My son basically doesn't live at home. Help calm my fears of him taking meds What was your experience if any did you have. I Hhave no one to ask. Please talk me down. I do believe it is important to get help and take meds if need be.
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There is nothing wrong with depression medication in moderation. It takes a few months to find which one works for you though, you will know immediately because their mood and emotions will be all over the place if of its not working. It's a trial and error process.
Hopefully he has a good doctor who knows and cares to not ruin him with drugs. How old is he?
This may sound harsh but a lot of my friends all went through the same depression phases in teenage years and it is extremely difficult to know whether or not it's actual mental issues or just teenage life.
Once people hit 18-20 then it becomes more and more clear what they're dealing with and to work on methods of fixing it.
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I'm currently on sertraline which is a generic brand of Zoloft which is almost the same medicine. I can say that with this medication my anxiousness and even my depression has slowly been diminishing to nothing. Give it time to kick in (1 month or so) and ask him about how he feels with it. Also, if you're scared that he may abuse them, I can reassure you that it doesn't do anything and cannot create a "high".
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As someone with a mental illness(major clinical depression) I can agree. It is infuriating to see people that do not have depression claim they do.
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Another thing to note is to ask him and make sure that he really does have these problems.
I think a phsycologist is the best way to takle this kind of issues first. To be honest I'm kind of scared of meds that might interefere with the way I am and I think.
If a pshycologist prescribes those kind of meds I would use them, but only after months of therapy.
Also being a teenager everyone knows is a pain in the ass: the perception of reality changes, expectations are different and the production of more hormones makes the brain go a bit overboard.
Why did they prescribe Prozac?
That anti depresiva isnt really used anymore right?
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Most important thing to remember is medication alone will not fix anything. As someone who has suffered and continues to struggle with depression i can say this from experience. If depression is a broken leg then medication is not the cast, it's simply the crutch you use to get by while the cast (therapy in this analogy) does the work of actually fixing the problem.
What mrpopo is saying, is that you must find the root cause of the issue, and not use medication purely as a solution, but rather as a supplement to the solution. For example if you have a headache taking painkillers will get rid of the pain but it wont get rid of the actual cause. Treat depression as a symptom of other combined factors essentially and seek to identify and resolve those as best as you can.
Ok. I am going to try to be as straight forward about this as possible, and I am not going to bother qualifying anything that I am saying (I don't think me telling you that I have such and such experience will mean much of anything since you have no way of knowing if I am telling the truth. Believe me, I'm a doctor).
Teenage years can be incredibly hard on people. There is a lot of change all at once, and believe it or not, they still aren't entirely mature. A lot of people are capable of thinking very rationally at a young age, but we all know the sorts of things that teenagers will often convince themselves of. They will ignore their own well being because they don't have the experience or understanding to know exactly what they are doing to themselves. At the same time, they are starting to have higher expectations placed on them in society and in the family and in school, upping their stress. At the same time, their bodies are going through a lot of changes. This is a factor that they really don't like hearing about, and I would advise against bringing it up if you ever talk to him about these concerns of yours. However, there is a lot going on with their hormones which affects basically every aspect of their lives. It changes their desires, their goals, their attitudes, their needs, etc. It basically fucks with their brains.
So you have this concoction in their lives at this stretch of time that all contribute to what amounts to a lot of stress, and stress is already a big problem in today's world anyway thanks to a lot of various factors (not getting into that now). The way that I see it, teenage years are like a big test for a person. They are trained during their youth, they are coached through their teenaged years, but basically, they are the ones who are going to have to pull through. You can lead a horse to water and all that. The way that they handle stress and whatnot for the rest of their lives will really start here. So learning/developing good coping mechanisms during teenage years is important. Because life will get better for a lot of people, but there will always be stress.
But back to the hormones thing, the changes going on in them often lead to mental illnesses, depression, anxiety, etc. This is compounded by the increased stress that they are placed under. Everything happening at once like this is why I think of it like a trial period. After teenage years, everything starts settling. You start to find your place in the world, your hormones calm down, you learn to better deal with crushing futility of the world (or whatever outlook they develop).
So yeah, him developing depression is not very surprising at all. A lot of teenagers end up depressed at one point or another. What I want you to accept is that there will always be bad things happening to him. It is unavoidable. It is part of life and a very important part of the learning process. Experience is necessary. And depression and anxiety is part of the body (and psyche's) response to everything that is going on. And that is ok. It is ok to feel depressed, hopeless, anxious, whatever. A lot of people see these feelings as being something that need to be fixed, and for a lot of people, it is something that needs to be medicated away (thoughts of suicide are a good example. You want to avoid that no matter what, so medication might be necessary in certain cases). However, I see medication as a last step. I think that this is especially true for teenagers because if they don't learn to cope now, and develop an emotional or psychological or biological dependency on the medication, it will be incredibly hard to break from that later in life should things change.
