I think it's possible that SSRIs are over prescribed and kind of not great medications because they kind of take a hammer to a whole number of systems when you're generally trying to bang one or two back into shape while it also being true that not a single person in this government is actually pushing for their replacement out of compassion or respect for psychiatric science or because they want to find a better treatment

Like, my opinion is this is awful and these people should be thrown into a pit, but also I do truly believe that 100 years from now, if we're lucky enough for scientific civilization to survive that long, people will look back on SSRIs the same way we do electroshock therapy (assuming better solutions are developed and they're not, like, the most advanced psychiatric medications we end up able to develop)

Like for example sertraline can literally permanently destroy a person's sex drive, among other long term severe side effects, and I also think a lot of people who are presently suffering from depression are ultimately feeling the way they do not because of a permanent physical condition requiring medication but because they live in literal fucking hell with constant reminders around all of us and I have a really negative opinion on SSRIs being used for such a condition and i really dislike thinking there are millions with legitimate grievances with society who are told to take a pill to change how they feel about it (don't take this to mean I don't think depression is real. I just know for a fact that for me, personally? Most of the shit that would lead me to be considered as having depression all leads back to issues resulting from life under capitalism i.e. financial insecurity, work relationships and power dynamics, etc.). Like I'm not going to support taking the medication away from someone who presently needs it but I also watch stuff like my partner feeling sick with anxiety due to their job callously and arbitrarily forcing them from their position while saying it's not a layoff due to untenable return to office bullshit and they literally can't eat and their doctor just gives them more fucking sertraline and I think "this is medical malpractice to some degree and it's happening on a gross scale"

(she meant to prescribe them a proton pump inhibitor but either "forgot" or over relied on the medical LLM bullshit she was using, but don't worry, I'm smart and doctor shithead (me) got them some omeprazole while wondering why the fuck the doctor didn't give it to them. Imagine how angry I'd be posting about this if she didn't tell us she intended to describe a PPI and ALL MY PARTNER GOT for their situation was "just take some more zolofy, dawg")

Anyway that's my opinion on SSRIs but also I think people should be able to choose whatever drugs and therapies they want without them being gatekept from them