The Medication Generation

[WiccanLiberal]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303649504577493112618709108.html

"Like me, most young adults who take antidepressants have felt relief from symptoms. But there are several aspects of the experience of growing up on antidepressants that should give us pause.

First, using antidepressants when you're young raises tough questions of personal identity. Adults who take these drugs often report that the pills turn them back into the people they were before depression obscured their true selves. But for adolescents whose identity is still under construction, the picture is more complex. Lacking a reliable conception of what it is to feel "like themselves," young people have no way to gauge the effects of the drugs on their developing personalities."

I found the article interesting. So many people I know, including me, have taken antidepressants at one time or another. While the drugs can be a very useful adjunct to therapy, I am convinced they are overused.

[cadet]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303649504577493112618709108.html

"Like me, most young adults who take antidepressants have felt relief from symptoms. But there are several aspects of the experience of growing up on antidepressants that should give us pause.

First, using antidepressants when you're young raises tough questions of personal identity. Adults who take these drugs often report that the pills turn them back into the people they were before depression obscured their true selves. But for adolescents whose identity is still under construction, the picture is more complex. Lacking a reliable conception of what it is to feel "like themselves," young people have no way to gauge the effects of the drugs on their developing personalities."

I found the article interesting. So many people I know, including me, have taken antidepressants at one time or another. While the drugs can be a very useful adjunct to therapy, I am convinced they are overused.

Yeah, right, like this has any validity. This sounds like your hippy generation. Ya'll probably never got unhooked from drugs.
Pot/kettle my friend.

[cadet]

Maybe you're having a "trip" (Like, you know, trippin out, haha pun) down memory lane! :laugh:

[logroller]

Maybe you're having a "trip" (Like, you know, trippin out, haha pun) down memory lane! :laugh:
Or maybe depression is a serious issue with complex considerations on the long-term side effects on emotional development.

[Noir]

Or maybe depression is a serious issue with complex considerations on the long-term side effects on emotional development.

Not just depression, the worst one I keep hearing stories about is ADD, and ADHD, the 'answers' to which are to inject teens (and even pre-teens) with sedatives.
When you live in a society that is having to sedate it's youth to keep them 'controllable' something is very wrong.

[DragonStryk72]

Not just depression, the worst one I keep hearing stories about is ADD, and ADHD, the 'answers' to which are to inject teens (and even pre-teens) with sedatives.
When you live in a society that is having to sedate it's youth to keep them 'controllable' something is very wrong.

A lot of it is unnecessary as well. I, for one, am ADD myself, considerably so, and I've never been on medication. Instead, I was enrolled in martial arts, and learned how to focus. I even started learning how to "use" the hyperfocus that comes with ADD in my writing and work. People see a kid not paying attention over here, and it's like they immediately go to the ADD place. It could just be that school's fucking boring, and the kid would rather be doing something else.

[Noir]

A lot of it is unnecessary as well. I, for one, am ADD myself, considerably so, and I've never been on medication. Instead, I was enrolled in martial arts, and learned how to focus. I even started learning how to "use" the hyperfocus that comes with ADD in my writing and work. People see a kid not paying attention over here, and it's like they immediately go to the ADD place. It could just be that school's fucking boring, and the kid would rather be doing something else.

Exactly!
I remember a story (possibly told by Ken Robinson, not sure) about a girl who was in here youth in the 70s or something and her school was having trouble with her and they got her mum in and eventually they went to see a doctor about it, the point being if it was today she'd of been 'diagnosed' and put on meds, but it wasn't 'today' it was a few decades ago, and the doc observed her, then turned the radio on and went outside the room with the mother, and when out he told her to look through the window, and soon enough she was dancing, and the doc told her to enrol the girl in dance school.

Since then that girl went on to become a well known ballerina, and set up her own dance school and has choreographed some huge productions (IIRC one of them was "Cats") You wonder how many girls that could of been her in the future, are spending there days sedated on drugs now.

[DragonStryk72]

Exactly!
I remember a story (possibly told by Ken Robinson, not sure) about a girl who was in here youth in the 70s or something and her school was having trouble with her and they got her mum in and eventually they went to see a doctor about it, the point being if it was today she'd of been 'diagnosed' and put on meds, but it wasn't 'today' it was a few decades ago, and the doc observed her, then turned the radio on and went outside the room with the mother, and when out he told her to look through the window, and soon enough she was dancing, and the doc told her to enrol the girl in dance school.

Since then that girl went on to become a well known ballerina, and set up her own dance school and has choreographed some huge productions (IIRC one of them was "Cats") You wonder how many girls that could of been her in the future, are spending there days sedated on drugs now.

This is the thing, that a lot of ADD people are fairly smart people as well, because we develop a much broader base of knowledge than most people do. It's simply our nature, and it get label as a disability, and it isn't nearly the disability people act like it is. Yeah, you need to learn focus more than other kids, but there so many upswings to it, and people just miss it.