Psychiatry Exposed

[Jackalope]

The calculated risk for suicide among depressed patients who were treated with antidepressants was 141 per 100 000 person years and, among the untreated, 259 per 100 000 person years (i.e., 1.8 times higher among the untreated).

For another sobering eye-opener -

Bipolar disorder results in 9.2 years reduction in expected life span, and as many as one in five patients with bipolar disorder completes suicide.

9.2 year reduction in expected life span. One in five completes suicide. Put in another perspective, about the same percentage of people with post-traumatic stress disorder *attempt* suicide as the percentage of bipolar disorder who *complete* suicide. Those are the sobering numbers that I contemplated after receiving my diagnosis (I have both). Oh hell yes, I'm going to do whatever it takes to not be the one in five.

Here's another factor to consider with respect to the phenomenon of "anti-depressants (and other psychiatric drugs) causing suicidal thoughts". There's a correlation, there is no identified causal link.

Anecdotally, when I was in the first few years of treatment, I thought about suicide far more frequently than I ever had. I was on meds, but I attribute that not to medication, but the fact that during therapy, it was necessary to confront my triggers, past traumas, and come to terms with some horrible aspects of my past behavior - without having learned how to cope with such things prior.