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I was very young when my mom started Prozac but do remember how angry and sad she was before compared to after. Years later there was a time when me and my sis

I was very young when my mom started Prozac but do remember how angry and sad she was before compared to after. Years later there was a time when me and my sister noticed our mom was acting a bit strange -- more snappish and irritable than usual, and she even started dressing differently. Then at dinner she announced proudly that she had been off Prozac for a month. My sister and I looked at each other and at the same time went, "Ohhhh!" Mom was shocked that we'd noticed such a difference in her behavior and started taking the medication again. I've been on the exact same dose as her for 15 years, and my 7-year-old son just started half that dose. If I have a good day it's impossible to day whether that's due to Prozac. But since starting Prozac I have been much more likely to have good days than bad. So, since Prozac is cheap and I don't seem to suffer any side effects, I plan to keep taking it in perpetuity. What I tell my kids is that getting depressed, feeling sad, feeling hopeless -- those are all normal feelings that everyone has from time to time. Pills can't or shouldn't keep you from feeling depressed if you have something to be depressed about. Pills are for people who feel depressed but don't have something to be depressed about -- they have food, shelter, friends, opportunities to contribute and be productive, nothing traumatic has happened, but they feel hopeless anyway -- and that's called Depression, which is different from "being depressed."

jacobgkau 11mo ago
Your anecdote has nothing to do with whether it's better than a placebo or not.
- BeetleB 11mo ago
  His anecdote explicitly mentions the possibility of it being a placebo.
  - jacobgkau 11mo ago
    No it doesn't. It doesn't contain the word "placebo." Can you quote where it "explicitly mentions" what you're saying it does?
    - robertakarobin 11mo ago
      > If I have a good day it's impossible to day whether that's due to Prozac. But since starting Prozac I have been much more likely to have good days than bad. So, since Prozac is cheap and I don't seem to suffer any side effects, I plan to keep taking it in perpetuity. I was acknowledging that the "good days" could be due to Prozac or could be a placebo effect, but since being on Prozac correlates with having significantly more good days, and I experience virtually no ill effects, I choose to continue with it.
      - deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
    - some_guy_nobel 11mo ago
      Wow, a shockingly argumentative tone for someone who is just flat out wrong. Beyond the response someone else commented explaining exactly where the comparison was mentioned, the anecdote itself is useful in offering an experience of someone who's life has been changed by the drug. In any case, the study mentioned in the article is a meta-analysis about children, not adults, so there is no onus on OP to qualify anything about placebo or not.
      - ozim 11mo ago
        Some people just need to have stuff spelled out for them.
      - in_cahoots 11mo ago
        To be fair, I didn't read that suggestion as being about a possible placebo effect, just that you can't attribute any one good day to the pill. It's like climate change- it undeniably exists, but you can't blame climate change for a single heat wave or freak storm.
        cstrahan 11mo ago
        You read it that way because that’s the sensible way to read it. Everyone suggesting you missed the plot is in turn making a rather large logical leap.
- burnte 11mo ago
  The comment never said otherwise. They shared a personal story about how it worked for an adult.
  - jacobgkau 11mo ago
    No, they shared a personal story about how they think it worked, ignoring the data saying it likely didn't.
    - burnte 11mo ago
      I said "it worked for an adult" because it did. It works. In adults. The article says it doesn't work well in adolescents, not adults. I work in mental health, I assure you fluoxetine works very well, but most drugs are not tested on non-adult populations. So this is a study on a population not normally tested to enhance the dataset we have about fluoxetine. More studies will try to replicate this result, and we'll have even more data about where it works and where it doesn't.
