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1 in 4 American women on psychiatric medication

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unomas

Banned
What a joke, 1 in 4? Wow......haven't taken a prescription medication in 10 years, healthy as ever. Glad I'm not part of a medicated nation.
 

Jimothy

Member
1 in 4 seems low actually. Every woman in my family (including aunts) is on some sort of medication for anxiety or depression. Maybe my gene pool is just fucked up.
 

Angry Fork

Member
Mad-Men-Betty-Kennedy-Shot.jpg
 

RELAYER

Banned
I honestly wish I could see the pharmaceutical marketing strategy for expanding into the remaining portion of this market, you just know that they have one.
 

Orayn

Member
What a joke, 1 in 4? Wow......haven't taken a prescription medication in 10 years, healthy as ever. Glad I'm not part of a medicated nation.

Congratulations! You're healthy! I bet you feel like a much better person than people who aren't.

I honestly wish I could see the pharmaceutical marketing strategy for expanding into the remaining portion of this market, you just know that they have one.

Profitable drugs, one that allow for "expansion," actually tend to be ones that address conditions whose treatment isn't a matter of life and death, like Viagra.
 

Josh7289

Member
YJR0U.png


Though I do wonder how much of it is caused by societal pressures that we could eliminate if we changed society.
 

RELAYER

Banned
Profitable drugs, one that allow for "expansion," actually tend to be ones that address conditions whose treatment isn't a matter of life and death, like Viagra.

Yeah, matters of life and death, like having feelings.

SSRI's are some of the highest selling drugs in one of the most consistently profitable industries.

I don't believe for a second that 25% of all American women are in a devastating crises of life or death and truly need chemical psychiatric treatments.
The fact of the matter is that you cannot walk into a therapist's office (or hell, even the family doctor's office) without having SSRI's shoved down your throat. They will give them to you for essentially anything, and in a matter of minutes no less.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
how did we ever get by before this enlightenment about medication?
How did we get by without cough syrup? How did we get by without allergy medication? How did we get by without indigestion medication? We just had a harder time. I don't see why something being a prescription means we are utterly dependent upon it to be psychologically healthy. Yet even if some people are, why would that be a problem? Would you ask why we wear eyeglasses and shoes when we went so long without them?

There is this great thing about humanity where we can realize our weaknesses and come up with ways of countering them. Why do so many people seem perfectly fine with all of this right up until the point it has to do with the part of our body that affects emotions and cognitive focus? Why would we inherently have any more power over the function of our brain than of our kidneys? It's true that like anything in our body there are lifestyle choices you can make to try and optimize how well they function, but that does not make them beyond illness, and non-medicinal methods of treatment do not invalidate medicinal treatment.

I say all this with a first hand understanding of how this works. I had serious anxiety problems years ago, and of course anyone would have given me a pill immediately if I had just said the word. I told them I didn't want to get on drugs, and guess what? I educated myself extensively on anxiety and how it works, learning the ins and outs of it. Today I'm fine, and I no longer fear anxiety because I know it like the back of my hand. That insulates it from returning, because I already know the game. The person on the drug doesn't know how it works, or hasn't walked themselves out of it, so they're much more likely to be a victim of it again, even on the drugs.
Congratulations, you learned that your anxiety was conditional. But please explain to me how this confirms that all anxiety is a conditional issue rather than a medical issue?
 
img-main-mod-frame1_nt.jpg

After you start seeing cartoon commercials for antidepressants you know the market is pretty big.

My favorite thing about that commercial is that it's for an anti-depressant that you ADD to the anti-depressant that you're already taking. No, I'm not joking.

So if you're anti-depressant isn't working, here is another one to add to that one.


Why do so many people seem perfectly fine with all of this right up until the point it has to do with the part of our body that affects emotions and cognitive focus?

Because there is so much pseudo science involved, and frankly there is just so much we still don't know about how the brain works. Anti-depressants makers openly acknowledge they're not exactly sure how they work. The ads will literally say "It's believed this drug does this in the brain".



