If you have been close to a psychotic person who refuses to take antipsychotic medication (a common enough problem that I have faced with multiple people), the "just trying to sell drugs" story gets old very fast. A lot of people really do need the drugs in order to stop harming themselves.
I think this article does a disservice by suggesting that people on such drugs are trying to get over a minor breakup. And actually that does a disservice to very depressed people and somewhat misunderstands them too. (There is also such thing as psychosis in severe depression, btw.)
It might be true that a trauma and stress that appears benign to someone else triggers such a terrible condition. But once the sufferer gets stuck in that loop... The drugs are very often the best idea available. Avoiding them can be harmful to the health of the sufferer.
There’s a difference between antipsychotic medication and medication like SSRIs or anxiety medication. Not only in effects/potentially in necessity, but antipsychotic medication can be very dysphoric and sedating, whereas some people experience SSRIs positively and others negatively, and where anxiety meds are generally well liked (to the point of dependence becoming a real risk). Also whereas antipsychotics and anti anxiolytics are generally quite effective at treating their specific purpose, SSRIs are relatively ineffective, and anti anxiolytics are often not considered long term solutions (at least to GAD) in part because of the tolerance/dependence/addiction effects.
So I don’t think it makes sense to paint all psychiatric medicine with the same brush
Just want to add I have heard people say they avoid antipsychotics due to what you describe as "dysphoria" and "sedating" qualities but one must also recognize that for many, a symptom of their illness is that they do not think they are ill or that anything is wrong.
I get where you're coming from, but we cannot just ignore the obvious incentives at play here. Pharmaceutical companies do want to sell drugs and many have a history of being not-so-ethical about it.
Of course there are people who legitimately have disorders who legitimately benefit from the drugs. But we also need individuals who cast a critical eye on drug prescriptions. The hard part is making sure those critical individuals are sufficiently trained.
If you have a friend who refuses to take drugs prescribed by a medical professional, maybe it would be best to get a second or third opinion from another medical professional.
Please don’t consider my initial statement questioning a metaphor to mean that people that have suffered a psychotic episode or are likely to suffer a psychotic episode in the near future should avoid medication. The threshold for considering medication should be lower than a psychotic episode.
My concern is the metaphor in which many people are viewing mental health, not in the treatments themselves.
Thanks for that. Sorry if my reply was too vicious. I think I was criticizing a variant of the described attitude rather than you or your specific comment.
>"There is some truth to the metaphor, but I wonder if it’s doing more harm than good."
In my experience, whether the metaphor does more harm than good really depends on the individual patient.
When faced with the chemical imbalance metaphor, some people will bristle and say they're not "broken." Or they'll feel disempowered because they feel like they can't do anything but take a pill (or three).
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For others, it lifts a weight off their shoulders. Most people battling with mental illness have struggled and tried various coping mechanisms to feel "normal." The understanding that the issue chemical, not behavioral, lets some people forgive themselves.
Instead of "not being normal enough", the cause is external; it's something they can't just brute force their way out of. Externalizing the issue lets the person stop feeling guilty that they weren't able to solve their own issue. This clears the slate for the person and leads them to a path toward recovery from mental illness.
NOTE: I'm not a doctor. But everyone in my immediate (and most of my extended family has been diagnosed with a chronic mental health issue. So has my wife, our girlfriend, and many others in my life. So it's well-founded anecdotal evidence. And, for what it's worth, I'm in the second cohort I described above.
It's easy to forget that modern generic SSRIs are dirt cheap.
$4-5/month is typical. These compounds are trivial to produce. Many pharmacies don't even operate as money makers. They just want you to pick up groceries while you're in the store.
Picking up a couple of apples while you wait for a prescription to be filled might cost more than the medicine itself.
It's true that there are more expensive on-patent medications available, but it's reasonable (and encouraged) to start with the cheap generics first.
I think this article does a disservice by suggesting that people on such drugs are trying to get over a minor breakup. And actually that does a disservice to very depressed people and somewhat misunderstands them too. (There is also such thing as psychosis in severe depression, btw.)
It might be true that a trauma and stress that appears benign to someone else triggers such a terrible condition. But once the sufferer gets stuck in that loop... The drugs are very often the best idea available. Avoiding them can be harmful to the health of the sufferer.