h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

All travel home went smoothly, we are home, all well but happy. The only hitch was the flat battery at the airport parking, but staff helped me start the car again, and the drive was easy.

More updates later, will need to rest now.

Welcome home!

*checks first*



Yay!!!

Welcome home!

welcome home, luv

hope you and the kids are not too jet-lagged

Son took hours to go to sleep last night, but we had napped in the afternoon, so I don't think today is too bad. Daughter has not complained, and I am fine.

Just bored at work, and not in the mood...

new enlish survey says 'happy pills' only w*rk for people with really severe depressions, they said on our news today. care to comment?

First of all, I really hate the expression 'lyckopiller' because they don't make you one bit happy, just less .

Second: I read a Swedish article about the survey but there weren't any details in the article on the people that were tested. Age, how long they had been depressed, or if they had been on medication before or if this was the first time, if they had any other mental condition than 'just' depression...

Personally, I can definitely tell a difference as soon as I change dosage. I'm not really keen on taking pills daily so when I had a period last year where I felt fine, I tried decreasing the dosage.

Not a good idea, after about two weeks on a lower dosage I lost 'speed' and had to increase the dosage to get back to the level where I could function at w*rk.

Judging from the postings on a forum, different pills have different effects on different people. Some of the users had tried several different kinds of pills before finally finding something that worked for them personally. What works for one person might have no effect at all on another person.

Oh, and when I first started taking pills, I thought they would start working right away, but they didn't - not until the dosage had been increased from 5 mg to 10 mg to 15 mg per day. So no 'sugar pill' effect on me.

I think there may be some truth in it - any given type doesn't work on all people. And sometimes they might be given for the wrong reason. If the blues is about a bad situation, it might help you live through it, when you ought to have it changed... (personal experience speaking, yes)

But there are also cases where it works really well, makes a big difference, and are justified treatment. So even though I haven't read the source article or much of the press, I think they have made the usual 'scoop' of something not very well researched...

i understand why you dislike the term 'happy pills', ti. you are right in that it gives a false impression about what they are able to do.

let's call them 'new anti-depressants' (as opposed to 'classic anti-depressants').

lots of people here in denmark are upset about the quantities of the new anti-depressants that are ordained now and speak about aldous huxleys predictions in his 'brave new world'.

what the dummines don't realize is, that the new anti-depressants only w*rk for people who need them. the rest might just as well take placebos.

and apparently that is exactly what the new english survey has revealed.

let me finish this by once again implore those of you who have been ordained said meds to take them as long as the orders. it is hard to live with depressed people who do not wish to take their meds. *very* hard.

could it be that the unwillingness to take meds is an implicit part of the disease?

Well, once again referring to the forum I'm a member of, many people who have very recently, and for the first time in their life, been diagnosed with depression have doubts about taking medicines.

There is a forum section that is just about medicines, and very often there will be new members who ask questions like 'has anyone any experience of medicine X?' or 'does anyone know why I've been prescribed medicine Y?' or questions about the diagnosises(?) that are sometimes a bit complicated and difficult to understand.

I myself had questions and worries when I first started taking my pills, but fortunately Milla was around and patiently answered all my questions *s Milla*

Then there's different therapy methods. For some people, one therapy method works, for other, another method. And some feel therapy has no effect on them.

I did? Well, you're welcome then

Yes, Pierce people who need their meds for real, and refuse them, are very hard to deal with. And this is common for many (most?) mental illnesses I think.

Perhaps the ones who ask for pills usually are not the ones who need them? (me included, in some cases) I've had real depressions, I think, where pills were the only way out, and some bouts where it was mostly a miserable situation, so I feel OK about discussing both ways...

close relative of mine drank a lot of alcohol and subsequently joined alcoholics anonymous because in this persons opinion being an alcoholic was less stigmatizing than having a mental illness

the AA-meetings turned out to be very therapeutic so it wasn't all bad, but still...

well, that is the way i see it, anyway, but i am pretty sure that i am right

people will bend over backwards in an attempt to avoid being stamped as mentals - and it's not like i don't understand it. i'm just saying that this is just one of many side effects of being mentally ill and more people should be more aware of it

Hiya all!

I went to a Green Party political meeting last night, where one of the speakers was a doctor, we debated this whole issue very seriously...France has the highest rate of prescriptions for anti-deps than any other European nation.

Is this because the French are naturally more inclined towards a "depressed" mood, or that they self-diagnose as "i am depressed" whereas in fact they may have many factors (emotional, social, financial etc) which give good reasons to "have the blues"?

We all came to the following conclusions:

One size "happy pill" does not fit all

Some doctors are so under pressure to see too many patients, the prescription is a convenient; quick method of clearing their backlog

The French health system is carved up into Physical & mental health & social welfare...whereas in fact most folk feeling blue have a combination of all of these

Isolation is one of the first symptoms of depression: if you feel like shite, you tend to avoid social situations, thus depriving yourself of possible sources of support...but probably mixing exclusively with other depressed people may reinforce the "I am a victim" syndrome

Medicines may help some people get the kick start they need to get out of the pit....but after that stage, "People Need People" & one good way to dip a toe back into the social whirled is via sites like this!

zdt

Terri, I do so agree with your post. Here we are not treated 'in the whole' but as if all bits of us operate independently instead of being interlinked. A bit like the way we treat the planet, forgetting that it is all one entity.

Pills are ok, for the right person, at the right time, in the right place, but our s etc. have no time to talk, and more importantly listen, and I think they often make a snap judgement. I know my old doctor used to reach for the prescription pad as I walked through the door, and I was most definitely not a regular visitor, to create that reaction.It really used to make me mad. Haven't seen the current one for twenty years, and then not for me

I am pleased the subject is coming in to the open and is being talked about more.

Interesting thread this

Websailor

and just then the thread died...

Happens to me often - last poster, no replies

prolly just because you always want to have the last word

WS