This anti psych med bullshit is dangerous. Drugs snapped my brain back to baseline normalcy and away from suicide ideation in a few weeks. I didn’t need to take them for long, but it was a switch that needed to be flipped and I couldn’t do it by myself.
I thought the message of the comic was that we need to change society to better manage our mental health better not that medication was bad. Like we prop up our society on medication to get people to handle it. But I don’t get messages like that clearly so may be wrong.
Yeah I see that, but also maybe it means that the fact you have to be medicated to deal with the system highlights some inherent deficiencies in the system itself?
it’s not explicitly anti med. I’m pretty fundamentally anti med for a few reasons. Primarily just the fact that i believe environmental factors are the most prominent influence on day to day life, i think focusing on those to make yourself more productive, and functional is better than being hamstrung to a bunch of drugs, that might probably work, but they might stop working, or you might not be able to get them, or afford them, or they might have really bad side effects, or health insurance is a bitch, etc…
Interestingly, i’ve seen a lot of rhetoric along these lines (your post included) among people with ADHD, which i understand, but i have to wonder if that’s due to dependence on the meds of some form. Which isn’t exactly the fault of the individual, when paired with society and it’s expectations, it’s almost explicitly what you would expect to see, which is a little weird to me. It gives me vibes i dont quite jive with and im not sure how i feel about it.
So, I struggled massively with ADHD symptoms in my teens and 20s. Despite failing out of school, and struggling in all the classic ways, I was never diagnosed.
My folks “didn’t want the kids on pills” and so despite needing help I was just called lazy and never received any help.
The best way to mitigate the symptoms is with stimulants. I self prescribed caffeine. If I was in a different environment that could have easily been something illegal.
I was never diagnosed and I wish I was, because if I could have focused on classwork in high school, I could have went to college, and I could have started doing work that interests me at the beginning of my 20s instead of the end of my 20s.
You need to examine your shallow attitude about medication. It’s “I don’t like it because other stuff is better”, and a bunch of anxiety around what if what if what if.
What if you deny your child the one tool that actually allows them to reach their potential? You try these “better” options and waste their youth instead of using methods that are proven to be reliable?
You know it’s not too late to still get a diagnosis right? I got mine at 21 or something, but I’ve seen people in their 40s or 50s get their diagnosis and finally get some relief or explanation for their symptoms.
My folks “didn’t want the kids on pills” and so despite needing help I was just called lazy and never received any help.
this is realistically a bigger problem though, your parents just didn’t care about your well being very much.
You need to examine your shallow attitude about medication. It’s “I don’t like it because other stuff is better”, and a bunch of anxiety around what if what if what if.
i’ve examined it plenty enough, it’s a personal opinion of mine. I’m not forcing it on others, and im certainly not having kids. You’ll notice a lot of problems with them are as you said, what ifs, that’s true. But i simply don’t trust myself to maintain something like that, or for that matter, trust anybody else to maintain it for me. Doctors can be very helpful, but sometimes they aren’t, or maybe they are but insurance just refuses to cover your meds because they decided that you did one too many instances of illicit substances in your past, or who knows what fucking reasons they have.
If i had a hypothetical child, it would be up to them, i unlike other people, give other people free will. If they believe that medication is going to be beneficial for them, who am i to tell them what to do. Ironically, you seem to be arguing that i should be supporting drugs unquestionably, which is objectively bad. However i’m not holding that against you, i’m just making my point here. There are certain problems, which most consider to be outweighed by the positives, i however, disagree.
I do not make the rules, i just exist in proximity to them. As does everyone else.
I know this is “just a joke” but I still think it’s harmful. Depression may be brought on by being in a bad situation but it isn’t simply unhappiness or dissatisfaction with being in that situation. Antidepressants don’t make a person artificially happy or numb. If you are clinically depressed because your life sucks, antidepressants may give you the mental fortitude needed to change your circumstances. There are drugs that people do use to try to cope which just make things worse, but you won’t get then from a psychiatrist. (You can get the most popular one at the grocery store.)
It’s not cool to stigmatize mental illness.
It’s not cool to stigmatize mental illness.
This is not at all what my take away from that comic is. I guess it is somewhat open to interpretation, but I think it rather asks what the underlying societal dynamics are that cause people to develop depressions in the first place.
The meme doesn’t stigmatize mental illness because it’s not talking about mental illness.
If anything, pathologizing the predictable and inescapable results of living under oppressive systems designed to keep you as down and alienated as possible as a mental illness, instead of a perfectly valid reaction to living in dystopia deeply and negatively impacts how we treat actual mental illness.
The idea that pointing out that we have societal problems pills can’t solve is somehow stigmatising actual mental illness (which pills can help) just goes to show how deeply indoctrinated society is in to toxic individualism.
Thank you for saying something. The saying “suffering isn’t noble, just take the damn pills” has been floating around lately, and I think it’s been changing my mind. I should probably be on something.
