ANOTHER SHOOTER ON ANTIDEPRESSENTS. What is going on?

Question

The pharmeceutical companies aren't telling us everything...

http://www.ketv.com/news/14782867/detail.html

Mall shooter Robert A. Hawkins, 19, murdered 9 people in an Omaha mall. He was on antidepressents. He is just 1 of the many (including many high profile) murderers and shooters on antidepressents, including the Colombine shooters, the V-Tech shooter, and many others.

I posted the entire list on an earlier question I asked here months ago: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AqfSsrQ7FNF.6oFNTMNQfkvty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20070925172920AAQnPbW

Answer 1

Have to do more than just give a person an antidepressants.

Therapists should have show him how to help the homeless, or help people who have drugs problem. Or keep drug out of school program.

Answer 2

I agree that in our society we are too quick too medicate. Robert Hawkins was on medication but was not going to therapy. He really needed therapy so he could feel as if he some sort of support. He probably felt isolated and alone.
The reason why we have more voilence in our society is because we treat people like animals, drug them up and just ignore them. We are not addressing the actual problems that are causing the depression or mental illnesses to act up.
It is much tougher than the society I grew up in. It is hard to get a job especially if you are disabled or have a mental illness. People are more anti social due to parania and anxities. Thanks to our new "war' on terror everyone feels as if they are on alert. Instead of looking at this inidivual incidents as isolated and not connecting the dots we need to evualate what is the common thread. How do we prevent this from happening again. We live in a reactive society rather than a proactive one. We tend to wait until something happens then we patch it up and fix it.
There is a song that was from the 60s or 70s that says "what the world needs now is love sweet love; that's there the only thing that there is just too little of."
This is very true. All we need is to love each other and try to help each other. Someone could have helped him yet no one talked to him or even thought he needed help until too late!

Answer 3

I think many doctors prescribe medications, but even when people have serious side effects or mood swings, they continue to take them because the " doctor said so". There must be some way for doctors and patients to continue to have rapport about those medications they are on.

This is another needless waste of lives that, more than likely, could have been avoided had their been medical interference and their meds had been better monitored. I know the patient is really responsible, but too many times they just blindly trust the doctor to be doing the right thing.

Answer 4

Our society is letting medication take the place of real treatment, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is that kids are not getting what they need from their upbringing. Discipline is lacking (not punishment, discipline, big difference), family time is lacking, and education has become politicized and unfocused. Our country's diet sucks, decision making is based on opinions expressed on television rather than on facts, and we have no moral compass anymore. Nobody is ever wrong about anything, and there are no consequences, until somebody goes so far over the edge that they have done something like this.

Parents need to have more time with their kids and need to take a more active role in raising them. It's not easy, in fact it's damn difficult, with how much time is spent just trying to keep the lights on and food on the table. It's not always pleasant. I know I have a thousand things I would rather do than sit down and go over homework or read stories or make sure the kids are bathed and fed and have whatever it is they need for whatever it is they are doing, but it makes a huge difference. There are too many kids who don't get the attention and discipline they need when they are young, and wind up on "medications" like we are discussing before they get out of grammar school.

When I was a kid, the kids who were on medication were kids with actual medical conditions. Kids who acted up were corrected by an adult, with varying degrees of success, granted, but at least the effort was there. Now, it seems like we want medication to take the place of putting in the effort to raise kids. They learn more from TV than they do from their parents. We're failing our kids, and we are reaping the fruits of that whenever we have a Columbine or Va Tech.

There is just so much that we as a country are doing wrong.

Why is it difficult to get decent food? Everything has been processed and adulterated to a point where the nutritive value is a fraction of what it should be.

Why are traditional values mocked and villified while our kids are force fed stupidity and vulgarity by most forms of media? Why do kids need to know about the gay agenda? Why do we have inappropriate products marketed towards children? It's hard enough to raise kids properly without being undermined by TV, video games, and the overall erosion of morals.

