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Notes -
Reposting because I dropped this in the last Wednesday thread on a Tuesday like a dummy.
Could anyone direct me to some good posts about antidepressants? Effortposts about their efficacy, personal experience, I'm not picky. I tried to find some but Google wasn't much use and I can't figure out how to search the site specifically (permanent lurker here, sorry).
I was on Bupropion for 2 years about a decade ago. For the first year it was helpful in managing a depression that manifested with lots of fatigue. It gave me the energy to make lifestyle changes that improved it long term. During the second year it began causing unmanageable anger issues and I eventually stopped. Ever since then my lifestyle changes and talk therapy have managed it reasonably well.
Lately it's been getting worse and I'm considering going back on antidepressants. The main issue is that unambiguously good events exacerbate my depression and that has historically led to me sabotaging myself. I have some major life events coming up in the next couple years and would like some emotional stability. I have a psych eval tomorrow and I was hoping for some advice, feedback, pointed questions to ask the psychiatrist, stories, anything really. Even some google-fu advice to find better scientific information about this instead of feel-good self help articles made by AI or journalists who are about as smart as current AI without the work ethic. Do I even need antidepressants, or is this some weird Pavlovian issue that I can work on without them?
You need a psychiatrist. I am only two-thirds of one, but fortunately for you, I've got exams and that means actually reading some of the papers.
(Please see an actual psychiatrist)
The choice of initial antidepressant is often a tossup between adherence to official guidelines, clinical judgements based on activity profile and potential side effects, and a dialogue with the patient.
In short? It is usually not very helpful to worry too hard about the first drug. They're roughly equally effective (and where one is superior, it's by a very slim margin) But in certain situations:
(But before the meds, a physical checkup is mandatory, as are investigations to rule out medical causes. You're going to feel depressed if your thyroid isn't working, or if you've got Cushing's.)
Unfortunately, you haven't given me enough information to make an informed choice. I'd need to know about the severity of your depression, graded based on symptoms, lifestyle, overall health and a bunch of other things. Hopefully your actual doctor will do their due diligence.
Man you are either an irredeemable slopmonger or spending so much time immersed in slop that your own writing is becoming indistinguishable.
People should be able to write comments in an orderly list format without being accused of using LLMs. I can assure you that the long comment that I posted today did not involve AI use despite including several lists.
Like I said, it's entirely plausible that he's just picked up the tics through hours of reading the output of these things (and thinking that it's good) -- which in a way is even more horrifying than the idea that he'd use one for a pretty simple question about a topic upon which he's somewhere in the ballpark of an SME.
It's not (only) about the lists tho...
Bruh. Let me summon @Throwaway05 :
Do you think it's possible to make recommendations or suggestions about antidepressant usage without heavily stressing the importance of a full physical to rule out medical causes for low mood?
Do you think the information given by OP was sufficient to make a clinical recommendation beyond the most universally applicable points?
I strongly suspect he's going to back me up there. Since the facts aren't really in dispute, all that's left is finding a certain string of letters to convey the message. I see nothing "AI" about my choice of phrasing, that's just... normal writing. It's oodles less formal than what I might for in an actual effortpost, because it was smashed out in 5 minutes in the middle of a study session.
To the extent that the 'best' "AI detectors" don't think it's AI at all, I'm very curious to know what stylistic tells you imagine you see, and then an effort to compare it with my earliest writing. I'm not going to bother, I've already put in more than sufficient effort, and I am generally honest about using LLMs. If and when I do use them.
I imagine the issue is that we (physicians) have a tendency to write with certain tics, these not seeming like normal writing to most people.
Since you've AI'ed a bunch already I imagine others are going to see that and make assumptions?
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