You know what else is not cool? Overreacting and willfully misinterpreting comics just to jerk oneself off.
People who are unhappy with their life tend to medicate. Whether that’s alcohol, weed or antidepressants doesn’t matter that much.
It absolutely matters whether you’re managing your depression with alcohol or antidepressants because one of those two is enormously more dangerous than the other
“YoU kNoW tHoSe PiLlS aRe BaD fOr YoU!”
Cool. Next best option is me being unable to function and longing for death while my brain craves any type of happiness, forcing me to engage in potentially harmful and unhealthy habits to get any hit of happy chemicals that my brain struggles to make naturally.
I’ll keep taking the pills, thanks.
But the pills are bad for you!
Well, maybe not you specifically, but they are not to be taken willy-nilly. They often have quite severe side effects, withdrawal syndromes, and, in some cases, long lasting or even permanent damage. Second opinion is not optional, given how trigger happy some of the doctors are to just send you home with a prescription for the hardest hitting shit they have available. Take that from someone who had multiple first-hand experiences of all of the above.
I’d say, IF there is an option to alleviate symptoms and find a place in society without meds, it’s definitely a much better option. If not, well, sure, go for it, no third option here. The hardest part is actually figuring out on which side of it you are.
ADHD? I’m postulating a theory as of recent, that people with ADHD, who take meds for ADHD are dependent on them, similar to addiction, but the side effect here is actually being productive, in a shitty society.
I’m not sure the totality of it, or what the general implications are, but it’s an interesting thought. So far, everytime i’ve mentioned this theory to someone with ADHD, i’ve been yelled at, so uh. Surely that’s worth something?
I’m postulating a theory as of recent, that people with ADHD, who take meds for ADHD are dependent on them, similar to addiction
Dependence ≠ addiction.
Diabetics do not have an insulin addiction.
The folks who have scolded you are not doing so baselessly.
When you have chemical deficiencies that affect your brain, people seem much more outspoken about giving their opinion about your affliction. I’ve heard folks saying “don’t do chemo!! These people are just trying to scam you and get your money while killing you!! Maybe you should cut out all that processed food?” Hoo boy. Just… don’t.
Compound that with folks using our already stigmatized & shortage-prone medication for fun, and it gets worse for us.
I love finally being in control of my thoughts and finally feeling normal and able to actually pursue the things I want. But I think the desire to be in control of your functions is… pretty sane. I don’t miss the chaos that was my constantly hopscotching thoughts & unwilling body.
I don’t miss the suffering. I’m addicted to “not suffering”, probably.
Dependence ≠ addiction.
I said similar to addiction, as a means of describing the mechanism underlying it, please try not to lie outright.
Diabetics who take insulin, are not addicted to it, that is true. Much like drinking water because you will literally fucking die otherwise, does not make you addicted.
However, taking meds for something like ADHD, doesn’t outright prevent you from dying, merely functioning better in society. A similar thing can be argued for things like depression, although depression is much more complicated, especially when you get into fields with SZPD and it’s related disorders, where everything stops making any sense, so it’s hard to say there.
I know they haven’t scolded me baselessly, that’s why i preface everything i say very explicitly with “this is just a theory, this is just something im thinking of, i know why people do this, i understand why people are attached to these things” I am very explicitly explaining myself most of time.
When you have chemical deficiencies that affect your brain, people seem much more outspoken about giving their opinion about your affliction. I’ve heard folks saying “don’t do chemo!! These people are just trying to scam you and get your money while killing you!! Maybe you should cut out all that processed food?” Hoo boy. Just… don’t.
yeah, that’s definitely an interesting one, you’ll notice i never said anything explicitly other than my persona opinion though. I never mentioned that you or anybody else was wrong or bad for taking medication, merely that there was something interesting i’ve noticed.
The medication issues are compounded primarily by doctors, and the previous opioid crisis we had. This is a very real effect of people being overly dependent on things like medication, and a very real concern that i have. Whether it’s founded is not trivial to say, but i feel like it’s a very genuine concern.
I love finally being in control of my thoughts and finally feeling normal and able to actually pursue the things I want. But I think the desire to be in control of your functions is… pretty sane. I don’t miss the chaos that was my constantly hopscotching thoughts & unwilling body.
that makes sense, im just worried that there are potentially negative implications to this, notably opioid crisis type beat problems. It seems like a rather dangerous game to be playing IMO, i suppose that’s the reason it’s prescribed, and highly regulated, though im not a massive fan of authority myself. Especially if it determines my functionality on a regular basis.
I don’t miss the suffering. I’m addicted to “not suffering”, probably.
I actually really like the way this is phrased.
I choose you Cannabis!
Hurray! Their humon is weak to thc due to genetics and is now permanently confused!
What I really need is a prescription for $$$$$, but it’s a controlled substance and I don’t meet the pre-existing conditions to be prescribed.
