The dangers of SSRIs | Are anti-depressants safe?

Hey guys, so today I'm going to talk about SSRIs. Somebody asked me online recently about their experiences of they've been on SSRIs for a while and they're trying to come off it so they're having some difficulties they've been off it for a while and they're seeing that they had a sort of a very very difficult withdrawal period and now they have this sense that maybe they're not going to be the same as they were before and they feel like you know constant lack of motivation a sense of apathy a feeling like even if the house was on fire they would struggle to move to or they certainly wouldn't have that sense of urgency so they're kind of afraid that there may have been damage done okay so I'm going to talk a little bit about SSRIs I'm going to talk about you know their prevalence of how they're used to treat depression and other things as well so there's a good bit in this one now let me start off by saying that my field is not psychiatry my field is psychology and I work more in talk therapies psychotherapy counseling things like that and do I feel bad that I can't prescribe any of these medications these antipsychotic medications to be honest no I do not because even if I could and again do not take any of this as medical advice it certainly isn't but even if I could I would not prescribe anyone to take SSRIs and I'll talk about why I think they're very very dangerous okay there's a lot of risks involved with them okay an awful lot of people are on these antidepressant medications now some of the statistics I have here are from an American American research because most of the best research has been done in America now they might be a little bit ahead of us in terms of the prevalence but what I'm seeing even now with people I'm talking with and working with is that more and more people are being prescribed these medications for things like anxiety even for you know behavioral issues that you might even think were anything necessarily bad okay but one in four sorry one in ten Americans are now on SSRIs and that's one in four women between in their 40s and 50s there's one in four so that's a huge huge amount of people now over the last two decades there's been a 400% increase in the use of SSRIs 400% so what I'm saying here today in this video is a little bit a sort of a word of caution and a word of a sort of a sense of what have we done here okay was it appropriate to do this did we have enough knowledge about what these medications were doing to the brain and I would argue that we didn't because we all know about the side effects and everything of these SSRIs but it's even more than that and I'll get into that now so this whole thing I will just talk about serotonin this is just one of the neurotransmitters and obviously SSRIs serotonin reuptake inhibitors are used with the focus of serotonin is the important neurotransmitter right and so why do we think serotonin if you're taking on this medical model approach that serotonin is the neurotransmitter and there is evidence to show that serotonin is very very important in in your brain in a healthy brain okay serotonin sero means blood and tonin literally means tightening so blood tightening so what do we think about when we think of that we think of hypertension we think of blood clotting okay these are two fundamental signs of the body's response to stress okay so immediately we know that serotonin it's got something to do with stress and maybe how your body and your brain help you regulate stress help you regulate you know the the fight or flight response your general mood anxiety levels and also things like when is it appropriate for a person to go numb sometimes that can be like a coping mechanism okay now serotonin there's another hormone in the brain it's very similar to this called melatonin and melatonin you might know is used when you want to go to sleep okay so when it gets dark at night the blue light that's going through your retina into your brain the light goes down and your brain gets the message time to go to sleep releases melatonin and it essentially knocks you out that's how you go to sleep now melatonin is actually derived from serotonin okay so if you've got problems with your serotonin levels you might also have problems with your melatonin okay and we know that because people who are depressed have all these sleep problems sleep disorders okay so it's kind of like the opposite of melatonin in a way now serotonin we tend to think of it in your brain right in your in between the synapses in your brain and it's a neurotransmitter but it's also important for your digestive system okay it helps you handle shock and stress now also like think about that again if serotonin is important for your fight or flight response if you've got to give a public speaker speech or something like that right you will know you get butterflies in your stomach okay so serotonin is important for that it's important in the digestive system it's not just in the brain okay now there are things we know that affect sort of natural things that affect the serotonin levels in your brain one of them is of course um sun okay the sun has a big impact on this so sort of the sun the more daylight you get and you're getting your um your vitamin d and all that stuff that can be used in the production of serotonin um the sun actually turns on serotonin production so how do we why does that make us think serotonin is important in terms of mood well think of the most depressing time of the year the most depressing time of the year is january the third week in january blue monday okay it's when we're not getting any light or sunshine okay and we get that seasonal affective disorder so serotonin that's one of the sort of natural remedies to all of this is get more sunshine right another one is too much sugar if we've got too much carbohydrate in our body in our system um you know that impacts our insulin levels become become insulin resistant if we eat too much sugar over a long period of time but there's also a lot of evidence to show that too much um sugar uh hurts the serotonin production in our body okay um so again what would it be it would be just not to eat