Mental Health and Suicide

vocal1046
Tue, 09 Dec 2014 18:22:31 +0000

Please, friends, do not broadcast your personal belief about medication as if it was sound medical advice unless you are a board certified MD, in which case you already know better than to do so here.

However much you may believe it based on your own anecdotal observations, the suggestion that patients taking appropriately prescribed medicine to treat mental illness “often graduate to other substances and behaviors” is profoundly dangerous. The worst thing we can do is increase stigma with this sort of well-meaning remark that might discourage patients and their families from seeking aid from psychopharmacologists. It is already very difficult for teens and young adults to step out of the specter of shame to find effective treatment which, according to a raft of available peer-reviewed scientific studies, is a combination of medication and talk therapy (CBT or DBT).

Nobody would dream of making such a remark about diabetes or heart disease medications. Illness is illness and should only be treated by board certified physicians practicing evidence-based medicine. I know that no harm is meant and don’t wish to go back and forth. As someone with very intimate knowledge of this subject I can assure you that avoiding or interrupting treatment with medication is actually what correlates with greater risk of self-harm. Anti-depressants and mood-stabilizers are not gateway drugs. They are life savers.