Panel: All teens should be tested for depression

Being a teenager should be the best time of your life and if you're depressed now, then wait until you turn 25, then it's down hill all the way. It's a bit like riding a bob sleigh down Mount Everest.

It's disgusting the way doctors freely hand out prescriptions for antidepressants. From my own personal experience, taking them is the worst thing you can do. They completely screw up your brain chemistry and it takes years to recover from the negative side effects. Better off just eating healthy and learning to meditate.

[edit on 30-3-2009 by kindred]

Now I will agree that there are a certain number of individuals on this planet who suffer from depression as a chemical imbalance.

The problem with depression is that they is no laboratory test

Most doctors use this to DX depression.
en.wikipedia.org...

One problem is people with health problems score as depressed or severely depressed.
I have fibromyalgia and i am not depressed but most doctors will not believe that.

Yes i have taken anti depressants for fibromyalgia pain and sleep disorder and they did nothing for the pain or to help me sleep.

Know i have had a doctor put on my medical records that i am depressed and denying it.

I worked for over 30 years as a part time VOL Emergency Medical Technician.
i know i am not depressed.
but now that is on my medical records all doctor at the VA hospital i go to will see it and believe i am depressed.
luckily i am disabled and do not have to look for work or this would fallow me in trying to find work.
yes employers can find out your medical history.
if you use insurance to pay for treatment it will become record and many companies doing background checks can find out and do.

now with teens that get labeled wrongly depressed they will likely be denied health insurance as having a preexisting condition when they get older and never be able to prove that they were wrongly DXed.
www.guaranteedhealthcare.org...
www.dailykos.com...
or they may get coverage and later find when they have a non depression major health problems the insurance company will cancel there policy claiming they hid a preexisting condition that they never had because of a miss DX.
www.lawyersandsettlements.com...

I can see why the doctors are trying to get teens DXed with depression.
But it will haunt the teens for the rest of there lives.

well it won't help, most teens will lie...like I did

I think it may be a good idea for most to see a shrink.

BUT I would never support forcing teens to, or parents forcing to taking their kids to.
I do support it being encouraged, since I know how life was as a depressed teen.


[edit on 30-3-2009 by dankanight13]

Originally posted by dankanight13
I know how life was as a depressed teen.

Awwwww.....

Seriously, the idea that it is normal for a person to be on long-term medication for an everyday human condition is basically and fundamentally counter-intuitive. The scary thing is, most of the population is too far gone even to realize that.

reply to post by Grayelf2009


In the words of Stan, Really? I mean really???

If its true it's a sad fact that six percent of teens face depression.

Sure, let's test all kids for depression. Heh. How about we test all politicians and government officials for moronism? Ut, oh. Off topic. Moderators, I will immediately run outside my cave and roll on a thorn bush and beat myself senseless.

Teens go through depression, rebellion, you name it.

They certainly do not need to be drugged (apart from their own drugs I mean). And if you are a teenager reading this - STOP TAKING DRUGS, please, for your own sake.

Being a teenager has always been difficult. It is more difficult now because the world is a tougher place to live in.

They just have to get through it, or not.

The LAST thing they need is mind-altering drugs (apart from what they take, as I said - which they really DON'T need, but who can convince them of that?)

Here I am with the same quote from the same book again. Think I posted this at least 10 times

They know that there is a way the world is supposed to be, and a magnificent role for themselves in that more beautiful world. Broken to the lesser lives we offer them, they react with hostility, rage, cynicism, depression, escapism, or self-destruction—all the defining qualities of modern adolescence. Then we blame them for not bringing these qualities under control, and when they finally have given up their idealism we call them mature. Having given up their idealism, they can get on with the business of survival: practicality and security, comfort and safety, which is what we are left with in the absence of purpose. So we suggest they major in something practical, stay out of trouble, don't take risks, build a résumé. We think we are practical and wise in the ways of the world. Really we are just broken and afraid. We are afraid on their behalf, and, less nobly, we are afraid of what their idealism shows us: the plunder and betrayal of our own youthful possibilities.

Not only does school prepare us to submit to the trivialized, demeaning, dull, and unfulfilling jobs that dominate our economy to the present time, not only does it prepare us to be modern producers, it equally prepares us to be modern consumers. Consider Gatto's description:

Schools train individuals to respond as a mass. Boys and girls are drilled in being bored, frightened, envious, emotionally needy, generally incomplete. A successful mass production economy requires such a clientele. A small business, small farm economy like that of the Amish requires individual competence, thoughtfulness, compassion, and universal participation; our own requires a managed mass of leveled, spiritless, anxious, familyless, friendless, godless, and obedient people who believe the difference between "Cheers" and "Seinfeld" is worth arguing about.

www.ascentofhumanity.com...

