Are We A Prozac Nation.... ( Archived) (46)

Just to expand a little on your answer (which i agee to by the way)...do you think that we have given so many rights to our young people...without the sufficient guidance to make such decisions for themselves...that they are "lost"...and then ultimately end up depressed because they were not "equipped" just yet for so much responsibility????

I do believe that our children are "growing up" to fast and given to many responsibilities and a young age. I think that many people forget that a child should be treated as such..not as a young adult. Children are coming home form school to empty houses and making their own dinners, doing homework(just an example)..they dont have the parental support that they need to fully develope into and emotionally secure adult. I know that these situations put stress on the parent which the child picks up on in turn causing them to try to take on more responsibility to help out the parent...

Never had prozac or any type of related drug.............

It is a way to treat people for problems that many have faced on a daily basis............dont get me wrong, there are people that depend on these medications for a normal life, I am talking about those that are prescribed these meds over and over again and never confront the problem.


People should realize that medications such as these and pain meds while making life easier, they do not take away the problem, only make it easier to have it.

Why not address the issue of what is wrong, confront the problem and deal with that, then move on from there?


Just an opinion.

Certainly parents are pressured into keeping up with our ever growing world...and that in turn causes them to unintentionally (perhaps) pass on more responsibility to our children...but is medication the answer??

Our parents had to adapt to "their" world changing too...and expected us to comply..but it was done without medication...so then what is the reasoning behind it now??

I think people are the same as they were a hundred years ago,but with big companys and t.v everybody has access to medication.You ever watch t.v and there is a pill for everything and the side affects,there must around 30 ad's on t.v for pills.I was put on prozac for years and stopped taking it,I only have a bad day once and a while , maybe it's just normal and a part of everyday life for me,what I'am trying to say is of all the people on prozac a lot need it and a lot don't.

I think that now depression isnt such a taboo subject and is actually viewed as an illenss. People are more aware of some of the ymptoms and therefore can request the help of a medication...
No, I dont think that medication is the answer for all states of depression. I am a huge advocate for mental health therapy. No medication out there can magically remove the problem causing the illness...

As for children adapting to their parents lifestyles changing...whos to say that it never affected the youth of the past as it does the youth of today. But 15..20...even 30 years ago, I doubt that there were so many single parent households and in the homes of two parents, economics were different allowing one parent to be able to stay at home to look after the children. The stressors have changed over the years,so has the increase in the amount of childhood depression...

It isn't that there are more and more depressed young people. It simply is that it is just NOW finally being accepted that kids CAN be depressed.

I'm almost 30, and I was first depressed and suicidal at age 7. By then my Dad had already been in and out of the Mental Hospital several times, and would continue to do so for many years. But I couldn't get any help until a few years ago.

Unfortunately people still continue to believe that children cannot have mental problems, and that simply isn't true. They can. I did. AND-- because it wasn't dealt with then, my problems escalated. It has taken me two years to get to a level where my emotions are just now starting to get under control-- through therapy, medication (I even have to take an enti-psychotic for anger), DBT, and my own willpower. Years and years of seeing my Dad go crazy, my grandmother's blood all over the walls, my depressed mother, a relative trying to kill me twice, and much much more-- and not dealing with ANY of it until 2004, when I finally took things into my own hands, took its toll on me.

But I'm working on it. I just hope that through me more people will be educated about mental illness.

I just wanted to add that I need medication. I couldn't be where I am today on therapy alone. The medication got all my stuff down a bit to where things were functionable. The therapy helped work on it. But therapy TAKES TIME-- which is why medication is necessary.

I'm sorry to hear that...and please forgive me...I did not mean to imply that there are not genuinely children out there suffering from depression and need that help...

you are a wize woman, Cat!