20.2 million antidepressants were prescribed in the first three months of 2021 (NHS BSA statistics).
It’s common knowledge that there are high numbers of antidepressants being prescribed. It’s key to keep growing awareness on this topic as, statistically speaking, it’s guaranteed that one person around you, if not you personally, is suffering from a mental illness.
Antidepressants are not to be feared as they effectively kick in and fulfil a purpose just like other medications.
What is meant to be feared is not helping someone at an earlier stage or even making it worse for the person. From my experience as a therapist, and many other therapists would agree, that due to the lack of awareness within cultures, issues that could have been cleared a long time ago end up getting addressed once a greater degree of damage has been done.
Understandably, it’s much harder to help a person who has had mental health issues for a long time. In most cases, therapy and medication don’t work due to the level things have escalated because a situational hit could have taken place such as a divorce, financial loss or even a bodily illness.
I wanted to point out that these days therapists and social workers especially within the Asian community end up covering a lot of angles. A case where a family member is experiencing a low mental state would turn into a re-alignment session with other family members and expose more factors that directly impact the family we initially set out to help.
To round off, if you or someone close to you experiences mood instabilities, suffered an emotional hit, situational hardships or showing a lack of motivation it’s ideal to address this. In the long term therapy or meditation can be brought in to assist but resolving this earlier is ideal. Proactive-based thinking towards mental health can literally save lives.
Thank you for your responses to the last blog ‘hypnotherapy vs psychotherapy’. Do let me know what other kind of mental health topics you want to hear more about.