I see around here threads about "revolution" or something like that.
When the plane is going down with both engines destroyed, you do not revolt and change the pilot, you escape the plane. The plane is our system today. Let it fall. My idea of revolution is a new way of life that ignores the old. No money, no materialism, self sustainable and local. If only the old system would let us do it. It's full of half asleep people believing in it and depending on it to survive. And they cannot imagine another way.










[edit on 31-3-2009 by pai mei]

reply to post by pai mei


I totally agree. We break our kids, just as we were broken, in an attempt to 'be normal'.

It is not normal, and that is why most of us are broken, and our children are being stifled.

It is tragic, and I do not see any way out of this situation.

reply to post by pai mei


Just have to say..maybe Jesus Christ is the way?

I am a strong advocate of Jesus Christ but not of any churches.

People get annoyed when I mention Jesus - why?
He showed us the best way to live our lives.

Jesus is about forgiveness and love.

With neurotoxins in the the food supply, every product you use and a cocktail of prescription drugs in the water supply... of course a large majority of the population is going to suffer from depression (and a host of other health problems).

They MAKE people sick so they can then turn around and 'help' them with these dangerous medications.

I had depression and was on antidepressants for 7 years until I found out it was the garbage they call 'food' that was causing the depression. Once I stopped eating the government-issue poison, my depression disappeared and it only returns when I consume the government-issue poison in a restaurant or someone elses home.

People need to wake up and realize that the food supply is not safe. Why is it so terrible and tragic when people are killed immediately from salmonella poisoning but it's ok to kill them over time with toxins like MSG, aspartame and fluoride?

reply to post by spellbound

I tried the Jesus thing and that really added to my hopelessness.... I saw that most people that were going that route were just as bad off as myself and living the charade thinking that the acceptance of the others would make them happy.

Originally posted by starviego

Originally posted by dankanight13
I know how life was as a depressed teen.

Awwwww.....

Seriously, the idea that it is normal for a person to be on long-term medication for an everyday human condition is basically and fundamentally counter-intuitive. The scary thing is, most of the population is too far gone even to realize that.

Well, I never said anything about pills. There are alternate methods, such as shrinks as posted.

reply to post by hypervigilant


Stop seeking happiness and you will be happy

I did and I am. The trick is to see the debt that the people that have the appearance of happiness is in, and then as poor as you may be do without all of the things that make them happy. It makes me happy to not live above my means and have money in my pocket to spend on essentials and more if I can afford to if I choose to..... Getting laid helps some too.

Big Pharma is preying on a natural condition all teen go through. When my step-son went through this his mother talked me into having him get medical help. I told this shrink that I did not want him taking drugs to fix this problem that is was natural and we just need to pay attention to it.

He then told my son that the sessions they had were not to be talked about to his mother and I. He then stated that by law we had no rights to what was discussed! This was our under age son!!

I told the Doctor of the sleep problems of a teen and he told me he did not know what I was talking about. This guy specialized in adolescent depression and didnt know about this?!?

Here is a snippet from Stanford University.

They Need More Sleep Adolescent sleep has been a very popular subject lately. People are questioning the fact that it may be true that their teenage sons and daughters may need more sleep than they did as a child, that they are not turning into lazy, sleepy young adults by choice. Sometime in late puberty, the body secretes the sleep-related hormone melatonin at a different time than it normally does. This changes the circadian rhythms that guide a person's sleep-wake cycle. For instance, if you told your teen to go to bed at 10 p.m., she may end up staring at the ceiling until 1 or 2 a.m. waiting to fall asleep. At about 7:30 p.m. a teen feels wide awake and fully alert, unlike an adult who is starting to "wind down" and feel sleepier as the evening progresses so that at 10 p.m. the adult is ready to go to bed. The teen-agers "wind down" time takes place much later. Changes Are Taking Place Studies show that the changes taking place in their bodies requires more sleep and they may be physically challenged to getting up early in the morning. Their internal biological clock may slow down in adolescence. That can account for not their being sleepy until 2 a.m. To think that their child, who once awoke at the crack of dawn and was eager to watch cartoons even on Saturday mornings has now by choice, turned into a lazy, sleepy, young adult who wouldn't wake up in the morning if a bomb went off in the next room, is trying to undermine their authority in some way.

