Do Antidepressants Impair the Ability to Extinguish Fear?

This is why I say it is wrong to use antidepressants as anti-anxiety drugs...

Using it to cover up the depression in a toxic way creates more harm than good...

 

Oh, and as far as "fear learning" or w/e goes, I can say that personally, despite being on 40 mg of lexapro a day, I'm pretty darn terrified of dying. Hell, if anything the fact that I'm so afraid of the unknown (and thus death by extension) is one of the primary things so greatly hindering me in life right now, so idk, if anyone could give me some of this fearlessness they're describing I think it might rather do me some good...

Are you referring to the article or the replies? You may not be afraid despite Lexapro but because of Lexapro.

Not that fear of death is necessarily a good or bad thing! But irrepressible fear is generally a very bad thing.

 

I have often worried that, by taking drugs, I was stunting the growth that I might have experienced sober.
I have never taken an anti-depressant, but this makes sense to me.
Certain kinds of learning depend on dealing directly with various difficult situations.
Taking drugs might numb these, or make me feel so enlightened that I don't need to deal with these things, but either way I miss my chance to learn and grow.

Without a doubt you would have been. Any drug taken recreationally more than, say, 20 times is going to hold your natural development back - emotionally, physically, psychologically, whatever - drugs are there to show us the way, what is achievable through other natural "innate in ourselves" forms.

No need to worry though, just be AWARE. Stop whatever you are doing, take them once a season after say a year's break or so, then do much lower doses. See the compounds for what they really are here for.

The biggest growth stunts I see (just emotionally and socially) are from alcohol and weed and MDMA - all very compulsive.

 

So in other words it keeps fear irrational and prevents you from learning your way out of it. No wonder the suicide rate increases with long-term SSRI use. They really don't understand how SSRIs work yet so many people are prescribed them.

From my own experience with the emotional numbing of SSRIs, I would say that it's hard to achieve true progress since your own intuitive guidance is disabled. Maybe they're better for short-term crisis intervention, but not long term therapy. I don't think it's healthy to be on SSRIs for years, and in my case I think it hindered certain areas of personal development.

So so so so true. I was prescribed an Many medications from age 14 up until today. I've mainly stuck to klonopin(clonazepam) and effexor(venlafaxine)and SOMEHOW I managed to stop taking any for a few years. I think meth and alcohol played a huge part in getting off of it. But I recently started taking Effexor again after a horrible depression. When I was younger and took it, I never realized the way it effected me. But now that I am older, I.. and friends..have noticed changes in me, Not in the positive sense. I sometimes say stupid/unnecessary things because I don't care enough to be aware of my surroundings. If that makes sense? And I'm completely unable to guide myself and my thoughts and feelings(if I had feelings!) I am so neutral it's disgusting. I really want to get off of them again so I'm trying to lower my dosage slowly. Any tips?

 

Without a doubt you would have been. Any drug taken recreationally more than, say, 20 times is going to hold your natural development back - emotionally, physically, psychologically, whatever - drugs are there to show us the way, what is achievable through other natural "innate in ourselves" forms.

No need to worry though, just be AWARE. Stop whatever you are doing, take them once a season after say a year's break or so, then do much lower doses. See the compounds for what they really are here for.

The biggest growth stunts I see (just emotionally and socially) are from alcohol and weed and MDMA - all very compulsive.

All good advice.

For me, alcohol and MDMA are not compulsive at all, but weed has been on-and-off for decades, and once for a few months, LSD was.

 

It's interesting to hear all the AD hate on here, particularly amongst people who obvious have no problem with putting various drugs in their bodies (some of them quite harmful).

I used to agree with you, that SSRI's and ADs were a waste of time and only made you fat and frigid. Then I had a second episode of depression and anxiety (after 2 years without it and over two years with no medication). It got a lot worse than the first episode and I still refused medication. Eventually I was very close to either committing myself to a mental institution or killing myself and I went to a doctor. He put me on Mirtazapine.

Within a few days I felt better. Within a few weeks I was no longer suicidal. I could function like a normal person and I was sleeping 7-8 hours a night (whereas before I could only sleep three hours a night with the aid of a lot of sleeping tablets).

So antidepressant helped save my life. That said, I am not depression free, however I am working on that and I am getting better each week. But an antidepressant got me to the point where I am functional (I work at a demanding job and have not missed a day of work due to depression) and able to sleep, eat, exercise and concentrate.

 

^but how do you feel about SSRIs?

I've had good results on mirtazapine + Adderall.

 

I think I'm more brave post-SSRI's, but not due to SSRI's, just life experiences.

The range of emotional affect being smaller was definitely therapeutic for me.

 

I don't believe this to be true. I take mirtazapine, a snri. It has helped with my addiction problem. I have been able to set goals and meet them for the first time in a long while. They have given me an appetite and helped me put on weight. I am not anemic now. I really don't understand their mechanism of action. Sometime I feel that they're a crutch, maybe so but if they help me with my addictions that's a positive.

