cambodia. Help from the local community would look different in Borey Peng Huoth, for example.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20616621/
Results: Meta-analyses of FDA trials suggest that antidepressants are only marginally efficacious compared to placebos and document profound publication bias that inflates their apparent efficacy. These meta-analyses also document a second form of bias in which researchers fail to report the negative results for the pre-specified primary outcome measure submitted to the FDA, while highlighting in published studies positive results from a secondary or even a new measure as though it was their primary measure of interest. The STARD analysis found that the effectiveness of antidepressant therapies was probably even lower than the modest one reported by the study authors with an apparent progressively increasing dropout rate across each study phase.*
Inflammation and depression are linked. Infection causes inflammation. It doesn’t follow that depression is caused by infection.
No, it’s not. Depression can be influenced by inflammation.
This thread is a good example of the GIGO pitfalls that researching with chatbots entails.
EDIT - I ask because the only results I get when searching are a Harvard article debunking it. I'd rather hear the opinion of someone that actually believes in it before I read about why it's all malarky. I believe in arguing against the best version of someones argument.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-dubious-p...
Second - light. Lots of light, specifically in winter time. Like this https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/
I had a horrible time with school because as finals rolled around in the fall semester I’d get extremely depressed and anxious.
PS Thanks for keeping this a good place to be!
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
More for the avid reader:
1.) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7698404/
For some people, Prozac is a very dangerous drug. It is fully deserving of its FDA black label warning (which it didn't have 30 years ago).
The phenomenon should not be considered a reason to not medicate (which I don’t think you are implying, but some may take that as the conclusion). Instead it’s definitely something important to explicitly make people aware of.
Depression or the feeling so much mental agony that the idea of escaping with death becomes comforting, is a signal that something is wrong.
Realizing this has been important with weathering my own occasional dealings with severe[0]depression, once I realize “something is wrong”, I can start the annoyingly slow process of trial and error making changes to correct things. This turns depression from “how reality is” into “this is just feedback on my body’s state”. It turns things getting worse into either a “this is either a transient state or the wrong solution”.
[0] Which I define as the point where any passive ideation (fantasies of dying) starts to enter the gradient of becoming involuntary. As opposed to regular negative thoughts which can (and should) be brushed away as easily as a fly landing on me. Curiously, once I noticed it also affected my ability to experience color. While I could technically see colors, it was like have a mental partial greyscale filter because there was no beauty in it, color was just a meaningless detail.
I’m not sure if it has a technical name or if it’s been rigorously studied, but it’s a common observation which even I’ve seen (and reported to growers I work for).
A casual mention here: http://www.sheep101.info/201/behavior.html
It was just the best “every man” link I could provide for understanding how efficacy of toxin-clearing (toxicity) could be related to depression, other struggles with homeostasis.
Did you grasp the connection?
>once I noticed it also affected my ability to experience color
A small amount of evidence does support the notion that depressed people literally see the world as being less vibrant.
For starters, everybody has a different utopia, so no matter how you change society it "won't work" for someone.
And depression isn't sadness.
== === Why the Sick Get Sicker Most people think illness progresses because of pathogens, toxins, or genetics — but the deeper truth is that tension, stress, and breathing patterns control the trajectory of health more than anything else.
When the body is stressed, the breath changes.
When the breath changes, the lymph stagnates.
When the lymph stagnates, toxins accumulate.
When toxins accumulate, inflammation accelerates.
And that is how sick becomes sicker.
Here’s the breakdown:
1. Stress Immediately Changes Your Breathing Pattern
When the nervous system senses stress — emotional, physical, mental, or energetic — breathing becomes:
• shallow
• rapid
• high in the chest
• tight in the ribs
• limited in diaphragm expansion
This cuts oxygen supply, raises cortisol, and signals the body to brace.
Bracing = stagnation.
2. Your Breath Controls Your Lymphatic System
The lymphatic system is the body’s drainage system, and it has no pump of its own.
It relies entirely on: • diaphragmatic breathing
• muscle movement
• fascia softness
• a calm nervous system
Shallow breathing = no diaphragm movement.
No diaphragm movement = lymph stagnation.
When lymph stagnates:
• waste can’t drain
• toxins recirculate
• inflammation builds
• swelling increases
• the immune system gets overwhelmed
This is why people in long-term stress decline rapidly.
3. Chronic Tension Physically Constricts Detox Pathways
Tension in the shoulders, neck, jaw, abdomen, and ribs acts like a clamp on the lymphatic system.
Chronic tightness:
• blocks lymph nodes
• stiffens fascia
• shuts down circulation
• compresses nerves
• restricts oxygen
• slows detox
The body becomes a closed loop where waste can’t leave — so it begins leaking into tissues, joints, and organs.
This accelerates aging, pain, brain fog, and inflammation.
4. This Is the Progression From Sick → Sicker
When breath + lymph + fascia are blocked:
Phase 1 — Shallow breathing
Fatigue, anxiety, tight chest, poor digestion.
Phase 2 — Lymph stagnation
Swelling, puffiness, inflammatory symptoms, chronic infections.
Phase 3 — Detox recirculation
Migrating symptoms, rashes, headaches, histamine issues, chemical sensitivity.
Phase 4 — Systemic overload
Autoimmune symptoms, mold sensitivity, debilitating fatigue, hormone disruption.
It appears “mysterious,” but physiologically it is predictable.