- wisty 11mo ago
  A later comment notes that it works well for some patients and not others. The argument is that drugs probably don't fix things very well unless the cause is mostly just bad brain chemistry. Some people have bad brain chemistry, others have "real" (usually more external - financial, relationships, actual life issues) problems they need to fix, and hiding from them by just taking a pill to help ignore them might not work so well. (OK bad brain chemistry is also a real problem, but one that's fixable with a pill). Also yes that's all a bit simplified. There's a stigma against pills for a number of reasons, some good and some bad, the fact that often they don't work being one reason.
  - ornornor 11mo ago
    There is a case in between: sometimes the issues are too overwhelming and you can’t start fixing them until the pills give you the space you need to address them and get to a position where you can quit the pills.
- directevolve 11mo ago
  The study found the average effect was no different from placebo. It’s plausible, based on anecdotes like the one you’re responding to, that Prozac is harmful for some people, helpful for others, with the expected benefit close to zero. If so, it might be necessary to just try it and see if it’s obviously helping, keep taking if so, stop if not.
  - robertakarobin 11mo ago
    This is, in fact, pretty much the exact procedure: try one type of treatment or medication, see if it's obviously helping, and if it isn't try a different treatment or medication. It's imprecise but it's the best we have.
    - biff1 11mo ago
      The problem is that taking certain psychotropic medications changes your brain chemistry. It’s not as simple as it sounds. It’s not like trying on shoes. The brain is dynamic and drugs alter it, as does life experience, talk therapy, disease, aging, etc…
      - directevolve 11mo ago
        That’s a statement of fact, but not intrinsically a problem. Being alive changes your brain chemistry.
techietim 11mo ago
> my 7-year-old son just started half that dose This is horrifying.
- kstrauser 11mo ago
  Why? If a kid has diabetes, would it be horrifying to treat it? Why would it be different for a neurochemistry issue that makes the same kid tired and sad all the time?
  - jacobgkau 11mo ago
    Because the problem's not a "neurochemistry issue" (that theory's been debunked and the "chemicals" in play have never been known), and the solution is "no better than placebo."
    - dekhn 11mo ago
      [flagged]
      - hintklb 11mo ago
        Not that I agree or disagree with the underlying claim but a call to "credentialism" to dismiss someone's opinion is not as strong in 2025 as you think it is. The last few years have been a proof that even the "experts" are following strong political or personal ideology. Also we don't live in the 18th century anymore. A lot of knowledge (especially around medicine) is open to the world. People can read papers, understand research etc.
        dekhn 11mo ago
        In this area, having credentials makes a difference. Experts matter. Few if any non-medical people can read medical papers and make sense of what they say. There is simply far too much context to evaluate such papers, especially in the cases of complex medical conditions.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
nominalprose 11mo ago
I recently started giving my 11 year old SAM-e, available over the counter and much faster acting than SSRIs for serotonin support. He's been much happier and more regulated since taking it. I'd encourage folk to read up on the literature around SAM-e and consider it as a lower risk alternative to try first, that may in fact work better.
- roughly 11mo ago
  Out of curiosity - do you know whether SAM-e can be taken safely with SSRIs? I went looking for this a bit back and didn’t find anything conclusive. I know there’s a handful of seratonergics to steer clear of, but I didn’t get a good answer about SAM-e.
Terr_ 11mo ago
> My sister and I looked at each other and at the same time went, "Ohhhh!" I suppose the next step would be to upgrade from single-blind to double-blind, so that your mom won't know which month is the placebo month...
- robertakarobin 11mo ago
  Interestingly my son has an identical twin! I like to joke that one is the control and sleeps in the house and the other has to sleep in the storage shed out back, and when they're 18 we'll publish a paper comparing their emotional development. :) I always thought DNA determined pretty much everything, and we raised them exactly the same, but they have distinct personalities and some different physical features, although of course they're much more similar than they are different. My other son shows some symptoms of anxiety but not as much, yet.
  - Terr_ 11mo ago
    > like to joke that one is the control and sleeps in the house and the other has to sleep in the storage shed out back Glad to see you have your priorities straight! :p https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090706 https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090706
lemming 11mo ago
I'm very sorry to hear your story, and I'm really glad the medication has worked well for you and your family. It's early days, but it seems to be working well for ours too. I also really admire the way you're dealing patiently with everyone in this thread arguing in bad faith, you have a lot more tolerance than I do! Hopefully it's not getting to you. Best wishes.
drekipus 11mo ago
> Pills are for people who feel depressed but don't have something to be depressed about -- they have food, shelter, friends, opportunities to contribute and be productive, nothing traumatic has happened, but they feel hopeless anyway This warrants a whole different discussion, and I'll be down voted for it, but one that's never addressed: quality over quantity. Pills are the individuals response to a society that feeds empty food, bland sterile shelter, fake friends, and meaningless jobs. The natural human response to a lack of meaning is hopelessness, and this comes from our society. Pills helps individuals cope with continuing the meat grinder just a little while longer. I had depression, and I cured it by finding meaning and beauty in the world. I get told "if you can cure it without pills, you never really had it" yeah cool, self fullfilling prophecy in that case innit. Can't cure it, because it doesn't exist without meds. It just comes out of "nowhere" and is here to stay.
- robertakarobin 11mo ago
  > I cured it by finding meaning and beauty in the world. That's incredibly fortunate and I'm very jealous of you. How would you recommend one goes about finding meaning and beauty? I'm fortunate to have had lots of unique experiences and traveled to lots of unique places and still haven't found the fulfillment that you seem to. That's basically what depression is: a debilitating feeling of lack of fulfillment, without any idea of what's missing. I'm happiest when busy building and fixing things. It could be that if I was born 200 years ago into an agrarian society where day-to-day life was focused on building and fixing things to survive, then I would have felt very fulfilled and done quite well. What were gainful full-time jobs back then have been reduced to hobbies now, though: blacksmithing, cobbling, weaving, hunting, making furniture, etc. Hobbies don't fill the hole for me. Sure, a few artisans are still able to turn those into a living, but a large part of the job is marketing and the clients are largely the wealthy elite. I've enjoyed working in food service and construction but it's hard to support a family of 4 doing those. So my career has been in software engineering since that involves building and fixing and pays well, but it still doesn't fill the hole. If this sounds whiny I'm painfully aware. What right do I have to complain about feeling unfulfilled when there are real problems in the world? And that's the very essence of major depression.
holden_nelson 11mo ago
I’m thoroughly impressed with how you handled the comments in this subthread. As someone who was on and off antidepressants for years, I can say confidently that for every one person spewing vitriol and judgement at you for your parenting decision, there was someone else solemnly nodding and sending love to you and your family. People just don’t fucking get it unless they get it. Best of luck to you.
conartist6 11mo ago
That's what freaks me out about these drugs. You-on-the-pill becomes you, and you can't ever stop.
- conartist6 11mo ago