 

According to Wikipedia, mirtazapine (at therapeutic doses of 15-45 mg per day) is effectively not a reuptake inhibitor. This article is about the traditional SSRIs like citalopram, escitalopram, paroxetine, fluoxetine, sertraline, etc.

Mirtazapine gave me some crazy, incredibly vivid dreams. I've never experienced anything like it.

 

Mirtazapine is multifaceted and in totality unique both in terms of mechanism and disorders to treat. Its a very effective ad, not to be confused with SSRIs/SNRIs.

 

When I was a teenager, they put me on Effexor Xr for a year or so. One thing I can say I noticed is that this SNRI completely got rid of my conscience, making things like stealing much easier. In retrospect, I would never touch an SSRI/SNRI again.

 

I've only ever experienced happiness whilst on an SSRI cycle.

Honestly, I have been on Sertraline for the past 6 months and am actually happy, and I'm calmer and more rational than I have ever been in my life.

Some of you lot who haven't even ever been on one are completely disregarding a class of drug that is responsible for saving many lives - my own included.

 

That's great for you, man! Unfortunately many of us aren't so lucky.

 

That's great for you, man! Unfortunately many of us aren't so lucky.

Thank you, and I'm sorry to hear that you haven't had the same experience with them.

I would put the blame on the doctor who prescribed them though, rather than the drug itself. Obviously they are not for everyone, and everyone will react differently to them.

It just saddens me when I see people condemning a substance/class that has helped me so much!

As I say, I am sorry to hear you haven't had a similarly beneficial experience with SSRIs - one of my closest friends found Sertraline to be one of the worst medications she has ever taken. He reacted badly to it, feeling worse, sick, found himself worse off than before. He then moved on to Venlafaxine, which to him was a godsend, and was amazing for him. Meanwhile, I was on Venlafaxine for three months a while back, and found it to be anonymous and rather lacking in any emotional effect at all.
Sertraline, as a conventional SSRI seems to suit me a lot better.

To read that people would feel more comfortable taking LSD than an SSRI is a rather shocking revelation to me. Yes, SSRIs are not without their share of side effects, but to me, it's a small trade off for the ability to be able to actually get up and get work done, feel comfortable going out, and all that good stuff that life can bring.

This time last year I was in hospital after a suicide attempt. This year, I'm working every day and getting things done - generally enjoying the process of it too. I largely attribute this to Sertraline. One day, I would like to be able to live without it, obviously. But until the day comes where everything is settled enough to do that, I will take my chances with the elevated 'extinction fear response' rather than repeatedly trying to kill myself like last year.

 

I have often worried that, by taking drugs, I was stunting the growth that I might have experienced sober.
I have never taken an anti-depressant, but this makes sense to me.
Certain kinds of learning depend on dealing directly with various difficult situations.
Taking drugs might numb these, or make me feel so enlightened that I don't need to deal with these things, but either way I miss my chance to learn and grow.

Dude, well said. I have no experience with SSRI's, but I recently came off lonnnnnng term opiate use/abuse. I have not had a pill in about 105 days or so. I also have a pretty severe case of chronic Lyme Disease which robbed me of my late 20's, and hopefully will not do the same of my early 30's. Anyway, one of the big things I started to notice after a month or so of being clean (post-honeymoon phase), was that some days I did indeed feel like complete shit...but it was okay...like for real, it was cool to feel shitty, and just deal with it. The pills get you to the point where you are terrified of feeling less-than-excellent....so we numb it out, falsely inflate our self-esteem and confidence, and carry on like nothing is wrong. The thing is, however, that feeling like shit was GOOD. It was like "okay, I feel like sick, miserable, angry, agitated, frustrated, etc...but it's okay, I can face these feelings head on, find healthy ways to deal with them, like go for a walk outside or do other active things with friends and family, I can have sex with my fiance, I can watch a great movie or search for new albums I haven't heard yet, I can work on my own writing & music, and I can do ALL these things while feeling shitty, and *gasp* these things actually make me feel BETTER." That would sound so elementary and obvious to someone who has not dealt with addiction....but to the rest of us, it's a hard pill to swallow (hehe).

Long story short, I think you hit the nail on the head with your statement, and I hope you are (or one day will be) at the point where you are ready to take the pain like a champion, instead of numbing it out.

Godspeed,
DB

 

Lol, interesting choice of photo for this article

Wow my sis is on the anti-depress-mindfog-pills and I hate it feeling that she is not the same person mentally as she is when not taking them (she is better off without them and I feel the psychiatrist has steered her wrong with an obvious kickback from pill companies, thanks Love and Other Drugs). I feel they are a 'crutch'; more like a money making way of avoiding a deeper issue; that is most certainly cured best through lifestyle and thinking changes however dramatic they may be to fix the 'depression'.