as much sugar okay cut down on the sugar maybe increase protein and fats healthy fats in your diet now these are all remedies that are natural right go out and get more sunshine stop eating so much sugar in your food um now because these things are natural these are free okay we don't see as much of an emphasis on that what we're looking for in the medical model is just an intervention to sort of a molecular one let's go in and just replace the serotonin levels or actually inhibit how the brain handles serotonin that's actually what's happening with SSRIs it's not actually improving anything it's inhibiting but again i'll come on to that in a bit so maybe we're not told about these three uh sort of remedies because you know you can't write a prescription for sunshine okay um okay other things even the emotion of learned helplessness has been linked to serotonin okay so if a person has apathy feels like no matter what they do in life again this is associated with depression right that's got to do with serotonin learned helplessness but this whole thing why would i be skeptical about you know prescribing or telling somebody to take SSRIs to begin with but first of all i've spoken to so many people that said they had terrible withdrawals they had things like intense agitation even hostility digestive problems hallucinations fast fast heartbeats okay suicidal ideation right mood problems these are all very very real issues and these are the side effects of the of the treatment itself so let me just talk a minute here about the problem i have with the whole medical model that was applied to psychiatry right this was like back in the 80s before the 80s when the dsm-3 i think it was came out the the the manuals for psychiatry were very very different there was a lot of uh terminology in it that would be more reminiscent to freudian psychoanalysis okay there was psychological terms in it right and the problem that the psychiatric field had at the time was well they were kind of like the laughingstock of the medical profession okay they were seen as not real doctors so there was a sense that we need to put on the lab coats here we need to get more scientific and also there were other pr problems for the psychiatric profession for our area it was this thing of you know people being committed to hospital against their will and there was this whole thing about well you know our psychiatrists sort of impeding on our human rights and again that was something that was a pr problem so what happened in around 1980 with the dsm-3 when that came out the whole thing changed to a medical model it's going to be we are now looking at we're going to start classifying depression anxiety all these disorders adhd as medical problems pathogenic problems diseases of the brain essentially and what we're going to start doing is looking for little molecules that are important and replacing the molecules or reducing the levels of the molecule in the brain so a sort of idea of reducing human emotion human human motivation or human happiness to molecules molecular okay now that's an issue now the problem with that is that it's very very simplistic right believe it or not it's very very simplistic first of all multitude of studies have come out since then showing marginal benefits to any of these ssris and over long-term studies that have been done there are no benefits either similar to placebo no better than a placebo effect okay um what else was i going to say about this um the thing is right it's the idea is that well okay we can identify if serotonin for instance say in depression is the neurotransmitter that's lacking so what we're going to do is we're just going to go in and what actually happens is so here's your student here's one neuron and here's another one and they're trying to communicate and they do that with neurotransmitters they drop these little neurotransmitters into the space okay serotonin and serotonin goes over here and then that's communication okay that's sending a message serotonin you know if it's too low if there's a problem with serotonin the idea is that you're going to feel bad you're going to feel depressed now just simply looking at that what did one of the ways the serotonin reuptake inhibitors there's these little sort of gates okay little sort of funnels that their job they're on the neurons and their job is to monitor the serotonin level okay and when they feel there's enough serotonin what they do is they start taking some of the serotonin away it's the body is sort of in in balance it maintains a balance like this you know what too much serotonin not enough serotonin and what the inhibitors do is they go in and they just really gum up that those funnels it's sort of like it's actually disabling part of the neuron right it's not healing anything it's actively stopping something that was working okay from functioning properly right so this is one of the things we need to be aware of before we make a decision should we take SSRIs right so the problem with that is it's artificial and we don't know nearly as much as we think we do in terms of our ability to manipulate the levels of neurotransmitters that are between the synapses in the neurons right we think we do but we don't right we know very very little about the impact that's having now why did all the research get funded why did it don't why why do we you know so many people think SSRIs are a great option they work they're very effective well the real reason for that is we're desperate right society has become desperate people are desperate they're desperate for anything that will help them alleviate depression because it's a horrible horrible sensation horrible experience to go through depression for a long period of time okay so the depression that's they are the the the desperate need in our culture for this has led it to get this far without sort of let's hold off for a minute let's do we really understand what we're doing with this do we know what the the the side effects of it are okay because a person who's depressed and they go to the GP and all they want is just to feel better if if they can give you a prescription it's quick you know it's not cheap necessarily but it's something