In 'Ted talks' Helen Fisher briefly discusses the effects of anti-depressants on the brain and the area where attachment occurs.
It is so significant, it bears repeating here.
And to be clear, this does not apply to short term use for conditions that would otherwise leave the patient with little hope for their existence, placing them in danger of wanting to 'meet their maker' before their designated time (if there is such a thing - food for thought and another post).
But considering that about 100 million prescriptions of anti-depressants are filled every year in the U.S. alone, (many of which are being extended into long term use and going globally generic), there is tremendous cause for concern.
In a nutshell, here's what she said:
Anti-depressants raise the levels of seratonin and that suppresses the dopamine circuit in your brain which is associated with romantic love. Plus it kills the sex drive, which kills orgasm, which kills that flood of drugs released that's associated with attachment in that area of the brain. And a "world without love is a deadly place."
Her words. And I couldn't agree more.
It scares me to think the world is headed in a direction full of automatons walking around functioning perfectly well, but unable to feel enough to form a real attachment to anyone.
But I've known many people on anti-depressants. You couldn't really tell if they didn't fess up, because they are functioning... properly.
Now I don't think Fisher is right about everything she says... For instance, she "doesn't honestly think we are an animal that was built to be happy but rather we were an animal that was built to reproduce."
I think we are inherently happy, (or perhaps more accurately, beings designed to re-access the peaceful state that is our true nature). That's why being miserable bugs us so much - because it's not a comfortable state - but more on that later.
Anyway, to give her credit, she does go on to say we make our own happiness and can still make good relationships as a result of that choice. (Which I think is also true but not because we are fundamentally unhappy).
Unfortunately, I think my view has caused the demise of some of my own personal relationships but that is neither here nor there. (I'm still trying to figure that one out).
But Fisher's point regarding anti-depressants in instinctively valid.
Anti-depressants may help people to be less depressed. But to do that, they have to make them feel less about well, everything.
It's not that they walk around like zombies, they just walk around feeling less of what it is to be human.
Instead of a spectrum of emotions that ranges from A to Z, on anti-depressants, theirs runs somewhere from M to P.
Now assuming A would be complete and utter bliss, and Z would be its opposite (ie; sheer agony), you might not want your life to reflect the entire spectrum but... to grow, a greater range is necessary.
And as a human being, you couldn't even begin to understand one emotion without having at some point, felt its opposite.
A person who lives only in suffering cannot conceive of happiness and vice versa. But a range of emotion that runs from M to P would leave you with little room to grow as you could never experience the opposite of anything.
Personally, I wouldn't mind starting around C and ending around W. Or maybe even starting at A and ending at W.
Anyway, I think it's our ability to harness our emotions but also let them out that frees us to experience what it is to be fully human.
But anti-depressants aren't the only killers of love.
Sometimes I think people suffer so much they've developped their own version of anti-depressants. They stop feeling. Or they have walls so high you can't see over them. Or nothing gets through.
And that's all fine and dandy. As a matter of fact, it serves the very noble purpose of self-preservation. Unfortunately, it also has the distinct effect of eventually making one less human, less accessible.
And a life lived like that, would totally suck.
What remains in that case, is a gap. And leaping beyond that void to embrace what is rightfully theirs to have - the A to Z part of the human experience - becomes an impossibility because they spend most of their time in an unfeeling state.
It's called apathy.
Also known as a neutral state because it harbors neither positive nor negative emotion, yet it is not positively detached as it stems from an uncaring, self-protective state.
And it's the most difficult of emotions (because it's a non-emotion) to transcend, as it sits at the bottom of the ladder. Alone. In the dark. A mark of someone's fear of not wanting to feel anything anymore (lest the opposite eventually rear its ugly head), yet so insidiously comfortable it makes a mockery of the rest of the emotional family and their silly 'feelings'.
That's what I think anti-depressants do. You laugh, you cry, you still function. But how much of it do you really feel? In your gut? In your heart?
I think the frustration and joy of experiencing emotions you want to let loose on (love) and those you fear (its opposite, rejection), are gone.
And so is your motivation to find the good ones and risk what it takes to keep them.
Long term anti-depressant use and long-term emotional self-preservation are each habits that keep you safe, but also limit your human experience.
The good news is, both are choices. And choices, can be changed.
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