[MP-Ryan]

Yet that's just what happens...so someone could fake insanity and then go and murder someone...

Prime time TV is not a legitimate source of news.  The insanity defense is not widely used in any jurisdiction, and carries a whole different set of consequences other than jail time.  Presenting a mental illness as a defense gives you a diagnosis for life - it is not to be taken lightly.

[Mikes]

I don't see why people who commit suicide always think that a bridge is the easiest place - walking in front of a truck or crashing your car is just as easy - I have often thought about how easy it would be for someone waiting to cross the road to just walk out into the traffic.

... which might potentially cause a bigger crash. From what i read, people wanting to end their own life don't necessarily stop considering other peoples lifes.

[peterv]

MP-Ryan are there cases where the friends or family members of a patient are not allowed to contact with him/her?

[Turambar]

I don't see why people who commit suicide always think that a bridge is the easiest place - walking in front of a truck or crashing your car is just as easy - I have often thought about how easy it would be for someone waiting to cross the road to just walk out into the traffic.

... which might potentially cause a bigger crash. From what i read, people wanting to end their own life don't necessarily stop considering other peoples lifes.

Besides, you have to rely on the person in the car to not stop. They always stop. Or at least try, and if they are going too slowly, all you get is injured. And not deadified. I tried it once. >.<

[Snail]

About 2 years ago I got hit by a rather large truck moving rather fast. Did not die.

[MP-Ryan]

MP-Ryan are there cases where the friends or family members of a patient are not allowed to contact with him/her?

Depends on the jurisdiction and requests of the patient.  In general, privacy law permits immediate family (spouse, children, or parents) with the legal right of visitation and access.  The patient can always stipulate that such contact is not allowed, however.

Secure psychiatric facilities (especially custodial facilities for "not criminally responsible" patients who have committed serious crimes) have restrictive visiting hours, but unless there is a request by the patient or a court order, immediate family has a right to access for visitation at such times as reasonably permitted by the facility.

I think what you're asking is if medical personnel can prohibit the contact of a patient with their family and - in all but exceptional circumstances which inevitably include court action - the answer is no.  At least, in countries adhering to Common Law legal standards (Britain, Canada, USA, Australia, etc).

[perihelion]

I don't like taking antidepressants because I distinguish depression-due-to-brain-suckage from depression-due-to-life-suckage. My psychiatrist, on the other hand, seems convinced that pills will somehow cause my life to be less suck.

I don't think you can separate the two as easily as that.  There is a feedback loop involved between the outside events of a person's life and chemistry that causes a person's thoughts to tend this way or that way.  It isn't called the "long downward spiral" for nothing.  You could take a person with reasonably normal brain chemistry and put them in a sufficiently hellish situation, and the person that comes out could have drastically different, clinically depressed, brain chemistry at the end.  So even when they are removed from the situation that induced depressive or GAD-like tendencies, the abnormal brain chemistry may not only persist but actually feed back on itself until it is worse than it ever was while the stressful situation was ongoing.  PTSS is an extreme example of this.

That said, I advise extreme caution whenever anti-depressants are being bandied about.  My experience with them was not pleasant.  The "cure" if you want to call it that was nearly as bad as the disease.  I needed something to make me a functional human being again until I could get myself out of the situation that caused this mess in the first place.  But those pills left me completely numb.  At least before, as bad off as I was, I could still experience feelings of joy and happiness, infrequent though they were.  While I was on meds, I could feel hardly anything.

Once we got out of there and things got better, I decided to slowly ween myself off them.  That sucked.  That sucked very much bad.  I'd read about SSRI discontinuation syndrome and thought I was ready as long as I brought dosage down slowly enough.  Words cannot describe how wrong I was.  THAT could drive a person to suicide.  I thought I was losing my mind.

I needed to be on medication; I don't argue that point.  I was not well.  But I would endure almost anything rather than have to go on meds again.

[MP-Ryan]

... which might potentially cause a bigger crash. From what i read, people wanting to end their own life don't necessarily stop considering other peoples lifes.

Absolutely.  Most planned suicides have all of their affairs (legal, financial, etc) in order, actually say goodbye to their loved ones (whether said loved ones realize it at the time or not is usually the factor by which a suicide is prevented or not) and choose a means of death least likely to cause a bother to anyone else.  Generalizing, men tend to be quick and violent (gunshots, intentional single-vehicle collisions with obstacles, hanging) whereas women prefer quieter, non-painful methods.

Planners do not want their plan to be revealed, and choose methods which no one can conceivably stop at the moment they intend to do it.  The low-risk attempts which tend to fall into the "seeking help through inappropriate means" category choose means in which intervention is possible (if not always likely).  Wrist-slashers are not suicide attempts; cutting is an expression of personal pain and can be viewed more in the cry for help category than serious suicide category (unless they do it properly, but that's exceedingly rare).  Jumpers who hesitate are also in this category.  Even hanging (depending on location and circumstances) is a suicide method that falls more into the cry for help category than an actual plan because there is a chance, however remote, of someone intervening.

