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Loading...1 in 5 Americans Takes A Psychiatric Drug
- Lissa Rankin
- January 31, 2012
- 11:03 am
- 42 comments
A recent study reported that 1 in 5 American adults takes at least one psychiatric drug to treat depression and/or anxiety, a 22 percent increase since 2001. Do you get what this means? This means that in an office of 100 people, 20 of them – enough to form an entire department – will be on medication.
In the average family of 2 parents and 2 1/2 kids, one of them will eventually take psychiatric drugs. At your next high school reunion of 1,000 graduates, 200 of them will be on mind-altering drugs.
Isn’t that shocking?
And yet, this doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Back when I was seeing 40 patients a day in my busy managed care medical practice, I was inundated with patients whose “chief complaints” (as we call it in medical lingo) were often not depression or anxiety, but other vague symptoms like this.
The Chief Complaint
- Fatigue
- Insomnia
- Weight gain
- Decreased libido
- Moodiness
- Vague physical symptoms like muscle aches, diarrhea, nausea, back pain, abdominal pain
When I questioned them, these patients reported that they felt listless, joyless, and low in energy. In other words, they had lost their mojo. (I call it the “mojo-sapping epidemic” in my next book Mind Over Medicine.)
It’s Not Just Neurotransmitters
Once upon a time, doctors recognized depression and anxiety as reactions to emotional events and life influences. When you lost your mother or got fired from your job or got diagnosed with cancer, it was considered normal to feel sad or anxious for a while. The root cause of your diagnosis was clear to everyone and the prescription was usually just time, not drugs. After all, time heals all wounds.
Then, in the wake of the increasing tendency to blame every disease on biochemical or genetic factors, these psychological states became attributed to neurotransmitters. Not enough serotonin. Too little GABA. The rush to “fix” these neurotransmitter imbalances with medication ensued.
But somewhere in the chemicalization of depression and anxiety, we forgot that, most of the time, these conditions arise because someone’s life is out of balance. It’s not just purely biochemical.
Read more: Anxiety, Depression, Drugs, General Health, Health, Mental Wellness, Stress, American, anxiety, depression, epidemic, fatigue, insomnia, Lissa Rankin, Owning Pink, psychiatric drug
Lissa Rankin
Lissa Rankin, MD: Creator of the health and wellness communities LissaRankin.com and OwningPink.com,author of Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself (Hay House, 2013), TEDx speaker, and Health Care Evolutionary. Join her newsletter list for free guidance on healing yourself, and check her out on Twitter and Facebook.
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people are talking
We all should eat fruits and vegetables, but organic fruits and vegetables !
thanks
SOooocute!
Thank you.
Thank you for this delighful article !!! how I wished my cat purred more ... ( sigh ) !!
42 comments
+ add your ownI believe people should be able to take the meds they need to life a happy productive life! What I DON'T agree with is primary care physicians being able to prescribe these types of meds! If a patient needs psychiatric drugs they should be referred to the appropriate person! My late husband (rest in peace) went to his primary care physician because of heart concerns! She said it was anxiety and put him on a psychiatric drug changing his life forever! Sadly two years later after "trying to find the right med" he couldn't fight the battle anymore and took his own life! Things need to change!
Mine help my depression A LOT. Without them, I'd be super sad and suicidal.
In the USA , millions of people are suffering due to the politicians who are not heeding the needs of people but bow to whims of transglobal corporations. People do not want a war empire or see the 1% grab 40% of our nations wealth as they lose their jobs and/or homes.
Biggest problem is the feeling of helplessness against a tsunami of taxes, cuts and elimination of what either maintained the staus quo or quality of their lives. Helplessness in the face of any reduction in quality of life will create a sense of dis_ease. For quality of life it is also a fight against the ME, ME ,ME !! MINE ! sense of entitlemnet many people have,
Cannabis is an all-natural, sustainable, non-addictive, non-toxic herb that has been used for thousands of years to treat a number of mental illnesses including anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Best of all, it has none of the side-effects or toxins common to the most commonly prescribed psychiatric drugs. More information can be found at:
http://norml.org/marijuana/medical
1 in 5 on psych. drugs sucks big time. Luckily some, like this doctor, has seen that a person is not their body and its only one part of spirit-mind-body, so if the spirit or mind are out of whack so will the body. She's not the first though to say that having various healthy areas in one's life is more important than just your body. The question still remains of course is HOW does one attain (and maintain) a 'healthy' life of money, sex, relationship, environment, mental etc. Thousands of ideas exist about those things---philosophy, psychology, religion etc. Does she know that 70% of illness is psychosomatic? That means originate in the mind. Thus you need to know what the mind is and how it works and how to fix it. Also that the spirit is boss of the mind so you need to know what the spirit is and how it works and how to fix it.
Certainly sounds like a sensible thing to try before going the pharmaceutical route and just covering up the problem. Thanks.
Thank you for the post and video! I'm always interested to hear what you have to say and it was a nice addition to hear you actually say it :)
I was an emotional mess for years and years before I starting taking birth control a few years ago. It seems to have totally straightened out my hormones, which is a great relief. It's given me the space to work on myself. I don't know what would happen if I stopped taking it, I suppose I eventually will, I would like to think that I'm well enough in myself that it wouldn't make a difference, but I'm not sure it would be that easy. I'm just glad that it was all I needed :)
FANTASTIC! I am incredibly against mind-altering drugs and I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one. The statistics shocked me, that's for sure, and as one who has (until very, very recently) struggled with debilitating depression, am happy to know that there are still professionals out there who believe in getting to the root cause of everything...not just medicate people...
It's like Matt Bellamy says..
"They'll try to, push drugs that keep us all dumbed down
And hope that, we will never see the truth around
not shocking at all
I suffer from anxiety often...but I don't want to take drugs for it...I try to find other ways to deal.
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