The number used to be one in ten, but according to new data, one out of every six adult Americans is taking anti-depressants or some other type of psychiatric drugs now.
What that breaks down to is "Overall, 16.7 percent of 242 million U.S. adults reported filling one or more prescriptions for psychiatric drugs in 2013," according to research published today in Journal of the American Medical Association's JAMA Internal Medicine.
Based on my experience in my field:
Autism and bi-polar are the designer diagnoses.
You can't be fashionable if at least one kid isn't on the autism spectrum.
I have noticed this. So many parents seem eager to dish out all the details of their kid's mental disorders. They're either making pre-excuses for their kid's bad behavior, bad hygiene, or bad manners, or they're fishing for sympathy from me because of their hard life as a parent.
I bet you make enough doctor visits on the right day you could get your kid diagnosed with 6 separate conflicting disorders.
Dead on. No such thing as suck it up butter cup. Create drugged up zombies that you can legally force reality to cater to. Many of these people would be helped by work. Just like kids. Busy hands and minds and get your focus off of yourself. Having said that some people do have these issues. The problem is separating the wheat from the chaffe.
One in six does seem very high and yes I think they are over prescribed.
Having said that if the SHTF and the drugs were not available there would be a lot of squirrely people running around. Even the ones that don't really need antidepressants could easily suffer some pretty bad side effects when their supply suddenly gets cut off. Old school drugs like Prozac usually don't have bad withdrawls, other than a reoccurence of the original depression, but withdrawing from drugs like Paxil will make people go a bit nuts and many will become very unpredictable/irrational in their actions.
Plus for those with a genetic predisposition to depression, the ongoing stress of a long term disaster will trigger it in many even if they weren't on drugs before. Stress hormones like cortisoids lower serotonin absorption, low serotonin makes people more feel even more stressed. It becomes a vicious unending cycle that prevents the brain chemistry from balancing itself. That is why a fair number of combat vets ended up on antidepressants during or after serving.
the whole gamut of druggies - going thru withdrawal - are going to be one of the wilder aspects in that first 2-3 weeks post-SHTF ... I'm hoping that worst of the bunch loot enough drugs that they OD ...
Can't overdose and die on antidepressants (except maybe the old tricyclates). Same goes for the benzos (Xanax, Valium, etc..), they don't suppress the part of the brain that controls breathing or heart rate.
As far as being "druggies", antidepressants are not happy pills. After taking them for a few weeks they just make people feel normal, as in waking up and feeling like life is "okay" vs. feeling hopeless and ruminating on the end of life/suffering.
For some depression is *very* real, long term untreated clinical depression actually shrinks some areas of the brain and drastically reduces the function of many other areas -- it can be spotted easily with a brain scan. Treatment with the right antidepressants will reverse the changes and make the brain look/function normally again. But of course they don't do brain scans before handing out scripts.
I have no professional training even remotely related to these things. But from just observing the world around me over the last 30 years, I will say they are not only over-prescribed, they are downright dangerous. Think back over the last 20 years about all of the mass killings we have had. With the exception of the ones carried out by muslims (which is its own special brand of mental illness), most of the rest have been carried out by people that have been on SSRI drugs long term. If you are not crazy when you start taking these drugs, you certainly are after you have been on them a few years.
I think back to a certain member we had here until recently. When he first started showing here 2-3 years ago, he was a little off. I know he was on some of these drugs because he posted about it. By the time he finally left us a few weeks ago, he was crazy as a jaybird.
Do these drugs have real clinical value? Maybe, maybe not. The one thing I do know is that if you are crazy enough to need a pill to get through everyday life, then you are crazy enough that you should be locked up and be given electric shocks.
How many people need inpatient treatment who are walking around the outside world. They are given a prescription, told to not forget to take the pills and to maintain.
Hear you on that I have a pal who works for a construction company which specializes in building what he calls "Nut Huts" all over South Texas. They are outpatient VA clinics where the returning war vets go to get infused with psycho meds and kiss their dear old 2nd ammendment rights out the window. Take one free pill and its a done deal
I know that anti-depressants like most other psychotropic medications are over-prescribed. This in large part is insurance companies prescribing this as a first line of treatment, prescribers trying to help patients as quickly as possible and patients "being lazy" and looking for a quick fix to issues that are often time temporary or are only truly altered for the better through therapy.
Consider that the World Health Organization identifies depression as the #1 disability/medical problem worldwide. Also consider that every person lucky enough to live a lengthy life will experience an episode of depression. 2/3 of all individuals diagnosed with depression are experiencing "situational" depression or an adjustment disorder with depressive symptoms and not biological depression. Most of these people should only take antidepressants for a short period of time and many will not need any meds if they have good support from others, as factors leading to depression can and usually do resolve. These factors can be a divorce, health problems, etc....The other 1/3 either have true biological depression or depressed due to another disorder such as a personality disorder.
Long and short they are over-prescribed.
I think that happens with our going to 6 doctors on the same day
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