Posted by Chris O on April 23, 2012, at 17:14:03
In reply to If You're Worried About Adverse Medication Effects, posted by ron1953 on April 23, 2012, at 10:03:56
I'm sure that Bruce Levin and Gary Kohls are motivated only by the best intentions when they write their anti-psycho-pharma articles on AlterNet. Heck, I'm as anti-drug as they come, yet in my desperation to function I am reduced to seeking out some, any type of treatment that will reduce my anxiety/panic/depression. Yes, I realize that psychiatric drugs may harm me. For that, I am forever angry at my "family," their biology, their inability to support/raise functional children, their codependence, their addictions, and a million other things I go over in my head everyday. But short of a rage-induced venge fest in which I still will be left with my clearly biologically damaged brain, where am I to turn? I've done all the "natural" treatments (vigorous exercise helps a bit), but nothing, even in the highest doses, works. I've meditated, yoga-ed, tai-chi-ed, karate-ed, relaxation-taped myself to death. I've written many letters to our "leaders" pleading for a more compassionate social support system. (But, in truth, I'm not sure that last thing would get to the crux of my issue, either.) In the end, I'm left turning to psychiatry, which, despite its issues, at least tries to help people like me function in the world. And there is one statement in that Kohl article with which I strongly disagree: That the types of mental illness treated by psychiatric medications are mostly a "first world" issue. No, no, no. That is simply not true. I taught English as a Second Language for most of the 1990s; worked with many students from "non-first world" countries. So many untreated mentally ill people in that bunch. So many. Yet, no treatment for them. Just a lifetime of living with mommy or daddy (if not literally, then financially and emotionally), or funneling mental illness into religious or cultural practices, or suicide, due to "pressure." Mental illness? No, that's too shameful for that bunch. The rest of the world (the non-westernized world, in old school terminology) is not as "progressive" and open as people like Kohl and Levin frame it in their articles; quite the contrary, really, even that mythological bastion of liberalism, Europe. Perhaps what we're seeing in America is a generation of people really trying to liberate themselves, and define their selves, their beings, in ways that past generations could not do. Perhaps that is the reason for the rise in antidepressant use, not some sinister marketing campaign.
poster:Chris O
thread:1016228
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120411/msgs/1016255.html