Just because someone is taking an “anti-psychotic” doesn’t mean they are psychotic. It means they are taking a chemical that is tweaking on their brain chemistry that is some fraction of the population acts as an anti-psychotic.

Psychiatric “disorders” and the battery of drugs used to treat them are maybe a step above leeching at the moment. We don’t even classify most psychiatric disorders by the their root cause. We just classify them by a set of symptoms. It would be like if we classified any time someone had a runny nose and a cough as being “sick”, instead of differentiating between someone with a allergies and a virus, muchless a specific virus or specific allergy.

I’m not shitting on the field. They are doing the best they can and making progress in leaps and bounds, but they are very much in the ‘sawbones’ stage of the discovery.

This list becomes even more startling with the revelation that most antidepressants are no more effective than placebos, except in severe cases http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/depression-medication-why_b_550098.html.

Some of the uptick is, almost certainly, tied to the fact that modernity is a grim, perpetually uncertain grind. Some of it, though, is more likely due to the fact that you can now get fired for drinking during lunch hour on workdays. A mg or two of Lorazepam takes the edge off to much the same extent that a unit or two of alcohol does; but is virtually undetectable by sight or scent and possesses the validation of a Doctor’s prescription.

People have been altering their moods chemically since forever(observe the archeological pot stashes going back 10 millenia or so, or some of the crazy shit that went into patent medicines and “nerve tonics” and such. The really dramatic difference in recent years is that a lot of that mood altering is now being done with agents that have some degree of scientific testing, and under something resembling the supervision of a physician…

I doubt it. The numbers presented are NOT the number of people using these drugs, but the number of prescriptions for these drugs. Since a person typically would have several prescriptions a year, the number of people using these drugs is much less. This is pretty obvious, adding the numbers in the chart together would mean pretty much everyone was on something, despite your experience with your circle of friends I don’t think this is true.

Which of course isn’t to suggest that there aren’t people with debilitating anxiety that would be dysfunctional without it. I just wonder about the relative proportions.

I have to think that these numbers are showing a prescription rate 3x to 4x the actual rate for recommended treatment.

These numbers are not surprising, but they are frustrating as hell. Big-pharma has so inured itself into the matrix of our lives. I know a person who used to work for a major Pharm and was livid when regulations were proposed to limit the amount of money Pharma could spend plying doctors with dinners and vacations. They said “This business is all about the relationships”.

No, this business is supposed to be all about helping the patients, and 44 million xanax users seems glaringly out of line with that mission.

What you say is true, but it’s worse than that, I think. Ghostwriting and the burying of study results that don’t convey the desired message spring to mind. But don’t take my word for it (and before anyone asks, it’s not just Big Pharma’s fault). Here are a couple links you might find interesting:

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0030185
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/04/deconstructing_a_promotional_s.html

From the second link, to a point that you touched on:
“Indications (“antipsychotic”) etc, are descriptors, not identifiers. 15 years ago Geodon was tested for schizophrenia, and found to be effective. Today, it is tested for maintenance bipolar; so we say “this antipsychotic is also effective for bipolar maintenance.” Wrong. That’s an accident of history. 15 years ago they could have first tested it for bipolar, and today done schizophrenia trials, and then we’d say, “this is a mood stabilizer that also treats psychosis.” Both of those statements are empty. It is a chemical, it has utility, not identity.”

Anti-depressants that were released in a generic form between 05 and 09 (inclusive):
Zoloft
Effexor
Celexa
Wellbutrin

Do the math.

Just think, if you’d quit your job and gotten a divorce, you might not have needed the drugs in the first place!

What is a “superscription”?

In my experience, Xanax is about 3-4X stronger than Valium. Xanax was the strongest anti-anxiety med I ever needed to take.

You could sleep through a nuclear war with Xanax. It was a blessing at the time, when my sleep patterns were completely upset.

Nonetheless, because it is a very strong sedative, it is very disquieting to see it being the most prescribed drug.

Finally, my old friend, who is a psychiatrist, said that he never wrote a prescription for Xanax.

And beware of Effexor. Google “Effexor withdrawl” (with the quotes) and you’ll see what I mean. Worst med I ever withdrew from.

Now on Aropax, but I have to wean off Prozac with a 14 day cold turkey regime before I can actually take them.

p.s. LOL: the CAPTCHA phrase to enter this message is: “massive rehabs” — how totally spot-on!

That is approximately 1 prescription per person in the US.

I don’t know how often these prescriptions are refilled, as apparently I am one of the rare few who doesn’t need psychiatric help, but this is a staggering number. wtf society?

Manic depressives everywhere would like to dispute that. Lots of times the best solution to a manic episode is to just wait it out. it can be days, weeks, months even. in the mean time, it kind of helps if you’re able to function.

as someone who obviously believes that depression is purely environmental, you likely have no clue how much worse depression caused by radical chemical imbalance can be compared to ‘normal’ depression, ie being depressed ‘about’ something.

i’ve never taken pharmaceuticals for depression for fear of mucking things up even more and it’s always worked out in the long run, but there are legitimate uses for these things, and the issue of depression is not nearly so black and white as you make it out to be. i’ve had people in my life die, devastating financial situations, betrayals, shitty jobs etc that made me depressed. none of them even came *close* to the times i was depressed for no reason at all.

That sounds about right.

I understand that mental illness is crippling and I understand that many patients get more than one prescription.

What I find interesting is the staggering amount of people getting prescriptions. The first thought that comes to mind is that our lifestyles are driving us insane.