Re: CHAT: Profile of Mental Illness

>A lot of the newer psychoactive pharmaceuticals are much lower in "side
>effects" than the older ones, and they can produce their "therapeutic
>effects" even in people who are not mentally ill (which means that we
>probably need to re-examine what we mean by "mentally ill").  Thus, there
>is far less immediate danger in over-prescribing.
>
>Valium used to be the over-done drug of choice, but it had the benefit of
>sufficiently severe side effects that it didn't get the incredible boom
>of prescription as the current medications.
I'm just curious what current fad medications you're thinking of.  Prozac, Paxil,
& co generally destroy your sex drive, which I would think would be enough of
a problem -- and they often have other side effects on particular people, like
headaches or anxiety.  Wellbutrin doesn't kill your sex drive, but if you're
taking it and drink alcohol it causes sudden death in a small minority of people,
which is disturbing enough.

On the other hand, if you behave in a way that gets you fired from several jobs,
and despite the fact that it has cost you several jobs, you can not or will
not change that behavior voluntarily, but you *will* pay for medication that
allows you to behave differently...  I'd hesitate before calling that a case
of mere "grumpiness."

And that's just an imaginary example you came up with!

Ed
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