Congratulations, you learned that your anxiety was conditional. But please explain to me how this confirms that all anxiety is a conditional issue rather than a medical issue?

"conditional"? Please explain.
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
I was royally slammed at a previous forum I used to go to for suggesting doctors were too fast and loose with prescribing drugs for psychological purposes. Looks like the studies back me up, however.

A description of the percentage of women on medication is not in itself evidence for the evaluative claim that "doctors are too fast and loose with prescribing drugs for psychological purposes."

They very well might be, but a frequency count that you perceive as high, absent some other criterion, is not conclusive.
 

Ela Hadrun

Probably plays more games than you
1) This number seems a little too pat. 1 in 4? Guys, think about all the women you know. Are 25% on medication? Really? In particular, think about all the women in America who don't even have health insurance. They aren't taking Xanax or whatever. I don't trust this statistic at all.

2) In my family, I only have personal enough knowledge of my two sisters, my mother and my grandmother to be certain whether or not they are taking psychiatric medication. I and my youngest sister are both taking psychiatric meds. This matches the 1 in 4 statistic. However, the only one of us who is WELL is my OTHER sister. My mother AND my grandmother should be on meds as well. My grandmother's closest sister was an untreated schizophrenic. My grandmother and mother have extremely maladaptive anxiety and depression problems issues, and may in fact hallucinate. So like, if everyone's got a schizophrenic in their family and sees things that aren't there without their meds, then I am totally okay with 1 in 4 people being on meds.

3) The people I know who are on the most intense batteries of psych meds are in substance abuse recovery. Not everyone I know in recovery is on meds, but I know three people who nearly ended their lives and nearly destroyed their families due to substance abuse in an effort to chase away their demons. If they experience a little nausea now and then, that's really okay, because nausea is way better than, you know, CHILD ABUSE.

4) I still don't buy the 1 in 4 figure because most of the people I know seem to be above-average fucked up and also above-average on health insurance. There are whole communities where people don't have access to birth control, let alone anti-anxiety drugs.

5) I also never understand why GAF is all about SCIENCE BEFORE ALL until psych meds come up. Yeah, Ritalin and Paxil and Prozac are overprescribed, but that doesn't mean they haven't helped people. (Also, anyone still prescribing Prozac is kind of admitting to being utterly lazy.) There is a problem with health care delivery and its intersection with advertisement. There is much more to learn about the brain than we have been able to figure out. And yeah, in a hundred years, this is all going to look very medieval. But right now, like, lots of people lead better lives because of these drugs. (Not all the people who take them lead better lives because of them! But MANY do.)

Edit: 6!) Lots of people take these drugs with the knowledge that they do not have psychiatric problems; Xanax in particular. Counting recreational use as the same as medical use is a little unclear.
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
1) This number seems a little too pat. 1 in 4? Guys, think about all the women you know. Are 25% on medication? Really? In particular, think about all the women in America who don't even have health insurance. They aren't taking Xanax or whatever. I don't trust this statistic at all.

2) In my family, I only have personal enough knowledge of my two sisters, my mother and my grandmother to be certain whether or not they are taking psychiatric medication. I and my youngest sister are both taking psychiatric meds. This matches the 1 in 4 statistic. However, the only one of us who is WELL is my OTHER sister. My mother AND my grandmother should be on meds as well. My grandmother's closest sister was an untreated schizophrenic. My grandmother and mother have extremely maladaptive anxiety and depression problems issues, and may in fact hallucinate. So like, if everyone's got a schizophrenic in their family and sees things that aren't there without their meds, then I am totally okay with 1 in 4 people being on meds.

I'm not totally clear on the point you're making here, but your sample of a handful of people could not be more irrelevant to the discussion of the validity of the study.
 

RDreamer

Member
Doesn't surprise me. When my wife was finally getting diagnosed with ADD and started asking people she knew it seemed like damn near everyone was on meds, especially the girls. In particular I remember going out with 4 or 5 of them one night and she was talking about getting diagnosed and every single one of them was on something and most had been on something since they were young.
 
