The Down Side of Popping Pills

By Athena , SPRAWL Magazine. Posted January 11, 2006.

I've been on psychiatric medications since I was 10 years old. Today, I take six prescribed medications a day, plus three over the counter pills. Doctors seem to think that medications are the cure for everything, and because of that, I am stuck in a trap.

A lot of people use drugs recreationally to feel better. I do that everyday with my meds and hate it. How would you like to remember that you have to take three orange ones, a blue one, a white one, a red one, and one that changes color every time they up the dose? It's almost impossible, but I have to each and every day. If I forget one dose, I feel like crap. From what people have told me about other withdrawals from heroin, and so forth, it's almost like that. So how is that good for my body?

Lately, it seems that doctors think medication can fix anything. I mean how dumb is it that we have so many outlawed narcotics, when doctors are prescribing worse - even to children. In December, the annual report on American health stated that 44 percent of Americans are on prescription drugs. 76 percent of people who are prescribed any type of narcotic or non-antibiotic medication become addicted. Some people lie about their symptoms in order to continue the medication. Withdrawals from these can be worse than withdrawals from street drugs. So the question is when and where will it stop?

I have been on so many different psychiatric medications over the years it makes my head spin - I was even a test subject for quite a few. When my doctors told my mom I was bipolar, they automatically gave me a bunch of pills to take. Wellbutrin, Neurontin, Seroquel, Depakote, Effexor, Inderal, Trileptal, Paxil, Zyprexa, Lamictal, Abilify, I've taken them all. I call them happy pills, they call them "chemical balancers." At one point I was on a type of speed, much like Ritalin, that messed me up really bad. Once, I was even prescribed a narcotic that is illegal to the rest of the world.

The worst experience was when I was first put on Seroquel by this psychotic doctor. He had me on an 800 mg dose everyday. According to the big book of medications, that should have overdosed a 35-year-old adult male. It's no wonder I failed my freshmen year P.E class that was first thing in the morning. I could not function on the medications. It would take me anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to get out of bed each morning. I couldn't think, I couldn't see, and I couldn't be me. How is that good for me? When my therapist heard about this, she made me stop taking it. But when I went back to my doctor, he upped my dose again! So I left that doctor, and his license was later revoked, and he no longer has the right to hurt patients.

The doctors prescribe the pills to "make me happy." The pills just don't allow me to think. I don't have a chance to be happy or upset. I'm just … there. Maybe I'm biased because about 90 percent of the people I know on medications have had the same emotionless experiences. My younger sister is diagnosed with ADHD and has been taking Aderal for the last three years. My father is taking Effexor to suppress his depression. My mother has also been diagnosed bi-polar and has to take five various medications.

My mother thinks that doctors need to take time and listen to their patients instead of just prescribing drugs. She has fought with the medical world as far as medications go. Although she believes they may help, she thinks that alternative solutions such as therapy should be looked at first. She says that it hurts her to see her child struggle to do daily functions just because the doctors wont try to understand me, and just pump me with pills.

My meds are a constant battle for me, and staying on one stably is almost impossible in my eyes. As of today I take multiple medications: Inderal, Abilify, and Lamictal. I also take prescribed supplements of iron, and L-Lysine. I am on Nexium for acid reflux disease, and take various other supplements each day. I already have minor brain damage from the evil doctor, and I don't know how much longer it will take for the other meds to hurt me also.

I see commercials each day about this medication and that, and how it will "change your life forever, and you'll never feel better," but I look at them and laugh. Especially because, 9 times out of 10, I've taken the medication they're advertising. I don't trust any commercial I see for medication, because they always show these people smiling, and doing everything the same as if nothing was wrong; but they never show the people that cant get out of bed, or the children taking their handful of pills each night before mom tucks them in. They don't show the people that cry each day because they don't know what's going on, and their meds make them worse than they were.

There are so many people on medications now, that there isn't enough time to properly treat anything. Instead of listening to problems, and maybe thinking of a solution with therapy, or even just cognitive thinking, they take to easy route and give people pills. It's almost like we're living in the world Aldous Huxley described in his novel Brave New World. Will we become a society ran by pills that keep us from being unique and normal? When will the medical field realize that they are only offering temporary solutions, and really condemning their patients to death or suffering from their action? I'm waiting for that.

This article appeared originally in the SPRAWL Magazine.

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