Exactly. I never understood why is there such a witch hunt against SSRIs and not only on HN. I have a strong suspicion alternative-medicine folks are just pushing it.
There may be, but on this forum I just see people sharing shit that happened to them. It's a self selected group. If you see a headline and some bad stuff has happened to you, it's only natural that you may want to tell about it.
like any "internet review", the outliers are going to dominate the conversation. the drugs either saved the person's life or they had terrible side effects (or both).
that said, a concerning issue with antidepressants is that doctors don't really understand how or why they work. the condition they treat, depression, is also not very well understood and does not seem to have a single root cause. out of twenty or so major drugs, a doctor has very little ability to predict which one will work for a particular patient. when you put all these factors together, being prescribed drugs for depression feels a lot more like "pulling random levers until something works" than most other forms of medical treatment.
I don't share your suspicion that most of this is alternative-medicine shilling. enough of my close friends have experienced the same positive and negative effects described here that I will take most accounts as genuine.