Suicide-by-vehicle and suicide-by-cop are both pretty rare occurrences because they involve uncontrolled circumstances that depend on the actions of others.  Not to say they don't happen, but for someone with a serious desire to commit suicide they aren't a common choice.

Incidentally, if anyone ever tells you they are considering suicide, your first questions is ALWAYS:  "Have you made a plan to kill yourself?"  Followed immediately with "Why do you want to die?"  Stark reality occasionally gets through, and removing the mystique of suicide is a really important method of deterring or delaying the attempt long enough to get professional help.

[MP-Ryan]

I needed to be on medication; I don't argue that point.  I was not well.  But I would endure almost anything rather than have to go on meds again.

The new ones have a lot fewer side effects than first-generation SSRIs.  2nd Gen SSRIs and atypicals (like Buproprion in particular) minimize side effects and maintain a high degree of normal emotional affect.

That said, NONE of them should be used in children.  Even adolescents are fairly iffy - teens undergo a variety of emotional changes anyway, and teens "diagnosed" with major depressive disorder usually don't actually have it.

[peterv]

Depends on the jurisdiction and requests of the patient.  In general, privacy law permits immediate family (spouse, children, or parents) with the legal right of visitation and access.  The patient can always stipulate that such contact is not allowed, however.

Secure psychiatric facilities (especially custodial facilities for "not criminally responsible" patients who have committed serious crimes) have restrictive visiting hours, but unless there is a request by the patient or a court order, immediate family has a right to access for visitation at such times as reasonably permitted by the facility.

I think what you're asking is if medical personnel can prohibit the contact of a patient with their family and - in all but exceptional circumstances which inevitably include court action - the answer is no.  At least, in countries adhering to Common Law legal standards (Britain, Canada, USA, Australia, etc).

And for treatment purposes? I'm asking because i had a friend ho committed suicide a few months after his treatment in a clinic and during that period his family didn't allow me, or any other of his friends to see him, saying that this was the doctors order.

[High Max]

|

[Hellstryker]

Modern anti-depressants are very, very good.

Have to disagree there, Ryan. I'm going to take a guess here and say you're not actually depressed or have been yourself, and the only way to fully understand it is if you are and or have been. I was on anti-depressants for... let's see... 3, 4 years? They stopped working about 1 year in, and actually left me somewhat addicted (Okay, addiction isn't really the right term. more like fear of not taking them). Once your brain kicks in and you realize how ****ed up the situation you're in really is, you think to yourself "holy ****, maybe I really should be depressed".

Now, I'm probably going to take a lot of flak for saying this, but I view depression as an early warning system of sorts. The bodies way of saying you need to change. Now I see a lot of you calling depressed people unmotivated, or lacking in willpower, but that could just as easily be diagnosed as a symptom of modern society.

[Turambar]

I will say that suicidal people have a better sense of humor than High Max.  Also, that last post of mine in this thread was iamzack over at my house. 

Sixty Nine Dudes!!!
[air guitar][/air guitar]

[/bill and ted]

[perihelion]

The new ones have a lot fewer side effects than first-generation SSRIs.  2nd Gen SSRIs and atypicals (like Buproprion in particular) minimize side effects and maintain a high degree of normal emotional affect.

I hope so for the sake of those unfortunate enough to need them.  I think Paxil probably qualifies as 1st-generation SSRI, but I'm pretty sure Effexor does not.  Both of them have nasty discontinuation problems, and the way effexor was handled back then (I'm not sure about its current delivery system, or if it is even still in use), it was almost impossible to reduce your dosage slow enough to make any difference from stopping cold turkey.  Once I'd been off for about two months, the panic attacks stopped and I could hold down food, I swore up and down, never again.

I'm not sure if the age comment was directed at me, but I wasn't a teenager at the time.  I was 23-24.

[iamzack]

My Zoloft actually helps a ton by making my mood much more stable.

But I still hate it because I don't like trying to go about my day knowing my good feelings are mostly fake.

Also I hate it because if I miss it two days in a row I go into withdrawal and am generally miserable.

[MP-Ryan]

And for treatment purposes? I'm asking because i had a friend ho committed suicide a few months after his treatment in a clinic and during that period his family didn't allow me, or any other of his friends to see him, saying that this was the doctors order.

You answered your own question:  the family didn't allow you to see him.  Doctors can make orders all they like, but they don't trample on legal rights.  As family, they have rights to visitation (and for minors, rights in choosing medical care).  Friends have no legal standing whatsoever.

[iamzack]

And for treatment purposes? I'm asking because i had a friend ho committed suicide a few months after his treatment in a clinic and during that period his family didn't allow me, or any other of his friends to see him, saying that this was the doctors order.

