I learned a lot about antidepressants when I taught a set of night classes that were attended by nurses upgrading their education.

The nurses' opinion on meds was very negative because they were tired of literally fighting people in the emergency room who showed up demanding their legal fix. It was a special category of emerg. room patient: "drug seeking".

In my area there has also been a huge upswing in house break-ins. The police have a whole new category of crime; people who break into homes looking for prescription medication. It has a street value, just like heroin and cocaine.

Smart kids at our school pool their Ritalin for sale to adult drug seekers. A majority of kids at the Sylvan Center where I tutored were on Ritalin or anti-depressants or other things. Parents were eager for a diagnosis because then their kids qualified for the special perks of the learning disability programs. The kids showed up for tutoring and sometimes washed down their pills with Coke, which I thought was weird--since they were on heavy drugs for being too excitable, why were they allowed to practically live on caffeine and sugar? But anyway, these kids were very savvy and knew how to threaten not to do anything until they got their drugs.

They would sit there and grin about it.

All of this tells me that there is nothing about anti-depressants that is benign. They should be last call fire-engine treatment for the worst cases, but they are not.

The people who take them can insist that this is the New Normal, but I have to say I don't find these medications different from any other kind of drug, including illegal ones.

But like I said, don't flame the thread trying to say I'm out to get your pills personally. I don't care if you take them or not. I also don't care if you smoke crack. It's your call.

My grandpa always needed something to get through his day, too. Namely a drink or three or three dozen. He too would have had some nasty words for people who tried to get between him and the bottle. Couldn't live without it, he'd say.

The Anon has shown up to howl that he doesn't like my comparison because HE knows that ALL the people on anti-depressants are very, very ill and could not feel better any other way.

I'm really not trying to say anything unkind. All I'm trying to say is, if these meds are addictive, and I think the evidence proves that they are, then the "testimonials" of people in the grip of the addiction may not be the most reliable. They may not know or want to face the addiction, and so may not be the best people to ask about anti-depressants.

I have many family members on anti-depressants. I think all of them would be better off finding something fulfilling to live for, but I can't say that, because some doctor has found pills to be the fastest way to shut them up when they come to him moaning and groaning about vague aches and pains. Also, they cannot imagine giving up all their stuff, so any real lifestyle change is out of the question. They are too scared they will lose all their stuff and not get it back. They have whole buildings full of stuff, and keeping it all is very, very important. Why, I don't know, but it is. A lot of it is even packed away where they never see it. It will sit there until they die and their kids will have to have a yard sale. Why spend your life in the service of the stuff? A depressing existence. Whoops, dang, I used that word.....!

Frankly, it also bothers me that so many people on meds are women. This is the biggest category of user. Second biggest category is older people. This would suggest a depression that has some cause in lifestyle or environment, at least to me. Empty nests, dead marriages, overwork (for women),everything that's wrong with living in suburbia--all of that.

But no, it's heresy to say so, because the Meds have saved you.

Like I said, I don't know you, can't judge you. Don't take it as more than a general observation.

There are people who need anti-depressants. But every person who is on them is also convinced they are one of the truly sick and needy, so I think there's something wrong with that picture.