Ok so I am on both sides of this. Heck all sides of this. Identifying as a person with depression in my teens/early twenties allowed me to learn more about myself, identify symptoms, learn from others with similar symptoms, find appropriate treatment providers, finally take charge of my own mind and life. This shifted/ merged with a realization that heck, I am smart enough-- I can be one of the providers. So then I found meaning in setting a huge academic and career goal for myself. I am now on the other side of achieving these goals, 12 years of grad school plus training, specialization etc. And in doing my job I've continued to learn more and more about myself by helping others on the path.
I now see where our meds can allow a person the clarity and breathing room to leave an abusive family of origin, can be the connection to a provider who becomes a mentor or an alternate attachment figure, can be the tool to realize that there is so much more underneath this seemingly simple diagnosis handed to a young person.
On the flip side I see the harm when families use diagnoses and medications to maintain control, to continue the family story that suppresses the DV, the incest, the discord, the neglect. When the person on medication may be the "identified patient" but frankly they are the sanest person in the family. They felt the anxiety, the sorrow, the fear, the pain, the confusion, the loss.
I agree that we still need meds though. I do. Now realizing the depth of my own suffering before I could even speak, I am unsure whether unraveling all of the stuff will allow me to stop my medications or if the way my memory and cognition organized in the setting of abuse and neglect will always result in a need for some psychopharm support. Only time will tell.
In kids meds can allow them to remain grounded enough to learn what their triggers are and to learn how to trust, how to ask for help. But they can also be a distraction to the systematic problems we try to ignore.
I would not want to go back to the times when we did not have these tools available. But I am thankful we are in a time where we are seeing the impact of neglect, the importance of early attachment in adult relationships and the gifts of the variety of treatments and healing available to many of us. As more of us come into the light, the more we can motivate through living our truth to do the same.
Case by case. Each one of us an individual with different wants, different needs, different stories.