you know it's like thank god there's hope at least so you will take it right and people take it and then they get addicted to it right now the word psychiatrist use is not addiction because psychiatrists maintain that SSRIs are not addictive but really what that is is it's semantics because people do become addicted to SSRIs it's very very difficult difficult to come off them the word addiction is where psychiatry sort of makes a distinction what they say is dependent right so is that a distinction to me to my mind that's a distinction without a difference if you're dependent on something you're you're you're you rely on it and if you come off it you're going to feel withdrawal symptoms so they would never use addiction but people are addicted to these things okay I've talked to too many people firsthand even that have told me this so anyway I know I'm kind of all over the shop with this video there's so much to it and maybe I'll make other videos on this but what I'm saying here is the SSRIs are going into your brain and they're actually inhibiting the healthy part of your brain right and it's artificially controlling the serotonin level now what happens if you come off those SSRIs well first of all your brain will realize your brain will have gone lazy in terms of the generation of serotonin when you come off SSRIs your brain is like how do I make serotonin again because while you were taking SSRIs your other neurotransmitters your brain said well we don't need to make serotonin now let's make other neurotransmitters that could be potentially a problem do you need all those other transmitters neurotransmitters but it's forgotten maybe how to make serotonin okay so okay so what I'm saying here is really it's a sad state of affairs that as a culture we're all buying well a lot of people are buying into this idea that just a prescription will be enough okay I'm doing something about my mental health and I can see why people think that and why they do that but it's very very risky okay and as a long-term option it's fraught with problems okay first of all people think well you know I don't want to pay a therapist or a counselor whatever it is per session it's too expensive okay that's actually not true in comparison to taking antidepressants right because think about it this way most times in in counseling psychotherapy or any of the talk therapies you might do even if it's a CBT course you're doing it might take you 10 sessions it might let's say it even takes you 20 sessions right 20 sessions you're paying your psych your psychotherapist your counselor every week right now that adds up but at the end of those 20 sessions it will be hope that you're feeling better you've got more resilience you're more in touch with your emotions you know how to handle your emotions more maybe you've identified some of the stressors maybe you've talked about some of the issues that have been troubling with you troubling you right and at that time that time then you can break off from the psychotherapy maybe you can revisit it again whenever you need to or have your counselor there whenever you need them after that but if you're on antidepressants you cannot just stop taking antidepressants like that after say the period of time that you would have been doing 20 sessions of psychotherapy right so in the long run the short term you know the SSRIs antidepressants seem like they're a cheaper option in the long run they are not okay that money adds up because you don't want to get to the point where you have to start stop and take an SSRIs okay because it's a very very of course you shouldn't take them to begin with is what I'm saying but if you get to the point where you have to stop taking them you want to stop taking them because of the side effects you're going to find it difficult okay so um I don't know I think I'll stop there for today I'm going to talk about this more in other videos right um but if you're considering taking antidepressants and you're watching this video bear in mind there are so many other options before you take that option now why would you take that option well the only time when it's appropriate to take SSRIs is when you have zero options when you've you've got to the point in your life where you've had enough you can't take anymore and you have zero supports in place now when would that happen that sadly that does happen and when it does happen and a person has come to the end of their tether I can understand them taking these antidepressants okay because what it does what they all do really is numb you out it numbs you out from emotion keeps you safe okay but the problem is oftentimes when people go and they think they have no options people say take the SSRIs and the issue is you do have options okay you have a multitude of options they can be as I've said psychotherapy counseling and you can do intensive psychotherapy and counseling if you're really in a bad way invest in that that is not a waste of your money by any stretch of the imagination there are natural courses that you can take natural minerals vitamins that will help exercise routines anything okay life coaching even that will sort of go in and hands-on show you where you're making mistakes even in just your your lifestyle and your um your diet things like that okay so again I can understand it but if you're if you're under if you're considering taking SSRIs or antidepressants really trust me and give it a lot of thought before you commit to doing it because it's a big commitment and it's it's it's a decision that's fraught with danger okay so I don't want to be too negative in this I actually want this video to be more about um there are other options okay you don't have to do this um but anyway I'll probably make more videos in this soon and I think my next video is going to be about if you've already taken a course of antidepressant medications and you've come off it maybe you're living with some of the symptoms of it okay I'm going to talk about that in my next video so guys maybe this is a controversial topic I know it is but if you've got comments whatever just you can leave them below and I'll get back to you okay thanks for watching and I'll talk to you soon