“Are you depressed? Or are you just at the bottom of a dominance hierarchy? Because the symptomatology is very similar, but the cause and cure are very different.” – Jordan Peterson
The Fortress Instructors were discussing a Business Insider article from 2016 which stated 11% of the American public is on some form of anti-depressant/anxiety medication. The question was raised: is that the real number?
11% is bad enough, but that number is nowhere close to reality.
About the time that article was originally published, I had a conversation with a psychiatrist friend and asked them what the percentage of the population was on psychotropic-type meds.
The doctor said that they had no idea. They then went on to explain that in the US only psychiatrists are required to report the prescriptions they write – medical doctors (MDs) are not. And MDs write the bulk of depression and anxiety medication scripts.
So, I then asked what percentage are we sure of on the psychiatric side. The answer was 10%. That squared with the Business Insider chart which was sourced from the CDC, which the CDC has now removed from their website.
I then asked what the doctor’s best guess was for the real number. The answer was: 40%, maybe higher.
I was dumbfounded.
The doc said not only do we have the MD prescription issue, we also have to take into account all of the illegal usage. Mom taking the kid’s, The kid taking dad’s, kids selling it at school, what’s bought and sold on the street, foreign/cartel smuggling, and people taking the meds prescribed by a vet for their pets. And, yes, that’s real – my veterinary friends confirm it.
What I refuse to accept is that when I was a child in the 70’s, 10-40% of the population was walking around in need of meds. The suicide rate was lower, the crime rates were lower – people lived with less convenience, and manual labor was much more intense. There were lines to buy gasoline. And, the Russians might rain hellfire down on our heads at any time. Life was not “easier” in the functional sense, comparitively speaking. Perhaps people just did better at hiding it, but I simply don’t buy the premise that almost half the country is actually suffering from properly diagnosed mental illness. [Voting democrat not withstanding.]
This is a manufactured problem, right along with child gender transitioning, climate change, and the epidemic of police shooting unarmed black men.
I tend to side with a more libertarian view on many issues, business being one. If the product you are selling is legal, then I’m prone to say its your right to advertise it. However, today 75% of TV and radio advertising revenue comes from phrama. There is no way that revenue stream is not steering the narrative.
Today I saw a TV ad for a website for women [like we’re supposed to know what those are, anymore] which provides an on-line evaluation with a doctor who will then prescribe anxiety medication. No office visit necessary. Just say you’re anxious, and collect your script. The follow-up commercial was for a corresponding site for men, of course.
These drugs are literally being handed out like candy.
America and New Zealand are the ONLY two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical advertising on radio and TV. Such ads generally follow the same outline: 10 to 15-seconds of claiming what the drug is supposed to treat, and then 30 to 45-seconds of the announcer listing potential side effects, all while images of people happily attending birthday parties, bicycling, walking in the park, and enjoying dinner with friends, are projected.
Anyone who has seen television in the daytime can attest that a lager portion of the 25% of remaining commercials are from law firms like Dewey, Screw’em, and How, where the voice over begins: “If you or a loved one suffered [fill in the side effect] from the drug [fill in the blank], you may be entitled to compensation.”
We’ve created an “insanity” feedback loop!
And along with it, a mass of the nation that is “unfit for service.” I don’t necessarily mean military service by that, either. We’re losing the free thinkers, rabble-rousers, upstarts, inventors, and self-reliant American minds a free nation needs to survive and flourish. They’re being drugged into submission.
The conversation among our Instructors took many turns, but it eventually landed on the question of what happens when the supply of these drugs is disrupted. After all, they are not the kind of thing one quits cold turkey!
My answer: That would be an actual form of “zombie apocalypse.”
This is a problem, and I don’t have an answer. I also don’t give medical advice. I can, however, ask questions (as long as they, apparently, aren’t about Pelosi’s insider trading, the Biden’s connections to China and Ukraine, election integrity, or about 100,000 other subjects, according to Twitter and Facebook sensors, and CNN.)
So, my main question to anyone entertaining the use of psychotropics/anxiety medications would be: Did your doctor suggest a change in diet, to get better sleep, to exercise more, spend more time in the sun, drastically reduce your social media usage, quit watching TV, or to seek out counseling about your job, marriage, or life in general – or, was it a straight to drugs solution?
If it was the latter, I have to wonder if your doctor is actually working for – You, or a drug company?
My guess is that pondering such is “questioning the science”, and that’s heresy these days. All the decent “fact checkers” will tell you. Thus, I’m sure I now qualify to be put on meds, less I spread “disinformation”, or something.
I foresee a visit from the Ministry of Truth, soon.
“Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.” – George Carlin
