[EngManagerIsMe]

Left handedness used to be about 2% of the US population. Now it's about 12%.

While it could be that somehow we've got an epidemic of left-handedness that blossomed in the 1920s, what's much more likely is that we've gotten more accommodating and understanding of left handed people, so there was less incentive to fit the mold of right handed folks.

I'm sure there were people who were alarmed at that rise, who felt that we didn't really need left handed tools and accommodations for the "2% of people who are left handed", but when you made those things available, we stabilized at about 12%.

Antidepressants and ADHD meds are, imo, in a similar place -- we've increased our understanding, we've increased our accommodations, we no longer force the people who experience those maladies into the stress of acting 'normal'.

Once you remove demonization, of course diagnosis are going to skyrocket. When it's no longer a scary thing to admit depression, ADHD, or autism, it becomes easier to get evaluated and care for them. I experience depression, I am on an SSRI, it helps me a TON. Historically, I might have been involuntarily committed or been told to "deal with it". I guarantee you I would not be as successful as I am now if I didn't have the support I do.

(Similarly, I expect you see a lot more people being "out" in the LGBTQ+ community as a result of a similar phenomena. Once it's no longer criminal or "get lynched" territory, we see numbers of gay and trans folks increase.)

These things seem like fads. They usually aren't, they are usually the case of a particular mode of people being pressured to be silent and invisible. When you remove that negative stigma, the revert to the mean can be dramatic, but it will stabilize at a new normal level.

[notch898a]

I've also noticed family members benefit greatly from SSRIs. The main skeptic point I have is I've also seen them absolutely get wrecked by what appears to them as supply chain failures (usually because they're unable to get a meeting with a physician in time for refills and no physician will grant them a "bridge" to the next appointment). Of course as we saw during COVID, supply chain failures of all sorts are possible even when society has not collapsed.

From the outside one of the biggest concerns I have is one of these supply chain failures will put them in even worse place than had they never taken them, as I've personally seen their withdrawal symptoms look far worse than their unmedicated baseline. It seems to be a "better day to day" with the added risk of extreme withdrawal and associated risks during these few in a lifetime supply failures.

[kayodelycaon]

I would expect withdrawal from almost any medication for any chronic medical condition to be worse than baseline.

I’ve been allergic to milk for at least 15 years. I didn’t know it until 3 years ago. Now that I’m not ingesting a toxic substance every day, any accidental consumption has an extremely bad reaction.

It’s similar with my bipolar medication. Now that I don’t spend half of every day trying to not kill myself, I don’t have the tolerance I used to for paranoia, psychosis, and compulsive thoughts.

[notch898a]

There's a swath of people who (would) benefit from SSRIs that don't have day to day suicidal ideation, but might have it during the intense withdrawal process. The compounding issue is these supply chain disruptions by their very nature are correlated with stressful events like moves, natural disasters, foreign travel with unexpected extensions, etc.

This mere observation is not meant to advise someone for or against taking SSRIs.