After I posted, I did remember one young woman I know, whose father died during the summer at age 54, and she was taking something for a few weeks there.
I also cannot help but think that SOME of those who are chronically taking meds do so, because it is easy to get more, and their doctors like the fast office visits for renewing the prescriptions. These women may NOT even be depressed, but have fallen into line with all of the advertising, etc., and THINK they are depressed for what was really a short-term stressor. ?? Just my 2 cents....
This issue is actually remarkably complex and sensitive and can’t really be boiled down to, “The doctors want to medicate them” or “it was the women’s rights movement” or “they can’t tough it out.”
Mental illness runs in families. There are so many varieties and variations that you can’t throw them under one umbrella. There are more medication options but some of those are blessings because, in the past, the answer might have been a lobotomy ... institutionalization or more suicide than we see now.
It’s probably that some of history’s most significant and artistically gifted people also suffered a form of mental illness.
Undiagnosed mental illness can lead to abuse of substances and that leads to more mental illness that leads to more abuse of substances ... so it’s a vicious cycle that is often not resolved until someone dies.
Most people with mental illness really don’t want the meds. Meds are costly and have side-effects. Many of the regular mental health patients at the hospital where I worked would wind up relapsing after STOPPING their medications because they didn’t like the way the medication made them feel.
It’s a shame that some people seem, these days, to remain doubtful and cavalier and even dismissive of people with mental illness. There may come a day in your life when a friend or family member needs help. There may come a time someone confides in you that they control a mental condition with medications. The correct and human response is, “It doesn’t matter to me. I’m glad that you’ve gotten help and nothing will change between us.”
And if, God forbid, there comes a day that YOU should find yourself unable to sleep for five days and suddenly agitated...or so depressed and hopeless that you plan to take your life ... I hope that you swallow your pride and talk to your doctor because mental illness is real and it kills people every day.