Quotes & Sayings About Antidepressants

To draw for a moment from an entirely different corner of my life, that part of me still attached to the biological sciences, there is ample evidence that animals - rats and monkeys, for example - that are forced into a subordinate status within their social systems adapt their brain chemistry accordingly, becoming 'depressed' in humanlike ways. Their behavior is anxious and withdrawn; the level of serotonin (the neurotransmitter boosted by some antidepressants) declines in their brains. And - what is especially relevant here - they avoid fighting even in self-defense ... My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers - the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being 'reamed out' by managers - are part of what keeps wages low. If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you're paid is what you are actually worth. — Barbara Ehrenreich

Psychotherapy works, and some types of therapy have been shown to be much more effective than antidepressants over the long run. — Irving Kirsch

My parents' attempts to stop my habit were through guilt and force. They grounded me several times. Carl made cracks when he felt that I was eating too much and snide comments on my weight yo-yoing. They sent me to psychiatrists who tried to quick fix me by Paxil, Zoloft, and Effexor prescriptions. All were antidepressants with weight gain for side effects, which might as well have been rat poison for a bulimic. — Maggie Young

Mice deficient in this protein, called p11, display depression-like behaviors, while those with sufficient amounts behave as if they have been treated with antidepressants. — Paul Greengard

The irony of taking Anti Depressants: you take them to feel good but they also make you feel bad or worse because you worry about your purse. — Mico Monsalve

Depression comes back over time in about 90 percent of people on antidepressants. Studies show that relapses are far less common when people are treated with psychotherapy. — Irving Kirsch

I actually have a great deal of respect for antidepressants; I think they can be enormously mighty tools toward recovery. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Me: Yes, I'd like some colon cleanse. It's something that cleans you out so your antidepressants work better.
Pharmacist: I think you're using your antidepressants wrong. They go in your mouth. — Jenny Lawson

Well, look at the other characters in Winnie the Pooh. They all actually demonstrate that Pooh is the most mentally balanced. There's Tigger, I mean, that tiger just can't stay in the moment and enjoy it. He's too much of a hedonist; he always wants the next adventure. That's not healthy, he'll burn out." I started properly laughing. "And what about Eeyore?" "Well he's a depressive, isn't he? If Eeyore walked into my doctor's office he'd be prescribed with a lifetime supply of antidepressants. And not just because US doctors dole them out like candy canes at Christmas." The music stopped and I found myself clapping without even looking. "But Pooh?" "Pooh lives in the moment. He doesn't fret about the past, or freak about the future. He's an expert at mindfulness." Kyle — Holly Bourne

I have trouble getting approvals from my heath insurance company for basic antidepressants. And I have the best plan my agency has. I can't get high off this stuff! I'm not going to sell it! Getting my medication is critical. It's me saying, "I just want to live." And their response seems to be, "We agree that it's a matter of life and death; that's why we're declining it." Every time I get a cold, I have Tylenol with codeine coming out the wazoo. But the medication I need to live? Nah. — Jenny Lawson

All the commercials on TV today are for antidepressants, for Prozac or Paxil. And they get you right away. "Are you sad? Do you get stressed, do you have anxiety?" "Yes, I have all those things! I'm alive!" — Ellen DeGeneres

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

To my knowledge, there have been no studies done on the effects of antidepressants and altitude. But it is hugely important to find out if there are side effects. We should also find out what are the effects on fine motor skills and reaction time. These are all important questions that should be assessed. — Dale Archer

I definitely think that prescription drugs, like antidepressants, are prescribed so cavalierly, anyone can get anything, but I need it. I do think that it needs to work hand and hand with therapy. — Sarah Silverman

