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Anna Anna…

Looks like Howard Stern is Anna Nicole’s baby daddy. Yeah, sit and stew on that one for a few minutes.

Update 9/29: And now they are married committed.

In related news, her son, Daniel died of a lethal drug cocktail made up of Methadone, Lexapro and Zoloft. It was said that he’d been depressed about a recent breakup with a girlfriend and his doctor put him on the antidepressants to help him through it. The methadone is a pain reliever that it typically used for recovering from drug addictions. According to one article, the combination of these drugs will tax the central nervous system and could lead to one’s heart stopping completely. He very well just laid down, and as his heart rate slowed down due to sleep, instead came to a complete stop.

This brings me to my point, which I’ve mentioned quite a few other times, the overmedication of our society by the medical community. Doctors no longer counsel or try to find alternative methods of dealing with problems like depression. Instead, they ask very few questions and then fill out a prescription for an anti-depressant. When it doesn’t work, they up the dosage and when that doesn’t work they try a different one. And so it sort of becomes a guessing game of which drug/dosage combination will eventually work to get them out of their funk.

My second point is that “depression” has almost become an epidemic, where a couple of decades ago, I guess people were just dealing with it. And that’s not to say that depression isn’t real, and that medication isn’t occassionally necessary. I just don’t think it’s as widespread as people want to believe it is. And I think that most people are looking for the “quick fix” to deal with their emotional issues, rather than just riding them out. It seems like parents are very willing and ready to bring their kids to a psychiatrist or doctor for some pills to fix their kid, rather than to sit down and do some parenting. Numbing their kids pain isn’t really going to fix anything.

For a long time now, being “emo” has been this great attention getting mechanism people have used. They cry, they complain, they walk around “depressed” and in return people sympathize with them. It’s about the attention. And if they can get some drugs out of it, it just backs up their case that they really do have issues. And people with issues can use it to get even more attention. And to these people, attention equals love. So, if you can have your doctor prescribe you a little bottle of love a few times a year, hey, why not.

I’ve consistently complained that it’s too easy for people to get a hold of antidepressants. Most doctors prescribe it like it’s candy. They even give away some free samples to get people started off—sort of like the corner drug dealer who gives you the first one free. First, I think there should be mandatory sessions with a psychiatrist before any drugs are prescribed. Right off the bat having someone TALK to the kid rather than medicating them might help them get over whatever is eating them. Maybe that’s all they really need is someone to listen. Second, if antidepressants are being prescribed, there needs to be a cutoff period. From what I’ve seen, people get on these drugs and just keep getting refills for years. I realize that there are extreme cases, but I seriously don’t think everyone needs to be on anti-depressants for years and years.

Finally, what ever happened to just dealing with your problems. There was a time when you’d breakup with your girlfriend or boyfriend and actually have to FEEL the pain until you got over it. Maybe you’d get a little depressed. Maybe you’d sit around crying or even wish your life would end, in a drama queen type of way. And then one day, you’d wake up and you’d be over it. That’s life folks. Sometimes you just have to feel the emotions that we as human beings were meant to feel. And these drugs are just numbing agents meant to mask all of those emotions. And that’s not normal. Or healthy. Because, the wrong dosage or the wrong combination can just as easily kill you.

The book linked above talks about how depression isn’t a “disease” and that the use of medications to “fix” it can not only cause irrevocable brain damage, but also sends billions of dollars to the drug makers that try to promote them as “happy pills”. Although people like to claim that they’ve been “diagnosed with a mental illness” that requires their use of these drugs, it’s just another excuse for them to continue using something that they are now addicted to. Getting diagnosed with something is pretty easy these days—especially when the diagnosis means putting patients on anti-depressants.

Tags: anna+nicole+smith, howard+stern, antidepressants, medication, addiction

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