Bill Wilson explains how atypical depression differs from classic depression: instead of losing appetite, people with atypical depression eat more and gain weight, a pattern he calls CARB syndrome. SSRIs can make this worse by further increasing appetite.
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Major depression. Well, that's been around since God was a baby. And, you know, it's defined as a person gets severely depressed, you know, lose their Appetite, lose weight, etc. Etc. Well, then they started seeing some folks in the last four or five decades that kind of looked like that. They had some depression, but it wasn't as severe. It was milder. And so they decided to call the first one major depressive disorder, and the second one atypical depression. And atypical depression they described as having increased appetite and weight gain. Is that a little clue there? That's carb syndrome. It has nothing to do with major depression. Totally separate. If you put them on an SSRI without knowing what you're doing, you're going to make them worse. Same with. Because that can increase appetite and weight gain, right? Absolutely.