These were the days when I powerfully believed Breyers and Entenmann's to be pioneers in the field of antidepressants. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The results of decades of neurotransmitter-depletion studies point to one inescapable conclusion: low levels or serotonin, norepinephrine or dopamine do not cause depression. here is how the authors of the most complete meta-analysis of serotonin-depletion studies summarized the data: Although previously the monoamine systems were considered to be responsible for the development of major depressive disorder (MDD), the available evidence to date does not support a direct causal relationship with MDD. There is no simple direct correlation of serotonin or norepinephrine levels in the brain and mood.' In other words, after a half-century of research, the chemical-imbalance hypothesis as promulgated by the drug companies that manufacture SSRIs and other antidepressants is not only with clear and consistent support, but has been disproved by experimental evidence. — Irving Kirsch

Antidepressants can have troubling side effects and are addictive for some people. — Irving Kirsch

Our analyses of the FDA data showed relatively little difference between the effects of antidepressants and the effects of placebos. Indeed, the effects were so small that they did not qualify as clinically significant. The drug companies knew how small the effect of their medications were compared to placebos, and so did the FDA and other regulatory agencies. The companies found various ways to make the data seem more favorable to their products, and the FDA helped them keep their negative data secret. In fact, in some instances, the FDA urged the companies to keep negative data hidden, even when the companies wanted to reveal them. My colleagues and I hadn't really discovered anything new. We had merely revealed their 'dirty little secret'. — Irving Kirsch

We had the Belle Epoque. Now we have the Botox Epoque, permeated by plastic emotions from antidepressants and plastic veneers from collagen, silicone, cosmetic surgery and Botox. — Maureen Dowd

A patient complains of feeling nervous or fearful. These feelings and behaviors suggest that the patient has an anxiety disorder, and the doctor prescribes whatever drug will most probably work for an anxiety disorder. However, there's no conclusive way to tell that this patient definitely has an anxiety disorder. Even if the doctor did get the diagnosis correct, there's a great deal of variation regarding which drug class (for example, anti-anxiety drugs versus antidepressants) a particular individual will respond to and which drug within a class (for example, Prozac versus Zoloft) will work best. If the drug doesn't work, the doctor will try the next one on the list and so on, thus delaying treatment success and complicating the process with the mix-and-match type of treatment. — Chris Prentiss

Say goodbye to your mom."
Scottie pauses, then keeps going.
"Scottie."
"Bye!" she yells.
I grab her arm. I could yell at her for wanting to leave, but I don't. She pulls her arm out of my grasp. I look up to see if anyone is watching us, because I don't think you're supposed to aggressively hold children these days. Gone are the days of spanking, threats, and sugar. Now there are therapy, antidepressants, and Splenda. — Kaui Hart Hemmings

Even if we accept the view that biochemical imbalances may contribute to depression and suicide, it is a mistake to assume that the biochemical aspect of the problem is entirely within the victim. It is also partly within the physiological makeup of the people around the suicide. — David L. Conroy

Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable. — Theodore J. Kaczynski

Not only are poor, unemployed, less will-educated and non-white people more likely to become depressed, but they are also least likely to benefit from treatment by either antidepressants or psychotherapy. That is why combating depression requires more than merely providing effective treatment for those who are already suffering from it. We also need the change the social conditions - such a racism, unemployment, poverty, unaffordable housing, and lack of adequate education - that put people at increased risk of becoming depressed. — Irving Kirsch

The problem with taking your happy pills and puttering along as before is that it's no better than sweeping dirt under the carpet. I want you to take that rug out back and beat the hell out of it. — Julie Holland

Lord. How many antidepressants can one person take? However much it is, I'm going to need the maximum dose if I make it out of this alive. -Dani Springman. — Baylee Crush

Sylvie wishes the anti-depressants had been around when she was in her early twenties, not only to rescue her from the dark tunnels that came when her brother first got sick, but also to keep her from fucking all those assholes. — Francesca Lia Block

