Hello @nattybongo,
What an important issue. Depression kills. However, as you suggest feeling sad or 'down' is not necessarily depression.
As I think I've mentioned before, I used to teach in a school that was designed for adolescents with psychiatric diagnoses. The profile was mostly depression, although children with other (non-violent) diagnoses were also accepted.
My observation (I'm not a psychologist. My background is history and English) was that once a child was referred for assessment, that child would get caught up in the system. School administrators and psychologists were afraid of making a mistake and losing a child to suicide so they medicated and kept the child under care. Maybe that's good. I don't know.
I do think a lot of medicines were prescribed very casually. Once one drug was prescribed there were often side effects. So another drug was prescribed to offset those side effects. This process cascaded so that multiple drugs were prescribed to young people, with young developing minds.
It's a terrible scenario. The children must be kept safe, and yet I don't think the ideal solution is always found in pharmaceuticals. Let's hope the future holds more enlightened ways of dealing with psychiatric/emotional issues.
Thank you for another engaging blog. Be well,
Regards, AG
Dear @agmoore,
Let me begin by saying how grateful i am for reading and for you very well written reply which is an even greater insight and compliment to what i was able to put together in my post. It is quite unfortunate these things happen, i do remember quite well how my Pharmacy lecturer use to talk about every drug been poison on it own based on the dosage.
I also hope that a much better solution is found for these individuals who end up falling and getting lost in the system. Thank you once again, and have a nice time.
Regards,
Nathaniel