[jaguar]

There are two ways to look at everything. I have an extreme dislike of pharmaceuticals being sued to treat what I feel are mental issues, not diseases, so called 'social anxiety' bullshit, some forms of depression etcetcetc. The way I see it, the increased use of medication to treat those conditions is downright scary, sign up for your soma and get back to work, baaa.

That said, some things like schizophrenia, at least as far as I understood, at least in many cases are the result of certain chemical imbalances in the brain that can be corrected but are to varying degrees something that can't be fixed by working though issues and the like.

I have a fair number of friends that tapdance on the edge of insanity, some are intensely creative, others work 48 hours straight, smoke 4 joints and turn out the next major innovation in computing. Most of the great thinkers in history were a little bit nuts, you have to be fairly out of line to be the first to see things in a way no-one has before. There are entire communities that exist on the fringes, rejecting what most people would term normality, doing their own thing. Most are far happier than the 'straight' people I know. For all Pfizer's talk of surgical accuracy in terms of what their drugs do they sure seem to be better at simply stopping someone feeling anything that getting rid of the daemons in their head. Certainly is cheaper I'm sure.

Hell, from personal experience, I'm a borderline dyslexic (you've all seen my typing, little shock there), I've been reccomended various drugs as well as antidepressants at times. I keep wierd hours, I get obsessive about things yet somehow I know I would mach rather be like this than drugged to the hilt walking round like a goddamn zombie. Hell I'd rather be like this than doing a damn 9-5 for the next 40 odd years.