Should Anti-Depressants Be Forced Upon People Who Deal With Mental Illnesses?

My project consists of the analysis/exploring of whether those who deal with mental illnesses should have the ability of making the decision to receive medication to assist them with their illness. Determining as to whether or not those who struggle with their mental health to a great extent have the conscious ability to determine if they receive Anti-Depressants. The two arguments to this topic is that those who suffer mental illnesses struggle with daily occurrences in life, that ranging from getting up out of bed to overall making healthy decisions for themselves. However a person has their own right to make their decision upon their body. With medication it is entering their body and effecting the brain chemicals within their brain, that in general seems unethical to force that upon somebody that does not want that.


Describe the main issues you are going to cover.

  • Advantages and Disadvantages of Anti-Depressants

  • Accessibility of Anti-Depressants

  • Physical Dependence

  • Variety of Symptoms of Anti-Depressants

  • Mental Illnesses

What were the results of your survey? Describe your findings here.

Approximately more than half of the participants in this survey around 96% agreed with the option that they should still have the ability to choose whether they want to take Anti-Depressants. The outcome of this survey made me realize that a mental illness shouldn't be looked as an extreme limitation but rather a challenge that can be overcome. What makes this survey fair and hold value is that most of the people have struggled before with their mental health either that being because of school or issues outside of school.

Interview Summary

The purpose of this interview was to get more of a personal perspective of someone who struggles with a mental illness. So that the audience can get a better grasp of the experience of someone who has a mental illness, rather than just reading statistics, research or facts. My interviewee is named Rafael Moreno who is a Junior here at Curie Metropolitan High school who is in the CTE program for broadcasting and technology. He is a 16 year old male who comes from a Hispanic background and identifies with any pronouns. Overall his attitude towards the subject of mental illness is in a positive aspect because he talks about how antidepressants help him get his mental illness under control so that he can feel and act normal like everyone else around him. But yet at the same time he isn’t talking down on his anxiety or depression. Instead in a way he brings awareness about it by openly communicating about what it is and how it affects or has affected him. The questions that were most important are “2. Do you take antidepressants? If so, how do they make you feel?” and “7. Where do you see yourself if you weren’t to be taking the pills?”. This is because this gives a good scale of the effects of antidepressants from taking them to not taking them. For the first question he responds back with saying that he does take antidepressants and it doesn’t always work but when they do they make him feel more calmer when having really bad anxiety and depression at that time. For the second important question he responds back with if he weren’t to be taking the pills he wouldn’t know where he would be. He feels like he would be struggling much more without them because with the pills it helped him improve. From conducting this interview I learned that it honestly depends on how it makes a person feel, because everybody’s mind and body can react differently. So it can help a person and the chemicals within their brain but for others it might make them feel not like themselves.

Your Personal Opinion

My personal opinion I think those who are mentally ill are able to still have the right or choice to decide whether or not they want to take Anti-Depressants, but to an extent. That being that they should be assessed to determine their reasoning as to why they aren't taking Anti-Depressants or if they are getting other help. In order to rule out any self harm. Even though they have this challenge with them that doesn't mean that they have to automatically need to turn to pills and shouldn't be forced upon anyone. But then again taking Anti-Depressants themselves aren't necessarily a bad thing. In general there are so many alternatives to how to handle a mental illness, thus one option should not be force upon somebody if they believe that it won't be good for themselves.

Antidepressants are medications used to treat major mental illnesses such as depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, chronic pain conditions, and manage addictions. The way that it works is that the nerve cells in our brain use various chemicals to pass on signals. Even though not all details are known, experts believe that depression is caused by an imbalance of certain chemical messengers, which means that signals can't be passed along the nerves properly. Antidepressants aim to increase the availability of these chemicals. Many doctors think that antidepressants are worth a try and can always be stopped if side effects get too bad. But it is always recommended to talk to your doctor first before wanting to try them and before quitting them as well. It is analyzed to determine that based on certain factors; the symptoms that are present in a disorder of yours, counseling and lifestyle changes not working for you, and the amount of how much your disorder that you struggle with impacts your daily life in a negative manner. Mental illnesses often create a ripple effect on those who are around them that they end up affecting them. Such as creating tension, uncertainty, and stress. It’s something that takes a toll on their daily lives, especially the way that you function at school, at work, or in relationships. Some would say that it's hard for them to determine things for themselves and such because of that extremely overwhelming feeling that they carry with them. While it is true that mental illnesses can affect the way you function on a daily basis, the real point to consider is that everybody is different because of different reactions, education, gender, race, and negative effects that could occur.


