(June 28, 2012 at 2:39 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: I've got depression, and have recently started taking antidepressants, and even those don't totally cure it. The key thing is that there is no cure, only treatment.Depression can be cured. Long-term antidepressant use does not help, it only keeps people in depression. Antidepressants are (can be) effective short-term.
One of my friends has been depressed for about 20 years now, the last 15 of those years on antidepressants. There's nothing his friends can do for him, because the drugs totally numb his ability to appreciate happiness. A different friend of mine - same drug (Effexor) stopped using it (took him months and months to get off the drug because it's highly addictive), and came out of his depression.
GP's are not well equipped to deal with mental issues - even though people come to them with them all the time. Their area of expertise is physical illness and infection. Personally, if I could change the law, GP's would only be allowed to prescribe antidepressants short term, and their patients would be referred to a psychiatrist for continued treatment (the psychiatrist would then handle the prescription of their medication from that point on).
