In my opinion, I am very pro medication. I would not be alive today if it were not for Lexapro, Cymbalta, Ativan and Celexa. Those are the big four I have been on over the years.

I think a lot of people who are anti medication have either never been on medication before and are influenced heavily by the media and everyone elses opinion that they are convinced that meds are bad or are dangerous. I agree that any medication can be dangerous if used improperly, however, they are developed to help us. There is also a big stigma towards mental health in general. I spent most of my teenage years in a deep depression and nothing was done about it because my parents (mostly my father) did not believe in "psychiatrists" and "antidepressants" because if you were depressed, it was something you just "got over and worked through it" When I was 19-20 I had my own health insurance and I finally (after almost a year of trying to persuade myself mentally) went to my primary care doc and got on Lexapro (this is back when it was brand new and still brand name) it made a tremendous impact on my life.

I think that a lot of doctors/nurse practitioners/psychiatrists/mental health med providers etc. nowadays are very anti medication. The federal government and the FDA has gotten so strict and is heavily regulating what they can and cannot prescribe and who they can and cannot prescribe it to. They are terrified to prescribe any narcotics/benzos and will only give you enough for a few days if they do give you any. I have been in the ER for psych issues as well as been in both inpatient and outpatient therapy programs. The ER docs where I live are a joke, they will not give any Ativan or Xanax, only allowing Vistaril or Atarax to be given which is nothing but over the counter Benadryl. The inpatient program was run by a psychiatrist that actually knew what he was doing and he actually set me up on the meds that I am on today. The outpatient program at the same hospital got sued because they were taking people who had been on benzos and antipsychotics for years and years and ripping them out of them and slamming them into some stupid generics.

I have worked for years and years to get where I am today. I have been through numerous doctors and mental health clinics. I have even walked out of the middle of an appointment with an embarrassing excuse for a Nurse Practitioner because she didnt want to listen and kept making excuses and passing the buck to other doctors, blaming my symptoms on physiological things that weren't there, despite test after test from my primary care doctor. I am fortunate that I have a very good primary care doctor who I get along with very well and I have been visiting for over ten years now.