Ketamine is usually prescribed to people with "treatment"-resistant severe depression, and these "treatments" include other types of medication, exercise, and meditation. That aside, often, severely depressed people can't do even the basic things like showering, going to work, or making dinner. Ketamine treatment offers a severely depressed person to bootstrap themselves into a state where they _can_ start doing things that will allow themselves to support themselves.

Well said, thank you.

Few seem to understand how debilitating treatment-resistant depression can be. Source: wife's cousin, who when s(he)'s ok, is super smart, capable, and lives a good life. When s(he)'s in the depression hole, s(he)'s nearly comatose. Ketamine has helped greatly in his/her case.

Unrelated: Wouldn't "they" have worked fine as a pronoun there (and been less distracting)?

Yeah, it would have.

It's just that the ghost of my 5th grade English teacher would have emerged from the mists to point out that "they" is plural, whereas I was referring to an individual. Can't win.

Your 5th grade teacher, nor dictionaries, ought be considered authoritative sources of word meanings.

Words mean what people who use them intend them to mean.

But if you want something more authoritative than random-internet-comment, definition three from dictionary.com has you covered:

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/they

they

pronoun, possessive their or theirs, objective them.

1 nominative plural of he, she, and it.

2 people in general: They say he's rich.

3 (used with a singular indefinite pronoun or singular noun antecedent in place of the definite masculine he or the definite feminine she ): Whoever is of voting age, whether they are interested in politics or not, should vote. A person may apply only if they are over 21. They have been an actor since childhood.

Why not both? Why can't you just stick to meditation and yoga but let another person find something that works for them?

I tried meditation and yoga for years to treat depression, and I suffered unnecessarily for years (including periods of being suicidal). Getting on pharmaceuticals vastly improved my life and I can't imagine going back.

I'm really glad you found something that works for you, but I believe you actively harm others by suggesting that it will work for everyone else too.

There's a lot about the pharmaceutical industry that I don't like either but you're not going to persuade anyone by berating them with sneering rhetoric like this.

Jesus, but not in the literally terms.

As you point out, meditation and yoga are not quick fixes. One usually has to practice them for a long time to get significant results. But people suffering from depression rarely have the motivation and endurance to stick with a practice long-term. Some have trouble getting out of bed in the morning or even doing simple chores.

If you are a real meditator or yogi you should have more compassion with others.

It's long settled that biochemistry affects mood, depression, and a host of other difficulties people encounter.

It makes no sense to me to exclude agents that affect biochemistry ('drugs') from consideration as having therapeutic benefit.

It is great if these things have helped you.

They have the ability to do absolutely nothing in some folks and the ability to make mental problems worse for other folks. This is why some retreats won't take people that have a history of mental health issued.

You could simply stick with what works for you and let others do what works for them without judging them harshly for doing something you believe won't help (even when the research and their personal experience says otherwise).

> I can't be the only one thinking that solving 'drug problems' with drugs is not the way to go?

I sure hope so, you obviously have no idea what you talk about. If you can postulate that meditation and offer plenty of support for depressed people. Can some depressed people be helped by meditation and yoga? Sure!

But saying that it offers plenty of support, is like saying that people with cancer just need to eat healthy.

Meditation and yoga help but they require lots of time and effort. And when you're stressed or depressed there's often not enough willpower.

Meditation and yoga are also ‘quick fixes’ of a different kind. Suffering is part of being human and nothing is going to erase it.

These may help significantly, but may also not move the needle at all