# HOW MANY ARE ON SSRI or Anti-Anxiety MEDS? How long, and WHY?



## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

I say most on here are just grieving and wouldn't need psyche meds, they need time to process and exercise? Experience with withdrawl? I thought psyche meds were for people with chemical problems not someone going through a marital breakup? Thoughts?


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## firefairy (May 21, 2012)

In my opinion.. psyche meds are meds. They can be used for a variety of different situations. They are most commonly used in people with chemical imbalances but they can be used for stress, depression, anxiety, nerves, etc. Someone that is experience lost can develop some of those things.. having your whole life flipped upside down can create feelings of fear and anxiety. Feeling immense loss can create depression and hard time dealing with day to day task. Each to their own. A person that is having a difficult time with a marital breakup can seek medical advice and be described psyche meds to help elevate the whirlwind of emotions!! It never hurts to get help when needed!


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

"A person that is having a difficult time with a marital breakup can seek medical advice and be described psyche meds to help elevate the whirlwind of emotions!! It never hurts to get help when needed!"

OK, and why wouldn't someone trying to detach want to experience those whirlwind of emotions THAT ARE DESIGNED TO HELP DETACH? 
The grief symptoms are there to help you detach naturally and where your defenses are enhanced so its less likely to happen to you in the future. Its where you do the most internal growth. I'm just curious.


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## SecondTime'Round (Jan 15, 2015)

I am, but it has nothing to do with relationship problems. True, I've been on and off them since starting to go through marriage problems and then through and after my divorce 5 years ago, but most times when I went back on them it was because I never should have been off them in the first place. For instance, I made a decision to get my daughter a puppy for her 12th birthday. I was SO stressed about it, irrationally so (to the point I could not sleep), dreaming up every possible bad thing that would happen when we got a puppy, such as me being raped and murdered in the middle of the night if I had to take him out to pee at 3AM. I have anxiety and sometimes to not think rationally. So, I went on them. Another time (prior to the puppy incident) I had a near breakdown right in my doctor's office because of being so scared about a new job I was starting and felt unqualified for. Another time, I completely flipped out over getting an additional school supply list after I'd already bought everything that was on the initial list. Overreactions and catastrophizing....that's my thing.

The "last time" I went back on them was actually during a period of time that my ex and I were reconciling and I was happy, but just really stressing and full of anxiety over day to day stuff, not relationship stuff. I have not gone off them since then even though we split up again. I take them for my generalized anxiety disorder, not at all for relationship stuff. My error has been in thinking, "Oh I feel fine now, I think I can stop taking this medication!" 

I hate the sexual side effects, but it's worth it to me to not feel like a crazy person. I'm in a VERY happy place right now, but have no intention of stopping the meds anytime soon. (I'm also in counseling for my anxiety/reactivity/negative though patterns)

FYI, the time with the puppy and the time with the new job, when I went back to my dr. for the 6 week check up, he asked me in a very amused way if any of the things I'd been so worried about (i.e. being raped) had happened. I said no . And, my dog is the best dog ever and I can't even imagine not having him in our lives. (I didn't keep that job though).


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

Zanne said:


> I am not taking anything, although I have tried St. John's Wort in the past for depression, full blown panic attacks, and general anxiety disorder. I am loathe to go the route of prescription medications. I rather do things naturally if possible. I eat well and I walk 5 miles a day. I guess that's my medicine. I don't even drink alcohol anymore. This is not to say that I don't deal with depression or anxiety. I guess I've developed coping skills over the years.
> 
> But dealing with stress without meds is not for everyone. My STBXH has been on antidepressants and antianxiety meds for awhile now. Our youngest son is currently on Zoloft for about a year now for depression and anxiety. All of our kids developed one form or another of anxiety disorders. We have all learned what works best for us.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I wonder what caused the anxiety disorder that its so prevalant in your fam? Not judging just curious.


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

Zanne said:


> But everyone has their own threshold.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I agree w your post except knowing their own threshold...I contend its unknowable unless fully challenged. Dude


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## honcho (Oct 5, 2013)

I do think the medical world can be too quick to hand out meds. I look back at when my marriage imploded, I had a doc appt. 3 days later for an annual physical. I see this doc for 5-10 minutes once a year she asks how things are going I tell her what's going on and first thing she says is I can give a prescription.

She has no real idea what's going on yet can't wait to hand out drugs. I had no idea medicine had a pill to mend a broken heart. No suggesting a counselor, no questions if I felt I needed help, just here take these. I declined. 

My stbx was on meds for years but that was more teared toward chemical/hormonal. When she quit takin them the wheels came off her life within a month.


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

"She has no real idea what's going on yet can't wait to hand out drugs. I had no idea medicine had a pill to mend a broken heart. No suggesting a counselor, no questions if I felt I needed help, just here take these. I declined. My stbx was on meds for years but that was more teared toward chemical/hormonal. When she quit takin them the wheels came off her life within a month."

Bingo!


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

"Part of the reason why exercise makes you feel better is because of its impact on your brain. It will increase blood flow to your brain, for starters, allowing it to almost immediately function better. If you’ve been in a grief-induced fog, this can help you to feel more focused, virtually immediately.

A number of neurotransmitters are also triggered, such as endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, and GABA. Some of these are well-known for their role in mood control. Exercise, in fact, is one of the most effective prevention and treatment strategies for depression."

Many people succumb to the suggestion of taking antidepressants to overcome grief, not realizing that this temporary Band-Aid may leave you with even more problems to deal with. Moreover, antidepressants often don’t work. After one year of treatment, 60 percent of patients with depression still feel depressed.2

One study of depressed people by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that, at the end of one year, those who weren't exposed to psychotropic medications enjoyed much better general health and milder depressive symptoms than those who took such drugs.3

Exercise, meanwhile, has been shown to effectively relieve depressive symptoms. For instance, one study found that 30-minute aerobic workouts done three to five times a week cut depressive symptoms by 50 percent in young adults.4

A meta-analysis published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews also found that exercise is moderately more effective than a control intervention for reducing symptoms of depression.5

So you need not rely on drugs to treat symptoms of grief. As explained by James Gordon, MD, a world-renowned expert in using mind-body medicine to heal depression, in our 2008 interview:

"What we're finding in the research on physical exercise is the physical exercise is at least as good as antidepressants for helping people who are depressed. And that's even better for older people, very interesting, even more important for older people.

And physical exercise changes the level of serotonin in your brain. It changes, increases their levels of 'feel good' hormones, the endorphins. And also -- and these are amazing studies -- it can increase the number of cells in your brain, in the region of the brain, called the hippocampus.

…it's very important because sometimes in depression there are fewer of those cells in the hippocampus, but you can actually change your brain with exercise. So it's got to be part of everybody's treatment, everybody's plan."

Has your loss left you feeling more anxious than depressed? Exercise can help here too. A study by Princeton University researchers revealed that exercising stimulates the production of new neurons including those that release the GABA neurotransmitter. GABA inhibits excessive neuronal firing, helping to induce a natural state of calm.6 Commonly prescribed anti-anxiety drugs like Ativan, Xanax, and Valium actually exert a calming effect in this same manner, by boosting the action of GABA. The mood-boosting benefits of exercise occur both immediately after a workout and continue on in the long term.

How Exercise Can Help the Grieving Process


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