Over the last month I've read news stories about young adult suicides with alarming regularity. I'm speaking of the children of celebrities, of course, whose lives and deaths are ultimately narrated by journalists. Most recently, Marie Osmond's teenage son, Michael Blosil, leapt to his death from his apartment building in downtown Los Angeles. Imagine what he saw on the ledge, 15 stories up, peering down through the dark at asphalt and concrete, glancing at moving cars and streetlights and lit-up billboards. And imagine the pain he was experiencing to believe that jumping would bring relief. He was only 18. There's a particular arc to these stories of suicide, and while these privileged young lives don't typify the experience of being a teenager in America, the developmental tasks they must accomplish and the brain changes they undergo are typical of depressed teens everywhere.
Michael Blosil's suicide should bring to the fore a number of important points about adolescent depression as well as suicide risk. We often hear that suicide is the third leading cause of death--after accidents and homicide--among teens and young adults between 15 and 24 years of age. What we don't often hear is that over 90 percent of all young people who commit suicide are suffering from severe mental illness. Depression is the leading condition in the suicides of adolescent boys and girls. It's crucial, given these facts, that we directly confront the antidepressant question: Should we prescribe these medications to young people?
The answer, I believe, is absolutely yes--a judgment I stand by with a deep understanding of the counterarguments, and as a physician who does not receive funding from pharmaceutical companies. There are those in the research community, and certainly in social sciences and media, who will argue that the jury is still out on the efficacy of antidepressant medications. There are those who will point to articles in the popular press, of which there have been many lately, and say, "Antidepressants aren't worth the side-effects," or that we're overmedicated as a nation, or that antidepressants themselves can induce thoughts of suicide. There will always be caveats when it comes to starting a treatment course with antidepressants, but as a child and adolescent psychiatrist with nearly three decades' experience at some of our nation's best psychiatric research institutions, I can tell you that the negative messages swirling around antidepressants distort a public health tragedy and impede access to treatments, including antidepressant medications, which can protect against suicide.
When parents are faced with the question of whether to medicate their clinically depressed teen, I offer them these facts:
Untreated depression is the number one cause of teen suicide, and while it may be tempting to look the other way or to blame celebrity parents when a young person like Michael Blosil throws himself from his building's 15th story, I encourage you to look at this tragedy straight-on.
Recognize that adolescent angst is part of normal development, but adolescent depression is not: it's a very real illness that, left untreated, is potentially lethal. It requires both parental and medical attention.
Harold S. Koplewicz, M.D.
President, The Child Study Center Foundation, Inc.
Director, Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research
www.cscfound.org
Follow Dr. Harold Koplewicz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DrKoplewicz
David Vann: Legend of a Suicide
Dr. Peter Breggin: Pilots Taking Antidepressants? The FAA Is Risking Our Lives
Ilaina Edison: ELDER INDEPENDENCE: Where Policy and Practice Meet to Define a New Standard of Care
If they don't, help them design one that will support them through a crisis and through their life time. Just giving meds is not enough to help them improve the quality of their lives, health and relatinships.
If you have never suffered from a mental disorder, then respectfully, you have no idea what you are talking about. Sometimes the 'root of the problem' as you put it, IS a chemical imbalance that the AD's help put back into balance. Are they perfect? No. But sometimes they are a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
If people like you who seem to have all of the answers could know what it's like to live in my brain off of AD's for just one day, then maybe you'd understand. I think that it's you who thinks it's just a simple matter of taking a 'holistic' approach, as though taking some herbs, doing some cardio, and getting some sleep (like that is possible when you are in the grips of the mood disorder) will solve all of your problems. You act as though those of us who are taking AD's haven't tried that, or take AD's in order to sidestep living a healthy lifestyle.
I, for one, take AD's in order to be able to work hard, achieve my physical goals (I participate in endurance sports), and live a healthy lifestyle. It isn't so I can sit on my a** in front of the TV all day and do nothing. I take AD's to avoid that.
Although I am taking antidepressants at the moment, I also believe that getting our children (and ourselves) to practice yoga and meditation from is the way to prevent not only mental ilnesses, suicide... but every other dis-ease known to man.
www.foreverinvicuts.com
It's sad. I have taken Zoloft for over 16 years and feel great. YES, I can STILL get sad and depressed over a movie or a book but it's not the overwhelming depression that crippled me socially and emotionally before Zoloft. I give kudos to those people who can "work through" their depression without professional help or meds. I could NOT. Life is just too short to be crippled by depression and dysfunctionalism.
