How about we stop depending on these stupid drugs and see where it takes us.
You say that as though we haven't been there already. Tell you what, why don't we stop depending on MRIs and x-rays too, they're also expensive, sometimes misapplied, have unpleasant side effects, and don't solve every problem put before them.
I can't help but wonder why ever since the occurence mental disorders going up corrolates with when mental health pills start having a release on the public.
Assuming that this is true, it's probably because there's not much motivation to diagnose a disease that is (believed to be) untreatable. When a (more) effective treatment comes out, more diagnoses will probably be made because the doctor and/or patient suddenly sees a potential for an actual solution.
Is this escapism for the masses
Speaking as someone who used to take them and stopped, I can emphatically assure you that antidepressants (or at least Tofranil, Anafranil, and Paxil) are not soma. In all likelihood I would still be on them if they could magically make me happy.
I had ADD when I was a kid
ADD is an
inability to focus, not an unwillingness to focus. Misdiagnoses notwithstanding, you can't beat ADD out of someone any more than you can beat narcolepsy out of someone. It's a common misconception that all or most mental illnesses can be treated with nothing more than behavioral conditioning, but if that were true these pills wouldn't be quite so profitable; you don't need medical insurance and a prescription to beat a kid or give him candy.
what ever, everyone go ahead and take your pills. Stick your head out and say I have this problem and that problem. And that you take this pill and that pill to help you. OH MY, YOU HAVE IT SO ROUGH! No, your a pussy cause you need a drug to help you get over a problem EVERYONE has.
This is a great example of another common misconception: that <insert mental illness here> is something that everyone has because if you go down the symptom list copied and pasted out of context from the DSM each thing in the list sounds like something you've experienced at some point in the past few years. News flash: people with mental illnesses often struggle with those symptoms
every single day, with an intensity that escapes your experience. When you spend a few weeks feeling sorry for yourself because your girlfriend broke up with you, that's not clinical depression. When you're bored and daydreaming and miss something in a lecture, that's not ADD. When you look up at the clouds and "see" interesting shapes that aren't really there, that's not schizophrenia.
There's a good reason why a lot of people hate this kind of medication: it's almost like asking someone to get a lobotomy. Those who are depressed and don't need medication feel something warm inside that is not coming out in any way. Medication simply kills that warmth, thus "no more problem." And that is a sick thing.
This is basically another instance of the concept that I briefly addressed above - that the commonly-prescribed drugs for mental illness are basically soma and somehow rot your mind away and make you artificially happy. That's just reactionary BS cooked up by people who are desperate to keep looking at mental illness as a character flaw. And while there can be some unpleasant effects on some people (again, speaking from experience), it's far from a chemical lobotomy.
Also it could be a problem for gamers if too many people like this start popping up.
either this guy is pissed because he sucks at playing games or he just can't find anything else to bitch about.