Post #19

A friend of mine put a list of lyrics together that he found to be inspiring, moving, etc. One of them stuck out quite a bit and he asked me to explain why. I'll copy/paste the email below. This isn't a cop-out post...I'm not posting this because I can't think of anything to write. I'm posting because I can't stop thinking about it. So, here goes...


“Another pill I’m to consume to make me learn to feel again is followed by another one to make me lose the same.”
(Fuel – "Solace")


Alright…basically I just feel like this lyric screams so much truth about the society we live in (and possibly other societies, I don’t know for sure though so I can’t really speak for the world as a whole).

It reminds me of the fact that anti-depressants are one of the most highly prescribed medications in the U.S. Here’s a link to an article about it. I’m not just pulling that out of my ass :]


http://health.howstuffworks.com/health-illness/treatment/medicine/medications/antidepressant-most-prescribed.htm


SO. When I think about THAT little fact, it makes me think about how it seems like anti-depressants sometimes are a cop-out. Granted, some people TRULY need them because they have a chemical imbalance in their brain that can really only be fixed via medication. But something tells me that not all the people who take them truly have a chemical imbalance. I feel as though sometimes doctors don’t want to deal with people’s issues. They just tell them to take a pill and the pain will go away. The sad thing is, when the pain goes away, so does the happiness. I have had some people tell me that when they take anti-depressants, they are never really happy but also never sad. They just go through the day on auto pilot…without feeling a full range of emotions. And that’s really sad to me. Emotions are beautiful, in my opinion. It lets us know that we’re still alive. We’re still human. Weakness is not a bad thing, but I wish more people would see that. And I also wish everyone had at least one person they could completely confide in. I’m a big believer in the idea that simply having someone you can talk to, who won’t judge you, who won’t tell you what to do, etc. is very beneficial. I know not every doctor is the same, but from what I’ve experienced, they just push you off to another doctor or to some “magic pill”. They don’t want to deal with it. They have bigger fish to fry. The more patients they have, the more money they’ll make. The more money they make, the happier they think they’ll be. I went to a doctor a couple weeks ago and I waited for over an hour. When I actually saw the doctor, it only took about fifteen minutes. If that’s not ass backwards, I don’t know what is. ANYWAY…the lyric just reminded me of pharmaceutical companies/doctors/etc. People mistake sadness for depression and think the only way to get well is to take a pill. But often times the pills just mask symptoms and help people get through their days without feeling. Feeling is a natural, human emotion. We need to get to the ROOT of the problem, if a person is really depressed (or even if they’re “just” sad). We would have a much happier world, I think. Makes me want to be a therapist, honestly. But I don’t know if I could do it long-term.

For now I’ll just continue trying to slip happiness into the world by doing little things.