I'm surprised to see this thread is still going on - have you come to your own conclusions on this yet, Amor? You have a metric f**k ton of feedback to sift through now!

Therapists are good for those who do not feel comfortable speaking to friends about their personal issues, or for those without friends to talk to.

But talking about your problems helps, period. Talking things out just helps. You don't necessarily need a Therapist for that and if you're uncomfortable being there then it probably isn't worth it. But Therapists are trained professionals who will try and decipher the issues that you face and try to help you as much as possible. If you are willing to go and talk to a Therapist they can be really good and at times better than your friends. A good friend can help, but friends often are not trained in any sort of psychology. They would not be as effective at counseling you as a trained Therapist would.

There's pros and cons to both.

And medication also has lots of pro's and cons. Some medicines could make you worse and some medicines could make you feel better. It all depends on who you are and what medication it is.

But despite all these pro's and cons, the point I want to emphasize is change. You should not see these pro's and cons and then feel discouraged from changing. You should still seek a way to change the things in your life that leave you dissatisfied. Otherwise all that will happen is that you will continue down the path you are already on. Nothing will get better because nothing will have changed.

So despite Therapy and Medication being extremely subjective to work for individual people. Not trying to do either of them is actually much worse than trying and failing.

amor says

Smoking = paranoia
Drinking = rage
Food = why i'm fat

sounds like a good night

Job, positive stress IE working out, sex

although this has probably already been answered:

After getting diagnosed by a doctor for a psychiatric disorder like depression or anxiety, do you have to do talk therapy in order to continue to get medicine?
i'm sure it'd depend on where this person lives. for example, in the UK where i live there's pretty much no connection between therapy and pharmaceuticals. all i have to do when i run out of antidepressants is go back to my doctor and ask for another prescription.

My friend has been thinking about going to the doctors lately but s/he had a traumatic experience with a psychologist when s/he was a pre-teen. S/he doesn't mind seeing one temporarily but not as a long-term treatment plan. S/he would rather not even get help.
therapy doesn't help everyone, so there's no need to act like it's mandatory or a chore (unless for some reason, it literally is mandatory). therapy didn't help me at all because i really didn't like being there and talking to a therapist, so i would always answer with whatever would get the therapist to leave me alone fastest, which obviously isn't very productive.

avg night 4 me = eat fruit and try to be healthy, order pizza afterwards

Smoking = paranoia
Drinking = rage
Food = why i'm fat

sounds like a good night

this > therapy

As an update, my friend went to see their primary who did, indeed, prescribe something. However, the doctor highly encouraged them to look into therapy since, you know, medicine is normally to take the edge off and not fix the issue. (Everyone knows that, no surprise.) Still unsure of if therapy is the right route for said person but thank all you guys for your responses. It's helpful knowing that there are therapy successes, I just don't know if it's the right "medicine" for everyone.

there's a lot of trash in this thread so I wanted to add my own experience with medication/therapy:

before I took medication, i was/have been in therapy for about a year, and it's incredibly important to have an outlet to be able to talk your issues out with if you have a psychological disorder. the thing about therapy is that it acts as an outlet to examine yourself from different perspectives that you wouldn't be able to think normally yourself.

choosing therapists is also like choosing a fine wine - every therapist has their different styles and methods, so it's totally okay to switch around therapists until you find one that fits.

medication acts as a mood stabilizer that can certainly help you - but a lot of issues caused by things like depression are inherent beliefs about yourself that can't be brought out with just medication.

Tl;dr: I suggest therapy and medication but everyone is different

o i just wish he would enable it for mobile mode as i am lazy scum

That's weird, cute, I can edit my posts on mobile just fine? Just turn off mobile mode on your phone

My main disorder is BPD but I relapse into severe depression every couple of years. It's like a ghost that's always lurking. But I can handle it most of the time.

you can always combat depression, it's just naturally harder for some than others

as the*

when will lucid implement mobile editing this is really a pain

i never once said you wouldn't benefit from therapy as well, simply stated that you cannot fix chemical imbalances on therapy alone and it's not right to tote one solution and the be all end all, less people would end up grossly misinformed.

modern medicine has also made some segway. i believe my psychology professor a year back (?) told the class that medication is progressing (or has progressed) to the point where certain drugs prescribed would not cause a dependency the same way some current medicines do.

numb says

ok but even if you're just genetically predisposed to having screwed up chemicals, that doesn't mean you won't benefit from therapy as well.

This person gets it.

Also chemical imbalances can be inherited. When I presented depression symptoms at an early age the first thing I was asked was if my biological parents (particularly my mom) had any disorder of the sort.

Depression can be caused both by trauma or genetics.

Edark says

On a completely different note, exercise is an excellent way to combat depression.

When you exercise your body will create chemicals that will help you focus and boost you perseverance, and that also brings a sense peace and well-being.

And you will obviously also get healther pure physically.

I agree because exercise increases endorphins and self-esteem, which are great to combat depression, BUT

I'd like to see you try to make someone who doesn't even get out of bed to periodically exercise.

iced says

mori thought she was being clever by comparing diabetes to depression but it backfired woefully.

Your reading comprehension is comparable to a monkey's.

cute says

idk if this has been said, but like, therapy won't work in cases where the ailment is physiological. if you have a genuine chemical imbalance in ur brain, therapy can help this, but it won't fix it. for depression and anxiety, some people can be naturally predisposed to them. some people's brains just produce way too much serotonin or way too little, and in this case, medication is the best fix. other people struggle with the way they think and how they handle their emotions. in this case, therapy would work much better than medication simply because the issue isn't a matter of biology.

tl;dr different situations and different people require different treatments. medication isn't a hot fix and therapy isn't the be all end all. no one treatment is inherently superior and no one treatment "doesn't work."

While you can't correct a chemical imbalance in your brain, you can learn ways to cope and manage it with therapy, while you take medication in parallel.

ok but even if you're just genetically predisposed to having screwed up chemicals, that doesn't mean you won't benefit from therapy as well. you don't live in a bubble, and being depressed has a multitude of effects on your life, so even if you start to fix the biological problem, you might still need therapy to help fix your life.

as a side note, edark is completely right about those medications not being good for your body. my grandfather was on some serious medication, and now he's on the brink of needing dialysis bc his kidneys are f!ucked

On a completely different note, exercise is an excellent way to combat depression.

When you exercise your body will create chemicals that will help you focus and boost you perseverance, and that also brings a sense peace and well-being.

And you will obviously also get healther pure physically.

i've taken formal psychology courses and while i may not be an expert, i know with a degree of certainty that depression and anxiety can have purely biological causes similar to other mental illnesses (like schizophrenia). in cases such as these, therapy would not solve this.

i completely agree that, if you were depressed due to the loss of a loved one or something similar, medication is simply not the best solution. however, if you're someone who suffers from seasonal depression, for example, there's no real underlying problem and therapy really wouldn't provide much in that case.

Yo check out my theory on neuroscience

Edark stinks!