  Sorry, I don't mean to second-guess your choices. There's clearly some very interesting issues here, and my experience is as someone who never felt they had any serious issues with mental health. But I do think that we have this culture where everyone is expected to be OK all the time. Do you worry at all that your son cues in to his parents relationship with the drug? I mean, say it was me, and I knew my parents took a pill so that they could "have a good day" but they didn't give me the have-a-good-day pill. I would think (perhaps subconsciously) that if I was having a bad day the drug could have made it into a good one. Having a bad day would be medical now, a reason to feel like you're sick or broken.
  - robertakarobin 11mo ago
    Prozac doesn't define me. It's just something I take to address a health condition, like an iron supplement for low iron levels or amoxicillin for strep throat. My kids learned about it because they saw me taking a pill every day and asked what it was. No biggie. To be clear, Prozac is not a "feel-good" pill, it's a "gradually feel more stable" pill. It makes my lows less debilitatingly low and more manageable -- my lows are now largely logical responses to difficult events, as opposed to randomly happening for no reason at all. The effect is very gradual and subtle: you can't really evaluate it until after several weeks, and then the "evaluation" is a conversation about whether your affect has seemed generally more stable recently. An average person taking Prozac would probably notice no effect at all, good or bad. By contrast, a stimulant like Adderrall will have a noticeable effect on anyone within minutes. My son never asked for Prozac or for a "feel-good" pill. My kids have heard of addiction before so we've talked about pills that do make you feel good and why they're dangerous, and also "dopamine drips" like brainrot on YouTube.
    - conartist6 11mo ago
bbminner 11mo ago
I am surprised by how many people seemingly independently come up with a completely indescriptive "bad day" label - for the lack of a better one. Good that things are working out for you. Recently found that, on top of meds (that started wearing off - after taking them for a couple years now following a challenging life situation), going to social latin dance classes for a couple hours almost every day after work helps quite a bit.
mvdtnz 11mo ago
Sorry but giving a 7 year old prozac is psycho behaviour.
- undeveloper 11mo ago
  do you genuinely think depression is preferable? suicidality?
  - LEDThereBeLight 11mo ago
    What do they do when they turn 15, realize they, say, have no sex drive, but have been on anti depressants for years and cannot take a break from life in order to now learn the emotional regulation skills they should have developed from 7-15? Antidepressants often mask issues which later manifest in unexpected ways, even if you don’t notice any immediate side effects.
EtienneDeLyon 11mo ago
A seven-year old child is being given a brain-altering drug? I am very happy such drugs did not exist when I was seven years old.
- undeveloper 11mo ago
  the alternative is depression. brain altering drugs seem preferrable
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - wkat4242 11mo ago
    Exactly. And it's a combination usually. It's really hard to do constructive therapy when you are depressed. Stabilise with the meds and then tackle the root causes with therapy. But some people just are very prone to depression and need the extra help. You wouldn't say "don't give that kid ibuprofen, let them just deal with the pain"? And SSRIs are not very strong. They do have some nasty side effects especially sexually but this is not relevant at that age so that makes it even more suitable for kids than adults.
    - quantum_magpie 11mo ago
      I would be very cautious advising SSRIs for anyone, especially developing children, considering my own experience (on sertralin), which was complete disappearance of a libido, and massive weight gain, +40kg (70 -> 110) in ~10 months. 5 years later I still have not undone the damage from it.
      - wkat4242 11mo ago
        Yeah but it's something that affects people differently. I took escitalopram and my libido was a bit reduced but mainly it became harder to orgasm. That was not all bad, it's nice to be able to last an hour and a half :) I was already heavy but didn't gain any more weight. I did lose some when I moved to other stuff though. But these side-effects just need to be checked for (and the libido issue isn't relevant to under-teens anyway).

