Random Thought

I’ve written in the past about what I think of the sale of drugs on TV. (In a nutshell, your doctor diagnoses you and decides on a treatment, there’s no need for pharmaceutical companies to market to us directly).

Today, however, I felt myself getting sucked in.

It was one of those commercials for depression, and as they started reeling of the symptoms, I started mentally checking them off in my head. ‘Yep, I feel like that, that too, holy crap! And that!”

Luckily, common sense kicked in just before they started reeling off the side-effects.

Of course I’m a little depressed. I’m currently going through a paperwork marathon, and like I mentioned in my last post, I’m still about 2 or 3 years away from being at the point I was at before I left England. Like all couples, there’s a couple things between me and Sunny that I’m not thrilled about, all of my friends are over 3500 miles away, I’m approaching 4 years unemployed and I haven’t seen my family on over three years (except my parents who I saw last year).

So, as you can see, I’m not exactly on top of the world.

Now, before anyone thinks this is a ‘poor me, look how many problems I have’ post, it isn’t. Yeah, I’m a little down in the dumps, but I know things could be much, much worse.

But here’s the thing. I’m not going to go all ‘Tom Cruise’ on you and start calling psychiatry and anti-depressants a fraud…I wonder how many people are on anti-depressants who have absolutely no need to be.

For a split second, I thought I might benefit from taking one of those pills, but the point is, I feel the way I do because I have some problems that I need to sort out. The day I get a job, have a drivers licence and citizenship papers in my hand, I’ll be a very happy bunny.

Sometimes you feel depressed and down because there’s something in your life that needs changing. Taking a pill is treating the symptoms but not the disease.

In short, people should learn to deal with their own emotions, and not reach for a pill bottle just because they feel down.