Pressure To Take Antidepressants, From Psychiatrists/Therapists, and Society

Описание: I have experienced a lot of pressure to go on antidepressants. Here I share my personal story with seeking help for depression and being pressured to go on antidepressant drugs. The pressure comes both from mental health professionals, including psychiatrists and talk therapists, and from the broader society and culture which can take the form both of written articles and popular media, and casual conversations with family and friends.

I do not take blanket anti-drug or pro-drug stances in this video. I am a science-minded person and my viewpoints are based on the best scientific consensus I have found, which is that there are multiple effective treatments for depression and antidepressant drugs are only one of many possible treatments.

It is a sad reality that many psychiatrists simply do not know much about how to treat depression other than by drugs. I express anger and frustration at how a psychiatrist, a professional with extensive training specifically to treat mental illness, could be so ignorant about the different angles of treating depression, and so focused on a single treatment approach.

I also talk about blatant double standards in how people bring up drugs vs. other types of approaches for depression, and how this is related to a deep cultural bias and how it creates a background of intense pressure.

Lastly I talk about how the pressure to take drugs often feeds into unhealthy negative thought spirals in people suffering from depression and how this can lead people to think of themselves as broken and feel hopeless, and thus how these pressures and cultural viewpoints may actually be reinforcing people's depression or worsening depression in society as a whole.

I hope that by sharing these things we can tear down these untruthful ways of thinking and ultimately help a greater number of people to overcome depression. My goal here is not to discourage anyone from taking drugs, but rather, to remove bias and create a more balanced perspective on depression in which drugs are seen as one possible treatment among many.