Treating Depression

• June 21, 2021
• 330 views

I recently read an article written by a Doctor Angie called the better way to treat depression^[1] and this article kept me thinking. It brought back memories of yester years when I suffered five-year long depression without knowing what was happening to me. This whole pondering on depression and better ways to going about treating it motivated me to writing this article.

Angie in her article pointed out that the mainstream view of depression is that ‘it is an intrinsic biological defect’. In other words, these symptoms are being looked like illnesses.

Friends and families in a bid to render help are quick to describe depression as an illness that causes an imbalance in one’s brain. On the other hand, the psychiatric prescribes drugs to you which is supposed to help rectify the imbalance. However, Dr Angie rightly pointed out that, there is no evidence to support this kind of mainstream thinking.

Nonetheless, the symptoms of depression can be diagnosed as an illness. I know this is going to sound very controversial to some of you, nevertheless, this message is not for everyone. However, if you are willing to acknowledge that the symptoms of depression does not in all the cases mean that you have an illness which requires prescribed drugs.

Considering this in a perilous time such as this Covid-19 pandemic season, we have seen an exponential rise in reports of emotional distress and problems with mental health by reason of adversity. These pandemic years has came with its own package such as people losing jobs and source of livelihoods, people losing loved ones.

Of course, it is very natural for people who are going through adversity to have emotional distress. On the other hand, persons who go through adversity without a sign of emotional distress would be considered sick also. That does not in any way mean that when you have emotional distress, you are supposed to be diagnosed as a sick person with a defect.

Consequently, what has happened in recent times is that there is a 46% increase in the consumption of prescription drugs for depression. However, the impact of these drugs has not been felt in the society. Thus, this mental health conundrum still dawdles. The time have come for us to ask ourselves, ‘how come when there has not been a big change despite the aggressive usage of prescription drugs.

It is shocking to discover that the severity of some of the side effects of these prescription drugs for depression. One side effect is that consumers of the antidepressant drugs can deteriorate into thinking suicidal thoughts. In my view, that is the most extreme situation of depression and that is when the person really needs a psychiatric.

This then means that antidepressant drugs for some people can aggravate the whole situation, whereby moving the individual from a place of just having compulsive behaviours, to a place of harbouring suicidal thoughts.

In conclusion, my candid advice is to avoid antidepressant drugs if you can but rather, seek better ways of curing depression avoid.

[1] Angi Yoder Maina. Better ways of treating depression. The Standard. Saturday, February 20, 2021