I do think that almost every medication can be bad for someone, just as they can be life savers for others.. precisely because we don't know enough about how the brain works. SSRIs for example, are not some magic to make depression go away.. they block the receptors in synapses in the brain so that the brain cannot read correctly the amount of serotonin there. That is all they are designed to do.. further depends on the individual and how there body responds to this inhibiting action.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter and when the brain doesn't think it has enough of it it will start to produce extra.. When you have extra serotonin some aspects of brain function are improved. Serotonin is naturally produced during sleep. When I was on SSRIs it was like always having a good night's sleep. But coming off them or on them or changing dose can have precisely the opposite effect for a few days or weeks before the change kicks in because your body does not make the adjustment smoothly. These are risk times as you can have worsening of impulses or depressive symptoms. So you have to keep talking to the doctor about symptoms and side effects.

Sometimes anti depressants work perfectly. Sometimes the side effects are not a worry, other times they can be so bad it is not worth taking the medication. Sometimes an anti depressant simply doesn't work for someone. You can try different ones of course, but there will always be some people that do not respond positively to any medication. There have also been studies done that show that where anti depressants are only effective with a certain percent of people, exercise almost always improves depression symptoms and is consistently more reliable than all anti depressants. No reason why you can't use both of course.. and then there are a lot of people who are unable to exercise for one reason or another.

I think medication is a great tool that works brilliantly for some people and not for others. For me in past depressive periods sertraline was very effective. Just now I have a more complex diagnosis and unless certain symptoms becoming much worse I have decided not to use medication for now but after seeing how I do with some therapy I will consider the use of a mood stabilising tricyclic drug if I don't see rapid improvement. That is my plan. But my point for telling you is that I worked all this out in discussion with a psychiatrist. It is good to read about how the brain works, but I think it is important not to make decisions alone, but with a professional you can trust.

I think it is really important for us all to have helpful professionals to suggest things and explain things to us. But also to be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the various medications that are out there. And that they are not the only answer. There is also therapy, alternative therapies, mindfulness, exercise etc etc. lots of ways to adjust lifestyle to help improve mental health symptoms. It is usually a combo of different things that gives someone a recovery. When medication is the right thing, it won't be the only thing to do to get better.