One reason people harp on SSRIs specifically is because they have no idea how any kind of medication works. Just like how people who moralize about "birth control" tend to be talking about "the Pill" people on about psych meds are usually talking about their impression of Prozac.

It's all a rough impression formed by USA Today-tier science reporting, op-eds from conservative pundits, sermons from boomer clergy. Many still even have the impression that SSRIs are "happy pills" that magic away your complicated emotions and render you a pleasant zombie.

That's why they think it's an "easy out"- unfortunately a vastly over-optimistic estimation of how well these drugs work for many severely ill patients. At best it tends to bring people up from immobilization to being able to function well enough to work on getting better.

The other thing that SSRIs do, not even on the social commentariat radar, is unmask cyclical mood disorders, aka the bipolar spectrum. Which is terrifying but necessary, otherwise you'll just be revolving in and out of depressions endlessly, antidepressants alone won't help.

Once this is discovered another class of drugs no one knows enough about to demonize come into play, mood stabilizers. If only the commentariat knew lithium well enough to hate her, she's the baddy they always wished for. She lays you flat on your face and sucks out your brains.

(at least at first- some people adapt and can tolerate it well, but others never do and have to change to something else or get used to being a few IQ points short of where they were in exchange for being stable. Fair enough since many bipolar people start out above average.)

More commonly these days epilepsy drugs are deployed to help people with bipolar mood disorders or even recurrent, treatment resistant major depression, because it has been found that the same chemical-electrical channels are at play to such an extent they are very effective.

Fascinatingly, these same drugs are also used to treat migraine headaches. I take one drug for all of the above, I tolerate it better than most people do and like it a lot because it has some other flattering side effects like weight loss and blocking perspiration.

But the perennial problem with managing bipolar patients is that we respond exceedingly well to mood stabilizers. You put us on the anticonvulsant, or lithium, and if it's the right one for our body chemistry, we go from an emotional wreck to just fine in a couple weeks.

Which means when we go out and people are like "BLA BLA BLA ALL THESE LAZY FUCKERS TAKING MEDS AS A SHORTCUT TO FIXING THEIR SOULS THEY JUST NEED JESUS PRAY THE JESUS PRAYER USE YOUR CHOTKI AND FAST STOP BEING LAZY AND DEGENERATE" guess what we tend to want to do?

I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. If the patient isn't Orthodox, replace chotki with whatever- meditation, going to shul, rosary, reading the bible, whatever.

Or even if you're secular, "people take meds and it covers up their AUTHENTIC SELVES..."

yes yes maybe that's true...I feel fine after all...

Perennial problem. So you see the issue.

Of course you can spell this all out in big neon rainbow letters for religious fanatics and clergy and they won't give a damn.

Because deep down they don't think it's sodium channels.

They really do think it's laziness and demons.

They will kinda admit as much if pressed.

Jesus cast out demons, he didn't correct people's blood salts with lithium or disodium valproate.

So, it's the devil...and people making up excuses for him in the form of the DSM-IV...

They really do believe that, a lot of them.

But that's not true. It just isn't. It's superstion.

And therein lies the big problem, for folks like me.