jacobgkau 11mo ago

Your anecdote has nothing to do with whether it's better than a placebo or not.

BeetleB 11mo ago
His anecdote explicitly mentions the possibility of it being a placebo.
- jacobgkau 11mo ago
  No it doesn't. It doesn't contain the word "placebo." Can you quote where it "explicitly mentions" what you're saying it does?
  - robertakarobin 11mo ago
    > If I have a good day it's impossible to day whether that's due to Prozac. But since starting Prozac I have been much more likely to have good days than bad. So, since Prozac is cheap and I don't seem to suffer any side effects, I plan to keep taking it in perpetuity. I was acknowledging that the "good days" could be due to Prozac or could be a placebo effect, but since being on Prozac correlates with having significantly more good days, and I experience virtually no ill effects, I choose to continue with it.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
  - some_guy_nobel 11mo ago
    Wow, a shockingly argumentative tone for someone who is just flat out wrong. Beyond the response someone else commented explaining exactly where the comparison was mentioned, the anecdote itself is useful in offering an experience of someone who's life has been changed by the drug. In any case, the study mentioned in the article is a meta-analysis about children, not adults, so there is no onus on OP to qualify anything about placebo or not.
    - ozim 11mo ago
      Some people just need to have stuff spelled out for them.
    - in_cahoots 11mo ago
      To be fair, I didn't read that suggestion as being about a possible placebo effect, just that you can't attribute any one good day to the pill. It's like climate change- it undeniably exists, but you can't blame climate change for a single heat wave or freak storm.
      - cstrahan 11mo ago
        You read it that way because that’s the sensible way to read it. Everyone suggesting you missed the plot is in turn making a rather large logical leap.
burnte 11mo ago
The comment never said otherwise. They shared a personal story about how it worked for an adult.
- jacobgkau 11mo ago
  No, they shared a personal story about how they think it worked, ignoring the data saying it likely didn't.
  - burnte 11mo ago
    I said "it worked for an adult" because it did. It works. In adults. The article says it doesn't work well in adolescents, not adults. I work in mental health, I assure you fluoxetine works very well, but most drugs are not tested on non-adult populations. So this is a study on a population not normally tested to enhance the dataset we have about fluoxetine. More studies will try to replicate this result, and we'll have even more data about where it works and where it doesn't.
wisty 11mo ago
A later comment notes that it works well for some patients and not others. The argument is that drugs probably don't fix things very well unless the cause is mostly just bad brain chemistry. Some people have bad brain chemistry, others have "real" (usually more external - financial, relationships, actual life issues) problems they need to fix, and hiding from them by just taking a pill to help ignore them might not work so well. (OK bad brain chemistry is also a real problem, but one that's fixable with a pill). Also yes that's all a bit simplified. There's a stigma against pills for a number of reasons, some good and some bad, the fact that often they don't work being one reason.
- ornornor 11mo ago
  There is a case in between: sometimes the issues are too overwhelming and you can’t start fixing them until the pills give you the space you need to address them and get to a position where you can quit the pills.
directevolve 11mo ago
The study found the average effect was no different from placebo. It’s plausible, based on anecdotes like the one you’re responding to, that Prozac is harmful for some people, helpful for others, with the expected benefit close to zero. If so, it might be necessary to just try it and see if it’s obviously helping, keep taking if so, stop if not.
- robertakarobin 11mo ago
  This is, in fact, pretty much the exact procedure: try one type of treatment or medication, see if it's obviously helping, and if it isn't try a different treatment or medication. It's imprecise but it's the best we have.
  - biff1 11mo ago
    The problem is that taking certain psychotropic medications changes your brain chemistry. It’s not as simple as it sounds. It’s not like trying on shoes. The brain is dynamic and drugs alter it, as does life experience, talk therapy, disease, aging, etc…
    - directevolve 11mo ago
      That’s a statement of fact, but not intrinsically a problem. Being alive changes your brain chemistry.

techietim 11mo ago

> my 7-year-old son just started half that dose This is horrifying.

kstrauser 11mo ago
Why? If a kid has diabetes, would it be horrifying to treat it? Why would it be different for a neurochemistry issue that makes the same kid tired and sad all the time?
- jacobgkau 11mo ago
  Because the problem's not a "neurochemistry issue" (that theory's been debunked and the "chemicals" in play have never been known), and the solution is "no better than placebo."
  - dekhn 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - hintklb 11mo ago
      Not that I agree or disagree with the underlying claim but a call to "credentialism" to dismiss someone's opinion is not as strong in 2025 as you think it is. The last few years have been a proof that even the "experts" are following strong political or personal ideology. Also we don't live in the 18th century anymore. A lot of knowledge (especially around medicine) is open to the world. People can read papers, understand research etc.
      - dekhn 11mo ago
        In this area, having credentials makes a difference. Experts matter. Few if any non-medical people can read medical papers and make sense of what they say. There is simply far too much context to evaluate such papers, especially in the cases of complex medical conditions.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

nominalprose 11mo ago

I recently started giving my 11 year old SAM-e, available over the counter and much faster acting than SSRIs for serotonin support. He's been much happier and more regulated since taking it. I'd encourage folk to read up on the literature around SAM-e and consider it as a lower risk alternative to try first, that may in fact work better.

roughly 11mo ago
Out of curiosity - do you know whether SAM-e can be taken safely with SSRIs? I went looking for this a bit back and didn’t find anything conclusive. I know there’s a handful of seratonergics to steer clear of, but I didn’t get a good answer about SAM-e.