Non-medical. Circumstances that can change, unhealthy habits in lifestyle, ways you are choosing to think about something.

No. Now you're making assumptions yourself. I've been anxious my entire life. Even as a kid I had serious anxiety problems.

At certain times in my life they flared up out of control though, and wreaked havoc on my life. The worst was in 2009 though, and I literally thought I was losing my mind for a period of months.

I read a book by Claire Weekes, who was a brilliant doctor on the topic, and educated myself thoroughly. 3 years later I'm still the same person, but I've learned how to handle anxious thoughts, and my fear of anxiety is essentially gone.

You're never going to rewire your brain. You're either going to take medications that numb you to a point where you don't care, or you're going to educate yourself enough that you no longer fear the anxious thoughts when they come.

Just to be very clear, serious depression and psychological disorders are different from anxiety. I'm perfectly fine with a suicidal person taking meds. I'm perfectly fine with a person who thinks their refrigerator is talking to them taking meds.
 

dalin80

Banned
When medicine is a business not a treatment then there's too much money in it to not prescribe at any opportunity.
 
How did we get by without cough syrup? How did we get by without allergy medication? How did we get by without indigestion medication? We just had a harder time. I don't see why something being a prescription means we are utterly dependent upon it to be psychologically healthy. Yet even if some people are, why would that be a problem? Would you ask why we wear eyeglasses and shoes when we went so long without them?

There is this great thing about humanity where we can realize our weaknesses and come up with ways of countering them. Why do so many people seem perfectly fine with all of this right up until the point it has to do with the part of our body that affects emotions and cognitive focus? Why would we inherently have any more power over the function of our brain than of our kidneys? It's true that like anything in our body there are lifestyle choices you can make to try and optimize how well they function, but that does not make them beyond illness, and non-medicinal methods of treatment do not invalidate medicinal treatment.

Congratulations, you learned that your anxiety was conditional. But please explain to me how this confirms that all anxiety is a conditional issue rather than a medical issue?



You really think you should bundle in mental and physical conditions like that?

because the subjectivity of mental conditions is what has allowed this to boom into such a huge business. It's pretty dumb to trivialize it by putting it on the same level as OTC meds for basic physical problems. If you can't understand why, then i'm ready to write you off as someone with very little life experience. When i eat tums, it doesn't change my perception and interactions with people.

I'm not saying there is no such thing as mental illness, we're talking about the statistic in the OP and what it likely indicates.
 
No. Now you're making assumptions yourself. I've been anxious my entire life. Even as a kid I had serious anxiety problems.

At certain times in my life they flared up out of control though, and wreaked havoc on my life. The worst was in 2009 though, and I literally thought I was losing my mind for a period of months.

I read a book by Claire Weekes, who was a brilliant doctor on the topic, and educated myself thoroughly. 3 years later I'm still the same person, but I've learned how to handle anxious thoughts, and my fear of anxiety is essentially gone.

You're never going to rewire your brain. You're either going to take medications that numb you to a point where you don't care, or you're going to educate yourself enough that you no longer fear the anxious thoughts when they come.

Just to be very clear, serious depression and psychological disorders are different from anxiety. I'm perfectly fine with a suicidal person taking meds. I'm perfectly fine with a person who thinks their refrigerator is talking to them taking meds.

So for you no anti-anxiety medications are ok under any circumstances?
 

unomas

Banned
Congratulations! You're healthy! I bet you feel like a much better person than people who aren't.



Profitable drugs, one that allow for "expansion," actually tend to be ones that address conditions whose treatment isn't a matter of life and death, like Viagra.

