Hello, Savanti!
I like your advice to our anonymous friend re: Pristiq and coming off of a medication. However, I would--with respect--disagree strongly with your latter statement as an entire matter of fact for all people who suffer, have suffered, or will suffer from a mental illness. It is not the case that all individuals can alter their brain and neuro-chemistry through physical activity, exercise, and mental activity, exercise, and the sundry life changes that are, to be certain, good for most everyone who suffers from a mental illness. There are those folks in this world whose brain and neuro-chemistry are hard-wired in such a way congenitally (or as a result of brain injury or trauma) that they will never be able to overcome this "hard wiring" or "re-wiring" that results from trauma whether physical, neurological, or psychological. This is akin to saying a person suffering from epilepsy can change the disorder and end all seizures by making life changes. There are some things epileptic patients can do, to be sure, but such changes are not a pancea for all persons who so suffer. Psychiatry, Psychology, Psycho-biology, Neuro-biology and all the sundry related sciences have not determined--and, I think, likely never will--all that there is to know---and most importantly, to do---in addressing these issues. This is why a combination of medication AND "talk therapy" AND life changes/coaching and sometimes cognitive therapy and related are all valid and necessary or useful in varying ways for various people. There is no one approach that is right for all. It is dangerous, and no doubt so, to toil and explore the neurotransmitters through use of chemicals in medication. Yet, without such approachs many people including myself would never find any relief.
I look forward, I sincerely hope, to a response. Again, my sincerest respects to you.

Hi, thanks for getting back with me. I do agree to an extent on the matter of a person developing a state of mind when life has been giving them sweets things to enjoy and from out of the blue unexpected a mental condition developes. I could share things with you from my childhood which would show just how disconnected my mental state was from the real world. I had alomst zero feeling and emotions, very little ability to think, and 99% of the time locked in my world.
Now what I have learned from spending time around people living with a mental condition from mild to severe had to do with them living with stress. Michael J. Fox while in India or one of those countries pointed out how relxed and at peace with everything had allowed him to feel calm without stress. That peaceful calm state helped him the same way his medication helped him.
I beleive a person's brain creates bad chemicals/damaging chemicals when they can't get rid of the stress, the stress chemicals eat up the cells in the brain the same way lad, acid and other bad drugs do.
When I was growing up my mental state didn't allow anything to create stress. I wasn't able to hold on to things from the past. For example, when I was 15 a friend and I went over to a have fun witha couple fo girls, when we left there wasn't anything popping up casuing tme to think something. The next day, nothing and she was nice and pretty and we had fun.
In 8th grade Robert P. walks up to me kicks me in the groin, I'm in pain, not crying, I'm looking at him as he backing up to walk away, as soon as the pain leaves, I go back to what I was going, again on the opposite end of the spectrum, there wasn't any remembering. It was back to what I was doing.
How many ways can you sharpen a knife? This works the same way in our routine, our daily living, a daily life, our repetitive life style. We moved a lot as a child, so, I got to try new foods, there were new smells, new people, new things to see, new sounds, and then six months or nine months later, moving again.
I beleive had we lived in the saem house, same smells and so on, I would be who I am today. We lived in the country and sometimes in a small town, I was always outside exploring new things and experiencing pain from falling out of a tree, a sting by watching a yellow stinging scorpion scrawl up to my little pinky and sting it, to smelling the air after a shower, I got to experience everything outdoor.
Find me a psychiatrist, psychologist, or therapist who takes clients outside to the wild or outdoors to explore things you can't find or do indoors. Repetition doesn't work for the brain. the brain is trained and developed based on the first few years of our life. Which means a person needs to be outside 80 to 90 percent of the day, doing things a child would do. Find a doctor doing this kind of therapy and you may find a doctor with success.
What I know is this, the brain is an organ, that needs the five senses to always be finding new things to explore, this stimulates the brain. Another thing I beleive we all have genes which can be triggered at any time, causing a person to develope a condition, created by a life style of repitition and stress.
Thus, How did I turn on my brain? How did I get my brain to start up my thinking? How did I get feelings I never had since birth? How am I able to live one day to the next without stress? These things started up in the last few years and I'm 50. Now from a professional point of view and experience, doctors, psychologists cant explain how I did it.
Don't get lost by spending your day listening to your mind tell you things, go outside and find something to do you would never in your life do. Make it fun, make special, make something like a child would go do, climb a tree, buy a toy and play with it at a park. Do anything, just stop being an adult for one day,can you do that? Sincerely R.

I LOVE THIS REPLY, absolutely love it. I am trying to "come back" right now and your advice about the outdoors, the whole last paragraph actually, is so so priceless. Thank you for sharing.

I agree with getting outdoors and creating new experiences for oneself. There is a definite therapeutic benefit to spending time with nature. Learning about new subjects and staying active, exercising, varying ones' schedule and making changes that are positive are all great suggestions. In fact, I think that people that are stuck in ruts (even if it is just driving the same way to work every day) are more likely to have problems when things they can't control suddenly change.

I am not so sure about how the brain makes the chemicals it needs to properly function and keep a mind alert and moods stable. I do know that I have experienced trauma in my life that probably led to PTSD which was added to a major depression recurrent diagnosis. There was no choice other than medication and talk therapy combo which eventually brought me back out of the black hole I was in. I believe that certain medications are very beneficial, however, the withdrawal symptoms can be extreme. Pristiq and Effexor both have similar withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately, Pristiq is not made in doses less than 50 mg. Effexor is easier to come off of because of the variety of dosages available.

All of this talk about 'mental illness' is a negative way to view a chemical imbalance in the brain. I don't consider myself ill or mentally handicapped in any way, I am very sure that many people that suffer from lack of serotonin or other chemicals in the brain may have triggered it by doing something as simple as maintaining years of sleep deprivation raising very young children. That's what happened to me. Five years of very little sleep depleted my brain of serotonin. As soon as they gave it to me, I was fine. I would not want to live without my serotonin. It gives me peace, happiness, positive outlook, faith and the ability to do whatever I want in life. I agree with the comments AyeThePan, to be careful of stopping medication that is very beneficial to you.

This does not help with Pristiq withdrawal symptoms. I'm doing this anyway.

This was unhelpful