Chapter 23: Angry At The Disease

I am angry at the disease depression and I need to put the reasons why in writing.

I am tired of:

having withdrawal symptoms from every psychiatric medication I have stopped taking.

having side effects from every psychiatric medication I have started.

having to wait 4-8 weeks to see if a medication is going to be effective.

needing medications that are expensive.

having a psychiatrist who tried 15 different drug combinations in a year and a half with few results; and then didn't support me after I went to the Amen Clinic for help.

"traditional psychiatrists" using an educated guess in determining which medication would be effective for me.  They decided after hearing my list of symptoms.  Other medical fields look at the organ they are treating.

letting things I need to do just sit. 

having everything I do take so much effort.

having to put my life on hold because I don't feel like doing anything. 

having thoughts that come from a brain not functioning correctly, not from anything real.

having things that were important to me lose their value. 

not having any energy. 

not finding pleasure doing things I used to enjoy.

not feeling well enough to attend activities.

my body not creating enough neurotransmitters on its own.

people I love having to deal with this disease.

having a genetic predisposition for depression.

not having advanced medical care in the treatment of depression where I live.  I needed to go to another state.

families and friends losing someone they love because of suicide.

depression causing extreme misery.

available technology not being used with every patient it could help.  SPECT Brain Scans and the research that goes with them gives a psychiatrist more information to diagnose and treat psychiatric disorders.  The Amen Clinics have been using this technology for about 10 years.

Information from, The UltraMind Solution, by Mark Hyman, M.D.

Taken from pages 11 and 12; book published in 2009

• Psychiatric disorders affect 26 percent of our adult population or more than 60 million Americans.
• More than 20 percent of children have some type of psychiatric disorder.
• More than 40 million people have anxiety.
• More than 20 million people have depression.
• One in ten Americans takes an antidepressant.
• The use of antidepressants has tripled in the last decade.
• In 2006, expenditures on antidepressants soared to over $1.9 billion.
• Psychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety are expensive.  They are among the top five most costly medical conditions, including heart disease, cancer, trauma, and lung disorders.  The cost to our health-care system exceeds $200 billion a year, which is over 12 percent of total health-care spending.
• Alzheimer's disease will affect 30 percent (and some experts say 50 percent) of people over eighty-five years old, which is the fastest-growing segment of the population.  It will affect 16 million people by 2050.
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a label we now give 8.7 percent of children between the ages of eight and fifteen.
• More than 8 million, or one in ten, children now take stimulant medications like methylphenidate (Ritalin).
• Autism rates have increased from 3 in 10,000 children to 1 in 166 children--an elevenfold  increase--over the last decade.
• Learning disabilities affect between 5 and 10 percent of school-age children.
• The indirect costs of all these broken brains to society are mammoth.  They include loss of productivity at school, home, or in the workplace, accounting for a loss of over $80 billion a year. 

Thanks for reading.  My heart goes out to everyone who is angry and tired of depression!