Posted on 11/17/2011 1:19:24 PM PST by NormsRevenge
More than one in four American women took at least one drug for conditions like anxiety and depression last year, according to an analysis of prescription data.
The report, by pharmacy benefits manager Medco Health Solutions Inc, found the use of drugs for psychiatric and behavioral disorders in all adults rose 22per cent from 2001.
The medications are most often prescribed to women aged 45 and older, but their use among men and in younger adults climbed sharply.
In total, more than 20per cent of American adults were found to be on at least one drug for mental health disorders.
A number of celebrities have gone public in recent years with their battles with mental health disorders.
They include Catherin Zeta-Jones, who was treated for a form of bipolar disorder earlier this year due to the stress of coping with her husband Michael Douglas's fight with cancer.
Model Brooke Shields admitted suffering postpartum depression after the birth of her baby in 2003, while fellow big screen icon Carrie Fisher, of Star Wars fame, told how she had turned to electroshock therapy to treat the worst symptoms of her chronic depression.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Doctor please, some more of these Outside the door, she took four more What a drag it is getting old
"Men just aren't the same today" I hear ev'ry mother say They just don't appreciate that you get tired They're so hard to satisfy, You can tranquilize your mind So go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper And four help you through the night, help to minimize your plight
Doctor please, some more of these Outside the door, she took four more What a drag it is getting old
"Life's just much too hard today," I hear ev'ry mother say The pusuit of happiness just seems a bore And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose No more running for the shelter of a mother's little helper They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day
A woman should always reject a psych diagnosis and insist on more tests. My mother came down with ovarian cancer. Depression was a side effect of the cancer. Her doctor told her she was depressed, and treatmant was delayed over two months.
Hyperthyroidism is another illness that is commonly misdiagnosed. Doctors fail to take women seriously, and frankly, I have difficulty trustimg many of them.
This issue is actually remarkably complex and sensitive and can’t really be boiled down to, “The doctors want to medicate them” or “it was the women’s rights movement” or “they can’t tough it out.”
Mental illness runs in families. There are so many varieties and variations that you can’t throw them under one umbrella. There are more medication options but some of those are blessings because, in the past, the answer might have been a lobotomy ... institutionalization or more suicide than we see now.
It’s probably that some of history’s most significant and artistically gifted people also suffered a form of mental illness.
Undiagnosed mental illness can lead to abuse of substances and that leads to more mental illness that leads to more abuse of substances ... so it’s a vicious cycle that is often not resolved until someone dies.
Most people with mental illness really don’t want the meds. Meds are costly and have side-effects. Many of the regular mental health patients at the hospital where I worked would wind up relapsing after STOPPING their medications because they didn’t like the way the medication made them feel.
It’s a shame that some people seem, these days, to remain doubtful and cavalier and even dismissive of people with mental illness. There may come a day in your life when a friend or family member needs help. There may come a time someone confides in you that they control a mental condition with medications. The correct and human response is, “It doesn’t matter to me. I’m glad that you’ve gotten help and nothing will change between us.”
And if, God forbid, there comes a day that YOU should find yourself unable to sleep for five days and suddenly agitated...or so depressed and hopeless that you plan to take your life ... I hope that you swallow your pride and talk to your doctor because mental illness is real and it kills people every day.
Sixteen out of nine people with mental disorders don’t even know it.
“Soma do...and soma don’t.”
— Henry Gibson
And now “some” are 20 per cent or so. When the govt is ready to take our guns away, 1 in 5 won’t have a leg to stand on. And while that may or may not be the plan, I’ll bet the planners are aware of this advantage. Any “mental health” records we rack up are going to belong to the government. Doctors will soon ask routinely about depression, suicidal thoughts, and the presence of guns in the home, if they don’t already.
If you’re messed up, I say go into denial. It’s safer!
While the men take alcohol, "coke", meth, maryjane, etc. s/off
Bingo. There's a lot of relevance I could add to the conversation, but I don't want to don my asbestos gear.
And I think that if he had dealt with his real issues and gotten the right advice years ago he would have been off the drugs by now.
Yes, it's tough but too much enablement makes it way tougher IMO.
Yes, neither of your examples sound crazy. And neither sound like they have some kind of disorder. Depression brought on by very trying life circumstances? Sounds like it.
Do I get to decide which of my friends is nuts, or may I merely line them up and dub every 4th one
“No one I know takes meds for mental disorders”.
Doubtful! See posts about it being a date breaker. They just don’t tell.
“Depression was a side effect of the cancer”.
Very true, Judith Anne. My Mom had a period of what she thought could have been depression. Turned out it was pancreatic cancer and yes... one of the symptoms is “feeling blue”. Sometimes depression is a symptom of something else.
If she doesn’t say anything about her meds, you’d still better rummage through her medicine cabinet at the first opportunity.
Also, perusing the common disorders in the DSM so you can spot the symptoms is handy for filtering out the undiagnosed cases.
You don’t know about bipolar unless you are a doctor ... or a healthcare worker or someone who suffers from bipolar disorder.
You certainly have your *opinion* about what you think should have happened with your family member... but you don’t really know about it.
“Yes, it’s tough...” I hope you’d never approach your family member and tell him, “Hey ... you’ve been enabled too much ... you should deal with your real issues and get off your medication...” because that’s a recipe for disaster. People don’t understand that in most cases mental illness is as life or death an issue as cancer is.
I think I married two who didn’t ... but should have.
future mental illness requiring pills:
excessive intelligence pill.
too many questions pill.
questioning der obama.
conservatism away pill
privacy concern pill.
One thing I have found is that depressed people are incredibly self-focused.
No, I have never said those things to my family member. That would be simplistic and unhelpful. However, the long-term goal is to help someone become stronger, not weaker. Our dependency culture stretches to mental health issues such as bi-polarism and entraps the individual into a downward cycle otherwise known as bondage.
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