Can you sleep-deprive your way out of a depressed episode? Some researchers think that it may be possible. Using a technique called TSD (total sleep deprivation), researchers subjected depressed bipolar patients to three cycles of sleep deprivation, each consisting of a 36-hour period of sleeplessness followed by a 12-hour sleep-in. After the sessions, over half the participants reported feeling less depressed. The trouble is, TSD runs about a 10 percent risk of kicking a bipolar sufferer into hypomania or mania - about the same rate as SSRI antidepressants. In addition, the positive effects of TSD generally wear off as soon as you return to your normal sleep/wake cycle. Researchers continue to study the potential benefits of TSD when used in combination with other therapies, but the only solid conclusion that researchers have reached is that TSD is definitely not something you should try on your own. — Candida Fink

Pharmaceutical and recreational drugs. Commonly prescribed antidepressants, muscle relaxants, pain killers and anti-anxiety and anti-inflammatory drugs can deaden the body's ability to communicate with itself. Recreational drugs such as alcohol and marijuana have a similar effect. In addition to medicinal effects, these drugs and others provide a chemical means to avoid and inhibit feelings, sensation — Jonathan Tripodi

I was diagnosed with ADD - see also: raised on sugary cereals and cartoons - and manic depression. So I was prescribed Ritalin for the ADD, and for the manic imbalances I was prescribed mostly benzodiazepines, which I loved, and antidepressants. — Pete Wentz

They just tested the tap water in Los Angeles and they found traces of estrogen and antidepressants in the tap water. So it's nice to know my son's going to grow up and have huge breasts but it's not going to bother him that much. — Greg Fitzsimmons

I am sure antidepressants, drugs, and liquor have their place. But so far, that place is in others, not me. — John Elder Robison

Patsy McDonald had the artificial brightness and dead eyes that go hand in hand with prescription antidepressants. They — Val McDermid

Pain could be killed. Sadness could not, but the drugs did shut its mouth for a time. — Colson Whitehead

Antidepressants were swimming in the rivers, and our bloodstreams were just as polluted as the waterways. — Karen Thompson Walker

The moon will never lie to anyone. Be like the moon. No one hates the moon or wants to kill it. The moon does not take antidepressants and never gets sent to prison. The moon never shot a guy in the face and ran away. The moon has been around a long time and has never tried to rip anyone off. The moon does not care who you want to touch or what color you are. The moon treats everyone the same. The moon never tries to get in on the guest list or use your name to impress others. Be like the moon. When others insult or belittle in an attempt to elevate themselves, the moon sits passively and watches, never lowering itself to anything that weak. The moon is beautiful and bright. It needs no makeup to look beautiful. The moon never shoves clouds out of its way so it can be seen. The moon needs not fame or money to be powerful. The moon never asks you to go to war to defend it. Be like the moon. — Henry Rollins

Unbeknownst to me, from the beginning of freshman year Rob and Oswaldo had been drawn away from Yale via their friends on the dining hall and custodial staffs, outward into the city of New Haven. Rob considered these excursions a much-needed dose of reality, the social equivalent of an antidepressant. — Jeff Hobbs

The drug, the Sadness, is working, breaking the horrible, dull, boring, mind-numbing happiness imposed on him and everyone else in NewLand by the antidepressants in the city's water supply. — Pleasefindthis

We have pills for headaches. We have antidepressants for sadness. We had God for believers. We have nothing for autism. — Lisa Genova

My mom was a manic depressive schizophrenic who, after a year in prison, went home and shot herself. My sister, Kirsten, an amazing poet, who was raised by this woman, and was dating a guy who broke up with her for the fourth time in three weeks. And one day, she came to his house, got a gun, and blew her brains out all over his headboard. I just went through a divorce, five years in court and cost me $2 million dollars. If anyone, by law, should be forced to take antidepressants it's me ... But instead, I choose to be an antidepressant. And you can take me with alcohol. — Christopher Titus

I've had our paper's gossip column since last month. It is egalitarian. I look for people who are quite obscure, and report who is breaking up with whom and where they go and what they wear. The person who invented this new form for us is on antidepressants now. He lives in Illinois. He says there are people in southern Illinois who have not yet been covered by the press. — Renata Adler