Terr_ 11mo ago

> My sister and I looked at each other and at the same time went, "Ohhhh!" I suppose the next step would be to upgrade from single-blind to double-blind, so that your mom won't know which month is the placebo month...

robertakarobin 11mo ago
Interestingly my son has an identical twin! I like to joke that one is the control and sleeps in the house and the other has to sleep in the storage shed out back, and when they're 18 we'll publish a paper comparing their emotional development. :) I always thought DNA determined pretty much everything, and we raised them exactly the same, but they have distinct personalities and some different physical features, although of course they're much more similar than they are different. My other son shows some symptoms of anxiety but not as much, yet.
- Terr_ 11mo ago
  > like to joke that one is the control and sleeps in the house and the other has to sleep in the storage shed out back Glad to see you have your priorities straight! :p https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090706 https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090706

lemming 11mo ago

I'm very sorry to hear your story, and I'm really glad the medication has worked well for you and your family. It's early days, but it seems to be working well for ours too. I also really admire the way you're dealing patiently with everyone in this thread arguing in bad faith, you have a lot more tolerance than I do! Hopefully it's not getting to you. Best wishes.

drekipus 11mo ago

> Pills are for people who feel depressed but don't have something to be depressed about -- they have food, shelter, friends, opportunities to contribute and be productive, nothing traumatic has happened, but they feel hopeless anyway This warrants a whole different discussion, and I'll be down voted for it, but one that's never addressed: quality over quantity. Pills are the individuals response to a society that feeds empty food, bland sterile shelter, fake friends, and meaningless jobs. The natural human response to a lack of meaning is hopelessness, and this comes from our society. Pills helps individuals cope with continuing the meat grinder just a little while longer. I had depression, and I cured it by finding meaning and beauty in the world. I get told "if you can cure it without pills, you never really had it" yeah cool, self fullfilling prophecy in that case innit. Can't cure it, because it doesn't exist without meds. It just comes out of "nowhere" and is here to stay.

robertakarobin 11mo ago
> I cured it by finding meaning and beauty in the world. That's incredibly fortunate and I'm very jealous of you. How would you recommend one goes about finding meaning and beauty? I'm fortunate to have had lots of unique experiences and traveled to lots of unique places and still haven't found the fulfillment that you seem to. That's basically what depression is: a debilitating feeling of lack of fulfillment, without any idea of what's missing. I'm happiest when busy building and fixing things. It could be that if I was born 200 years ago into an agrarian society where day-to-day life was focused on building and fixing things to survive, then I would have felt very fulfilled and done quite well. What were gainful full-time jobs back then have been reduced to hobbies now, though: blacksmithing, cobbling, weaving, hunting, making furniture, etc. Hobbies don't fill the hole for me. Sure, a few artisans are still able to turn those into a living, but a large part of the job is marketing and the clients are largely the wealthy elite. I've enjoyed working in food service and construction but it's hard to support a family of 4 doing those. So my career has been in software engineering since that involves building and fixing and pays well, but it still doesn't fill the hole. If this sounds whiny I'm painfully aware. What right do I have to complain about feeling unfulfilled when there are real problems in the world? And that's the very essence of major depression.

holden_nelson 11mo ago

I’m thoroughly impressed with how you handled the comments in this subthread. As someone who was on and off antidepressants for years, I can say confidently that for every one person spewing vitriol and judgement at you for your parenting decision, there was someone else solemnly nodding and sending love to you and your family. People just don’t fucking get it unless they get it. Best of luck to you.

