Sunday, December 6, 2009

Over Diagnosis Syndrome and the Antidepressant Happy America

It seems that these days there is a “syndrome” for everything that could be wrong with us. I view it as an excuse for our shortcomings and lack of personal responsibility. Why is it no one’s fault anymore? If I don’t practice my golf swing and my game is horrible does that mean I have GPAD (golf performance anxiety disorder)? Typically I treat GPAD with some eloquently chosen vulgarity followed by several beers; it seems to work for most flare ups. Where did all these disorders come from? If we put a name of a disorder on every fault does that one feel better? Its like a built in isopathic mechanism that leads to abandoning ownership of ones inability to take the steps to improve the situation. Don’t we need to place some responsibility on ourselves and take control of our own lives instead of raising our hands in the air proclaiming immunity to our own actions? To put simply; bad beginnings usually equate to bad results. There are plenty of people with disorders that truly need help however I think there are a lot more people who proclaim their affliction and diagnose themselves by means of a convincing daytime talk show and or a stylish pharmaceutical ad campaign. It’s so much easier to blame your tardiness to morning traffic then to admit you actually got up too late. One my favorite tag lines for a diet pill commercial is “it’s not your fault that you are fat”. Just think about that one for awhile. There has never been a time that we have had access to antidepressants with such high efficacy then now. So why is it that we have more depression cases reported per capita in history? Over 190 million prescriptions for antidepressants filled in 2007 alone. Ever wonder what we did before anti-depressants? It’s called, dealing with it (life). I’m off to the driving range - with my mini-keg, Until Next Time.

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