6 Myths and Facts about Antidepressants
Despite the proven efficacy of antidepressants, there are a lot of concerns and erroneous assumptions in the general population. It may help if you know the following:
Why use medication?
Some people wonder how medication can help with a mental disorder such as depression, especially when they consider that depression is the result of a stressful job, problems in their relationships, or another difficult life situation. Of course, medications cannot solve these problems, but with effective psychopharmacological treatment targeting depressive symptoms, most problems are put into perspective and this allows patients to actively seek solutions. It is important that patients become personally involved in the possibility of treatment with antidepressants or other medications used to treat depression, as treatment involves complying with the medication regularly and over a long period of time.
Characteristics of Antidepressants:
- Antidepressants are not addictive
- Antidepressants do not change a person’s personality
- Antidepressants are not stimulant or tranquilizer drugs and they do not make a person “too happy.”
- Antidepressants have an effect on the transmitters in the brain
- Antidepressants don’t work right away
- Antidepressants are not antipsychotics
Antidepressants don’t work right away
- Even though drug treatment is started, it usually takes a while before the patient begins to feel better. It typically takes from two to six weeks to see improvement.
- Unfortunately, side effects can be seen immediately, but in most cases, they will be temporary.
6 Myths and Facts about Antidepressants
There is a large number of myths related to mental disorders, which most of the time are unfounded and affect people’s perception of their condition and the available treatments, sometimes generating stigma and preventing people from having a follow-up appropriate to their treatment, worsening their health.
Myth: Depression is a mental weakness, it is enough to think positive to make it go away
Reality: Major depressive disorder is a disease like high blood pressure or diabetes, where there is an alteration in the normal functioning of the brain, so asking a depressed person to “think positive” is like asking a diabetic to stop being.
Myth: Antidepressants are a “quick exit” because they only make you forget about problems, they don’t solve them.
Reality: Pharmacological treatment for depression is focused on improving mood directly, without this meaning that the problems simply disappear, but by reducing depressive symptoms it is easier to be able to face the problems of daily life and have a clearer perspective on things. In addition, in the most severe cases of depression, the antidepressant response is often not evident until after a couple of weeks.
Myth: Depression medications are addictive.
Fact: No antidepressant generates addiction, although if it is stopped abruptly in some cases it could be confused with the “rebound effect”, or the reappearance of depressive symptoms.
Myth: Antidepressants change the personality of those who take them
Fact: Antidepressants simply help stabilize the mood of a depressed person, meaning they will have the same personality that they had before they suffered from depression. Some people may have drowsiness with some antidepressants at the beginning of treatment and this could be confused with these personality changes, other people notice that they get less angry, however, emotions are never lost.
Myth: Antidepressants must be taken for life
Reality: The time necessary to achieve an effective antidepressant treatment generally varies between 6 months and 1 year depending on the severity of the symptoms and the response to the treatment, this because once the person feels well, a period of maintenance to ensure healing, but will never be taken for a lifetime.
Myth: antidepressants cause many side effects
Reality: It is common for people who are going to take a drug immediately to seek information about the worst that could happen when taking it, these descriptions relate to anecdotal cases in which these effects occurred and no other drug was being taken.
The most important thing to achieve the success of the antidepressant treatment is to inform yourself and eliminate any doubt related to your disease or the indicated treatment to ensure consistency and avoid complications due to abandonment of treatment.