I'm generally a happy person -with the help of antidepressants, that is- so there is something to be said for surrounding myself with happy people. — Rachel Machacek

I've been accustomed to mysteries, holy and otherwise, since I was a child. Some of us care for orphans, amass fortunes, raise protests or Nielsen ratings; some of us take communion or whiskey or poison. Some of us take lithium and antidepressants, and most everyone believes these pills are fundamentally wrong, a crutch, a sign of moral weakness, the surrender of art and individuality. Bullshit. Such thinking guarantees tradgedy for the bipolar. Without medicine, 20 percent of us, one in five, will commit suicide. Six-gun Russian roulette gives better odds. Denouncing these medicines makes as much sense as denouncing the immorality of motor oil. Without them, sooner or later the bipolar brain will go bang. I know plenty of potheads who sermonize against the pharmaceutical companies; I know plenty of born-again yoga instructors, plenty of missionaries who tell me I'm wrong about lithium. They don't have a clue. — David Lovelace

As James Surowiecki noted in a New Yorker article, given a choice between developing antibiotics that people will take every day for two weeks and antidepressants that people will take every day for ever, drug companies not surprisingly opt for the latter. Although a few antibiotics have been toughened up a bit, the pharmaceutical industry hasn't given us an entirely new antibiotic since the 1970s. — Bill Bryson

Which brings me to the point: In order to lose momentum, the U.S. economy has to have momentum to begin with. If it had any, I missed it. What we had was a government-prescribed course of amphetamines (to keep it up), antibiotics (to prevent infection) and antidepressants (to make it feel better). It endured regular steroid injections from both monetary and fiscal authorities. And it still has no real muscle. — Caroline Baum

The reason you take antidepressants is to feel calm. And romantic love is not calm - it's elation, it's mood swings, and you're killing all that when you take the drug. — Helen Fisher

I don't think he was used to patients who were already aware of what their real problem was. He was also a bit of a pill-pusher. I balked at trying antidepressants, I just couldn't see myself taking pills to try to be less of a fraud. I said that even if they worked, how would I know if it was me or the pills? By that time I already knew I was a fraud. I knew what my problem was, I just couldn't seem to stop. I remember I spent maybe the first twenty times or so in analysis acting all open and candid but in reality sort of fencing with him or leading him around by the nose, basically showing him that I wasn't just another one of those patients who stumbled in with no clue what their real problem was or who were totally out of touch with the truth themselves. — David Foster Wallace

The use of psychoactive drugs - including both antidepressants and antipsychotics - has exploded ... [yet] 'the tally of those who are disabled ... increased nearly two and a half times. — Marcia Angell

Antidepressants are very good, but it's a clinical cosh, really. Sometimes you have to be knocked out, just to stop; when you're in that state all you want to do is just sleep, and rest your body and your brain. — Adam Ant

According to an article in the Washington Post: The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly urged antidepressant manufacturers not to disclose to physicians and the public that some clinical trials of the medications in children found that drugs were no better than sugar pills, according to documents and testimony released at a congressional hearing yesterday. Regulators supressed the negative information on the grounds that it might scare families and physicians away from the drugs, according to testimony by drug company executives. For at least three medications, they said, the FDA blocked the companies' plans to reveal the negative studies in drug labels. — Irving Kirsch

Medications can lower a woman's sex drive and interfere with a woman's ability to climax. These medications include antidepressants, birth control pills and hormone medications. I only know of three antidepressants that do not interfere with a woman's sexual function. — Drew Pinsky

My sadness is beautiful. It infuses everything I do. It is at the core of my identity and always has been, just as happiness is in some people. I refuse to be told that it's a flaw. I will not mute it with medications for the sake of society. I will hold it close to me and celebrate it rightfully while the rest of the world fails to see it for what it is and it will be their loss. — Ashly Lorenzana