Nope, just glad I'm a healthy person that doesn't believe in 1 out of 4 women being medicated in this country. It's sick and disgusting really. I was on depression meds for a few months when I was younger, it was the biggest waste of time and money ever. Medicine in this country isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Feeling tired? Oh you must be depressed, couldn't be your diet, lack of proper vitamins and nutrition etc. etc. Medication is most definitely not always the answer, 1 in 4 is insane.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
I read a book by Claire Weekes, who was a brilliant doctor on the topic, and educated myself thoroughly. 3 years later I'm still the same person, but I've learned how to handle anxious thoughts, and my fear of anxiety is essentially gone.

You're never going to rewire your brain. You're either going to take medications that numb you to a point where you don't care, or you're going to educate yourself enough that you no longer fear the anxious thoughts when they come.
Well how about this. For my entire life I have been known as a very self-managed person. Someone who knows the ins and outs of their emotions and knows how to control them, sort through them, and resolve them. I was a minister for over a decade, and I knew very well that most people didn't have "spiritual" issues but just needed some counseling, and I showed them how to handle things.

One day, I got a flash of panic from nowhere. Maybe 5 seconds long, then it was over. In the coming months these would increase in frequency, length, an intensity. There was no reason behind them. Nothing in my life changed, and it was not a stressful life. I was comfortable, happy, and fulfilled aside from these moments. I would also "educate myself" on anxiety, and see a professional counselor.

Months of learning, searching, probing, and exercises would end up resulting in nothing but worse condition. Eventually it would not be just moments, but a constant anxious weakness in my body. The attacks at this point were utterly crippling. No matter how focused and strong my mind, it was my body itself that was simply feeling and acting. My vision would blur, my stomach sicken, my arms tremble. Time itself would seem to slow.

I wasn't afraid of it. I would handle it at work or out at Denny's with friends. Everyone in my life knew about the torment, but they just didn't exactly know how I felt. They knew I could carry on doing what I was doing and hold normal conversations through it. It was never an issue of fear, lack of mental control, or poor response. I was too educated to lose sense of myself because of some feelings.

Eventually, it was too burdensome, so I tried an SSRI. I learned all about them in college so I was skeptical of their effectiveness. I knew the theory but it's difficult to nail down evidence. Perhaps because of placebo effect, perhaps because of much anxiety being conditional and it only helping the medical side, who knows? Yet in two weeks my condition was 100% better, never to return in the slightest.

I'm not saying your method was incorrect. I'm just saying that people are different and suffer from different sorts of conditions. We have evidence that there is no single method to help everyone, so please stuff it with the attitude that you know better than everyone who has ever suffered and was helped by medication. What you experienced and whatever problem there was with how you responded are not the same issues that everyone has, and what resolved it for you will not resolve it for everyone.

You really think you should bundle in mental and physical conditions like that?

because the subjectivity of mental conditions is what has allowed this to boom into such a huge business. It's pretty dumb to trivialize it by putting it on the same level as OTC meds for basic physical problems.
Are you assuming that it is impossible that it could be on such a scale? If so, what is your basis for doing so? The brain is a physical organ, so it is a physical issue. If we were to gain perfect understanding and control of the brain, then we would be in a position of options. There would be a capacity we can control it without outside assistance, a capacity that would require outside assistance, and a great deal of overlap. Such is the case with all medicine.

I'm not saying there is no such thing as mental illness, we're talking about the statistic in the OP and what it likely indicates.
How do you gauge that likeliness when you yourself admit that we don't have a clear understanding of how the brain functions? All I am saying is that with many medical advances, we have found that a very large portion of humanity can be helped by them, and psychological issues may well be the same. That doesn't mean any of such widely applied medical advances are absolutely needed, but absolute necessity is not how we treat medical assistance. If we can do better, why not?
 
No. Now you're making assumptions yourself. I've been anxious my entire life. Even as a kid I had serious anxiety problems.

At certain times in my life they flared up out of control though, and wreaked havoc on my life. The worst was in 2009 though, and I literally thought I was losing my mind for a period of months.

I read a book by Claire Weekes, who was a brilliant doctor on the topic, and educated myself thoroughly. 3 years later I'm still the same person, but I've learned how to handle anxious thoughts, and my fear of anxiety is essentially gone.

