I think antidepressants can help with many of the symptoms everyone is having!

Obviously you think like everyone else in the medical field.
Anxiety an depression along with many mntal issues are a signals the body gives off when something is out of balance.
Antidepressants imo are just bandaids to cover up the real underlying problem.
Btw anti depressant do nothing to help those that are highly toxic.

I agree Strength, people who are toxic can become very ill from taking anti-depressants

Doctors have tried for the past 10 years to feed all types of antidepressants,and anti anxiety meds.
I never took any of them as desperate for releif as i was because something deep down told me something else was wrong.
And that's the reason that allowed me to find the real problem(hopefully)and why i feel the way i do,so after so many years of suffering and not feeling like myself,i finally have some kind of hope to being normal one day.
Discovered i was mercury poisoned in the beginning of june06,in the process of having my amalgam fillings replaced.

well there could be a number of circumstances causing your problems and antidepressants do help calm you down !

No thanks i would rather addres the root problem.

Andy Cutler recommends the use of antidepressants to help stabilize people during detoxification but not as a long term solution. I'm trying that now. However, I have a traumatic brain injury as well as mercury poisoning so that makes my case a very complex one.

Well let me correct myself,i refuse to use (paxil,effexor,etc...)
I did not rule out natural anti depressants,just the ones that will more than likely become dependent on.
As we know doctors do not prescribe herbal medication.

I agree. I think that is the reason the majority of us are here. We want to address the root problem. How are we going to know whether something is working or not if our psychological symptoms are masked with a pharmaceutical.

Antidepressants can be life saving for some but ultimately they are just a bandaid. I don't want to live in a state of denial. I just want to clear up this problem and move on with my life.

People have gotten by on this earth for thousands and thousands of years without the intervention of antidepressants. I think that part of the problem lies within the fact that due to televison and the media etc, that we have developed a twisted view of how life is supposed to be.

It appears that our life mission is to be 'happy' and if we aren't then something is wrong with us. Life is a cross section of many emotions - joy, sadness, jealousy, passion, boredom, despair, contentment....... Happiness is only one aspect.

Many of us here on this forum understand this and the problem seems to be that we did once exhibit and experience these emotions but as time goes by the happiness sectors are being overtaken by the states of anxiety and depression.

Just a matter of time, a matter of patience and a matter of detox.
Best of luck to everyone.

Very well put,if you need antidepressants to get by,it's your choice to use them and i am not arguing that,but always seek to find the root of the problem.
If not it will be like being inside a revolving door without an exit,you'll never get out,and will always end up in the same position.
Have faith everyone,and understand that everything happens for a specific reason.
I know because this situation has humbled me quite a bit,and i now look at life from an entirely different pespective.

I agree with Tracy, Strength, Anon.,

I gave in and tried two different antidepressants, Zoloft and 2 years later Paxil. They didn't seem to do any good for me and the Paxil was a total nightmare to wean off of. The Dr. and the info from the drug company told me that it wasn't additive, but I beg to differ. I found help in getting off from a "weaning off paxil forum". It took many months and suffering through side effects. That is why I am so very strongly anti-drug use.

Depression (for no obvious reason like death of loved one etc.) is not normal or something that you can just decide to get over. It is your body telling you something is missing.

In the book "The Miracle of Magnesium" she makes the statement that "someone who is mg def. can't possibly have a zest for living." I totally could relate. Magnesium has made the biggest difference in me physicaly and mentally.

Mercury toxic people are mg deficient as it blocks it and it is used in detoxing among tons of other things.

i second that about magnesium, it makes all the difference in the world!

I used to suffer really badly with heart palpitations and anxiety, started taking magnesium and both disappeared. I can't praise it enough.