Prozac Nation Is Now the United States of Xanax

Yeah but reporting on the actual problems in this country instead of Trump tweeting about some people who until a few days ago I had never even heard of doesn't fit the right narrative.

Anyway, I'm going to keep trying to teach kids and adults how to write code and keep making sure I vote in my local elections. I'm really disappointed in the media and our government.

Actually benzodiazepine addiction is perceived to be a particularly bad problem in the UK. There is a clinic in Is real that treats a large number of Israelis who allegedly wrecked their nervous system with LSD and are now unfit for the IDF. A clinic in Poland is always treating drunks who drank too much 1-propanol.

Benzodiazepines deliver fast relief from anxiety but they interfere with learning and memory. Naturally people can learn how to deal with problems better and maybe therapy can speed up that process. Benzodiazepines throw a monkey wrench into that, but antidepressants do not.

That article has a social context on that the news media is benefitting enormously from trump because people keep reading and watching to see what crazy thing trump will say next. CNN might be negative on trump, but the massive coverage they gave him, driven by a quest for ratings, made him more credible than the other republicans.

> Their mental health complex/industry seems really dysfunctional from outside.

Most definitely.

But it's just a reflection of how much American culture values money/power/domination. US health-care is simply dominated by a ferocious version of capitalism (which of course includes an overdose of corruption).

The quality of life for most Americans is on the decline, hence why political extremists on both sides were nearly elected(For those outside the US, yes, Sanders is considered an extremist in this country). Workers work more, make less, get treated less well by their employers, have less stability, and simply don't have much free time. Socially, America is losing their identity due to a spreading mentality that social norms are bad for us. We spend time with other people less, have fewer close relationships, and find trouble spending much time with our kids because both parents work. Those who move to big cities from rural areas because the cities are the only places rising economically right now find that they lose the social support and child-rearing support that families provide, but there's not much they can do about that if they want to be okay financially.

College is seen as the only avenue of getting out of that rat-race, but with ballooning schooling costs and large time and mental requirements to complete it, it's becoming an option for fewer and fewer people... Then when you do graduate, you're still paid significantly less than graduates 10 years ago.

On top of all this, there isn't even healthcare stability. Costs for care and medication are ballooning so high so fast, but it's not like we can do anything about it. Healthcare is a necessity. If you're poor, can't afford insurance, and find yourself with a cut, broken bone, or god forbid cancer, you can't even be sure you'll be able to get care.

With all of this instability, insecurity, and declining quality of life for most, it's only natural that anxiety and depression would be on the rise.

I think about this a lot. I worry that the people of yesteryear had a simpler and probably tougher life, but a more fulfilling one.

Like I always said, a cold beer on a hot day feels so much better when you know you've earned it. Today, do we feel we've earned that big TV, the big car, the free social housing? It's all faceless and non-creative.

It amounts to a lack of community. Things like Facebook where people spend a stupid amount of their time, disconnect them from their local community and give them a false sense of healthy human relationships. How is it that somebody can have 1000 Facebook friends but not know their next door neighbor?

Economists really should get on estimating the hedonics of such meds. Every man can afford not to give a damn. True wealth.

Many Poor people (not all let me stress that) today have access to medications that could help them with mood disorders, pain management , and various other medications that Kings could not even dream of years ago.

Maybe those material objects are also ways both kings then, and poor people now medicate themselves.

Think of how it was to be a part of royalty - there's a lot of isolation involved. Humans need social interaction. When we can't get it, sometimes we fill our lives with stuff that owns us. That doesn't work, so we try drugs.

Perhaps it's more like, we're not fighting the root cause of the problem: we're all lonely and scared.

No amount of money, or social status, or stuff is going to help us how to learn to love, and be loved. It's just going to make others envy us and envy isn't love.