The right needs to stop this fear mongering over mental health medication. Yes they're over-prescribed and the risks need to be made more apparent to patients. But they also give a lot of people their lives back.
Anxiety and depression are conditions that require treatment. Non-pharmaceutical treatments should be attempted first. But just like high blood pressure isn't always resolved through diet and exercise, sometimes your body just requires medication, and the brain is an organ too. In some cases all the therapy and lifestyle changes in the world won't fix those stupid chemical imbalances in your brain.
Medicine has risks, but living with untreatable depression and anxiety also has risks. It's not the government's job to make that decision for us.
reposting these tags because @the-shadow-under-your-bed wanted me to and her app kept crashing when she tried
I've also had very positive experiences with these medications. 6 or 7 years ago I was too depressed to maintain a healthy body weight and weighed 110 pounds as a 6 foot 1 male. An SSRI helped me get up to 170 pounds and I've been off of it for years since. I also had panic attacks that prevented me from maintaining employment and leaving my house to visit friends and loved ones. A benzodiazepine solved problems which therapy could not, and essentially helped give me my life back. I only have to take it a handful of times per year, but I prefer not to imagine the thought of being forced back into the dark past, left alone to fight against my brain chemistry.
