Why are so many women on anti depressants? One psychiatrist gives a very enlightening point of view in the NY Times

Drugs are a huge part of the problem with healthcare costs in the USA. If you turn on the television during prime time, one drug add after another is showing us how we can live most wonderfully with the next wonder drug to solve every problem you believe you have. Unfortunately, other than the costs, it has turned many people in addicts; people like yourself. It is likely that the next accident you have with your car may be someone who is impaired by a prescription drug which is supposed to help them deal with life.

Women are wired differently than men. They hear better, deal with emotional issues differently and often have and voice concerns that most men spend little time with, and sometimes, they can be depressed or perhaps, have higher emotional highs and lower emotional lows than men do. Women as a result are more emotional beings, which is normal however, many of these normal women are on drugs because the healthcare system sees their emotional highs and lows as a syndrome and the drug companies have labeled it as such on the television.

The NY times recently featured an editorial by a psychiatrist who brings up the fact that most women are supposed to have highs and lows due to being a woman, and it is perfectly normal. Unfortunately, the healthcare system and the drug companies are seeing it as pathological and offer to treat it with in many cases, detrimental effects. Check the article out here.

Why are women on so many anti depressants? One psychiatrist gives a very enlightening point of view in the NY Times

Medicating Women’s Feelings

By JULIE HOLLAND

WOMEN are moody. By evolutionary design, we are hard-wired to be sensitive to our environments, empathic to our children’s needs and intuitive of our partners’ intentions. This is basic to our survival and that of our offspring. Some research suggests that women are often better at articulating their feelings than men because as the female brain develops, more capacity is reserved for language, memory, hearing and observing emotions in others.

These are observations rooted in biology, not intended to mesh with any kind of pro- or anti-feminist ideology. But they do have social implications. Women’s emotionality is a sign of health, not disease; it is a source of power. But we are under constant pressure to restrain our emotional lives. We have been taught to apologize for our tears, to suppress our anger and to fear being called hysterical.