Posted by Racer on October 7, 2007, at 19:10:04
In reply to Re: restarting effexor, posted by linkadge on October 7, 2007, at 18:25:10
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> Don't get me wrong. I am still anti-med. Its one of those can't live with them, can't live without them type of situations.
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> Even if I have marginal results with meds, it will still be good to know that should more effective future meds come out that at least I will be receiving meds for the right diagnosis.
You know, taking both those statements together, I end up wondering whether that cognitive position influences your results from medications? It's easy to say, "not at all," -- at least, it has been easy for me to say not at all when I'm in the grips of it -- but harder to consider whether it does have an impact. I do think it's worth exploring, at any rate.My brain isn't working very well right now, but I have a vague memory of you saying that you wouldn't benefit from therapy, because your depression was entirely biologically based. I know others here have said basically the same thing, so if I'm getting you confused with someone else right now, I do apologize. The reason I bring that up is that a therapist could help you figure out whether your anti-medication stance does have an impact on their effectiveness for you, as well as whether the lack of effectiveness might be affected by some psychosocial elements which could be best addressed through therapy. Besides, sometimes it's just nice to be able to grouse to someone for forty five minutes...
That's my bias, though. I do think that therapy is good for just about everyone, including those who are healthy and just want to improve performance in some area or another. Some is purely from my own experience: medication alone has never been as helpful as it is with a side of psychodynamic therapy. I describe it as being like the physical therapy I needed after a car accident. I'd spent more than a month in traction, several more months in a cast that covered my entire lower body, and my bones had healed. That's the part that the medication would do in depression. After all that, I couldn't walk. (No one had warned me, by the way. I was only five, so it was very traumatic -- I tried to jump off the table when they'd taken off the cast, and finding out I couldn't walk was so frightening.) Physical therapy involved exercises to strengthen my legs and hips, and teach me how to walk again. Psychotherapy does the same for me -- all the compensatory behaviors I've developed to protect myself due to the depression and anxiety have left my healthier coping skills as atrophied as my legs were.
Enough rambling. I hope that makes sense. If not, well, guess I don't make much sense then.
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> thanks for responding.
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> Linkadge
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>You're welcome. You may find this hard to believe, but I like you and I wish for the best for you. I hope that you can find what you need in life, because I believe you are capable of a great deal of good, and a great deal of happiness. I want both for you.
poster:Racer
thread:787537
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070929/msgs/787680.html