Sounds like reeducation to me.
Apologies if this is a repost. I feel like people need to see this.
This is obviously horrendous on the face of it, but in addition, he doesn’t even consider people who take medication classed as antidepressants for other issues. I am on a tricyclic antidepressant that does help my depression, but I also take it because it significantly reduces migraine attacks and mitigates my IBS symptoms. So even if you do think that depression is ‘all in your head’ (ignoring all modern information and proof to the contrary), you still should be enraged by the mere suggestion of a policy like this.
What a horrible misunderstanding of how addiction works.
Might as well tell people with cancer to just think they don’t have cancer and they’ll be cured.
What a horrible misunderstanding of how addiction works.
RFK had a horrible misunderstanding of how most things work.
If he is allowed to implement his insane ideas, people will die. A lot of people.
It’s very common to be misdiagnosed with depression and put on an SSRI when it’s not going to help. (SSRIs will generally not help a mood disorder like bipolar, for instance). SSRIs are highly addictive in that discontinuing them often comes with pretty severe withdrawal. So it’s not just a matter of “you can think your way out of depression” because a lot of people quit SSRIs for very good reasons - moving to a more appropriate treatment being one of them, and often it requires hospitalization because of how awful the withdrawal is, even with tapering the dose down.
I am not a fan of RFK Jr. Politically I’m a good distance to the left of liberal. But honestly, if implemented correctly this could help a whole bunch of people who are trapped on SSRIs prescribed by a doctor who didn’t really know how to diagnose them, and could also help a lot of nonviolent offenders who just need help beating their addiction. I understand that ‘if implemented correctly’ is a big ask with this administration, but let’s maybe not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Remember these days you ran interference for RFK Jr because you were too afraid to face up to the truth of what he was actually suggesting. It is a sour feeling and I say that with experience. People said the same thing about migrant camps and family seperation at the border. They said the same about Roe v Wade. They said the same thing about random deportations. Assuming you’re being genuine I have to ask you to learn to expect the worst and merely hope for the best. This man aggressively doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about and when you defend him you sound the same way.
If you read this and saw me defending RFK, you misinterpreted me. I specifically said I’m not a fan.
This is what I am saying. Antidepressants are highly addictive and it doesn’t get talked about. The commenter I replied to said that this article deeply misunderstands addiction, which I interpreted to mean that the commenter doesn’t know how addictive SSRIs are. That’s not surprising, a lot of people don’t know how addictive they are. There are many valid reasons to stop taking an antidepressant, and it’s very difficult. We should do something to help those people besides force them to check into a psych ward. That’s what I said, and I meant it.
Nobody is abusing antidepressants. Nobody is getting high off of antidepressants. Nobody is funding cartels trafficking antidepressants. Nobody who’s depressed should be punished for seeking treatment.
To me this is clearly getting people ready for concentration camps of some sort. That said I have taken antidepressants and I understand SSRI dependence as I have had withdrawal from SSRIs. I suffered with it for more than 10 years. The tricky thing here, is that the most convincing lies are always salted with truths or half truths to make them easier to swallow.
Antidepressants are highly addictive and it doesn’t get talked about
SSRIs are not addictive and almost no antidepressants have addictive qualities. Many can cause withdrawal symptoms, which is very different from addiction, and a few select agents have been misused in contexts where access to drugs are low and quality of life are low, such as prison, but this kind of use needs to be considered in context, as these individuals are desperate for escape.
Please do not spread misinformation.
So, step 1, substantially reduce agricultural migrant labor; step 2, create gulags for the neurodivergent to try to make up the difference? Lovely.
Nothing like cramming a bunch of mentally unwell people recently off their meds into slave labour camps. That’ll work out real nice.
My fear exactly.
Doesn’t this kind of thing always start off “voluntary”?
While I’m not a fan of RFK Jr., this seems to be a misinterpretation of what he’s saying. Regarding antidepressants, he said, “other psychiatric drugs, if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time as much time as they need…” (emphasis mine)
It seems like, in addition to drug related offenses (which is its own rather thorny issue) he intends for this to be for people who want to stop taking SSRIs, benzos, and other psych meds and need support doing it. I’m not seeing any indication that this would be involuntary, and I’m certain that if he said anything like that the quote would be present, but it’s not.
Having seen how devastating the withdrawal can be for some psych meds, even with tapering, I can’t say that this seems like a bad idea on its face. So many people try to quit psych meds and end up hospitalized; I’ve believed for a long time that there should be some sort of recovery program for people coming off of these medications, because they will 100% mess you up when you start taking less.
Now, adderall I don’t really understand its inclusion here, because it isn’t known for withdrawal.
“if they want to”
So…
The Chinese government has claimed that the Xinjiang re-education camps were voluntary educational centers aimed at combating extremism and teaching vocational skills…
They are never that direct. It starts at one thing and in a few months its in full swing
Sure. Just don’t expect me to get out of bed on your “farm”, Maggie.
Antidepressants aren’t a “make you happy” pill.
They are a pill that inhibits serotonin reuptake (in the case of SSRIs) and thereby can help treat biological illnesses such as Major Depressive Disorders (not to be confused with short-term reactive depression, which is psychological in nature and therefore doesn’t respond to antidepressants).
You are correct.
But there are a great variation in anti depressants as well as ssri.
Who needs all that science anyway.
