Bit of a deep one this. I've been unhappy for years, and never addressed it. I've had an ex who was depressed, and I didn't know how to handle it and I tried to hide from it because I've felt bad myself.
Recently I've had problems with a relationship, and the sh!t hit the fan. It's like all my scars have come back and years of hiding problems has just exploded.
I had to leave work yesterday, and went to the Drs today and explained everything I feel. They've suggested counselling and anti depressants. I don't want to take them. Has anyone taken them and what do they do? I'm going to do research when I get home but think I've decided. I know my issues and what's wrong, and want to be happy, but I'm not sure numbing things out with pills is good.
I feel flat as a pancake today, but admitting to it does feel good, like a weight off my shoulders. If anyone else feels this way I suggest addressing it. I've grown up in a family where you're just told to cheer up and be happy. Think talking might be the other way to go.
You are a bio-chemical machine - you consume energy from the Sun either stored in plants or stored in things that eat plants and use that energy to power a biosphere that holds trillions of creatures in it of varying degrees of "life". Every cell in your body is it's own little city with its own forms of that life all working together to power what is ultimately "you".
What we talk about colloquially as happiness, sadness, and emotions in general are certain chemicals working on the brain in certain configurations. Sometimes that chemical balance is off, sometimes you build or are born with a tolerance to it, sometimes the "lock" of the "key/lock" isn't quite the right shape to receive the key, sometimes the messages get lost or re-routed. These are all very poor descriptions for the record.
There's two ways to fix this. One of them is by introducing a controlled amount of specific chemicals into your system in order to defeat the problems that it current has. Another one is to reshape parts of the brain through training to be more open to those chemicals. They both work and the choice between them is pretty much your own.
The pills don't "numb things out"; nobody knows exactly how depression works but they do know that if you block neurotransmitter reuptake then it helps an awful lot. Cells work not that hugely differently to the way that lightning works - different electrical charge of elements creates an action potential and then it is executed by a transfer of energy. Again theoretically the cells in your eyes, your brain and your arsehole are no different from each other and are instead just "specialised" versions of cells that develop to perform a certain task when you're in the womb as instructed by DNA sequences. Neurons are the "nerve specific" type of cells. Neurotransmitters are unsurprisingly the thing that transmits information between different neurons and have familiar names like serotonin, dopamine and glutamate. They travel to other neurons, pass on their message and then go back to their home station. Anti-depressants works by stopping certain neurotransmitters from being reabsorbed which in turn stops the neurons from getting excited and firing all over the place when it's not needed.
There's more detail on neurotransmitters in an accessible and pretty simple manner here. The presenter may make you want to punch your screen:
The point is that depression isn't some bullshit thing. The people who talk about mental health like this are the same people who believed in the ether, and told John Snow that his germ theory was obviously bollocks and people were dying because of bad air. They are not just on the wrong side of history but their lack of understanding is causing people to suffer. As the videos says
everything psychological is biological. Your neurotransmitters are being reabsorbed into the neurons in an uneven manner which is causing your brain to malfunction.
You've got a broken leg. You're asking whether you should take the pills that rebuild your leg so it works properly. Yes, you should take the pills that will rebuild your leg.