[Hexagram]

...they should almost exclusively be used in acute situations and always with a firm plan for tapering off, which can be difficult for many patients.

The Guardian UK via Biz Insider

I'm not sure how much I agree with this, and I really feel that this is a person to person thing…but interesting article.

[Hexagram]

I have used and will continue to use a metric butt-load of a wide variety of psychotropic drugs long-term, so this article was not exactly welcome news. Am I an 'acute situation'?

Thanks for posting this link. The claims made seem to be awfully broad and non-specific, but I have thought for a long time that I'd like to see more non-medication treatment plans for mental health problems. They could be in addition to meds.

When my depression gets bad, I seem to become unable to do things like eat well, choose supplements to take, exercise, socialize, or do volunteer work (I am disabled from medical conditions + mental health ones, so even when my depression is better, I'm still significantly limited in what I can do.)

When something eventually tips me back into improving - new meds, therapy, or something else - I start to put those things back in my life.

What if we had a trained "coach" or someone to monitor our progress in these areas and to help us with them when we started to get worse?

Some encouraging progress in peer support is happening in the US but it seems to be small and slow in developing.

[PinkFlamingo99]

Is he asserting that these deaths are from suicide?

How do you decide someone who is on psych meds kills themselves from the meds and not from the illness? Seems like a major confound to me.

[enickols]

That article is a bunch of gibberish and BS. A bunch of platitudes with no specific evidence

[Seqoya]

This might be true for some people. But I believe that some people really need to take medication long-term.

[vital]

Originally Posted by PinkFlamingo99

Is he asserting that these deaths are from suicide?

How do you decide someone who is on psych meds kills themselves from the meds and not from the illness? Seems like a major confound to me.

Once source is from people who are in clinical trials where the patients are chosen to not be depressed or to have any psychological problems - basically college students wanting to earn some extra money. If a person in a trial like commits suicide during the trial, you can be pretty sure that it's from the drug. There are cases like that.

- vital

[vital]

Originally Posted by enickols

That article is a bunch of gibberish and BS. A bunch of platitudes with no specific evidence

He is one of the founders of the "Cochrane Collaboration".

Our evidence | Cochrane

Specific evidence is available there.

[-jimi-]

Thing is when you taper of an SSRI, it will probably NOT work if you need it again. I have one that works, should I take it away and if I crash and burn I don't have anymore options?

IDK, I can't risk that because that would mean death.