Anit-depressants & Grief

Have you wondered about asking your doctor for an anti-depressant? Or maybe friends or family members have offered to share some of their meds with you? The following article provides some practical introduction to grief in general, with a bit about antidepressants and clarifies that grief is not the same as clinical depression.

Coping With Grief & Loss
Here is a quote from the article to encourage you to read it fully:

As a general rule, normal grief does not warrant the use of antidepressants. While medication may relieve some of the symptoms of grief, it cannot treat the cause, which is the loss itself. Furthermore, by numbing the pain that must be worked through eventually, antidepressants delay the mourning process.

Become a student of your own grief and learn all you can. The article today is from a secular group, so don't think I'm endorsing everything you'll see in their links and advice as a whole, but I think we can find it useful for certain facts about grief and medication.

Be very careful with medications and take them only under advisement of your doctor. Resist the pushy relatives who want to "share" their anti-depressents with you. Write down the name of the drug, and maybe that will help fend them off, but do not "borrow" their pills.

Above all, educate yourself. Don't just assume you need an anti-depressant or sleeping pills. And don't assume you don't need them, either. Learn the pros and cons, and opinions of several good advisors and professionals before getting prescriptions.

♥ ferree