Sue Bergeson
Thursday, November 29, 2007
The issue of routine mental health screening-especially of teens-is a controversial one within the mental health consumer community. I was reminded of this once again through my participation in the Campaign for Mental Health Reform, a coalition of the country's largest mental health organization...
Amy G
Thursday, November 29, 2007 at 02:15 PM
child in the United States before they graduate from high school.
Evidence exists that shows massive pharmaceutical backing that will
result in even more overdrugging of kids with psychiatric drugs .
Can you take a moment to view this very short video? Click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU9puZQKBY
And then sign and forward this petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html to your associates
and everyone you know? It already has over 23,700 signatures.
It's simply a race to inform enough parents so something can be done
about this.
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Hopeful mom
Thursday, November 29, 2007 at 06:33 PM
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Disappointed
Saturday, December 08, 2007 at 09:47 AM
Brilliant idea! Let our kids continue to die of suicide because we want to ignore there's an issue and blame it all on pharma! Suicide is one of the top three causes of death of adolescents.
This is ridiculous. It's so completely biased and had so much slanted information and misunderstanding in it that it's no better than the pharma propaganda it criticizes. I saw absolutely no evidence presented of how this screening is "unscientific" or "experimental". There's one reference to one question, but if you understood anything about how tests and measures were created, it wouldn't be such a mystery. It also dubiously cites a statistic that kids who are on antidepressants were found to be 13 times more likely to commit suicide. They were depressed! Of course they were at a higher risk of suicide! It's called a spurious relationship. This entire video is based on FEAR, not FACTS.
Schools probably aren't the best place to be doing suicide screenings, doctor's offices are. Kids need vaccines before they start high school, that's a perfect opportunity to put a screening in place.
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Rusty
Thursday, November 29, 2007 at 08:01 PM
I'm not sure whether screening is the answer. Having been through my first depression myself, at 14 years old I'm not sure if even the screening would have picked up my depression. I was a straight A student, great family...attended school even on bad days. And yet I was suffering depression but not with any observable symptoms.
At 33 I experienced post natal depression(severely), again I knew what it was but because I "looked" okay and had a well looked after baby...nothing was done for me for 18months. A friend of mine with PD turned up at the Doctors in her dressing gown and handbag and was helped immediately.
My daughter started to show signs of depression at 13 at the start of puberty...the first symptom wasd developing fears about things. I recognised it straight away. I took her to the doctor, youth mental health service, psychiatrist and do you know they just talked to her...nothing was done. I insisted they give her something. They put her on a low dose of zoloft and the whole thing resolved in as couple of weeks. I doubt that school screening would have picked it up. They can identify life factors such as family problems and friendship problems but these factors were not present in either my depression or my daughters. This was chemical, hormonal depression and I doubt if screening at school could have picked it up.It may be better to screen the parents..at least this would alert them to factors to look for in adolescent children and they may be able to identify any changes which could be symptomatic of depression. Sometimes its hard to differentiate between the "normal" all over the place moods of a teenager and depression.
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Eric
Friday, November 30, 2007 at 03:40 AM
Its funny how all we hear about is the tobacco companies going after our younger generations with advertising so that they will have future smokes to sell their products too. Why are we not hearing the same with the pharmaceuticals companies??? If you think for one moment that they are not behind this movement to get kids on the their medications to make huge profits, your in la la land.
I keep saying this over and over again about this being a dangerous area to step into. Do we really want our kids on adult antipsychotic medications? Are we so willing to take that chance to totally screw our kid’s lives up for good of being labeled and medicated at this age? Most of us can remember our teenager years of going against the grain, doing crazy things and revolting against our parents of thinking we knew everything.
I know a lot of my bipolar counterparts could not remember where being treated pre or during their teenager years would have been of value. I feel that part of being a parent is to keep our children safe and out of harms ways…so if you as a parent are going along with this crap and allowing your child to be treated at a early age…you may want to rethink your position.
Most kids that are ADD and ADHD are misdiagnosed bipolar!
If you are in the mental health profession you really need to question where all of this research and information is coming from and who is paying for it. Like the tobacco companies…only information that actually helps sell a product gets released…not the trials that actually showed harm from the effects of the drugs short and long term.
