Story of an Illness~Depression

 

            Most of us feel pressure every day of our lives.  It can be severe at times but we usually have developed coping mechanisms or tools to help elevate the feeling of being overwhelmed.  What happens when those tools fail?  Who do we look to for guidance to help out of this hole?  These questions should be easy to answer but they are not.  A physician or a psychiatrist should be our first line of defense but it is becoming more and more clear that they are merely part of a vicious cycle.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is considered the “bible” to professionals in the medical industry defines depression in many broad categories. The category that I chose to focus on is Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).  MDD is very broad and encompasses many types of reasons for depression to occur such as alcohol or drug abuse, death of a loved one and stress.  All of us will feel depressed or sad but when that starts to interfere with daily life events for weeks at a time it changes to a major disorder. (U.S. National Library of Medicine)  The treatment options that are recommended for this are Cognitive Behavior Therapy and medication.  This is where ethical areas really begin to get murky.   

When I began research into this topic, every website that I came across had advertisements for prescription drug treatments attached.  “Feeling blue? Call your doctor today and try Cymbalta.  Ask for your free 30-day trial”.  If I was feeling depressed I would definitely want my problems taken away with a little pill, I should trust what the doctors are telling me right?  In the article, What’s a Mental Disorder? Even Experts Can’t Agree, Allen Frances talked about his idea to put Asperger’s in the DSM because there currently wasn’t a category to deal with a less severe form of Asperger’s and then the aftermath of that.  A sweeping diagnosis started to occur, and the drug companies were the direct benefactors.  The DSM is the direct controlling entity that advises doctors, schools and insurances where to allocate and who to diagnose.  In the film Generation RX, the research that was done in this documentary showed that nearly every person on the DSM advisory board had a contract with the prescription drug companies.  The very people who determine “sick labels” are making millions of dollars.  Have you ever turned the television on during the hours of 9:00am and 3:00pm?  Between the soap operas and the daily talk shows there are an abundance of prescription drug commercials talking about depression and the target of this depression label for the most part is women. 

 In the article We’re all Mad Here: Pharmaceutical Advertising and Messaging about Mental Illness, the author discusses that in most countries it is not legal for pharmaceutical companies to advertise on television and that the mass distribution of this advertising is plays a significant role on how the United States views mental health issues and the treatments needed especially where depression is concerned. (Bitch Media)  The combination of constant in your face advertising and the constant influence the pharmaceutical companies have on our physicians have perpetuated an era of distrust.  With that distrust  and the pharmaceutical companies boasting an “instant cure” (no matter the side effects), people who are diagnosed with depression are automatically put in a “sad box” and they are not allowed to deviate from it and when they do they are labeled not sick enough or sad enough to really be depressed.  We have arrived at a tricky predicament in this country where pharmaceutical companies are making the diagnosis and the doctor’s are taking the back seat.  The social stigma’s attached with depression and the label’s that can be attached are devastating and that is even before someone takes the risk on a medication.  Are we really depressed or is that what they want us to believe?

Word count: 701

 Works cited:

Image 1: Google Images; Depression.

Image 2: Google Images; Depression.

Image 3: Google Images; Depression.

Image 4: Google. Images; Depression.

Image 5: Google Images; Depression.

Image 6: Google Images; Depression.

Film. Generation RX.

Smith. S.E. 2011. We’re all Mad Here: Pharmaceutical Advertising and Messaging about Mental Illness. Bitch Media.

Spiegel, Alix. 2010. What’s a Mental Disorder? Even Experts Can’t Agree.

DSM5. http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevision/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=484; Date accessed. March 24, 2012.

U.S. National Library of Medicine. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001941/. Date accessed, March 24, 2012.

Generation Rx-A film review

 

The main thesis of this film explores the commercialization of mental disorders and the prescriptions used to treat them.  We also see the corrupt nature of the prescription drug entities and the government bodies that are supposed to regulate it but ultimately fail.  The main arguments of this film show how ill advised we are as consumers as well as who is feeding the information to the doctors that we are programmed to trust.  The film shows in great detail that companies are there to make a dollar (69 billion a year or 139,000 dollars per second) which shows greed as overwhelmingly taken over our moral compass.  This films ties into what we have been learning in this section about ADHD and the labeling that is happening to our youth.  In the article, Are some ADHD-labeled kids just young for their grade, we learn that at what age a child enters school changes the diagnosis rate of ADHD.  After watching the film and the full push that pharmaceutical companies were making for this diagnosis in our schools, it makes me wonder do any of our kids have ADHD and does it really exist?  The statistics given in the film that the United States consumes 90%  of the Redlin in the world leads me to believe as an educated consumer that something isn’t just wrong with the kids in the United States but that are powerful entities such as the panel of the DSM and the FDA are in the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies who are pushing their agendas down our throats and making billions and billions of dollars.  I found no arguments lacking in this film and the film made me think long and hard about the DSM and what it really entails.  The biggest point that sticks out to me and that I would like to study further is how many minority children are misdiagnosed with ADHD and put on to medicine that is mind altering.  I would also like to see the amount of children that go into our juvenile detention centers that are immediately medicated.  In the article, Pharmaceutical Advertising and Messaging about Mental Illness, the pills that are being sold are shown as a "cure all" pill and when the general public are not educated about these medications they cannot make a choice for their children.  I would like to see from a minority perspective because the education would be even more important.  This film was outstanding and I put it on my Facebook so that all parents I know can make informed choices.