top | item 46016261

(no title)

EtienneDeLyon | 3 months ago

A seven-year old child is being given a brain-altering drug? I am very happy such drugs did not exist when I was seven years old.

discuss

order

undeveloper|3 months ago

the alternative is depression. brain altering drugs seem preferrable

wkat4242|3 months ago

Exactly. And it's a combination usually. It's really hard to do constructive therapy when you are depressed. Stabilise with the meds and then tackle the root causes with therapy.

But some people just are very prone to depression and need the extra help.

You wouldn't say "don't give that kid ibuprofen, let them just deal with the pain"?

And SSRIs are not very strong. They do have some nasty side effects especially sexually but this is not relevant at that age so that makes it even more suitable for kids than adults.

amypetrik8|3 months ago

The dichotomy of such mental illness is people with more constitutional resilience just say "power through?" and they are absolutely correct, it is something they can power through.

Mentally ill folk literally cant, not in em. There are right answers to help them, but that's not the right one. It's kind of like telling someone who is color blind to squint real hard, won't ever help.

Myself, I'm someone very much in the power through category. It's the simplest and most straightforward answer surely. But if it were the answer that works in practice we'd have no homeless people, no drug addicts.

TylerLives|3 months ago

Is that the only alternative?

pqtyw|3 months ago

For a 7 year old? It's about as absurd/dystopian as somebody claiming their 3 year old was diagnosed with ADHD.

susiecambria|3 months ago

I wish I could have taken something as a kid. I knew when I was 5 that something was wrong. I felt different from other kids (as least as they said they felt) and that continued through my late 20s when I started taking SSRIs. It was the best decision I've made. Ever.

But back to being a kid and thinking and feeling differently: It negatively impacted me. And the abuse only made it worse. If only I was put on drugs and/or sent to talk therapy.

intull|3 months ago

Under-nourishment/malnutrition, traumatic incidents/events, genetics, societal conditions, bullying and abuse, and so many things are also all brain altering. Why do we not consider them so and turn a blind eye to all that?