Well, this is a depressing report.
Earlier this month the Archives of General Psychiatry released a much publicized study that one in 10 Americans is now taking antidepressants within the course of a year, making antidepressants the most prescribed kind of medication in the country. […] One has to wonder: Are we really that miserable?
Manipulated might be a better word than miserable. If we were to pick one factor that explains the dramatically increased number of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (the technical name for drugs like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft) that now run through our collective bloodstream, it would be direct-to-consumer advertising, otherwise known as television commercials for prescription drugs. […] The pharmaceutical companies concentrated on their best-selling “blockbuster” drugs — Lipitor, Claritin, Nexium, Viagra, as well as the psychiatric drugs Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, and more currently, Effexor and Lexapro — and soon enough these drugs became, quite literally, household names, the celebrities of pharmaceutical agents.
Damn. All I get is blood pressure medication.
All the Kool-Aid drinkers will need the anti-depressants since Teddy died.
Pretty sure he won’t be meeting Mary Jo…
@Mr Diesel
Pot meet kettle.
I’ll be the first to name it, “The Edward M Kennedy Healthcare Reform Act”. He would be the first to tell you to run with it.
So we’re going to move the Kennedy comments here instead? Pretty much the only thing I know about him is his poor driving skills. Not being from the East Coast and having been born in the 70s I don’t really care about the Kennedys.
#7, Benji,
Maybe the Creative Writing Course was suggested as part of their therapy?
@Benjamin
Why is pot STILL illegal? The companies that produce these drugs can’t stand the competition. Have you ever seen an unhappy pot head?
Just a tokey a day
keeps Alzheimer at bay
You know, I’m happy to read this!
Of possible http://tinyurl.com/mdgl2y" rel="nofollow">interest to readers of this post, depressed or not.
I think it’s because nobody smokes anymore. It used to be very therapeutic to take a break and have a quiet smoke when things were getting weird. Boy, those were the days. *sigh*
Yeah, some times I miss smoking cigarettes.
#9, Mr. Improbus,
Have you ever seen an unhappy pot head?
Well, uummm, ya. Being put into the backseat of a police car.
Once, back in the olden days, we had all this pot and no flame. We could improvise a pipe, but not the fire. Ya, we were pretty unhappy. The nearest town was several miles away and we had to wait for our friends to show up to get out of there.
Your point is well taken.
I don’t believe the 1/10 figure; it’s far too low. My own experience is that this is far more widespread.
What these drugs manage to accomplish more than anything is to keep people working at jobs that they would have quit in other eras.
True story…my doctor put me in on Paxil for depression, the shit made me crazy.
Seems all I needed to do was quit doing coke, Vicodin, Ambien, cigarettes, alcohol, oh and of course that particular doctor.
Kept the marijuana though, and today I am happy as a clam.
My kid’s doctor said he should be on antidepressants. I looked into it. Finally, I said no.. I wondered when he would get OFF of them, and asked myself how ANYONE could get off of them. If you take a damn pill to feel better, what would ever make you no longer dependent, if once in a while, like everybody else, you did not feel elated??? “No pills for YOU!” I told him. Also, “Man up and deal with it!”
#8 “Maybe the Creative Writing Course was suggested as part of their therapy?”
Not really. Creative people are more eccentric and now there is a trend of diagnosing eccentric people with mental illness. It’s not right to give drugs to people that can function normally without drugs. I also think that doctors are diagnosing bad behavior as mental illness.
There are people with mental illness that medicine does help. I am not talking about these people.
Is the human interaction among citizens in the US better because of all the anti-depression medication out there?
To answer my own question…
@Mr Diesel
Of course he won’t be meeting Mary Jo, she’s an unmarried fornicator and burning in Hell.
Why do we take so many drugs where we are supposed to ask our doctors to prescribe them for us. I thought doctors would determine if we had an illness and prescribe the correct drugs to fix the problem. Oh wait, no that is the way it works in the rest of the civilized world where people have medical care provided by the government. Here we ask our doctors to give us all the crap where insurance companies will pay 65% of the cost.
#18 Faxon
I truly pity your child. Truly. Honestly.
…you did not feel elated??? “No pills for YOU!” I told him. Also, “Man up and deal with it!”
Anti-depressant drugs don’t make people feel elated. Far from it. Many times, they make them feel like crap, sometimes to the point of killing themselves.
Telling a clinically depressed person to ‘man up and deal with it’ isn’t very helpful because they simply aren’t capable of doing that.
You see, not being able to deal with it isn’t a symptom, it’s the disease.
I’m not trying to be cruel here but I don’t expect you to get this at all – but maybe accurate information will help someone else and their child.
My kid’s doctor said he should be on antidepressants. I looked into it. Finally, I said no.. I wondered when he would get OFF of them, and asked myself how ANYONE could get off of them.
People only get off medication if the medication is for something that can be cured.
How silly would someone who said, “my doctor said I had diabetes and needed to take insulin. I wondered when I would ever stop taking it so I told the doctor no.”
I will probably be taking zoloft the rest of my life and that is much better than being depressed and having anxiety all the time. The medication isn’t so that I never get unhappy or that I don’t worry about anything. It is so that I will occasionally be happy and will only worry about the things that matter.
You know what the best health care system in the world doesn’t pay for? Accurate Diagnosis–especially for mental health issues, if they are even covered at all.
#18–Faxon==you looked into it. I believe you, hows it working out? “In General” the alternative to drugs is counseling. Slightly more in depth than “man up” but that sometimes works too along with a 3 year enlistment.===ie, what depressses most people is their local environment and any change is an attempt to cure. That and getting laid.
Subtle stuff.
I would not have posted without Weary’s fine example. Thanks.
#19–Benji==good book on this and larger context is “Clockwork Orange.” Much better than the more limited movie.
Antidepressants prescribed as part of an ongoing course of counseling are the most effective way of treating acute anxiety before it becomes chronic depression, which is a psychiatric illness. My culture uses tea, scones and a friendly fireside chit-chat.
@sargasso
My culture uses beer, pot and television.
#22, Weary Reaper… Good post. Basically what I was going to say.
THX1138
How much money do the Drs get as a kickback?
#24, Bobbo said “Benji==good book on this and larger context is “Clockwork Orange.” Much better than the more limited movie”
I really enjoyed the movie and always meant to read the book. I will have to give it a try.
Some medicine, including anti-depressants, is over prescribed. Ritalin for boys is especially over prescribed as well.
#29–Benji==you should like it. Just enough sex and violence to keep you hooked. From memory, the movie is mostly about that aspect but the book is more about the Droobs (?) or the anti-hero striving to get free of the mind control shackles put on him by an overcontrolling State Authority. Tension is created because what Alex wants to do is rape women and rob men and beat both to death.
Just what would a LIEBERTARIAN do?
The assumed position is that ALL DRUGS ARE OVERPRESCRIBED. Docs make more money and its easier than close observation, active management, and considering alternatives.
If you ever do get on a drug regime, try backing off every year or so to see if they are still needed. Often enough, the disease is no longer there and the side effects of the drugs go away when they are stopped. Of course, not always but often enough to consider it.
#29: Burgess created a whole language for the book that is reflected in what Alex says in the movie. Hard to read at first, but you eventually get the hang of it. Doesn’t make for a fast read, though. An amazing accomplishment on many levels.
#1 count yourself lucky — there is nothing worse than mental illness
#9 tend to agree about the legality issue — talk about nanny state — but as one who has been there, for me, marijuana sucks. Anti-depressants don’t.
#12 thanks for the link — I’ve forwarded it to my son and a few friends
#18 I pity your son. Try and expand your thinking, man.
#22, 23 — well said