Recently, many doctors have shown support for revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the so-called bible of psychiatric disorders. The objective of the revisions would be to reduce the number of children and adolescents fitting the criteria of psychiatric disorders — and to therefore reduce the number of prescriptions of powerful antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs.
It is doubtless that the overprescription of psychiatric medication can be dangerous, and that there exists within our society a tendency to overdiagnose and overmedicate. Proponents of keeping children off psychiatric medication base their argument on a need to preserve the state of "natural childhood" and "authenticity of personality."
This is all a consequence of the stigma that still pervades society's view of mental illnesses and mood disorders. Parents who wish to keep their children off psychiatric medication are prone to deny that their children suffer from mental illness at all, and to believe that willpower and behavioral therapy will help them "snap out of it." What they do not realize is that, aside from the potential detriments of overmedication, the majority of children with mental illnesses that remain untreated suffer exorbitantly more.
It is easy for the uninformed parent to forget or disregard the biological nature of psychiatric illnesses. It isn't easy for parents to think of depression or anxiety in the same vein as other illnesses. If their child was diagnosed with diabetes, got an infection or had irregular heartbeat, it would make sense to take the necessary medication. Why not with depression or anxiety? Why not with ADHD or bipolar disorder?
Untreated mental illnesses not only lead to increased unhappiness and existential discomfort, but are also physically harmful to the brain itself. In her book "We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the age of Medication," Judith Warner cites John March, director of neurosciences medicine at Duke Clinical Research Institute: "It's bad for your brain to be mentally ill. The brain grows by learning. If you're mentally ill, what your brain learns is mental illness." Many experts agree that untreated depression in childhood or adolescence leads to exacerbation of the symptoms later in life.
Each year, 11 million children under 19 are prescribed antidepressants. One in every 14 children and adolescents under 18 is suicidal. The harsh statistics of mental illness are very real, and attempts to preserve some sort of romanticized idea of the authentic state of childhood are harming children who are already suffering.
In a society ridden with materialism and impossible standards, why is normality so valued? If a selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) prescribed to a 13-year-old stops her from suffering horrible bouts of anxiety and depressive episodes, why is the 'authentic self' better?
Medications are certainly not a "fix-all" to mental illness, but they can provide a degree of relief. Parents need to rid themselves of the nonsense stigma associated with mental illness. Love for one's child should be enough reason to seek help for any sort of sickness, whether it is the flu or manic depression.
I once spoke to a nutritionist who was not in favor of antidepressant medication. "They disconnect you," she said. Alternatively, it is my observation that one would feel more "disconnected" when living in a state of constant despair and unhappiness. It seems better to take a pill every day and feel like there is some hope.
