Is Mental Illness a Myth?

First, I should probably explain a little bit about this blog. I have a few other WordPress blogs, but they are specialized. There’s the nutrition blog, where I’m trying to keep myself accountable with healthier choices (of which, I have done horribly for the last five days); the political blog, where I describe my philosophies on liberty and living freely; and then there’s the fiction blog, where I put my creative writings. This one I created for more general topics that don’t fit in those categories. I want to become a freelance writer, so I’m trying to create a couple of niche blogs.

Recently on Free Talk Live, the topic of mental illness has come up. I was going to school for psychology. I wanted to get my master’s degree in the field of clinical psychology because I want an LPCC (Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor) so I can be a licensed therapist. I dropped out for more than one reason. But anyway, on FTL, they talked about this book called The Myth of Mental Illness, of which I have admittedly not read. However, I briefly read the Wiki page, and I can sort of see the argument. I can see that the field of psychiatry has become a drug pusher of the worst kind. BUT!! It’s completely legal for doctors to do it, right? That makes it more moral than buying some weed from a friend, right? I’m sorry, I digress a little.

In 2011, 1 in 10 Americans were on antidepressants. That may not seem like a lot, but it’s actually up 400% from 1994, as the article states. There’s a reason for this. The drug companies push drugs on doctors like there’s no tomorrow, I think we all know this (if you don’t..have you been living under a rock?). In my abnormal psychology class, the professor was talking about how most doctors would rather see 3 patients in an hour to prescribe a medication rather than sit with a patient for 50-60 minutes talking about their issues. Why is this? Because the drugs pay more. Everyone wants more money and kickbacks from the drug industry, right? The fields of counseling and therapy are a dwindling race as more and more people are being prescribed drugs instead of talking about their issues and working through them in psychotherapy. So in this regard, I can see how some might consider mental illness a “myth.”

However. Doctors just prescribing medication instead of therapy isn’t the sole factor here. There are brain scans that can be done to show how the brain is acting differently when someone is depressed. Since these brain changes effect not just the brain, but also the mind, that’s proof right there that that mental illness isn’t a “myth.” It’s just not being treated properly.

If someone is depressed from a bad situation or trauma of some kind, the answer is NOT to shove pills down their throat. The issues need to be worked out in therapy of some kind, such as cognitive psychotherapy or behavioral psychotherapy, or a combination of therapies that actually help someone. As long as we’re on the subject of drugs, I don’t see a problem with someone self-medicating with weed. However, there’s a line. Once ANY drug or vice becomes an unhealthy coping method because someone doesn’t want to deal with their issues, they should stop self-medicating and seek professional help in therapy, because that is not healthy.

The other problem with this is that any doctor can prescribe antidepressants, even family physicians. I do not think this is right either. Let me be absolutely clear when I say that there are legitimate uses for medication for treating mental illness. I am wholly aware that some problems are larger than just what therapy can provide. However, prescribing medication should be on a case by case basis. If you’re sad and depressed because your parent/spouse/brother/sister died tragically, you don’t need antidepressants. You need therapy. If you have PTSD because of a traumatic event, you may need medication for some more severe symptoms, but you more so need therapy. Bipolar I and II you should probably have some sort of medication, unless you’ve learned how to deal with it on your own. Psychosis and schizophrenia you more than likely need antipsychotics (though, I have recently met one amazing woman who has learned to deal without medication, and huge kudos to her).

Personally, I have experienced my share of mental illness, both in myself and in my family. After I graduated high school, I spiraled into the darkest depression I have ever known. I was literally like a zombie. I went to work, I came home, put on some sad music, and laid in bed, staring at the wall. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve felt that kind of depression, what it’s like. Nothing brings you joy, and no one understands. You think people are lying when they tell you they do understand, because how could they possibly? My world was dark and black, and I literally felt nothing. I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t angry. I was nothing. Do you know how terrifying it is to feel nothing at all? I started cutting, a lot. The funny thing? Blood and injuries freak me out and make me nauseous. But I didn’t do it for that. I did it because it allowed me to feel. Feel something. Even if I was hurting myself, it was something. I later learned that cutting releases endorphins, so I was doing drugs without doing drugs. I have hundreds of scars, though most of them are faded to the point of barely being able to see them. It’s been a long time since I’ve done it, but I am not ashamed. I don’t need it anymore. But in that time, there were times I would poke my head out of the waves of darkness, and I was terrified. I was terrified of myself. I thought that I really should check myself into a mental hospital, because this was not okay. I feared for my sanity.

But somehow, I overcame that horrifying depression without drugs or therapy. I still don’t really know what catapulted me out of it, but I started changing my thoughts. I changed my brain chemistry without SSRIs. I changed the neural pathways without help. I probably should have sought therapy, though, because I’ve had a lot of childhood trauma. I did a couple of years ago, when I was terrified of my thoughts. I had been in a funk for a few days, when I had the sudden thought, I need to die. It wasn’t that I was thinking about how to kill myself, but it was an all-encompassing knowledge that I just had to die. I found a wonderful therapist and saw her for a while, but we didn’t get to the root of my issues: that I had been molested as a child. I still don’t know if I should go back to therapy to talk about that, but I feel like I might be mostly past it. We will see as time goes on.

As far as instances where I know medication needs to be used, is last summer my youngest sister developed psychosis. As far as I know, her official diagnosis is psychosis NOS (not otherwise specified), and hasn’t moved on to schizophrenia (which I’ve always thought she has…but schizophrenia is a type of psychosis). She’s been hospitalized three times; twice for psychotic episodes and once to get her medication regulated. The second time in the hospital was the worst, and it’s hard to explain. She was in a full psychotic episode, whereas the first time she was just really confused and acting abnormally.

The second time she was in the hospital, she was completely out of it. I saw her every day, and it was the hardest thing to see in my life. She couldn’t speak in full sentences, and cried. Constantly. She thought she had murdered us all in a fire, that she had killed us, and we where just people that looked like her family. She said “I’m sorry” over and over and over. She didn’t like the color red because it was evil, and she liked butterflies because I have a butterfly tattoo on my wrist. At one point, she decided that she had to kill herself because she had done the awful thing of killing her family in a fire. She would try and choke herself to death. Now, normally, if someone with a conscious mind tries to suffocate themselves, they cannot. Their brain would scream and tell themselves that they need to breathe, and unconsciously their body would take steps to allow them to breathe again. When someone is mentally gone, would that process happen? Even after they pass out, would they stop? I don’t know. More than once, I had to wrestle her hands from their deathgrip around her throat. She was on 24 hour nurse watch. It’s hard to explain how she wasn’t mentally sound. But trust me when I say, she needs to be on antipsychotics.

Yes, I know that there are people that truly need medication, but the over prescribing of meds seems to invalidate the viewpoint that there are people that need it. Drugs should be prescribed on a case by case basis, and they aren’t something to fool around with. Many times, some therapy would probably be a better solution that actually gets to the root of a problem. Or, a combination of meds and therapy. Drugs should always be taken with caution, especially because some of them are very powerful, as antipsychotics are.

I hope no one misunderstands anything I’ve said, because I don’t think that mental illness is a myth, and I don’t think that drugs should not NOT be used, but to exercise some thought when taking any drug, legal or not. (As an aside, MDMA, or ecstasy, was originally created to cure PTSD, which it has been shown to do, and I think it’s funny that everyone acts like this wasn’t its purpose before it became illegal…).