For those that are interested I suggest you read Blaming the Brain : The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health
by Elliot Valenstein. It was required reading for more than one class i took in college and a professor who became a kind of mentor also reccomended it to me and was quite pleased when I told him that I've already read it.
This is certainly not a defense of the drug developors or psychiatric profession, but we're working with the best we have. It's a tug of war, nobody really wants us to say "we don't know" so we try to work with what we do know to help those we can. And this is certainly true about the mental health "industry." We simply don't know enough, I'll be the first to tell you I think the serotonin models and dopamine models of mental health, schizophrenia, depression and whatever else you can come up with that's attributed to "imblanaces" is not completely or even close to right. But it's a start. The brain is such a complex organ that it seems insurmountable that we'll ever figure it out. We're having trouble figuring out individual neurons let alone systems and collections of neurons. More and more it seems that it's harder and harder to generalize from lab animals to people when it comes to the effect of "mental health" drugs on the brain. BUT SSRI's and SSNRI's are our newest lead and the "best" we've got. As it turns out these new drugs help some and hurt others.
So what is it we'd like to do? Just discount SSRI's all together and leave everyone in the lurch? Or should we help those we can and work with those that don't seem to have the same favorable reactions. I think certainly anyone who is suffering from the pangs of "mental illness" (and i hate that fucking word) would be willing to take the gamble and see if SSRI's work for them. The gamble requires that you be VERY observant of your reactions and report any findings immediately to your Doctor. Nobody likes to be told "There's nothing we can do for you" and if there's a chance that something might work, most people will take it. Thus conflicting stories regarding modern psychomedications.
A word about Doctors, If you're getting these drugs from your family practioner, then I suggest you make an appointment with a psychologist too. Family Practioniers or General Practioners most often do not know more than what the drug company representative has told them or what's written on the pamphlet. The drug industry is exploding so fast that it's hard to be abreast of everything that comes out. That's why seeing a specialist is so VERY important.
Here is where some people may diverge from my point of thinking. If you're having issues that you think may require medications or some issues you're not quite happy with, then i suggest you shop around for a psychologist/psychotherapist FIRST and foremost. The person you finally settle with should be someone you can tell anything even if you want to tell them you'd like to shit on their persian rug and wipe your ass with his/her diplomas. I think the first route to correcting "mental abnormalities" should be talk therapy, if your psychologist/therapist thinks you should try medications they will refer you to a doctor who will write you a prescription. The Rx in combination with therapy in my opinion leads to the best chance of "success," iIf the therapist thinks you might benefit from medication in conjunction with therapy. I think we're too quickly becoming a culture that is looking for a quick fix and a pill to take and a "call in the morning."
Medication is not always the answer, that is why I always would suggest first and foremost talk therapy, this will help diagnose your "problem" while you get to know your therapist(s), even if it's bipolar or schizophrenia. There have been some cases of schizophrenia that have been cured with talk therapy alone, believe it or not. The book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is a chronicle of that. It's not a journal account, but a retelling of a story of an actual girl and her doctor, the names have been changed somewhat and it's sold as fiction though it's based on a true story.
In the future the models of mental illness we have will be changed drastically as we learn more and more about how the brain functions. It's just simply too much of a mystery right now, and generalizations from lab animals to humans is the hardest leap to make when it comes to our brains. Anyone who's taken a behavioral endrocrinology class can tell you that.
Now for Paxil. The UK has just passed a law that forbids the prescribing of many mental illness drugs, like prozac and the like, to children. The US seems to have some lag in that direction and who knows if it will ever happen. Some recent findings show that the FDA has suppressed some information that shows a clear link between these drugs and juvenile suicide. That should be something interesting to follow. The Bottom line is, Paxil isn't for everyone, and we can't even figure out why it really works for some and not for others, or even HOW exactly these drugs work themselves other than we know they block the reuptake of serotonin into the neuronal axon terminal. But none the less they provide some relief for some people. Will it be relief for you? Who knows, Are you disturbed enough by your condition to take that gamble? Most are. The bottom line here, is mindfulness and carefulness. Be aware of what's going on, what you're taking, and the side effects you experience, and be in constant communciation with your health and mental healthcare practitioners! This is key.
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