You're never going to rewire your brain. You're either going to take medications that numb you to a point where you don't care, or you're going to educate yourself enough that you no longer fear the anxious thoughts when they come.

Just to be very clear, serious depression and psychological disorders are different from anxiety. I'm perfectly fine with a suicidal person taking meds. I'm perfectly fine with a person who thinks their refrigerator is talking to them taking meds.

There are many different kinds of anxiety problems. Just because your anxiety could be overcome without medication doesn't mean that nobody else needs medication to control their anxiety. You say that psychological disorders are different from anxiety, but in many cases anxiety is a psychological disorder, with a biological cause. I've had problems with anxiety all my life and I don't "fear anxiety". What a strange analysis. I "have" anxiety, all the time, but I don't fear it.
 
So for you no anti-anxiety medications are ok under any circumstances?

No, I never said that.

There are many different kinds of anxiety problems. Just because your anxiety could be overcome without medication doesn't mean that nobody else needs medication to control their anxiety. You say that psychological disorders are different from anxiety, but in many cases anxiety is a psychological disorder, with a biological cause. I've had problems with anxiety all my life and I don't "fear anxiety". What a strange analysis. I "have" anxiety, all the time, but I don't fear it.

"biological cause" or "chemical imbalance" are pretty much in the realm of theories at this point. They don't give you a test to know if you're chemically imbalanced. They just tell you that you are.


I've never heard of someone not being afraid of anxiety. If you weren't afraid, you wouldn't have anxiety. Can you give me an example of anxiety without fear?
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
I've never heard of someone not being afraid of anxiety. If you weren't afraid, you wouldn't have anxiety. Can you give me an example of anxiety without fear?
For myself in my panic attacks, it was entirely physical. Yes, there were physical indicators that also usually come with fear, just as uncomfortable as if a bear were attacking me, yet there was no bear. Because I could look around and see there was no danger, there was no condition to fear. And I would rationally evaluate my thoughts and feelings and know there was also no conceptual problem, so there wasn't any psychological fear.

It was simply a feeling, something my body was doing that related to emotions and the nervous system. It was very clear to me, and that clarity meant I wasn't afraid of it, just terribly irritated by my inability to turn it off despite understanding it.
 

unomas

Banned
And I guess the other question is why are so many women the ones on these mental disorder meds? Maybe because so many women start using birth control (the pill) at young ages, while that is of course "safe" maybe someday the two will be linked. Guys don't start taking stuff like the pill in their teens, I'm sure if we did there would be more issues for us as well. There are side effects to every drug, and those side effects lead to taking more medications.

I was talking to a nurse yesterday whose a friend of mine, and the conversion ended up going towards work etc. etc. This person was talking about how a heart surgeon at the hospital this person works at performs surgeries on patients that don't really need the surgery and that may be 90 years old, but he will perform it so he gets paid more. The other nurses/employees kind of whisper about it, but of course nothing is done. There is some type of loophole where if they have a condition that the surgery can be offered and performed. The bottom line is it just lines this surgeons pockets that much deeper. So I asked this person how these people could afford this in the first place? Medicare and medicaid.

The bottom line is when you take some of the huge financial incentive out of the medical system maybe you won't see such things. It's unfortunate, but the system will continue to be gamed over and over again if it's surgeries or prescription medications.
 
While i am sure that in SOME cases these medications might do some good , i am also sure that the VAST majority of people could be "cured" otherwise either by counseling, dietary changes, or other procedures if someone actually took the TIME to truly examine a patient!

Of course it is infinitely easier to simply listen for them go on and babble for 10 minutes, then write them a prescription for the meds and have the next patient come in, rinse and repeat... this is an extremely efficient method to get filthy rich quickly for both the doctors and pharmaceutical companies, the patient however does not really benefit from this in the long run...

yeah there are exceptions but i know that a lot of cases (not just in this field of medecine) are handled more or less in this way so it comes as no surprise to see numbers like this
 
Edited because I'm a junior and I don't want to get the hammer over a joke comment. There's a lot of butthurt going on in this thread.

