As I’ve mentioned previously, I read Adbusters: Journal of the Mental Environment. A few months ago, they printed an issue about anti-depressants, especially Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), and the companies that produce and distribute them. The issue included horror stories from people who have had bad experiences with SSRIs. They portrayed drug manufacturers as evil money-hogs who seem only interested in the monetary benefit they can attain from selling anti-depressants to anyone who will buy them.
While I agreed somewhat with what Adbusters was saying, and with their collective resistance against such drugs, I also figured that they were being typically leftist-extreme, but with good intentions.
However, the practice of allowing medication to provide an end-all to depression reeks of naivetZ. The Web page for Paxil, a very popular SSRI, says “Treatment can involve taking medications, going to therapy or counseling, or both. You may need ongoing treatment to prevent it from coming back.”
This statement suggests that simply taking the drug may help to alleviate depression. But what if the medication doesn’t help? I have several friends who have gone to general practitioners who prescribed anti-depressants without requiring that the patient go to counseling. Well, that’s OK. Nobody should be able to force someone into counseling. That’s a personal choice. Right?
Yes, the choice to go to counseling is a personal choice. But what if this happens: John is depressed. He goes to his family doctor, who gives him an anti-depressant. John never discusses his problems or the events leading up to his depression. He figures that the drug will help him clear his head so that he can deal with these problems later.
So he starts taking the drug. Starts needing it. Within a few weeks, his depressive symptoms are starting to clear up. He doesn’t feel so sad. He knows that his problems are lurking somewhere in the background, but he figures that he’s begun to solve them and occasional conversations with friends give him all the encouragement he thinks he needs.
So, with this new perspective, John decides to take himself off the medication. He feels withdrawal symptoms. His problems rush over him like a wave of bad feelings. It is possible that, without the drug, his depression is worse than before. The drug desensitized him and made it easier for him to cope. So he goes back on the drug.
Have John’s problems been solved? Or has an addiction been appropriated? John has not dealt with anything. He has just made some of the pain go away. He got on the drug because he could not function well and felt isolated from his peers. Yet the pill numbs him so much that he is no longer sensitive to the needs and feelings of his friends and loved ones. He got on the pill because he felt sick of isolation; now the pill has numbed him into further isolation.
This happens all the time. People medicate themselves and never deal with their demons. Is it worth it-not to be truly well, but to have a drug habit that tricks you into thinking that you’re fine and whole when really you’re just hanging on to a pill?
Isn’t that what Soma was to the characters in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World?
The thing is, I can’t handle watching my friends go through pain like this. I have a good friend who just started taking Zoloft (another anti-depressant). He’s been depressed for years. He’s had some big family problems. But his doctor gave him the drug, and he is not going to seek counseling.
The problems he’s had in his life affect his relationships. They affect his worldview. But he doesn’t want to seek counseling because it seems like a waste of time, and he’s hoping the drug will work. Yet he’s been trying to stop taking drugs for as long as I can remember.
It seems like a sick cycle to me. I want the people I love to be well; I don’t want them to be addicted. It isn’t that I don’t think anti-depressants are helpful. They’ve done wonders for many people, I’m sure.
But I think that they should be better regulated, and taken in conjunction with professional therapeutic help. That turns them into less of a cure-all pain suppressant and more of a tool to bring about actual wellness.
Joy Murphy is a senior English major.