Over-diagnosed, Over-medicated

A great deal of words and acronyms are used in defense of our behavior.  In this fashion, a diagnosis has frequently come to sound like an adjective, not a disease, or condition.

"That kid is totally ADHD."   Worse still, "Somebody get that kid some Ritalin."  

In class, it was mentioned that studies claim roughly between 30 and 40% of the population are likely to have a clinical anxiety disorder at some point in their lives.  Here is another speculative statistic:  I venture that 100% of the population is likely to experience, at some point in their lives, the feeling of anxiousness. 

What we decide is a disorder is up to us (or the folks who write the DSM).  There are no definitions handed down from high, no universal truths in psychology. To say that 40% suffer from an AD is ludicrous, and indicates an immediate need for reevaluation into the criteria used to diagnose it.  At this juncture, the risk of medicating people who fall into a normal spectrum of emotion is extremely high (which certain invested interests will have no problem doing).

Life is prepackaged with a sophisticated and individual array of dilemmas, blockades, and tough decisions. There is nothing abnormal about that.  For some, the obstacles are much greater than others, and the odds for fulfillment much smaller.  Sadly, it is often those of us born into greater financial privilege that are quicker to subscribe to medication.  Rather than reflect on unwanted situations we create for ourselves, we attack the problem chemically, altering our personalities to fit them.  Rather than find the right hole for the right block, we're just sanding the edges of the square and jamming it into the circle.

(Equally sad, much sadder actually, those of us who need medication are often the ones who cannot afford it, or cannot be depended upon to take it)

In class, Professor Welkowitz wondered if our generation of inclusion allows for greater openness in regards to psychological issues.  If this were so, the increasing rate of diagnosis for particular disorders (anxiety, depression, etc) would be directly connected to an increased awareness of, and decreased social resistance to these problems.  I am highly suspect of this viewpoint.  

As is evidenced in Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point, social awareness of suicide can increase reported cases of suicide in a localized area.  I believe grouping emotions as symptoms and labeling them disorders is a practice likely to attract thousands of sensitive individuals who thought they "were the only ones" coping with these kinds of problems.   From here, the effect snowballs.

I fear that my generation is quick to subscribe itself to psychological conditions in the same way one might subscribe to a religion, relate to an ethnicity, or identify with a subculture.  The myriad abuses probable in a world of over-medication is what I fear most.

It begs the question: Is there a drug in the planning phase for my Pharmacophobia? It's okay if there isn't.  I think I'd rather take the sugar pill.