Should I take antidepressants for my grief?

Let's look at what antidepressants are, how they work, and what they do to the mind and body.

Antidepressants are a group of chemicals that were actually invented by accident while chemists were trying to develop a new medicine for tuberculosis in the 1950s. All these chemicals do is balance out chemicals in the brain that cause happiness.

These chemicals include serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. In various ways, different antidepressants seem to affect how the neurotransmitters in our brain perceive signals from our thoughts and feelings and trigger a false "happy" response even though the original thoughts and emotions still exist.

Antidepressants work by balancing chemicals in your brain called neurotransmitters. These affect how we respond to our thoughts, mood, and emotions. These chemicals used to treat the symptoms of depression, can alter your mood, help you sleep better, and increase your appetite and concentration. For some people that are having trouble functioning because of their grief it may be a temporary fix.

They are commonly called medication or medicine but... They are NOT medicine because they do not heal any sickness... Antidepressants do not help you heal from ANYTHING.

When a doctor prescribes us "medicine" we assume that the "medicine" will in some way heal us from what ailes us or help alleviate the symptoms of a sickness, injury, or condition.

Grief is not a sickness, injury, or condition.

Grief is a complex group of emotions that cause suffering triggered by the loss of a loved one. A chemical that simply bypasses our trauma and forces us to "feel happy" all the time does not allow us to process the emotions, the feelings, or the grief. In fact, it will just force us to store all that negative energy in our memory and our cells until a time comes that we stop taking the chemicals. Once we do discontinue the use of these chemicals, all of our original thoughts, feelings, emotions, and grief will resurface and we will be forced to relive the entire experience as if it just happened.

It is the desire of the pharmaceutical companies that created these chemicals for us to remain on these chemicals for life. We are their "customers" and without us, they would not exist.

I am currently watching the series "Dopesick" on Hulu and this show is a perfect example of this. The pharmaceutical company that invented Oxycontin deliberately lied to the public and to prescribing doctors that their "miracle pain reliever" was non addictive and harmless. From 1999 to 2019, more than 247,000 people died in the United States from overdoses involving these "harmless" prescription opioids.

Do antidepressants help with grief? That is a loaded question...

Grief is NOT depression. Although the symptoms are very similar, grief is NOT caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. So technically, grief is NOT a diagnosable sickness. It is a temporary mindset caused by the loss of a loved one.

Complicated Grief, or Prolonged Grief Disorder are classified as forms of depression or mental illness and are caused when the grief is not processed in a "reasonable" amount of time and the negative energy causes a chemical imbalance in the brain.

In that case, antidepressants may help alleviate the imbalance.

With all that being said....

The ONLY way to heal from grief is to allow ourselves to feel what we feel and to do whatever it is that we can do to help ourselves process the thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

I have done a lot of research in this and found that the practice of meditation and mindfulness can help us to heal from our grief, because it teaches us to live in the present moment... where our grief resides. It gives us better access to the "now," thereby helping us become more aware of our pain and sadness, and in turn begin to heal it.

Meditation also is a natural way to balance the chemicals in the brain and can significantly affect hormones and neurotransmitters such as cortisol, dehydroepi-androstrone, serotonin, melatonin, and epinephrine. Studies have also shown a 65% increase in dopamine production after meditation.

Here is a link to my YouTube channel where you can find some guided meditations to assist you in your healing.

The decision is yours. Just do the research before agreeing to introduce chemicals into your body that are being prescribed to you by a "salesman" who's job is to treat you for as long as he can while charging your insurance company and receiving kickbacks from the companies that create the chemicals.

CERTIFIED
© Copyright 2024 Jay Deutsch • Self Love & Mindset Coach
Website by HudsonValleyWebDesign
The information on this website and coaching service is provided as an informational resource only, and is not to be used or relied on for any diagnostic treatment purposes or considered professional medical advice. This information is not intended to be patient education, does not create any patient-therapist relationship, and should not be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis or treatment. I waive all claims which might arise from my use of this website and release any person or entity connected with this website of any liability.
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram