[lbo-talk] Let them eat Prozac (was: let's argue about thecauseofmental illness

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Sep 28 18:16:40 PDT 2009


(Responding to Andie's post with some footnotes)

Andie describes his experience with Wellbutrin; my initial, positive experience, was with amitripyline. Neither is an SSRI. Contributors to this thread really ought to be clear when they are speaking of any and all ADs and when they are speaking of that sub-class, the SSRIs. One European AD has the decreases Serotinin flow, and it seems to work quite well. There is some discussion in psychiatric journals of this and what it might indicate. Quick amateur hip-shot judgments on this not welcome.

On his response to *Bill. One kind of person I defintely do not want in my company at any time is someone who, speaking to someone who suffers from clinical depression, speaks of being depressed the other night. That damns Bill forever for me. It is unforgiveable. Some sufferers from depession are apt to violence, and Bill's stupid remark could provoke a homocide in some cirucstances.

Sadness, what I call plain-vanilla depression, is not the only nor for many the most powerful symptom of depression. It is unfortunate that there is not a better term for the illness. I have suffered that plain-vanilla depression, and describe it as, among other things, like having a quarat of Karo Syrup poured over your brain. During a really deep depression of this sort suicide is rare; it is during partial recovery that one gains the energy to kill oneself.

Several of my friends have, when all else failed, resorted to ECT treatment. It worked quite well for some, without serious memory problems. For others not so well. It got a horrendous reputation in the 1950s, but its use has become far less brutal, less whimsically prescribed, and more carefully administered. The fact that it does help is a fact about mental illness, but the interpretation of that fact is a matter of dispute. Again, hip-shjot analyses by amateurs are merely offensive.

My first AD worked quite well, but had a somewhat comic but dangerous side effect and I stopped taking it -- after which I begin to sink into depression again. I began on amitriptyline (Elavil), working up from 50 milligrams to 125. On one day, teaching a class, my voice suddenly wound down like the old phonographs that needed to be wound up -- the words spacing out and then ceasing. The next morning I was sitting in my office at 8:55 wondering how I could get through my 9am class, when with a virtual click my mind came back! I later realized that I had been at the 125 dosage for five days -- the amount of time it takes for given dosage to take effect.

My psychiatrist disapproved of Wellbutrin, on the grounds that it caused seqizures some people, and I dropped him along with SSRIs some years ago. It is also used for nicotine addiction. Were I to become seriously depressed again I sould shop around until I found a psychiatrist tht would try it on me.

With SSRIs I would regularly feel good at the beginning of the semester and become in pretty bad shape about the 8th week.

Someone who focuses on Prozac, or on SSRIs, and deals only with depression, not bipolar, OCD, ADD etceetera, is not serious. It's really a fucking complicated issue.

Carrol



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