Stanford link

Do not buy what they are selling. Serotonin re-uptake inhibitors are dangerous and upset the natural balance of our emotional state and keep people in a non-human robotic like state.

We are being fooled by this crap.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
For those who are clinically depressed...antidepressants are a Godsend, and if a clinically depressed teen goes a round of antidepressants...under tight medical control, and their lives improve corespondingly...then that's a good thing.

Thank you for saying that. Both my kids have chronic severe depression (as does my husband). If we had realized that my daughter had this depression when she was a teen, we could have intervened and she would have had a completely different life and self-image. She struggles terribly now; a problem compounded by chronic health problems and chronic pain.

I wish I had known what to look for. I wish she'd gotten screened.

The danger of SSRI's Here is an article I just read. Its from a site called "Chronic pain mission"

Thank God for the BBC! Their reporting has produced enough public pressure to result in hearings which have lead to action being taking against the SSRI antidepressants. "This followed a BBC Panorama programme last autumn that highlighted claims that the drug [Paxil] has pushed some people into suicide and caused others withdrawal problems, provoking the biggest response in the programme's history with 67,000 calls and 1,400 e-mails". "But the ban announced this week by the MHRA on prescribing Seroxat to under-18-year-olds is the first official acknowledgement that the SSRIs do increase suicidal thoughts and impulses, at least in the young. "The outcome of the inquiry could be of momentous significance. Like many new drugs, the SSRIs are following a familiar trajectory: soaring popularity on launch as they are hailed as a wonder drug, followed by the emergence of doubts about safety leading to plummeting prescribing." But obviously this reporter remains totally unaware of the serious problems associated with the mechanism of the SSRIs. When you understand the problems behind the SSRI hypothesis it becomes clear that these are among the most deadly drugs the world has ever seen and should NEVER be reserved for anyone for any reason. They are in the same class as '___' and PCP. As I have continued to state for a decade and a half now what is low in depression, anxiety, etc., is low serotonin metabolism, not low serotonin. There is a very big difference in the two! The SSRIs impair serotonin metabolism even further leading to the deadly results we have witnessed with these drugs - results that according to research we will witness for years to come as we work to wean patients off these extremely addictive drugs and assess the extent of the damage. Research over the past 60 years has been clear that impairing serotonin metabolism leads to: psychosis or schizophrenia, mood disorders, organic brain disease, mental retardation, autism, impulsive murder and suicide, Alzheimer's, depression, anxiety, violence, arson, substance abuse, insomnia, violent nightmares, impulsive behavior with no concern for punishment, reckless driving, exhibitionism, hostility, argumentative behavior, etc. We have a high rate of use of these drugs. Clearly lowering the metabolism of serotonin in such a large number of people can produce very serious, widespread and long term problems for all of society. I have spent 14 long years attempting to wake up the world to the potential deadly impact of the use of these drugs, hopefully this is the beginning of the end. Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, Executive Director, International Coalition For Drug Awareness www.drugawareness.org author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? Our Serotonin Nightmare (800-280-0730)

www.cpmission.com...

Here is how they work and why they are dangerous. This is from www.drugawareness.org......

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors do exactly that: Inhibit the reuptake of serotonin, thus leaving excess serotonin which allows this stimulation to continue. It has long been known that inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin will produce depression, suicide, violence, psychosis, mania, cravings for alcohol and other drugs, reckless driving, etc. [See full list of reactions below] The most popular drugs that produce this reuptake of serotonin are: SSRI Antidepressants: Prozac, Serafem, Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro SNRI Antidepressants: Effexor, Remeron, Serzone, Cymbalta Atypical Antipsychotics: Zyprexa, Geodon, Abilify, Seroquel, Risperdal

I have been on the front line responding to suicides being a Firefighter/EMT. I have to cut them down off the ropes they hang themselves with. Other times its a suicide prevention when someone intervened in time to dial 911. We stage off scene as we wait for the Police to clear the scene and make sure the FD is not in danger. I then collect the drugs from the medicine cabinet and they always have an SSRI in there.

Just another way for drug companies to make more and more money. That's all I see it as. I was depressed as a teen and I am fine now. I didnt need meds, I just needed to grow up a little..