A Crisis of Overprescription

America is in a mental health crisis; but not the crisis you might think. The real problem isn’t in our minds, it’s in our medicine cabinets.

As a junior in high school, I fell into what many would consider a depression. An already timid introvert, I would stumble through the school day with my head down, just trying to make it through without bursting into tears. The activities I used to enjoy — baseball, watching sports, lunch with friends — didn’t excite me. I wasn’t actively suicidal, but the thought of death was inescapable. After a few weeks the anguish became unbearable and I did what many in my position would - I asked my parents to take me to see a doctor. My pediatrician posited that I was experiencing a depressive episode, and recommended I start seeing a therapist. I was open to the idea of therapy, but I expected, and even hoped, that he would prescribe me drugs. Yet the topic of antidepressants was never raised – an omission to which I unmetaphorically owe my life. Had they been offered, I would have welcomed psychiatric drugs with open arms.

The process of therapy was slow and painful at times, but I eventually began to see improvement in my mood and outlook. I was taught to embrace my sadness and anxiety, to treat them not as intruders but as parts of myself asking to be understood. I learned the triggers of such emotions, and tangentially, the triggers of happier emotions. Therapy was in essence a self-awakening; I grew to understand myself on a deeper level.

Unfortunately, my experience in the mental health system is an exception, not the rule. Consider my friend’s story, who I will refer to as Sal. Sal’s journey began in a similar place to my own, with the fog of sadness and anxiety slowly thickening within his pubescent mind. The parallels end there. When Sal went to his parents, he was met with a presumptive diagnosis. His mom mentioned that she also struggled with negative thoughts, and that they were a sign of depression, a chronic condition that ran in the family. It must have been passed down to Sal. Sal was taken to the family psychiatrist, who had been prescribing mom antidepressants for decades. Within 15 minutes, Sal was diagnosed with depression and given a bottle of SSRIs. Most damagingly, he was told that he had a chemical imbalance, a famed but never proven staple of psychiatric jargon since the release of Prozac in 1987. The doctors, and Sal’s own mother, blamed his sadness on a hereditary condition, essentially an innate problem with Sal’s brain chemistry. There was no cure; medication was the only viable treatment.

For the next two years these drugs became Sal’s reality. At the mercy of a chronic illness, Sal’s only hope was that the “medicine” would dampen the weight of his sadness so he could live a semi-normal life. It never did. Sal felt increasingly numb, not increasingly happier. Elements of life that used to bring joy now felt mundane. He was just going through the motions - robotic. His suicidal thoughts, a stalwart of his recent past, persisted. Then one day, one heavenly day, Sal stumbled upon a YouTube video. The creator, whose name Sal forgets, debunked the chemical imbalance myth. He preached self-determination, the antithesis of the subservience that had been drilled into Sal from a young age. Depression wasn’t a chronic condition, it was an episode spurred by life events. Sal began to realize that there was nothing inherently wrong with him. He could control his own outlook; his happiness wasn’t dictated by genetics. Midway through his freshman year of college, in a blaze of anger and bravery, Sal stopped his meds cold turkey. Refusing to cede power to an imaginary illness, Sal regained control of his life and hasn't looked back since. He is a graduate of a top-15 university and now works in IT. Suicidal thoughts are a half-forgotten piece of the past.

Sal was sold a bill of lies by doctors and society. He was deceived into relegating all agency, effectively transferring control to his SSRIs. Sadly, Sal is one of millions of American youth who fall victim to psychiatric medication. 1 in 6 American children take such drugs; many remain on them for years with no improvement. And strikingly, more than 20% of children aged 12-17 have been diagnosed with at least one mental health condition - anxiety and depression the most common.

Worse yet, antidepressants often fail to do what they promise. A reanalysis of the landmark STAR*D trial found no subgroup of patients who meaningfully benefited from the drugs. While there was a slight edge over placebo overall, researchers deemed it clinically insignificant.

If SSRIs don’t even make people better, why are they still our first line of defense against mental illness - especially when they are far from harmless? SSRIs can produce heavy numbing effects - emotions of all types are dulled; life becomes a bland, muted middle ground. These drugs also bring a host of side effects (insomnia, nausea, and sexual dysfunction among the most common) and withdrawal symptoms can make them difficult to stop.

We are failing our youth. Diagnosing teenagers with serious mental health problems is a death sentence. The label becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that strips away any sense of personal sovereignty. Imagine being told you were born with an incurable mental illness. You begin to view your life through the lens of depression; each new challenge is a confirmation of the diagnosis. At the exact moment in life when you’re figuring out who you might become, you’re handed a verdict of who you’ll always be. The diagnosis turns from a description to a destiny.

Psychiatric drugs are anti-human. They serve to suppress the very essence of humanity - emotion. The ability to feel-- to laugh, to cry, to yell, to love – is the building block of the soul. It differentiates us from all other living beings. We are medicating away the most innate aspect of our existence.

Furthermore, medicating depression and anxiety does nothing to address their root cause. SSRIs clear away the smoke without putting out the flame. Thoughts and feelings are responses to life. Treating them as guides, much as I was taught in therapy, is an essential component of a fulfilling life. Antidepressants cover up the inputs that contribute to negative emotions by concealing their associated outputs. They numb the pain of problems that remain unsolved.

Our mental health system needs an overhaul. We need a culture that embraces emotion instead of hiding from it. Psychiatric medication should be used sparingly – as a last resort in tandem with additional treatment, with short-term use as the goal.

I created Project Humanity to solve these problems. Our mission is to educate children and their parents about the dangers of psychiatric medication and offer alternative solutions. On a broader level, we aim to return the self-agency that labels and diagnoses have stripped away by teaching the youth that emotions are a precious sign of humanity. The mental health care I received was a rare blessing; I want the next generation to have the same opportunity.

Nobody is broken. Nobody is powerless. Join us as we change the future of America, one freed mind at a time.

-Marcus Orlando