RSSThe Happy Drug
I was talking to a friend of the family the other day and she was telling me that she was prescribed a new drug to help her take Prozac. I thought “A drug to take another drug? That can’t be good.” I soon learn that my friend is not the only one; there is a steady increase in the amount of youth using Prozac.
Prozac (or as I like to call it “the Happy Drug”) is an antidepressant that affects chemicals in the brain that may become “unbalanced and cause depression, panic, anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive symptoms.”
Signs of depression include “changes in appetite, sleep habits, and mind/body coordination; decreased sex drive; increased fatigue; feelings of guilt or worthlessness; difficulty concentrating; slowed thinking; and suicidal thoughts.”
We all know that the teenage and early adulthood years of anyone’s life can be challenging but what hardships merit the use of the happy drug?
If a girl breaks up with her boyfriend and sinks into a deep depression, is she prescribed Prozac to remedy her troubled heart? Or if the girl becomes bulimic because she doesn’t develop like the girls on TV, is she a candidate for the drug?
Certainly if a person has been traumatized than their use of the happy drug is understandable…but that cannot account for the total influx of youth on the drug. Its either we have some lazy guardians and greedy professionals on our hands or today’s youth are demented.
You know who I’m talking about. The overwhelmed counselor who makes the suggestion; the tired parent who looks for an avenue to relieve them of their stress or the shrink who keeps the youth doped up because they will develop an addiction and keep them in business.
Youth are not always the happy campers that we would hope for though. (I think anyone that has worked with children can feel me on this) They can be moody, rebellious or just plain disrespectful.
Although the intention of the drug it good, there is still a debate around how effective it is. Is sending a person on a mental rollercoaster truly helping them?
The happy drug has numerous side effects especially with long term use. Common side effects include but are not limited to, “skin inflammation, headache, tremor, dizziness, excessive sweating, bronchitis, rhinitis, muscle pain, back pain, joint pain, painful menstruation, sexual dysfunction and urinary tract infection.”
With the amount of side effects, how do we know the drug is not adding to the depression?
Is the world really that depressing? If it is, will Prozac become the new drug the D-boys push? Or should we give it to them too?
6 Comments, Comment or Ping
BIG Tone
I think that the kids today need the kind of the medicine I got as a kid. It was free, you didn’t need a prescription, and didn’t come in a bottle. My dad always had some around to. It was called…”Ass Whopin”! I don’t know about you but it worked really good for me. I think he still has some.
Be easy people…Stay in TROUBL!
[Reply]
Diana
Isn’t crazy how people have to take a certain drug in order to be able to take the real drug perscribed to them. We are giving out the message to our youth that it’s ok to resort to this when in need and therefore when the same youth goes into adulthood they are on a number of drugs treating them with anxiety, depression, phobias, and etc. What happens when it’s time to stop taking the “happy drug” and the reason for depression pops right back out? There is no denying that life is always going to throw challeges our way. But instead of teaching our youth to run away from them by popping a pill, why not teach our youth ways to deal with challenges and in turn build their character. Is our society just too lazy?
[Reply]
TROUBLMan
Parents are the most effective drug. Too bad many of them are doped up also. its a cold game. Parents too lazy to be parents; doctors too caught up to find an alternative; drug companies too greedy to stop feeding us poison. The craziest thing about the whole situation is that these are our kids. What’s the future of our country when we’re raising doped up, emotionally dependent people.
[Reply]
"a mom"
Hey!
I just took my meds! LIFE. Parent are so busy trying to run away from life. Face it drugs are the easy way out, and our children are truly suffering from it. I went to church the other day and there was a young girl about seventeen who had what looked like a newborn born premiee.
I asked how old the baby was she said 3 months. I looked at her and said was she born early. She said no but that baby was too small for three months. Well her friend told me later that she was on drugs for depression and that made the bady very small when she was born. I didn’t know that you could be on meds when your pregnant. Why is everybody so depressed.
[Reply]
Talisman
Depression is actually real. I used to scoff at that shit myself till I went through it. I came out of it, with the help of friends, after six months without drugs! Feeding the drug companies our hard earned money for petty shit is ridiculous. A f**kin drug to take a drug is bordering on absurdity! If you can’t save yourself with friends help or your own, law of nature says you get eaten.
[Reply]
"a mom"
Give them a spank and a hold lot of love, hugs and kisses. I remember when I would go off on my kids. All the way thru high school. But I also spent a lot of quality time and participated in the school, scouts and their sports and we sat and talked and shared and watched movies and popcorn and the boys camp out in my room on the weekend. This is what these kids need our strength and our love. Not the drugs.
[Reply]
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