So I think that step one would be to help him accept himself. Accept his feelings, accept the world and whatever is happening to him, and to cope with that constructively. Here, I think that therapy and loving/accepting/supportive family are incredibly important. You can't go through life for him, but you can support him. Exactly how to best go about that will largely depend on you two and your relationship and whatnot, but he has to know that he can count on you for love and support and guidance. And therapy is incredibly helpful to many people. There are many different kinds of therapy and one of them might be just what he is needing (I hate the idea that most people have that all therapy is the same, and that it won't help, and the it is only for crazy people). Therapy basically helps to build and exercise coping mechanisms which are incredibly helpful throughout life. So talking to him and trying therapy (of one sort or another) would be very helpful.
Another thing to note is that many doctors are really eager to prescribe medication. They know that people want a quick and easy fix, so they give it to them that way they will leave and the doctor can then go back to other patients. So just because he was prescribed something doesn't mean that he actually needs it (though don't get me wrong, many people do and in some situations it is unavoidable), but I hear "he was prescribed medication" and I think "there is a problem". It doesn't necessarily mean that the prescribed medication is the best solution. It really varies, but over-medication is a problem. So take the prescription as a sign that there is a problem that needs addressing, not that it is the end all be all for solutions.
Not sure if that helped any, but I hope it helped some.
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That's not exactly what i am saying. Depression is both the ailment and the symptom. The root cause is an imbalance of specific hormones in the brain that we refer to as depression. I was attempting to get across that medication should not be looked at as the sole solution when dealing with depression or any mental illness. Most get sick with a cold or the flu and they take a pill and get better, but it doesn't work like that with depression. What i was trying to get across is that medication is simply one component of treatment, and definitely not the lynch-pin at that. It can help alleviate the heart rending anguish or suffocating apathy that a sufferer may feel which allows time for therapy to work.
To OP, don't freak out that you're son is seeking treatment, that is a brave thing to do. Often the hardest part for any person with a mental disorder to get over is initially asking for help. If he actively wants to get better that is a great sign, it's much better than quietly giving up like alot of sufferers do.
prozac just makes stuff alot worse... youll just end up fat with diabetes and even more depressed, to which the doctor will prescibe you more prozac. Very much not worth it in the long run.
I think that's a gross over-generalization and exaggeration don't you? I was on Prozac for over a year, it wasn't the best experience of my life and eventually i moved to other medications, but what works for one person may not work for another.
He is 16 and a half.
He has been dealing with anxiety issues for a long time He has been seeing a counseller and she referred him to a physcologist and he prescribed the prozac. He has been borderline depression for years. In Jan he was diagonized with depression he scored high
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Sorry @Lisastar9 but I am not going to calm you down with this information but make sure if he shows any signs of being suicidal (talking of it/pretending to) you immediately take him to his doctor or the hospital. If that drug doesn't work for a person it can make them extremely suicidal. That is nothing to mess around with as in when that med goes wrong. Don't wait til the morning or whatever.
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There is nothing to be worried about. One thing that would be worrisome is suicidal thoughts that the medicine may cause, not all medicines will cause that. If those happen then the doctors will try him on something else. As with me, I suffer with major depression, generalized anxiety disorder along with panic attacks. Another note, dont abruptly tell him to stop taking the meds, as withdrawals can be a nightmare. Consult a doctor with those concerns. Combining therapy and medication is the best course of action. There is nothing wrong with the meds people with mental illness takes.
For me I take a pill at night before bed, it makes me sleepy and works throughout the day. I also take a benzo as needed.
What puzzles me is the fact that they prescribed him Prozac. There is far better drugs out there.
I wish your son the best as that illness can be devastating.
You also may need to find out if it is something in his life depressing him. If there is not, then it is clinical depression.
However I ues these rules. I see my shrink for my pills, I talk to my therapist and take her advice, I try and make a change for the better.
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I’m on medication, is way better compared to self medication (alcohol and drugs), when i was drinking a lot (i was never a proper alcoholic tho, i just drank to much in parties) was way worse… What i would say to my mom if she was not my mom and asking about me i would say?
Just be a friend and mom, is not fine, but just being my friend is already really fucking good.
Im not on prozac aymore, but i do take Ritalin that most likely i will need to cut in some time because i like it a little bit to much and scares me.
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