- robertakarobinTaking a break from software to remodel a house by myself. The plan was just to redo the kitchen and a bathroom and be done by August, so naturally it's now December here in Minnesota and the house is missing most of its wiring, pipes, insulation, and walls. :) I'm having a great time though and just started producing videos about it: https://youtube.com/shorts/6QDOXxh99PY?si=NOjvNVEVHwQt180A
- Prozac doesn't define me. It's just something I take to address a health condition, like an iron supplement for low iron levels or amoxicillin for strep throat. My kids learned about it because they saw me taking a pill every day and asked what it was. No biggie.
To be clear, Prozac is not a "feel-good" pill, it's a "gradually feel more stable" pill. It makes my lows less debilitatingly low and more manageable -- my lows are now largely logical responses to difficult events, as opposed to randomly happening for no reason at all. The effect is very gradual and subtle: you can't really evaluate it until after several weeks, and then the "evaluation" is a conversation about whether your affect has seemed generally more stable recently. An average person taking Prozac would probably notice no effect at all, good or bad. By contrast, a stimulant like Adderrall will have a noticeable effect on anyone within minutes.
My son never asked for Prozac or for a "feel-good" pill. My kids have heard of addiction before so we've talked about pills that do make you feel good and why they're dangerous, and also "dopamine drips" like brainrot on YouTube.
- I thought we were talking about long-term effects, i.e. ones that persist to and through adulthood? The sources in that Wiki article appear not to address that.
The clinicians I've interacted with have always warned me of the possible side-effects of psychotropic medications, and said they should be notify immediately if the side-effects appear. I believe this is at least standard procedure, if not legally required?
I do have a low libido. Can't say whether or not that's due to Prozac, but regardless it hasn't negatively affected my life, probably because it was low before I met my wife. If someone enters a relationship while their libido is at one level and then during the relationship it changes considerably then I can certainly see how that could be a major challenge. That's an important thing to weigh when evaluating medication.
- Objectively you're right, but I hope you think twice before saying to someone who has experienced a tragedy, "You need to move on." Similarly if you're in an argument with a friend or loved one and they are upset I hope you think twice before saying "You need to calm down" or, "You're overreacting." Objectively those may all be correct, but they are unhelpful, and are likely to have the opposite effect. They minimize the weight of the emotions. Most of us cannot just turn emotions on and off, much as we try and wish we could.
- This is, in fact, pretty much the exact procedure: try one type of treatment or medication, see if it's obviously helping, and if it isn't try a different treatment or medication. It's imprecise but it's the best we have.
- I'm a victim of depression too, and don't think it's fair that you say we "gave up." I would never give up on my child. You imply that we didn't talk to our son, listen to him, and do our best to give him advice before we discussed medication? Don't we all try to make the most well-informed decisions we can?
This decision was made collectively by me, my wife, our pediatrician, the child therapist, the psychiatrist, and for what it's worth also my son. We did extensive research. You may disagree with our decision, but please don't cast aspersions on how much we care.
- I hope you can understand that this and other comments about needing to find meaning and needing to sit with inner feelings... It feels patronizing. I have spent tremendous amounts of time and energy analyzing my feelings and looking for meaningful experiences. I've sought relief in meditation, religion, therapy, yoga, travel, art, etc. Most people probably have in one way or another. It's not rocket science to know those activities may be beneficial. They undoubtedly do help some people overcome feeling depressed. But feeling depressed is different from having depression.
- My kids go to a ordinary public school. They are very bright, cautious, and thoughtful, and generally pretty happy and upbeat. There is a strong correlation between academic intelligence and mental illness. Being depressed to the point of being suicidal and having a sunny disposition are not mutually exclusive at all. I absolutely agree that it would be disturbing and disappointing for a child to be medicated because of something stupid they said when they were seven. I think medication may be appropriate if they show a consistent pattern over several months of physiological symptoms and reactions that are consistent with depression or anxiety, and cannot be explained by external factors like trauma or major life changes.
- > Depression is caused by laziness and anxiety by hopelessness.
Others have responded to the depression/laziness part -- I was wondering if you could clarify what you mean by anxiety being caused by hopelessness? To my way of thinking hopelessness and depression have a lot of overlap, but anxiety not so much... It's more like a feeling of dread.