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Liz
Friday, November 30, 2007 at 12:51 PM
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kareena
Friday, November 30, 2007 at 12:28 PM
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Sue Bergeson
Monday, December 03, 2007 at 09:17 AM
Kareena,
I've forwarded your note to our web manager and chapter recruitment manager.
--Karen
Publications coordinator, DBSA
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Liz, Bipolar Blog by Liz
Friday, November 30, 2007 at 12:48 PM
I am an educator in elementary school and have experience with a severely bipolar mother for 46 years. The sad fact is that any child who shows any kind of emotional disturbance in class is noticed and treated differently by their peers no matter what anyone tries to believe. Teachers try very hard to have everyone on the same page as far as emotional safety in class. But, unfortunately human behavior, especially with children, can be surprisingly brutal to each other. This is something teachers combat every day. But, the point to be made here is that, it doesn't matter whether a child is "labeled" after screening for a mental disability as far as how their self-esteem is in class or how they are treated by their peers. Their peers already know that the mentally enabled,(new term), have a reason for being different and the human nature just allows for different treatment. There are pecking orders in every class. There always rises a leader, a favorite, a clown, etc. The screening should take place early, in my opinion, to help the mentally enabled learn to cope with and also for the benefit of the family who are helping to care for this young person. These are just my opinions.
www.bipolarblogbyliz.com
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Steve
Friday, November 30, 2007 at 01:14 PM
Sue, I so appreciate your advocacy on behalf of us...the MH consumers. Screening and proper diagnosis of psychiatric disorders is very complex...truly like nailing Jello to a table. It's very imprecise and messy. I worry more about misdiagnosis, due to my own (given Prozac for depression when neither therapist or MD checked for manic symptoms), and that of a close friend who was given forced (and very rude) treatment in a facility for bipolar, based just on family history. Turns out the young lady suffers from unipolar depression. She was very frustrated, and angry because only one therapist really listened to her before getting it right.
I believe all teens should have routine MH screenings, but avoid the 'on-site' school clinic approach. Privacy and stigma would be big concerns. Maybe better to train primary care doctors, school counselors and other front-line personnel who work with kids to actually do or assist in voluntary screenings (initiated by the parent, guardian or the child)-- and do it in a private office. And at the same time do as our chapter does here in Colorado..have in-classroom dialogues with the students by a trained consumer facilitator/educator. This is a tough topic, but more education and free screening is the way I prefer to go. And as with any medical problem...a second or third opinion after intitial diagnosis is essential.
--Steve Bell
DBSA Colorado Springs
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Judy
Friday, November 30, 2007 at 03:57 PM
Mental health screening in public facilities is very controversial, as it should be. It gives people a chance to think about the pros and cons...seems most people in the mental health community, as well as most parents, are against it. On the other hand, pharmaceutical companies and many government officals are in favor of it.
My feelings are mixed. I believe children today are often overdiagnosed by our mental health community, and adopting this routine screening will likely add to the problem, in ways we cannot even begin to concieve. Mental health services are an imperfect science, and to require these screenings would be very problematic.
On the other hand, we may have been able to prevent disasters like Columbine and other abominations had some type of screening been in place. To save one child's life would be worth it. Our children are our one most precious commidity and we need to protect them.
Perhaps we are putting the cart before the horse. We should address stigma first by providing Mental Health Education to all of our children so that they can learn to understand mental illness and not be ignorant or afraid.
Thank you, Amy for sharing the informative video. It sure made me think. I'm a big fan of NPR.
Thanks for listening to some of my views. I am passionate about the improvement of our mental health system. We have come a long way. And we have a long way to go.
I am a mental health consumer.
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Mercurial Enigma
Sunday, December 02, 2007 at 07:33 AM
As I am from Australia I am not going to discuss the circumstances & recomendations unique to the current situation in the U S A. Neither am I going to seriously discuss the dilema associated with screening causing teens to be labled & stigmatised.