Physicians do not systematically prescribe placebos to their patients. Hence they have no way of comparing the effects of the drugs they prescribe to placebos. When they prescribe a treatment and it works, their natural tendency is to attribute the cure to the treatment. But there are thousands of treatments that have worked in clinical practice throughout history. Powdered stone worked. So did lizard's blood, and crocodile dung, and pig's teeth and dolphin's genitalia and frog's sperm. Patients have been given just about every ingestible - though often indigestible - substance imaginable. They have been 'purged, puked, poisoned, sweated, and shocked', and if these treatments did not kill them, they may have made them better. — Irving Kirsch

Macbeth: How does your patient, doctor?
Doctor: Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick-coming fancies that keep her from rest.
Macbeth: Cure her of that! Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon her heart.
Doctor: Therein the patient must minister to himself. — William Shakespeare

Suicide rates have not slumped under the onslaught of antidepressants, mood-stabilizers, anxiolytic and anti-psychotic drugs; the jump in suicide rates suggests that the opposite is true. In some cases, suicide risk skyrockets once treatment begins (the patient may feel not only penalized for a justifiable reaction, but permanently stigmatized as malfunctioning). Studies show that self-loathing sharply decreases only in the course of cognitive-behavioral treatment. — Antonella Gambotto-Burke

I notice a lot of people think they can solve their problems with antidepressants. That, I noticed, being like a bigger issue, like, it really strips people of who they are. Like, all your quirks and all your problems, even your depressions and your failures, that's what makes you, you. And there's a lot of drugs out there that will take that away from you. — Gerard Way

they catch initials -- STD, PMS, OCD, HIV, etc., as if MTV teamed up with KFC and licensed the Latin alphabet to the pharmaceutical industry so OTCs could replace MDs. If Romeo and Juliet were alive today, they'd be put on antidepressants, sent for counseling, and bundled off to separate boarding schools to meet socially acceptable partners with money-back guarantees. — Paula Young Lee

This kind of pragmatism has become a hallmark of our psychological culture. In the mid-1990s, I described how it was commonplace for people to "cycle through" different ideas of the human mind as (to name only a few images) mechanism, spirit, chemistry, and vessel for the soul.14 These days, the cycling through intensifies. We are in much more direct contact with the machine side of mind. People are fitted with a computer chip to help with Parkinson's. They learn to see their minds as program and hardware. They take antidepressants prescribed by their psychotherapists, confident that the biochemical and oedipal self can be treated in one room. They look for signs of emotion in a brain scan. Old jokes about couples needing "chemistry" turn out not to be jokes at all. — Sherry Turkle

The moment of the print button for biology is nearing. Effectively, this could also mean that in a not-too-distant future, smart pharmacology will permit us to receive a continuous supply of antidepressants or neuroenhancers every time our dopamine level drops. — Nayef Al-Rodhan

Antidepressants. The thought of this girl actually being depressed made me want to grab the whole planet and throw it into the sun. Well, more than usual anyway. — David Wong

When I got hit by the car, I became depressed. As a result, I've been on antidepressants and I feel like I have no sexuality left. People complain about that side effect, but I love it. I feel outside of society. — Bradford Cox

Illegal drugs are better for you than the legal stuff. How many artists have created while drunk, high on laudanum, opium, chloral, or amphetamines? What have antidepressants ever done for culture? — Hanif Kureishi

In 2004, the FDA urged drug companies to adopt a 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy with respect to their clinical-trial data showing that antidepressants are not better than placebos for depressed children. If the data were made public, they cautioned, it might lead doctors to not prescribe antidepressants. The FDA believed that the jury was still out on antidepressants for children. Even if the clinical trials show negative results, an FDA spokesperson was reported to have said to a Washington Post reporter, it doesn't mean that the drugs are ineffective. The assumption seems to have been that doctors should prescribe medications that have not been shown to work, until it has been proven that they don't work. — Irving Kirsch