- We take the same approach! While I don't agree that depression is laziness, we do teach that feeling sorry for yourself is akin to laziness. When we're disappointed about things not going the way we wanted we're allowed to grump about it for 5 minutes, but then it's time to brush ourselves off and move on.
- At what age will you permit your kids to leave the walled garden you've created for them?
- > I cured it by finding meaning and beauty in the world.
That's incredibly fortunate and I'm very jealous of you. How would you recommend one goes about finding meaning and beauty? I'm fortunate to have had lots of unique experiences and traveled to lots of unique places and still haven't found the fulfillment that you seem to. That's basically what depression is: a debilitating feeling of lack of fulfillment, without any idea of what's missing.
I'm happiest when busy building and fixing things. It could be that if I was born 200 years ago into an agrarian society where day-to-day life was focused on building and fixing things to survive, then I would have felt very fulfilled and done quite well. What were gainful full-time jobs back then have been reduced to hobbies now, though: blacksmithing, cobbling, weaving, hunting, making furniture, etc. Hobbies don't fill the hole for me. Sure, a few artisans are still able to turn those into a living, but a large part of the job is marketing and the clients are largely the wealthy elite. I've enjoyed working in food service and construction but it's hard to support a family of 4 doing those. So my career has been in software engineering since that involves building and fixing and pays well, but it still doesn't fill the hole.
If this sounds whiny I'm painfully aware. What right do I have to complain about feeling unfulfilled when there are real problems in the world? And that's the very essence of major depression.
- To be clear, nobody ever insisted or strongly advocated that I take medication — suggested maybe, but it was entirely my decision. And I completely agree about the importance of hitting "rock bottom." That's something I struggle with as a parent: wanting to make sure my kids have plenty of opportunities to fail, yet fail in a way that isn't irreversibly damaging. If at rock bottom I had simply killed myself rather than starting Prozac I wouldn't be around to have benefited from it.
A large part of me dislikes being on any sort of medication long-term, and think most people have the same dislike. I have gone off of Prozac a few times and always found that I gradually became frustrated and depressed again, and as you said the reason for the dislike is ineffable, so I chose to go back on. I'm fortunate to have a life with no bad marriage, no bad job, and very little trauma at all, which is also unfortunate since it means despite years of therapy and introspection and travel and hobbies and other varied experiences I've never been able to find any cause for the depression and therefore no way to fix it, other than medication. It makes me think of Captain Picard: "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life."
- With both my kids in 2nd grade and my wife also a public 2nd grade teacher, I consider myself pretty aware of what kids are being taught these days. They certainly are being gradually introduced to some of the problems of the world, but I think childhood development experts would all agree that's healthy. As for them being told they're the source or victim that's hardly the case. I'm sure there are a few isolated incidents that right-wing media love to bang on about, but not the experience for most.
- Interestingly my son has an identical twin! I like to joke that one is the control and sleeps in the house and the other has to sleep in the storage shed out back, and when they're 18 we'll publish a paper comparing their emotional development. :)
I always thought DNA determined pretty much everything, and we raised them exactly the same, but they have distinct personalities and some different physical features, although of course they're much more similar than they are different. My other son shows some symptoms of anxiety but not as much, yet.
- You imply we aren't teaching emotional regulation on a daily basis? We have always placed a great deal of emphasis on talking about feelings and developing "tools for our toolboxes" to deal with them. Unfortunately those tools are largely inadequate when there isn't a rational cause for a debilitating emotional state.
- What if there is no rational cause?
- Suicidal ideation at 7 years old is not normal kid behavior, neither is sudden and unprecedented paralyzing anxiety over the prospect of ordinary things like going to a friend's birthday party or trying a new playground.
Me and my mom are on identical doses of Prozac to treat very similar symptoms.
We consulted with a child therapist, a pediatrician, and a psychiatrist.
- I, like every other person who hasn't been living under a rock, am abundantly aware of corruption in Big Pharma and medicine. If my mother and I have both taken a given well-known medication for decades and found it effectively treated a condition that may be hereditary with no negative side effects, and my son is demonstrating symptoms similar to mine and my mother's, is it unreasonable to tolerate my son trying the same medication? That's a far cry from committing to forcing him to take the medication his whole life, or trying some mystery drug with which I have no familiarity.
- You think they don't ask themselves that question all day, every day?
reddit.com/r/thanksimcured