Doctors often analyze your behavior and if there hasn’t been any change you’re then prescribed by your doctor and they tell you that you have to take them in order to function properly. But what if you don’t want to rely on a pill to make you feel happy? What if you don’t want to take it, in general? Based on a survey that I have conducted, I had asked 25 students here at Curie Metropolitan High school should antidepressants be forced upon people who deal with mental illnesses. As a result, the majority of the class responded with yes they should have the choice to choose to take it or not and the common response as to why was because it's their own unique body so they should have the right to choose what to put in. But there were a few who said no because they felt like a mental illness has a huge impact as to knowing what's best for themselves. Going to show how there’s just a lot of factors that should be kept in mind when wanting to take the medication rather than forcing it upon on someone. Again, not everybody's the same, especially when it comes to the severity of mental illness.


Looking at a more broad range of people/inclusive groups, this woman decided to go around her area in New York and ask people if they struggle with mental illness and if they do then how’d they deal with it. The purpose of this video that was conducted was to inform an audience for those that suffer a mental illness to know that they aren’t alone and for the rest of the general public to just be informed on how it is for those that do. At the beginning of the video, she goes from making little jokes, kind of easing the way for a heavy conversation of the people’s personal experiences on their own mental health. Throughout the video they go back and forth between this differentiated group that included white and people of color and talk about what they suffer from, how it is (describing), and what the medication does for them. Towards the end of the video, it gives off hope for those to do what’s best for them without worrying about any shame that people can have towards medication, because if it works for you then there shouldn’t be a problem. Thus, with the emotions that the interviewer gives, the range of these emotions gives a good measure of how it is for someone who suffers from a mental illness and the effect of medication on real-life people. This source is able to communicate with the audience about how the medication levels out your symptoms for you to be able to handle your illness like the good parts of it, but they also talk about the negative effects. Which doesn’t completely blind the audience with medication being perfect.


Oftentimes when it comes to antidepressant medications they have other certain factors that they need to take into consideration. When knowing how it affects somebody you have to think about the differences. Such as gender, how severe the mental illness is, age, and race/ethnicity. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey said that from 2015–to 2018, 13.2% of adults aged 18 overused antidepressant medications in the past 30 days. Which goes to show that antidepressants come with their own risks where you can begin to depend on it. Not only that but according to the CDC ``Use was higher among women (17.7%) than men (8.4%)”, that being because women are more likely to seek healthcare, thus leading to them having their depression diagnosed. With race the difference is that the usage of antidepressants was higher among non-Hispanic white (16.6%) adults compared with non-Hispanic black (7.8%), Hispanic (6.5%), and non-Hispanic Asian (2.8%) adults. Caucasians are 1.52 times more likely to receive antidepressant medication over Hispanic and African-American patients also being treated for major depressive disorders. That either being because many minorities don't seek help for depression-related issues until the last minute, or because the medical attention that they receive isn’t up to the standards of the majority of white people. Antidepressant medication use was higher for adults with at least some college education (14.3%) compared with those with a high school education (11.5%) or less (11.4%).


After a while the more you continuously take antidepressants one thing that can come into play is the physical dependence some people can begin to form. Over time, once your body begins to notice that the symptoms of your mental illness are reducing and you aren’t feeling them as much, you begin to want to continue that. According to the CDC “from 2009–2010 through 2017–2018, the percentage of adults who used antidepressants increased among women, but not men '', although it shows a difference between genders, the most important thing to take away from this is the increase. Which goes to show the physical dependence.

Studies show that the benefit generally depends on the severity of the depression: The more severe the depression, the greater the benefits will be. In other words, antidepressants are effective against chronic, moderate and severe depression. They don't help in mild depression.


Symptoms that you may experience are temporary sleep problems, nausea or restlessness when coming off antidepressants. These symptoms are especially likely if you suddenly stop taking antidepressants. Sometimes people stop taking their medication as soon as they start feeling better, but that increases the risk of the depression coming back.


Bibliography

“Antidepressants: Selecting One That's Right for You.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 31 Dec. 2019, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/antidepressants/art-20046273.