Link – Antidepressants work, so why do we shame people for taking them?

Sadly, this is all too real for the many, many people who have had to take anti-depressants, including myself. It’s been awhile since I was taking them, but I heard all of this stuff too, and more:

“Newspaper reports, well-meaning advice, punditry of all sorts. At some deep level, we seem to want people to be wrong for choosing to take antidepressants. Every now and then columnists circle like vultures over each new story about how doctors hand out antidepressants “like sweeties”, or that side-effects might turn you into a monster, or that the drugs don’t in fact work at all. Some 64.7m items of antidepressants were dispensed in England in 2016. Surely, people ask, you should try everything else first? Have you thought about jogging? Eating kale? Not being in poverty or danger or not having a history of terrible things being done to you?”

Indeed, there were no end of “you should” from well-meaning people who simply held on to the world view that chemicals are bad, regardless of how much they actually helped. It’s like their own view of the world is more important to them than people actually being well.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/01/antidepressants-work-shame-people-ssri