Here is a copy of a blog by Cheryl Dym:
The Pill Society
Ok, lately everything reminds me of a movie. In discussing the implications of medication for PTSD and ADHD, I was reminded of the movie Equilibrium.
In that movie, following WWIII, society is forced to take pills which prevent them from experiencing emotion. Without emotion, people cannot hate others and the world can remain peaceful. While the movie is extreme, with all these kids being medicated, how far away is it? It makes one wonder, are we leading toward this type of society - where people cannot experience their emotions or "true self" and instead are medicated so they can be kept in line...
anyway, its a really good movie and ladies, Christian Bale aint that bad to watch either :)
Here is my response:
Hi Cheryl:
I am commenting on your blog as part of an assignment for my class The Literary Mind. I was very interested in this particular blog because i've often questioned the use of medication myself.
It seems that everytime we turn on the television we are blasted with pill commercials. If you are sad...take this. Can't sleep? Here...take this. Too Happy? We have a cure for you!
Then years later you see a commercial advising anyone who has had side effects A,B, and C from this pill please contact a lawyer...etc..etc
What exactly are these pills doing to us? I mean, if someone is depressed, does a pill really fix them? Or must they now rely on the pill to function...not really much better than a drug addict.
I also think that pills are prescribed way too quickly. The pill seems to be the cure all solution and is prescribed before attempting other treatments.
Personally I have had experiences with SSRI's and found that when the pill no longer seemed to be working, the answer was to prescribe more pills! Higher dosages of pills! It's ok to be a walking pill popping zombie, because you can't feel sad if you can't feel anything!!!
Besides, isn't it interesting that many pills for anxiety and depression can make these problems worse? I don't know if it is like this for ADHD medicine, but I do know that ADHD meds can have bad side effects.
Are we really helping people? Or simply masking the problem because we don't have the time we would need to really fix it?