Mental Illness meds

So, should they be used? If so, how often?

Personaly, I don't think these meds should be used near as often as they are. I do realise that there are people that need them to function anywhere near correctly in society (and maybe to even live), but they seem to just hand them out like the AOL CDs you used to get in the mail every 5 days.

I have some friends with some minor mental illnesses, and they are nice. However, they were put on these drugs and they have become dependent on them. If they don't have them, they start to act terribly (each in a different way). They are phisicaly dependent on the drugs. And how do the doctors compensate for this? More drugs of course! It just drains the parents of their money and secludes the person from society.

Believe it or not, I myself was once thought to have a mental illness. Durring preschool, the school talked to my parents about having me tested, and they flat out refuesed. They had seen what happened to people that had failed the tests. Now I have many friends in school, participate in activites, and get good grades (average between 85% and 90%). Some of my friends that have these illnesses and actualy took the tests aren't as lucky. At a very young age they were put on meds and many of them are a grade behind or failing and have few friends.

So what do you think? Should children (18 years of age or less) be given meds for mental illnesses?
They seem to have gotten along rather well all these years before.

team dfc wrote:Just blame it on my ADD

Now that's an excuse I find extreamly old....
I've got a girl in my grade that blames half of her actions on her OCD tendency. She acts as well as anyone else in society, but that excuse gets kinda old after a while.

Be that as it may, it's an excuse I find very old...