Doctors aren't scientists. They also have an army of pharm reps selling them shit on a daily basis.

This is the sad reality it seems. I watched a good documentary about it but I forget the name. As for anecdotal evidence: I went to doctor's for a physical a few years ago, and it all seemed very routine until he asked me about stress/anxiety. Being in college I replied that yes I did have some anxiety and stress from time to time, and he immediately asked me if I wanted to start on a trial of Zoloft. WTF? I was like "Uhh... no, I'm good." He asked if I was sure and I said yes. I was so put off by that (IMO) ridiculous offering that I have never gone back to him even though he's our family doctor.
 
No, I never said that.



"biological cause" or "chemical imbalance" are pretty much in the realm of theories at this point. They don't give you a test to know if you're chemically imbalanced. They just tell you that you are.


I've never heard of someone not being afraid of anxiety. If you weren't afraid, you wouldn't have anxiety. Can you give me an example of anxiety without fear?

A lot of times I'll be lying in bed at night, everything will be fine, I won't be worried about anything, and yet my muscles will be really tense, my stomach will be churning, my heart will be beating fast, I'll be weak, etc. and I won't be thinking about, or be afraid of anything. I'll just be anxious, for no reason.
 

toxicgonzo

Taxes?! Isn't this the line for Metallica?
The heck is this crap?

It's not just women, I bet 1 in 4 men is staking psychiatric medication.
I don't have the sources to back this up though.
 
For myself in my panic attacks, it was entirely physical. Yes, there were physical indicators that also usually come with fear, just as uncomfortable as if a bear were attacking me, yet there was no bear. Because I could look around and see there was no danger, there was no condition to fear. And I would rationally evaluate my thoughts and feelings and know there was also no conceptual problem, so there wasn't any psychological fear.

It was simply a feeling, something my body was doing that related to emotions and the nervous system. It was very clear to me, and that clarity meant I wasn't afraid of it, just terribly irritated by my inability to turn it off despite understanding it.

Well, I don't know what to tell you. Every definition of anxiety I've ever seen or heard has included the words "fear". Fear is fuel for anxiety.

No, you might not always know exactly why the anxious feeling begin, but once they do fear keeps them alive.


A lot of times I'll be lying in bed at night, everything will be fine, I won't be worried about anything, and yet my muscles will be really tense, my stomach will be churning, my heart will be beating fast, I'll be weak, etc. and I won't be thinking about, or be afraid of anything. I'll just be anxious, for no reason.

But at other times you have been afraid, right? Not every instance begins with fear. But fear is always a key component, even if it's not abundantly clear that's the case.
 

Buttchin

Member
Just want to throw this out there but medicine is not the only way to treat anxiety, depression, personality disorders etc and is actually 1 prong of the typical two pronged approach specialists take with treatment. Combination of medicine and the various talk therapies work significantly better together and faster than either works alone. But when told about this many patients will only take the medication option for various reasons. Insurance won't cover the talk therapy, can't take the time off from work, can't afford it even with coverage or flat out just don't want to.

Well, I don't know what to tell you. Every definition of anxiety I've ever seen or heard has included the words "fear". Fear is fuel for anxiety.

No, you might not always know exactly why the anxious feeling begin, but once they do fear keeps them alive.

But at other times you have been afraid, right? Not even instance begins with fear. But fear is always a key component, even if it's not abundantly clear that's the case.

You can have panic attacks without fear or impending doom as DSM criteria make it possibly.
 

Stet

Banned
No, I never said that.



"biological cause" or "chemical imbalance" are pretty much in the realm of theories at this point. They don't give you a test to know if you're chemically imbalanced. They just tell you that you are.


I've never heard of someone not being afraid of anxiety. If you weren't afraid, you wouldn't have anxiety. Can you give me an example of anxiety without fear?

Yo, doc, you have any sources?
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
No, I never said that.



