"Prozac Nation"

The amount of new prescription drugs discovered each year increases, so why are the numbers for mentally ill people increasing with it?  "If 'wonder drugs' like Prozac are really helping people, why has the number of Americans on government disability due to mental illness skyrocketed from 1.25 million in 1987 to over 4 million today?"(Mentall Illness, 2012)

Prozac is a drug that is commonly prescribed as an antidepressant.  There has actually been a best-selling book and movie based on the true story of Elizabeth Wurtzel, a girl who suffered from major depression during her freshman year at Harvard and was prescribed Prozac.  She describes her major depression as "Waking up every morning afraid you're going to live."  But throughout the book she recognizes the problem with Prozac; it's widely and unnecessarily prescribed.  She calls her doctor "her drug dealer" and her office the crack house. She states,"Seems like all the doctors have been dealing now, we live in a Prozac Nation." She claims the drug does more harm than good.

Elizabeth Wurtzel is right.  An article written by Boston.com states that depression used to be thought of as a defect in the chemical balance of the brain.  However, recent experiments have shown that it has more to do with the size of the neurons in the brain.  One of the pros of Prozac is that it helps stop many of the signs of depression, but that is simply because it strengthens the neurons, helping them to grow.  But anyone can make their neurons grow by proactive physical activitiy and exercise.  So why is Prozac prescribed so much?  Because it's easy.  It's easy to take a pill and feel happy, but not all depression needs the extremity of prescriptions.  Before prescribing, every possible method should be tried.  

"The best way to think about depression is as a mild neurodegenerative disorder," says Ronald Duman, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale. "Your brain cells atrophy, just like in other diseases [such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's]. The only difference with depression is that it's reversible. The brain can recover."

This explanation of depression shows that it can be reversed, but taking pills is a solution that must be done throughout life.  Why take pills all the time when you can make a natural, empowering change in your life and fix it with the help of therapy or other methods.  The question doctors need to start asking themselves is: Do the pros outweigh the cons for certain medical treatment of the mentally ill?  Blindly prescribing medications can be harmful because the drug was made to treat the disorder; not the individual.  As with many drugs, side effects differ among individuals, some more severe than others.  Therefore, doctors must go further than matching a prescription with an illness.  They must look into the pros and cons and see exactly how this is effecting their patient as an individual.  In many cases, it may be more proactive to try other methods before taking the easy way out.