After being on it for 6 years I decided to try going off of it. I weaned off of it rather easily, but within six months of being off of it I was right back where I was when I decided to go on it in the first place. No amount of exercise (I was training for a marathon, for goodness sake) or 'healthy eating' could keep the demons at bay. I went back on the Effexor XR, and the severe anxiety and depression decreased again.
Some people need these drugs. And contrary to what many might want to believe, these drugs have helped a lot of people.
I have gone off the Zoloft a couple of times(which was my own idea)and it was a disaster. Not to be too cliche here but I felt like the Susan Boyle song: I felt like the person I was always supposed to be.
And..it was wonderful.
I get so sick and tired of people blaming AD's for any issue that someone who already HAD a mood disorder is having. I also get so sick and tired of people speaking for those of us who use AD's as though they know what it's like to be us. Like we are somehow lesser people because we rely on a prescription drug instead of 'moderating our personal life' through 'exercise and diet', as though we don't already eat healthy, exercise, etc.
I have suffered from severe anxiety disorders since I was a child. My parents did nothing to help the issue. They did not want to admit that their child was 'damaged' and I got really good at hiding my problems until I had a serious breakdown in my 20's. I went on AD's after years of trying the exercise, diet, massage and relaxation crap and NOTHING WAS CHANGING! The AD's literally saved my life. They do not make you happy, they do not make everything bad go away. They make it so that you can function normally.
I do not take AD's to avoid having to 'eat healthy and exercise'. I take them so that I CAN eat healthy and exercise. It isn't a convenience thing for me.
What to do? We spend time going over her situation. She acknowledges not doing so well in High School - college seems a reach. The community she lives in has 40% unemployment - she feels lucky to have the job at the counter at the gas station.
The counselors at the clinic see so many patients that they will be lucky to see her every month. She will be lucky to be able to get together childcare for her children. I will be able to see her for 15 minutes at the next visit.
Guess what's available to her? Prozac. Pretty cheap these days. And to those who have been there - effective. And to make things more complicated - the Prozac will likely get her feeling better enough to stick around "and work it out with him - I know we can." So she stays.
Is this an overmedication problem? Or a social problem? Or a not enough therapy problem?
those that use it do not commit suicide!
Regarding "tell your doctor if you are experiencing suicidal thoughts"
--what happens next?
So even if you are one of the lucky ones who gets a good response from the awful pharmaceuticals, in time, you will still have a messed up sugar metabolism to throw it all off?!?
Study after study proves diet is the problem with children's brains and behavior - add adhd, juvenile delinquents.Study after study after study shows the best way to correct these issues is the "art "of subtraction.Removing unhealthy food from your diet is cheap and EASY."
I'd like to see Dr. K, who believes children should be medicated, forced to take the Feingold diet too.
http://www.feingold.org/
The Impact of a Low Food Additive and Sucrose Diet on Academic Performance in 803 NYC Public Schools
http://www.trifeedmybrain.com/html/images/clinical3.pdf”
Dr.K has nice ties.
http://people.forbes.com/profile/harold-s-koplewicz/25699
Even if you don't follow the Feingold Diet religiously you can get great results. It wasn't easy for me to be able to afford the food you need for this diet at that time. It is much easier now if you know where to shop.
I already discussed my run-in with this "pill" doctor in the comment section of his latest blog. I met him for an evaluation of my son in the early 90s when he was at Long Island Jewish. Someday I am going to create a blog and write every single experience my son went through, including the brief nightmare with this doc. It's just been too painful and I am still recovering from own nightmare experience with Paxil.
What causes people to be born with less of the neurotransmitters than are necessary for a happy life?
These antidepressants in some cases are hooking up to opiate receptor sites. Venlafaxine (Effexor) is similar chemically to tramadol (Ultram) ,a synthetic narcotic. In fact, Ultram is used to help ease the withdrawals from Effexor.
So, if the antidepressants are functioning like opiates, why not just brew a cup of poppy tea from leaves of the papaver somniferum? It couldn't possibly be any worse in the long run than taking the synthetics, and probably easier to stop using.
They do wonders, and there are many programs available for adolescents.
Dr. Phil and Tony Robbins are only interested in the $$$ they can generate.
Read up on Marsha Linehan.
http://www.ssristories.com/index.php
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/statistics/trends02.html
That said, Sara and Cecily Bostock's story is tragic.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june04/depression_5-28.html
Go Team USA!