Whatever happened to educating kids and giving them the tools to get by in life? My eleven year old tells me that he reads at a tenth grade level, but he has trouble getting through books I read as a third grader. Science class is now global warming class, and math is being taught with gimmicks that make no sense. We don't teach any absolutes anymore, and it is coming back to haunt us already.

The country is in a sad state, and it's up to all of us to fix it.

Answer 5

There have been untold drugs trials on the public for many years now.One was called roaccutane (similar name maybe mispelt here) but that drug caused depression and some suicides.It was for severe acne.Something i suffered from for many years.Taking this drug was the weirdest experience of my life.allsorts of weird side effects were warned about in the packet data sheet,but nowhere did it mention suicidal tendencies.(or homocidal).I can tell you all that this drug was a worker on the acne (you peel like a snake) But the side effects were almost unbearable.(luckily i stayed at my brothers house and did not venture out for the whole course,but i am certain that i may have considered either depressing action had i not had my brother and his wife to rely on) I am not the "type" to have really morbid thoughts of suicide nor murder (other than the usual ranting revenge threats we all make when pi**ed off with another)But this drug was the nearest i ever came to either.

Answer 6

Our society is too quick to give meds in my opinion. I just kicked the anti-depressent bottle out of the window last month and I feel 100 percent better then I did while I was on it.
While I was on it, I had issues showing emotion to my family and I lost touch with reality. My children became just objects to me, just another obstacle in my busy life. I despised people in my own church I didn’t feel compassion towards any American. I wasn’t able to cry, feel joy or excitement but I was still depressed. During my treatment if it could be represented on a line graph it would be steady line with steep declines. I never saw the beauty in anything anymore, church became boring for me, I couldn’t even shed a tear during a sad movie. I was in robot mode, I was on anti depressents for a year and a half, I stopped when I tried to take my own life by overdosing, It took me a year and half to stop because the withdrawal symptoms were impossible for me. I got smart and tapered off the drugs myself.

Its been about 2 months now well 2 weeks without any withdrawal symptoms and I feel great, the depression I thought I had before taking the medication can be seen in glimpses however that depression is nothing in comparison To what I experienced while on the medication. Maybe taking the meds was a good thing cause it showed me that my problems before the meds were nothing compared to life with the meds. I don’t claim to be a Dr or have any scientific / medical proof to offer all I can give is my personal testamony. I lost my home and nearly my family to anti - depressents. However I have learned that all this materialistic crap in this world can go to hell, I don’t really need it God Gives me my needs daily now. Would I erase the experince from my life? Probably not, why because I know better now.

I think as a nation we need to be compassionate towards anyone and everyone, show love to the people who might be strange in our eyes or not fit our perceptions of what a person should be. God made all of us different, with different abilities, skills, traits and physical looks. Imagine if everyone looked the way society wanted them to look. I think everyone would look like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen those two look like life just passed them by and they are a trademark of what society has done to them.

In my personal opinion there are medications that are good and some that are bad, I take a ADHD medication to keep my impusivity undercontrol and couldn’t be happier with the results, Ive prospered as a result of it in my work and personal life. On the other hand there are other meds that are dangerous and need to be evaluated further. What I cannot understand for the life of me is if most anti depressents say they can cause depression in young adults, why are they giving them to young adults. I am a firm believer in not giving children meds, I think children need to grow and learn to make decisions with the guidance of there parents, if they don’t get this crucial learning opportunity in there early years (Sponge years) then adult hood will be difficult.

Answer 7

Even worse we giving our Iraqi Vets 3 times the amount of anti-depressants as normal people.

Answer 8

Another person not getting the real help he needed. Just pumped on drugs.

Answer 9

It seems so, but listen to this:

Those people were disturbed BEFORE they went on medication. It is not the meds causing it... they were already prone to this behavior... something different triggered them, into a tirade or into planning to hurt others.

Answer 10

Guns should only be available to the depressed if they are enjoined from getting ammunition.