Has the cure become the cause?

Apparantly Shakespeare said that 'to be emotional and at times even a bit mad, is to be human'. I wouldn't know because I had an emotional block as a youngster to take in much of what I read or what I heard and certainly most of school Shakespeare went over my head.

   Modern psychiatry with its bed partner the pharmaceuticals has defined what is 'normal' in fairly rigid terms whilst carefully avoiding the label 'mad'! A curious statistic is that fifty years ago bipolar illness (previously called mania) affected one in every five thousand adults. Today it is claimed to affect one in fifty adults and there is now the belief that 'anti-depressant induced mania' is a primary cause (RSA Journal Autumn 2011). We all know the fastest way to get a patient out of a doctor's surgery is to prescribe a pill. In fairness, in my own experience medication has helped as a short term emergency lifeline, albeit zombifying me, but time and time again I asked my doctor 'is it addictive and are there any long term effects?' with a rather unconvincing response.

   My late sister Jill was addicted to Ativan and went on a television talk show campaigning against the widespread use of prescription benzodiazipines (eg Diazepam). I was given them whilst in hospital but was able to throw them down the pan before addiction took hold.  I was offered money on the street for a bottle but I was reluctant to fuel someone else's misery.

   Facing your demons sober is difficult and I have been without any kind of medication for over a decade and although my particular depression has been diagnosed as 'chronic' rather than bipolar (I am still bedbound at least one day a week) a bipolar friend of mine says he feels better without medication. I have noticed a difference in him. Perhaps the brain can heal itself but as depression now seems to be as commonplace as migraine is it not reasonable to question whether the cure has become the cause? However, one observation about my friend is that despite various handicaps (he can't hold a job down) he is always helping other people. 'Look out, not in'.