conartist6 11mo ago

That's what freaks me out about these drugs. You-on-the-pill becomes you, and you can't ever stop.

conartist6 11mo ago
Sorry, I don't mean to second-guess your choices. There's clearly some very interesting issues here, and my experience is as someone who never felt they had any serious issues with mental health. But I do think that we have this culture where everyone is expected to be OK all the time. Do you worry at all that your son cues in to his parents relationship with the drug? I mean, say it was me, and I knew my parents took a pill so that they could "have a good day" but they didn't give me the have-a-good-day pill. I would think (perhaps subconsciously) that if I was having a bad day the drug could have made it into a good one. Having a bad day would be medical now, a reason to feel like you're sick or broken.
- robertakarobin 11mo ago
  Prozac doesn't define me. It's just something I take to address a health condition, like an iron supplement for low iron levels or amoxicillin for strep throat. My kids learned about it because they saw me taking a pill every day and asked what it was. No biggie. To be clear, Prozac is not a "feel-good" pill, it's a "gradually feel more stable" pill. It makes my lows less debilitatingly low and more manageable -- my lows are now largely logical responses to difficult events, as opposed to randomly happening for no reason at all. The effect is very gradual and subtle: you can't really evaluate it until after several weeks, and then the "evaluation" is a conversation about whether your affect has seemed generally more stable recently. An average person taking Prozac would probably notice no effect at all, good or bad. By contrast, a stimulant like Adderrall will have a noticeable effect on anyone within minutes. My son never asked for Prozac or for a "feel-good" pill. My kids have heard of addiction before so we've talked about pills that do make you feel good and why they're dangerous, and also "dopamine drips" like brainrot on YouTube.
  - conartist6 11mo ago

bbminner 11mo ago

I am surprised by how many people seemingly independently come up with a completely indescriptive "bad day" label - for the lack of a better one. Good that things are working out for you. Recently found that, on top of meds (that started wearing off - after taking them for a couple years now following a challenging life situation), going to social latin dance classes for a couple hours almost every day after work helps quite a bit.

mvdtnz 11mo ago

Sorry but giving a 7 year old prozac is psycho behaviour.

undeveloper 11mo ago
do you genuinely think depression is preferable? suicidality?
- LEDThereBeLight 11mo ago
  What do they do when they turn 15, realize they, say, have no sex drive, but have been on anti depressants for years and cannot take a break from life in order to now learn the emotional regulation skills they should have developed from 7-15? Antidepressants often mask issues which later manifest in unexpected ways, even if you don’t notice any immediate side effects.

EtienneDeLyon 11mo ago

A seven-year old child is being given a brain-altering drug? I am very happy such drugs did not exist when I was seven years old.

undeveloper 11mo ago
the alternative is depression. brain altering drugs seem preferrable
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- wkat4242 11mo ago
  Exactly. And it's a combination usually. It's really hard to do constructive therapy when you are depressed. Stabilise with the meds and then tackle the root causes with therapy. But some people just are very prone to depression and need the extra help. You wouldn't say "don't give that kid ibuprofen, let them just deal with the pain"? And SSRIs are not very strong. They do have some nasty side effects especially sexually but this is not relevant at that age so that makes it even more suitable for kids than adults.
  - quantum_magpie 11mo ago
    I would be very cautious advising SSRIs for anyone, especially developing children, considering my own experience (on sertralin), which was complete disappearance of a libido, and massive weight gain, +40kg (70 -> 110) in ~10 months. 5 years later I still have not undone the damage from it.
    - wkat4242 11mo ago
      Yeah but it's something that affects people differently. I took escitalopram and my libido was a bit reduced but mainly it became harder to orgasm. That was not all bad, it's nice to be able to last an hour and a half :) I was already heavy but didn't gain any more weight. I did lose some when I moved to other stuff though. But these side-effects just need to be checked for (and the libido issue isn't relevant to under-teens anyway).