The idea of medication for the dificulties we face in living is based on an unproven paradigm;
that there is a chemical cause to the problem
I agree that there is scant understanding of the brain, mood, how it works.
Personally - I lived without antidepressants for a long, long time. When my dysthemic depression was overwhelmed by a major depressive episode, I started meds, because something needed to happen. I had ground to a halt.
I was prescribed an SNRI - there is more data backing these up - both in terms of efficacy and discontinuation syndrome. (
@Anarchy - the 'brain zaps' you mentioned, as far as I am aware, are actually associated with SNRIs, not SSRIs; there are pretty big differences between the two).
However it worked, it did work. The SNRI eliminated a number of the physical symptoms of the depression, and that allowed me to engage in cognitive therapy. I have never experienced a mood lift from any of the classes of meds I've taken, since. What they do for me is very real, though - they cut the 'bottom' off of the depression, making it easier to not go so low. This ends up helping me stay alive.
Again: I'm talking about depression, not PTSD. My depression is pervasive and treatment-resistant. Since my initial episode, I've had two more, and I'm not sure I've really come out of the last one. From the inside, I am fairly sure that without the meds, I would be non-functioning. My family also has a heavy genetic load, mental-illness wise. So, personally - I don't believe it's all nonsense. I believe there are some of us who benefit from psychotropic medication, and legitimately need it. I don't know if Ill ever get off of it.
But that's not nearly the case for everyone, and I don't disagree that there's a lot of bad meds out there, a lot of bad prescribing, and certainly in the US it's big business, which makes it all the more unreliable.
SSRIs are proving, more and more, to be no better than placebo. But SNRIs have greater efficacy rates, as do Antipsychotics, Atypical Antipsychotics, Mood stabilizers, MAOIs, and anti-convulsants.
There is no medication that is actually 'for' PTSD. When medicating PTSD, you are focusing on which symptoms you need help managing, that's all.
And..getting back to the main topic - for PTSD, I've taken various benzos PRN (as needed), and was using Prazosin for a time for sleep, until that needed to be switched and was gabapentin for awhile. Currently, I'm not medicated for PTSD, only for major depression.