However, I would like to share my experience whereby my illness was not identified at a young age. Also, I would like to discuss the subsequent pain and suffering that caused me. Something I believe could have at least potentially been minimised by an accurate early diagnosis. Which in turn may have enabled me to learn coping skills, gain knowledge, & understand
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Mercurial Enigma
Sunday, December 02, 2007 at 08:57 AM
Sorry about that... I am new to this and pressed the wrong button!
Anyway, I have bipolar disorder, epilepsy, and diabetes. I say this as it may provide greater understanding of what I say later.
I am 48 now, and was diagnosed at age 32 in our summer of 1992. Successive doctors have since identified my illness as bipolar and that this illness was present in my life from around the age of 10 approx.
It is important to state that the epilepsy was first diagnosed at age 6 in 1964. The reason I mention this is that epilepsy can mask some symptoms of bipolar. I say this in order to emphasis that doctors do not have an easy role to play, that they face real challenges differentiating co-morbid illnesses.
This brings me to an important issue in my experience of not being accurately diagnosed at a young age. Of course the epilepsy came first and this was an established illness where doctors (neurologists) were in place as my medical team.
Consequently, all bipolar symptoms were assumed to be symptoms of epilepsy. My medication was altered to manage epilepsy - Not the bipolar symptoms.
I suffered greatly with most of the known symptoms experienced by childhood bipolar. Then also as a young man and down through the years as I grew older.
I did not work for most of the 1980s. The few jobs I did have lasted for very brief periods of time.
Also, I did study for one year in the USA in 1981'82. This was supposed to be a 3 year degree. However I had to come back to Australia as I knew something was desperately wrong. Amongst other symptoms, I began experiencing extreme agitation & depression at the same time; and there were cognitive discrepencies as well.
This began a cycle of not finishing projects, crashing and burning sometimes spectacularly. This scenario lasted until I was well into my 40s.
By the time that I was in my late 20s my pain and suffering from this insidious illness was profound. I was an extremely sick young man, my social behaviour was unacceptable - including promiscurity and drunkeness. Others were deriding me and I believed that I was simply behaving irresponsibly. I thought I was just a very bad person.
It was not until a serious suicide attempt that doctors finaly realised that something other than epilepsy and a fatal flaw in my personality was happening. This of course led to the start of a medication regime and a gradual awakening from suicidal oblivian.
I still suffered greatly down through the ensuing years. It has only been in the last few years that I have experienced a better quality of life.
Two psychiatrists diagnosed me with schizophrenia & psychosis respectively whilst in my early 20s. Neither put me on medication & both basically told me to pull myself up by my bootstraps.
It is my unequivical belief that if I had been accurately diagnosed as a child,or even as a young man, this would have been profoundly different for me. There would still have been pain & suffering. However, I don't believe that I would have experienced a black horror of living death that this insidious illness causes at its worst. At least not quite to the same degree.
Maybe greater education of doctors could play a significant role in picking up this illness. According to my understanding it takes around 10 - 20 years for medical knowledege to be comprehensively understood at a grass roots level. So, education needs to be improved as soon as possible, in my view.
Peter
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anonbp
Wednesday, December 05, 2007 at 12:36 AM
Pharma paranoia drives me nuts. There is not a mass conspiracy to drug every child needlessly by US pharma. They can't even get their drugs FDA approved for kids because they can't do the necessary clinical trials due to extremely tight controls. There's always plenty of room for reform, but let's face it, many of our lives simply would not even be possible without pharma.
So, let's look at this logically. Kids get mental illness. Many are left undiagnosed and untreated. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among teens. Considerable research shows that untreated mental illness, such as depression, can become more pervasive and difficult to treat. Some kids genuinely need medication.
As a person with bipolar I, I am completely for some sort of early screening process (however, I feel it's better done in a medical setting than in schools). I've been seriously symptomatic since at least the age of 6. I believe early intervention would have helped reduce my immense amount of suffering as a child, improved my psycho-social functioning during my most formative years, improved my treatment outcomes today, and possibly slowed down the progression of my illness. As far as stigma goes, people with mental illness face stigma regardless. Other children *knew* I was different, and they treated me different. Had I been properly treated for my MI, I might have had a better shot at socialization.
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