Article re: treatment of depression

[pegkerr]

Happiness: Enough Already
The push for ever-greater well-being is facing a backlash, fueled by research on the value of sadness.

I am trying to figure out why this article upsets me so much. I guess because several members of my family (including me) are on medication for mood disorders. I read this as insinuating that perhaps we are just a little too eager to forego a truly authentic life in exchange for a surcease of the pain of depression. Well, actually, the article is talking about the pain of sadness, which it seems to conflate with depression.

Am I over-reacting? Your reactions?

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Not only is he conflating depression with unhappiness, he starts out conflating the voluntary medication of those who have agreed with their doctors that they need it (or at least could benefit by it) with pressuring people to seek medication against their own inclinations and their doctors' advice. He further conflates empty chipperness with genuine happiness. ("I acted perky and it didn't help," is not the same as, "I was happy and it didn't improve my life." Not by a long shot.)

I also react badly to people who act like antidepressants make people happy. I have met dozens of people who take antidepressants. Some of them found that their current meds worked for their depression and some did not, but not a single one reported being hap-hap-HAPPY all the time. If they were supposed to be happy pills they would be an utter failure for all patients instead of a moderate success for some.

Me, I got the easy brain chemistry. I don't think that this is because I am a better person than people whose brain chemistry inclines them towards depression or other mood disorders, any more than my tendency towards vertigo makes me a worse person than those whose middle and inner ears don't try to dump them on the ground on a regular basis. If someone suggested that I shouldn't seek treatment for my vertigo because other people don't fall over as much as I do and I should just suck it up and deal because that's life, I would tend to get a little upset with them as well.

[teacherla.livejournal.com]

Here, here. At best, the meds take away the weight. They don't provide euphoria, nor anything like it. But of course "Prozac" has entered the lexicon as a happy-pill, quite contrary to anything it actually does.