Feast for the Fisherman, the ultimate emo band. Said to be sold with a complimentary prescription for antidepressants and a free flatiron. — Libba Bray

Perhaps 10 percent of patients who are prescribed antidepressants are really benefiting from the drugs' active ingredients. — Irving Kirsch

The recent discovery of highly specific antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications would not have been possible without the use of animal models — Herb Pardes

For people who are depressed, and especially for those who do not receive enough benefit from medication of for whom the side effects of antidepressants are troubling, the fact that placebos can duplicate much of the effects of antidepressants should be taken as good news. It means that there are other ways of alleviating depression. As we have seen, treatments like psychotherapy and physical exercise are at least as effective as antidepressant drugs and more effective than placebos. In particular, CBT has been shown to lower the risk of relapsing into depression for years after treatment has ended, making it particularly cost effective. — Irving Kirsch

research has shown that depressed patients without prior histories of abuse or neglect tend to respond much better to antidepressants than patients with those backgrounds.17) — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

Like most people, I woke up one day to find that everyone I knew was taking antidepressants, and since I wasn't, I figured that I must be the cause of their depression. — Christopher Moore

I balked at trying antidepressants, I just couldn't see myself taking pills to try to be less of a fraud. — David Foster Wallace

To help other people, you've got to be able to help yourself. You go to a psychiatrist, and they're on this Prozac, Effexor, and antidepressants, you may have picked the wrong person. If you go to somebody who's broke who's selling you financial services, that might not be a good thing. You go to somebody who's fat to help you lose weight ... And a lot of people ironically do these types of things. — Tony Robbins

And the next time I did school stuff in the middle of the night, I just did it in my closet with the door locked. Honestly, what is wrong with this country when striving for excellence means you need antidepressants? — Rachel Hawkins

When we anticipate, we're the happiest. Unless you're on antidepressants. The reason you take antidepressants is because you can't anticipate. You think everything's going to be horrible, so it usually is. — Lewis Black

A Tragic Honesty, like the Ian Hamilton biography of Lowell that I read recently, is a sad and occasionally terrifying account of how creativity can be simultaneously fragile and self-destructive; it also made me grateful that I am writing now, when the antidepressants are better, and we all drink less. Stories about contemporary writers being taken away in straitjackets are thin on the ground - or no one tells them to me, anyway - but it seemed to happen to Lowell and Yates all the time; there are ten separate page references under 'breakdowns' in the index of A Tragic Honesty. — Nick Hornby

A review of seventy-four clinical trials of antidepressants, for example, found that thirty-seven of thirty-eight positive studies [that praised the drugs] were published. But of the thirty-six negative studies, thirty-three were either not published or published in a form that conveyed a positive outcome. — Marcia Angell

Dad told me, 'Mommy doesn't need antidepressants, you see. She needs flowers and sometimes she needs antiques. — Katherine Taylor

Antidepressants are the biggest fraud in the world. Number one, Prozac gives you a royal soft-on like you wouldn't believe, and number two you never know all the side effects. I look at the pharmaceutical companies as the drug barons, the psychopharmcologists as the mules and the patients as the victims. They're innocent because they think they're being cured. — Robert Evans

Psychotherapy works for the treatment of depression, and the benefits are substantial. In head-to-head comparisons, in which the short-term effects of psychotherapy and antidepressants are pitted against each other, psychotherapy works as well as medication. This is true regardless of how depressed the person is to begin with.
Psychotherapy looks even better when its long-term effectiveness is assessed. Formerly depressed patients are far more likely to relapse and become depressed again after treatment with antidepressants than they are after psychotherapy. As a result, psychotherapy is significantly more effective than medication when measured some time after treatment has ended, and the more time that has passed since the end of treatment, the larger the difference between drugs and psychotherapy. — Irving Kirsch

The big bulk of the response to antidepressants is the placebo response. — Irving Kirsch