"biological cause" or "chemical imbalance" are pretty much in the realm of theories at this point. They don't give you a test to know if you're chemically imbalanced. They just tell you that you are.


I've never heard of someone not being afraid of anxiety. If you weren't afraid, you wouldn't have anxiety. Can you give me an example of anxiety without fear?

There is still debate about how the subjective experience of emotion and physiological states are related, but they are not one and the same. A person could feel physiological arousal (e.g., anxiety) without being aware of any reason for it, which in turn makes it difficult to interpret as a particular emotion, e.g., fear.

Oh, also the idea that biological causes of mental distress are "merely theories" is utterly laughable.

So that you don't misunderstand me, I'm glad that you were able to overcome your anxiety without medication, and I'm not claiming that overmedication isn't a problem. It's faster and cheaper than talk therapy, so chances are good that it's prescribed in more cases than are strictly necessary. Just try not to lose sight of the facts when jumping on the overmedication bandwagon.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Well, I don't know what to tell you. Every definition of anxiety I've ever seen or heard has included the words "fear". Fear is fuel for anxiety.

No, you might not always know exactly why the anxious feeling begin, but once they do fear keeps them alive.
I'm so glad that you know everything about anxiety and that it cannot possibly occur or continue without fear. Thank you. I'll search out my entire life (even more than I did beforehand, which I did habitually since I was a child and professionally for over a decade) for this mysterious unrecognized fear that apparently started destroying my well-being for no reason.
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
But doctors are scientists and GAF taught me to trust scientists unconditionally. Now I don't know what to believe. Are doctors scientists?

Doctors learn medical facts which are the product of medical science but are not necessarily themselves scientists.
 

RELAYER

Banned
And I guess the other question is why are so many women the ones on these mental disorder meds? Maybe because so many women start using birth control (the pill) at young ages, while that is of course "safe" maybe someday the two will be linked. Guys don't start taking stuff like the pill in their teens, I'm sure if we did there would be more issues for us as well. There are side effects to every drug, and those side effects lead to taking more medications.

Ehhhh I don't think so.
If I had to guess I'd say more women are on psychiatric medication because women are more likely than men to visit a therapist in the first place.
 

R2D4

Banned
But doctors are scientists and GAF taught me to trust scientists unconditionally. Now I don't know what to believe. Are doctors scientists?

Doctors aren't scientists. They also have an army of pharm reps selling them shit on a daily basis.
 

unomas

Banned
But doctors are scientists and GAF taught me to trust scientists unconditionally. Now I don't know what to believe. Are doctors scientists?

Haha Science!!!

Yeah, it's pretty awful how loud the liberal/Science crowd is around here. If you contradict anything they have to say immediate lack of intelligence comments are hurled your way as if that's taking the high and intellectual road.

Doctors are intelligent people, unfortunately doctors are not well trained in nutrition, it's a system based on prescribing medications and performing surgeries.

I was on depression meds when I was 19, I thought I was "depressed" and attempted to take my life by swallowing a large number of pills, it was all because of a failed 3 year relationship. What I really was is simply hurt by this relationship ending and a lazy ass who was doing nothing with my life. I was prescribed depression meds didn't notice any difference, I was told I had a chemical imbalance etc. etc.

I was on those meds for 6 months, I've been off of them for 16 years, and I noticed no difference while on them. When I did notice a difference is when I started taking supplements for vitamins and nutrients. I also understood the difference between being depressed and just having a bad day or few days, it is very easy to think you're depressed because you have a bad couple of days.

There are many alternatives to popping pills, but doctors are barely trained on these things, and hospitals don't sell vitamins because they don't get kick backs for selling vitamins and minerals.
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
Ehhhh I don't think so.
If I had to guess I'd say more women are on psychiatric medication because women are more likely than men to visit a therapist in the first place.

I'll add to this that women, on average, give a bigger shit about what other people think of them, and put more emphasis on relations with others, and this could also increase the likelihood of them feeling psychological distress, seeking treatment, and getting medication.
 
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