Are people really more mentally ill these days or do we just talk about it more?

Question

Why is ever other person I talk to on some kind of drug and kids too? Is'nt it just the nature of being a teenager to be a little psychotic and moody? didn't we all live through it? Are we teaching our kids that a pill will fix every thing on onehand and telling them not to do drugs on the other? Yikes!!!!!

A note to Majnun99
I do understand mental illness in the past year I was released from a physchiatric hospital after 12 years of intense experiences and heavy doses of anti-psyhcotic medications among other things I wont go into. Lets just say it was an incorrect diagnosis that took away some of my life.

Answer 1

yep everyone is on pills these days for mental illness.

Answer 2

They just talk about it more.

From some of the things you said, it sounds like you don't understand mental illness because you have never experienced it. Let me honestly say that I hope you never know what it is like.

No, it's not normal for teenagers or anyone else to be psychotic. Psychosis is hallucinating and having delusions like believing you are God and so on. No, everybody doesn't live through that. Some people might use the word "psychotic" as a joke, but it's really a very serious problem.

Taking illegal drugs and taking medication prescribed by a doctor are two different things. Should people with diabetes stop taking their medication because "drugs are bad?" Why should mental illness be any different?

I take medication for depression and anxiety, and I wouldn't take them if I didn't have to. I would prefer to spend the money on something else, and I'd rather not have to go to the doctor either. But if I didn't have my medication I probably would have killed myself a long time ago. If you don't approve, so be it.

PS: sorry if I was a little harsh. I do agree that with you to a certain extent. I think some people are getting psychiatric medication from doctors when they don't really need it. But I guess that's between the doctor and the patient--it's not really up to me to judge.

Answer 3

There is a difference between your title question and your questions posed in the text. A huge difference. When someone says mentally ill, it usually carries a connotation of severity with it. What you speak of, and ask of, is the modern method of treatment, and most importantly diagnosis, of children with some type of attention disorder.

First we have to ask, what the heck is ADD? Well, simply put, it's a real thing, that is entirely overused as a diagnosis by doctors today.

Not just in these cases, but pick some other "disorder", and you will find medicines being prescribed for no good reason.

What's awful about teenagers and children being given medications, is that doctors should realize they are at stages where hormone levels fluctuate, and where the body has not matured into what it was designed as.

Answer 4

It was only a couple of generations back when people who
"weren't right" were whispered about, but certainly not spoken of publicly. In those days it was an embarassment to the family.
The person was often kept at home - somewhat hidden from
public encounters, and left untreated, no drugs, no counseling, no doctors.

Over the past 30 years or so, counseling and mental health care have become more common place in our society. Along with this gradual acceptance it has been more acceptable to speak of and to identify problems of the mind and the behavior. Before we didn't have names for the ailments we saw, and we didn't know what to do for the person. Our health care system still lags behind in considering behavioral-mental health care to be equal to
that of medical health care, and our health benefits also lag behind.

Yes, it has become more commonplace and acceptable to name and treat our deficiencies. And yet, sadly, it still is not available to all who have the need.
And to some, it's all too embarassing to discuss a "character flaw"

Answer 5

It is more out in the open. There have always been thousands of mentally ill and/or developmentally disabled children and adults. They were just removed from society so you didn't see it as much. I am a genealogist and I can attest to thousands of people in mental hospitals and state school in every census up until 1930.

Back in the 1970's when I was a kid, the kids in school who acted out were first sent to special ed, then shipped off to schools not to be seen again. We had just as many back then.

Given the way society is now, I think Prozac or Lexapro should be in the drinking water.

Answer 6

Hi:

I agree. In the past we would have been shipped out somewhere, hidden away somewhere...someone not right in the head..too embarrassed in those times to even have a doc go to their house when the mentally ill person was physically ill.

Today, yes I do agree that there are many docs out there that have the script pad in had before you even sit down. Thankfully mine is not like that, he chooses to use meds as a last resort.

As for myself, I am one of those people that if I don't take my meds, I will become suicidal and who knows if I would succeed or not.

You asked a good question and thanks for letting me vent about these issues. Wow, I guess they were bothering me!

Be safe and be well

Answer 7

I just read a very interesting book by Kevin Trudeau. I can't remember the title exactly but it was something like "Common cures that they don't want us to know.

So yes I do think drs are too quick to give pills for this.

Answer 8

im 16, and i have gone through hell. i think im going to go see a doctor soon, i talked to my mom and dad about it, they said they'll probably take me, but it might take some time for the doctor to see me, but i suffer from anxiety, extreme paranoia at times, and i dont know, sometiems i just cant control my emotions, and its because of the world and how its changing and everything is getting more stressful or so it seems, i mean hey, im 16 and my parents are wealthy, i shouldnt have any problems, but i do, and i shouldnt, not me, or so i used to think, but i do have problems along with many others that dont show it, but its there.

Answer 9

both , but in most cases somoene is trying to catagorize a child because they arnt just sitting there and doing nothing.in regards to mental illness , it is more common these days and there ismore awareness in regards to it

Answer 10

we used to kill crasy people right from the bat so i'm sure that there are more today than before.