Depression runs in my family. Please be considerate in your replies here to me.

I think in US every available antidepressant has that 'suicidal thoughts' warning right at the top of the list yet antidepressants have been a very valuable tool for our family for young and old alike.

I do not believe that any causation has been determined for currently commonly prescribed medications. This is Reuters article reprinted at sciam does not show that at least. What GSK did hiding studies is reprehensible of course. Vulnerable families were hurt. The positive is the increased scrutiny now thanks to that.

My beliefs on the matter: Antidepressants are one tool, about 20% of dealing with the level of depression in my family. Sometimes the chemicals in our brains are just so out of whack no amount of therapy gets to us.

For an adult like me, I have had enough experiences (bad relationships, financial strain, health issues, legal problems, work stress, and so on) in my life to more easily put them in healthy context to what happens three years out say. I also remember how when I was younger that was impossible cause I lacked that experience. This is reflected by the rest of my family.

What I believe happens is the following: People with depression are already more likely to have thoughts of hurting themselves. There are some young people that will use manipulation to get what they want that also suffer from depression. 'You take away the only thing I like and I will hurt myself,' where that thing is not a healthy coping mechanism. So that thing gets taken away and the kid gets a psych-eval. The social worker evaluating everything decides this is a case of manipulation and the child is at an appropriate level of care. The problem is that some children have used manipulation but really do end-up hurting themselves after this since the other coping mechanisms they have in place at the time either get ignored or are insufficient.

Now my ire does not rest solely with GSK here. When I said the licensed state social worker evaluates everything, aspects come into that which should not for medical reasons but do for societal ones. One of those things have been what other options are available. People have been denied needed care based on there not being room in the programs (because of underfunding essentially), there not even being the appropriate program (for example intensive outpatient again often because of underfunding), or what insurance will pay. Thankfully that has not effected my nuclear family too much, but has affected others in my wider family that are unfortunate to live in other places or have worse insurance. That said, even to this day there are limits to mental health in my insurance program. Thankfully they are not not as onerous as they were in the past, but it does cause us stress to navigate it and not go over what is permitted.

The other thing is that simply you need a good team to work with you, a doctor and a therapist. There are those with mental health illnesses that are unlucky to not have good choices there. There are too many practitioners that are simply overworked and can't really offer the attention that is needed for proper care. They have known about this 'suicidal thoughts' danger, but they also see the benefits which nothing else offers. So they get into a routine of using one system for everyone as much as possible. But then because of time and insurance reasons there is not enough attention to tune it then as time goes on together with therapy. For example our insurance will only pay for a parent to consult with a therapist once a week for a child even in intensive outpatient care. So you have to find one willing to do that over the phone more often and not get paid for it essentially.

Well that was rambling, sorry, but somewhat therapeutic for me currently, thank you.