I disagree with a lot there. But I’ll just go with psychiatry since that affects me most directly.
There may be a lot of faddism and disease of the month in psychiatry. However, after struggling through years, in which I had repeatedly been fired or “laid off’ from various jobs in my 20s, never lasting more than two and a half years in any of them, I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and started taking medicine for it.
Shortly after that, I started a new job, which I have now held for almost ten years. I found the patience to become a writer, as a hobby, if not for income. I found that I could be angry without a need to physically demonstrate it.
I am not saying this is the solution for everyone. If you want to say that ADD/ADHD is over-diagnosed, particularly in children, you won’t get any argument with me. But that just means there are bad psychiatrists, not that psychiatry is a fraud.
Because of psychiatry and medication, my life went from spiraling in towards what was, frankly, a suicidal course into one where I’m a productive member of society. By “productive,” I do not mean an emotionless, docile cog. I doubt that anyone who posts to sites like this can be considered docile.
Maybe it’s coincidence. Maybe it’s psychosomatic. Whatever the case, my life objectively improved after I started taking psychiatric medication. If that’ gullibility, then thank God I’m gullible.
I won’t argue with your experience, or at all actually.
Maybe you shouldn’t do this, but if you are interested, ask any psychologist/psychiatrist, your own possibly, if they can point you to a paper anywhere that documents any chemical imbalance in, or leision of, the brain associated with add or adhd that has ever been detected in anyone before they’ve been given psychotropic drugs. (The drugs do cause changes in the brain, so tests made after the drugs are taken are meaningless.)
I agree, by the way, it really doesn’t matter why you’ve been helped and it’s just great that you have. Some people with severe conditions seem to be helped by medical marijuana—they aren’t going to be given the same opportunity you’ve had.
Hank