Over my life I have found that some things, yes I do need medication for, but I -personally- do not need anti depressants to be happy...
However people in society increasingly take the view of 'you need medication' rather than "maybe when this person tells me what is bothering them I should reflect on if I'm contributing to the problem"
I have been blessed with some very dear friends over my life. My first brush with the ills of psychopharmacology was with a woman I knew whose mother had just passed. I went to visit her a few days after the funeral and she was rather spry. I, being a man of little regard for my own well being asked the probing question "You seem rather upbeat". It was met with a resounding "I know, and I can't even cry". She removed prozac from her life shortly after, went through a bought of horrid depression (putting off processing things means you pay later). Today she's happy, bright and successful...
I have a current friend who is "suffering from anxiety and depression". Her life is hard, for a number of reasons. Medication makes her "happy" and she does not address the structural issues in her life. You can't help those who wont help themselves, I get that. But if you dont feel the pain how do you know to pull back from the fire.
The parent poser never said anything about "evil big pharama mind control", however "pharma companies trying to make money disregarding long-term health of patients" is not a particularly narrow-minded view, anti-depressants are used to put people back to work disregarding their long-term health, and widespread over-prescription of SSRIs by physicians (not even psychiatrists), even to children, is a thing as well.
If 15 years ago, when I was 16, someone had told me that these meds would potentially make me lose the ability to feel pleasure, I probably would'nt haven taken them, but there was no such warning.
I was once told that ADs were as well-understood as insulin for diabetes. In retrospect I feel hard-pressed to find any other word for that than "blatant lie". I was 21 when I was put on Effexor.
Except kids.
Barbiturates were a problem for how many decades? How much over prescription were there of "mothers little helpers"? How about oxy? How many people did that kill? How about benzodiazepines? DO we even have accurate data on that, or did we just stop looking at the long term effects.
We're not studying the impact of over prescription of psychopharmacology. There is NO data on what happens if you give these drugs to people who DONT need them. Zero, None. And we would be very naive to think that we dont have that problem.
Edit: The only reduction in suicide rate of those taking SSRI's vs those getting a placebo is in the over 65 age group.
Psychedelics allow you to pitch a tent in your backyard to renovate your home. But eventually, you make your home as you want it and stop needing renovations.
This is the right attitude for all medicine.
And as any PT/MD will tell you, even getting people to take a full course of antibiotics or their drugs properly is difficult. 1 in 3 odds? 1 in 2?
Getting someone to finish a full course of PT? Nearly impossible. Like 1 in 20 type odds.
So, the system throws medicines and surguries/treatments at the patients when possible (because they can control those things, and they work!) whenever they can, and do tell people about the other options - and they do work and are necessary for issues to really work out well a lot of time - but almost no one really does it.
Then they blame the medicine or surgury for not fully solving the problem, or when it comes back in a different form/direction.
Like weight loss.
But what else are we going to do?
There exist plenty of I don't like taking medicine people.