It's Getting Personal

 It's getting personal, people.

So far, as I have watched in horror the dismantling of the democracy we’ve known for 250 years, it has been as someone who isn’t directly affected. Not yet, anyway. And, as I’ve said before, l don’t have personal expertise or experience in foreign policy or economics or budgetary cuts or the rule of law.

But with the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, we are now moving into my territory. Things are getting personal.

I’m deeply concerned that a man with no medical training and with a penchant for pseudoscience is in charge of our nation’s health.

I’ve read the Executive Order “Establishing The President’s Make America Healthy Again Commision” and, quite frankly, there is language in that order that is alarming. In Section 5, the Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment, paragraph (iii) states: “assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs;”

Assess the prevalence of and THREAT. It’s the word threat that is alarming. It is the fact that the use of medications for the management of mental health conditions and neurodivergence is of such concern that it is put into an executive order. And it is coming at the hands of a man who claims that SSRIs are “more addictive than heroin.”

I’ve been watching this administration for 31 days now. Navigating complex issues and gray areas is not their forte. Or their MO. They take a scorched earth approach to pretty much everything they touch. Black and white. All or nothing. And they don’t back down.

So when I see various psych meds being mentioned as a potential threat I know what is likely coming. A vilification of psych med use and a potential ban altogether (I'll talk about the implication for us adults in another post).

And this is where I can talk with confidence from experience. I say this as a person who, at age 11 was diagnosed with anxiety and depression (and would have been diagnosed with OCD had it been a diagnosis in 1975). I say this as a person who was put on her first antidepressant at age 12.

I say this as the mother whose various children struggled with anxiety, depression. OCD, and ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder. I say this as the mother who had to fight to get them help. I say this as the mother who regrets not fighting harder. I say this as the mother who did too little, too late. I say this as the mother who saw the vast difference an SSRI made in one child’s ability to “unstick” from an obsession and the way a stimulant enabled another child to focus in school and quit believing himself to be stupid.

I say this as the grandmother of a child with an anxiety disorder, ADHD, and dyslexia and a heap of trauma and all the complexities that go with that.

I know meds are considered bad. I know that Big Pharma is the boogie man that we all love to hate. But there is a time and a place for medication.

Psych meds are a tool, not the only tool, but sometimes a necessary tool, when addressing mental health challenges. Sure, it would be great if kids got therapy of various and all sorts. But have you ever had to find a therapist for a child? The process is long and hard and maddening and so damn expensive, even if you have insurance. (In some areas, a therapist who works with children is nonexistent.) It can take months to get in with a therapist only to discover she is going out on maternity leave. Or moving away. Or will no longer take your insurance. The good ones are "no longer accepting clients."

Have the use of these meds increased over the years? Absolutely! But so has the diagnosis of various mental health conditions, thanks to our better understanding of the brain and neurodivergence and how these conditions present themselves (especially in females). And I am thankful for this. In the “good old days” so many of these kids would have been labeled as bad or disobedient or rebellious or just plain weird. Today we know better.

So, should RFK, Jr. and his posse decide that children should no longer be prescribed SSRIs, stimulants, and the like, what are we going to do?

How are we going to support these kids who are anxious or depressed or obsessing or so scattered mentally that they can’t focus on school? How are we going to let them know that they aren’t broken? How are we going to accommodate them?

And how are we going to support their parents? Because it is a hard, HARD road. No parent should be scorned for getting their child the help that’s needed. And no parent should be villainized for having a child who needs help in the first place.

I had so hoped this younger generation would not have to suffer the stigma of mental health conditions. I’m afraid they will. Perhaps worse.

Medication is a tool. Sometimes a good tool. Sometimes the ONLY tool available. Taking that away is going to cause a lot of harm.

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