You answered your own question:  the family didn't allow you to see him.  Doctors can make orders all they like, but they don't trample on legal rights.  As family, they have rights to visitation (and for minors, rights in choosing medical care).  Friends have no legal standing whatsoever.

Which sucks a fat donkey ****.

[General Battuta]

Modern anti-depressants are very, very good.

Have to disagree there, Ryan. I'm going to take a guess here and say you're not actually depressed or have been yourself, and the only way to fully understand it is if you are and or have been. I was on anti-depressants for... let's see... 3, 4 years? They stopped working about 1 year in, and actually left me somewhat addicted (Okay, addiction isn't really the right term. more like fear of not taking them). Once your brain kicks in and you realize how ****ed up the situation you're in really is, you think to yourself "holy ****, maybe I really should be depressed".

Now, I'm probably going to take a lot of flak for saying this, but I view depression as an early warning system of sorts. The bodies way of saying you need to change. Now I see a lot of you calling depressed people unmotivated, or lacking in willpower, but that could just as easily be diagnosed as a symptom of modern society.

Anecdotal evidence is heuristically powerful but not necessarily a good way to diagnose the overall effectiveness of modern anti-depressants, and the data suggests they work in most (but not by any means all) cases. Reactions, of course, vary.

I'm not sure what your second paragraph means. Depression is, of course, a reaction to adverse life events.

Any attacks on 'modern society' require that you make an effort to define 'modern society' and differentiate it from any other society.

[MP-Ryan]

Have to disagree there, Ryan. I'm going to take a guess here and say you're not actually depressed or have been yourself, and the only way to fully understand it is if you are and or have been. I was on anti-depressants for... let's see... 3, 4 years? They stopped working about 1 year in, and actually left me somewhat addicted (Okay, addiction isn't really the right term. more like fear of not taking them). Once your brain kicks in and you realize how ****ed up the situation you're in really is, you think to yourself "holy ****, maybe I really should be depressed".

Take an MAOI or first generation antidepressant and then tell me what you think  

Seriously, modern SSRIs are a world of difference from the older medications, and the atypicals are even better (Buproprion is better known by its commercial name, Zyban, and it and Zoloft, which is a Generation 2 SSRI are two of the best on the market).

Not all depression itself is situational, but it is true that depression can be triggered by circumstances.  However, "depression" that disappears just because circumstances improve isn't depression:  it's called stress, and the two are often confused.

And given that your profile says you are 15, there is no way in hell you should EVER have been prescribed any sort of anti-depressant.  They are not tested in adolescents, and they don't work on adolescents.

Now, I'm probably going to take a lot of flak for saying this, but I view depression as an early warning system of sorts. The bodies way of saying you need to change. Now I see a lot of you calling depressed people unmotivated, or lacking in willpower, but that could just as easily be diagnosed as a symptom of modern society.

Major depressive disorder creates a literal inability to utilize cognitive thinking and complex planning - this is extremely different to what you're referring to, which is apathy.  And that is a falsehood anyway; people have been saying this crap about the downfall of modern society since language was invented, and prior to that they drew paintings.

---

It occurs to me that it wouldn't hurt to have the DSM-IV-TR definition of depression in this thread.  This is the best capture of it I could find open on the web (unfortunately, the DSM-IV is a copyrighted work which requires a subscription or purchase).  http://counsellingresource.com/distress/mood-disorders/depression-symptoms.html  Be sure to read the definition of major depressive episode as well.

[MP-Ryan]

I'm just not a fan of oral medication since they have a habit of giving you bad side effects (been there done that long ago) and I almost died when I was 12 from a medication in school. It is scary when you can't control your neck pulling itself back and your breathing gets cut off, off and on.

That's called anaphylactic shock.  Not a side effect, but more of a negative effect that means you shouldn't be taking that particular med =)

It seems to make you feel less emotion in general and that is not a good feeling. They can actually make you want to commit suicide more, they say.  I hear on commercials that one possible side effect of anti-depressants is the tendency to want to commit suicide. So I'd think it would be a no-no for people who already have that train of thought.

I always want to know who this mysterious "they" is.  In my experience, "they" is usually a euphemism for "I have this misconception and I really want to present it as a fact because I may have heard it somewhere but have no idea where."  That's an aside.  Anyway.

Antidepressants increase suicidal ideation because, as people recover from a major depressive episode, their motivation and ability increase to a point where they can now carry out a plan formed during the depressive episode.  Which is why (1) people are required to continue taking antidepressants weeks after the symptoms have disappeared in order to stabilize their mood and prevent relapse, and (2) anyone taking antidepressants should be carefully monitored by family, friends, and medical professionals.

Generally, the increased suicidal ideation and subsequent risk of suicide only lasts a week or so, and it doesn't manifest in everyone.