Mental Illness. Misconceptons and stigmas and too damned many prescriptions!
When anti-depressants are prescribed, far too many times they are prescribed to people without depression. I'm not a mental health expert (well, except that I'm married to a retired Psychiatric RN), but I have had to learn about my illness because it almost killed me. I say "it", because my illness is not me, it is something I have. It does not define me. It is notwho I am. It is my responsibility to learn as much as I can about it and to do my best to keep it under control through medications and therapy until someday (hopefully) a cure for it can be found. I know that if I don't do what my Primary Care Doctor, my Psychiatrist and my Psychologist (who must all know each other as a team)say to do that I will become depressed and will try to kill myself. It's also true that, even if I take my meds (which have to be adjusted every few months (changed, doses altered, etc)) and do everything that I am told, there is still a chance that I may get depressed and kill myself. Suicide is always there lurking in the back of my mind and I have to remember that I am only (barely) controlling it and that it can sneak up on me if I don't at least keep an eye on it, much like a diabetic has to monitor their blood sugar.
I tried Prozac (which seems to be a go to drug for many MD's), but it turned me into a zombie. I slept 18 to 20 hours a day nd was barely able to function when I was awake. It took almost 2 months to get it all out of my system. I am on Welbutrin now as my main anti-depressant, but it's effectiveness is starting to wear off and I'll have to change, probably back to something I was on before whose immunity to ithas passed, but haven't been on for awhile. Your body builds tolerances for the meds.
I also take several anti-anxiety medications as I get especially anxious at night, probably related to childhood trauma that happened to me at night, such as when I was molested. My high BP may or may not be related, but I take meds for that too. I go to therapy at least once every two weeks, but have been known to go as often as 5 or 6 days a week such as after my last suicide attempt. I have been hospitalized against my will on locked wards twice and voluntarily several times. 9 or 10 I believe over the past 30 years or so. I have been forcibly in restraints while hospitalized several times too. I have been in public hospitals (UCLA is Great!), private hospitals (do little if anything but chage your insurance) and the VA (did...nothing (except put me on strong drugs))
I have Depression. Severe depression sometimes. The DSM-V (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) describes what I have as "Major Depressive Disorder, with Suicidal Features". That doesn't mean that I am always depressed though. Many days I am as happy as anyone else. Most days in fact. A fit of depression can be triggered by something bad or good or nothing at all and can knock me down in a matter of moments. It is very, very unpredictable. In this my wife (luckily because of her experience) is one of the most patient and understanding women in the world as when I am in a really bad depression I can rage at the top of my lungs and punch the wall (never another person) about the unfairness of this or that or nothing at all, yell that I want a divorce or that I'll kill myselfand she has to understand that, though she is the one who has to listen to it, that it's not directed at her or caused by her. She also has to decide if I am a danger to myself and if she should call the police and fire medicson me, which she has in the past.
When you have a disease like this (and make no mistake, it is primarily a medical disease) you have to spend a lot of time reading about it and understanding it and asking questions about it and most importantly owning it. You have to make it yours, but keep it separate at the same time. It's a fine-line to walk and I have fallen of many times, sometimes even on here. You have to own it, because if you don't you yourself will start to believe the stigma's of it. More then just owning it I have had to fight the stigma of it. I am on Social Security Disability because it has worsened over the years to where I can not work any longer. Make no mistake, I did work and for far more then the number of quarters needed to retire on anyway if I was of retirement age. I am getting handouts from no one. I collect Medicare and a supplement to pay for my treatment and meds. Yet, of course, there are those who are saying that I am either faking it for a free ride or that it's not that bad and I can work or who hate any kind of Social Security, Disability or otherwise. You have to learn to deal with all of those types and I do it by pity. I pity their blindness and stupidity and ignorance and even greed.
Now I have made posts like this before and have written articles that say much the same thing. However there are new members and it is therapeutic for myself to get these things out because they do help fight the stigma ad fighting the stigma is the most important thing, because there are many misunderstandings about mental illness. Many fears and misconceptions. There are violent mental illnesses, but they are a very, very, very tiny portion of Mental Illnesses. My particular one bares the brunt of the stigma and misconceptions mostly because of lazy, sub-standard or harried doctors seeing too many patients and it's an easy diagnoses to grab for, slap onto a person and give them some anti-depressants, which of course do them no good and in young people, especially teens, may do them a great deal of harm. This is one of the reasons people with Depression are blamed for so man things that are not a part of our illness, because the people who do some terrible things have been taking anti-depressants (usually unsupervised and sometimes even selling them) that they should not have been given in the first place, again especially if they are teens to young adults, in whom it can cause bizarre behavior, but mostly strong suicidal feelings.
Do these young people have a mental illness? Perhaps, but probably not, but they get drugs away. It has become far to easy for a doctor to (or for a parent to insist a doctor do), fill out a prescription for pills when there is really nothing more going on then normal rushes of hormones and what was once considered typical adolescent behavior. However, once they are on these meds that they don't need or have been mis-prescribed, it often causes strange (and even violent) behaviors, for which more medications are prescribed and so on, until you see some High School Seniors taking 4 or 5 drugs a day. And they don't really need any of them. Then there is the problem of if they do really have a mental illness (I believe it's one out of five who do), the drugs mask it. So they are not getting the proper treatment they really do need and if they say anything, they are often ignored because, after all, the adults and doctors know best. Yeah. Right.
Anyway, I wish that a course on mental illness was required to graduate High School, so the misconceptions about what kind are what kind and what kind of symptoms the more common ones have and the stigma can be at least addressed. If you have someone in your life with a mental illness, take the time to learn about it online or even just ask them about it. If you see or hear of something, especially something terrible, about a mental illness, do some research on your own and understand what is really going on, before you may accidently jump to the wrong conclusions. Remember, just because someone is being treated for something, that doesn't mean they have it. Doctors, especially MD's (who should not be diagnosing mental illnesses anyway), can make mistakes through lack of knowledge or pressure and just plain laziness and mental illnesses can be notoriously difficult to diagnose correctly.
Do your research and you'll not only find that you may be wrong about a lot of the stigma's or preconceived notions or what you have been (incorrectly) told, but it's actually quite a fascinating thing to learn about.
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Have some fun with it! It really is a fun subject (for a geek like me anyway) to learn about and there are many more people in your life with a mental illness then I suspect, you suspect. So learning may save some embarrassing moments for you, but mostly for them too. There are many more of us out here then most people realize and 99.9% of us are harmless.