Going to send her this article, I already recommended she try the herb Rhodiola Rosea, which I take myself just for increased athletic ability and a 'deep energy boost' that is much more authentic and health building than coffee & company (a boost that actually builds energy in the body that lasts rather than spends energy already in the body as a substance like caffeine) which is also just starting to enter mainstream research studies and being recommended by certain psychiatrists who are realizing anti-depress pills may not be the best bet...

 

Sorry if this is tl;dr but perhaps we should keep the history of psychopharmacology in mind here. The first drug developed to treat a single form of mental illness, the anti-depressant imipramine, only came on the scene in the mid-1950s. At the time, the prevailing thought was that the brain was a ubiquitous, purely electrical machine. Since all parts of the brain were thought to be doing the same thing, all forms of mental disturbance were theorized to have the same underlying causes. Psychiatric treatment, therefore, was the same for treating schizophrenia as it was for depression.

So what kind of treatments would be effective for all forms of mental illness? Well...

• Shock Therapy
• Lobotomy - performed to "cure" everything from schizophrenia to homosexuality from the mid-30s until it was outlawed in the 1970s; it's inventor, Antonio Egas Moniz, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1951
• "Chemical lobotomy" with heavily-sedating "anti-psychotics" such as Thorazine and Promethazine

Real sophisticated, right?

Imipramine fundamentally changed how think about the causes of mental illnesses and how to treat them only about 60 years ago. Since then, psychopharmacology has exploded. Tricyclics like imipramine and its derivatives had loads of unpleasant side effects. The search for better anti-depressants coupled with the discovery of chemical transmission and neurotransmitters in the 70s and 80s led to the Prozac revolution in the 90s. Now, 20 years after Prozac we have a whole menu of drugs just to treat depression and it all happened in less than a century.

So I'm willing to cut science some slack on the whole "Why don't we have better drugs?" thing. They are the best we have at the moment. And considering that only 50 years ago, anyone predicting the existence of things like SSRIs would be marched off to the asylum for a lobotomy, imagine what we'll have 50 years from now.

 

I appreciate your contributions and apparent dedication to bluelight but I must add my own knowledge here.

While you may be right that the first drug specifically, purposefully developed to treat mental illness was the tricyclic in question (there seems to be something lost in translation, not sure if that's what you meant, in terms of the goal of developing the chemical), the first psychiatric "wonder-drug" was in fact d/l amphetamine, accidentally discovered, as was the next one, and as are many (perhaps most are, even today). Amphetamines use in psychiatry began in the early 1930's.

Before then there were a variety of non-standardized patent medicines including mainly cocaine, cannabis, alcohol, and heroin, that people used to self-medicate.

Good information. Mind if I add some?

The prevailing theory of at least the first half of the 20th century in regards to the cause of all mental illness was a lack of energy, or stimulation, and that symptoms basically included forgoing capitalist values (e.g. not buying enough material/services). Yes, illness manifesting back then as what we would today call Schizophrenia, PTSD, MDD, GAD, ADD, Bipolar, BPD, etc. and all their specific types were treated as a lack of energy: enter amphetamine.

I must now elaborate on an irony: doctors thought i was schizophrenic, and prescribed me what you characterize as a "chemical lobotomy", which in my experience proved to be such. I later found the most effective psychiatric medicine I've ever tried to be the oldest.

The techniques you elaborated on are still used, of course to varying extents.

ECT is still a pretty effective therapy for treatment-resistant patients.

Anti-psychotics have allowed millions to live in freedom, and not hurting those around them; ask crooks, a long-time bluelighter; I don't believe in their use as much as can be avoided - in fact, personally, I would rather anti-psychotics be reserved just for short periods of time or for those who can't live and be productive in any other way; but I'm sure we can agree that chlorpromazine is a much more dangerous, intolerable and inhumane medication than paliperidone or aripiprazole.

Lobotomy, though outlawed (internationally?), I would doubtless suspect is a method utilized by less liberal governments towards nefarious ends.

I would venture to guess that superior drugs to ones which are widely available exist, but are not employed.

 

I would venture to guess that superior drugs to ones which are widely available exist, but are not employed.

Those are deemed Illegal... we are all quite familiar with those compounds...

I feel like some highly illegal coumpounds had real promise...

 

[QUOTE='medicine cabinet';11624190]John hopkins bayview campus here in bmore does research with psilocybin and its funded by nida, they are located on the bayview campus and routinely advertise for wanting participants in studies. Ive done 2 diff opiate studies and wanted to do the psilocybin one but didnt qualify, probably due to the fact i was in 2 prior trials. Really wanted to see what they do for that one and also what it actually looked like. There is a huge lab in the complex you can kinda see into, and im guessing thats where they process and or make/synth the drugs they give in trials.[/QUOTE]


I'm sure that the drugs are synthed in china because that is the cheapest place to buy them from....it's the American way. Most scientists in the US buy their custom chemicals from china because they are so much cheaper.

and no scientist in an American lab would be asked to make a known chemical that could cheaply be bought from china, they would have this scientist actually doing experiments or trying something new...not making a known compound and wasting time instead of just cheaply buying it.