When it comes to mental illness, the debate tends to go in two very wrong directions: The first is… diagnosis with absolutely no knowledge of illness and the second is the denial of social stigma.
You will notice that we use the words "bipolar disorder" disproportionately with ease to describe people 's behaviors that, usually and to be honest, we do not understand because we do not like them. We just as easily declare that we have "depression" or that someone else has a "personality disorder". It is now fashionable to diagnose sociopaths. All of the above (with an asterisk in sociopaths) are diseases. Normal diseases, which need doctors and medicines, like any other disease, such as, say, pneumonia or cancer.
In the last years of the pandemic, however, with some tolerance for exaggeration, we could say that we became the xanax generation. The wastewater of Athens shows a huge increase in consumption, while the attendance at mental health structures is disproportionate.
Like all drugs - it's about drugs, of course - it overlaps with a charm. In fact, it is fashionable to mix alcohol in clubs. Or to be used for "quenching" after using cocaine. The most common, however, is to be used as a means of self-medication. Even if in our country such drugs need a prescription, you can get xanax in an informal black market, where pharmacies in Attica can provide boxes for ten or twenty euros.
What Xanax is and what it does
Xanax is a benzodiazepine sedative that may help with insomnia or panic attacks, but is by no means a cure. It could be like throwing ashes on hot coals: It calms you down for a while, but it does not heal you. If someone is suffering from a mental illness, xanax can periodically make him or her feel better, but it certainly does not cure the disease. In fact, the way he calms down, exacerbates the disease.
Xanax is dangerous without medical supervision, because it is highly addictive. Of course, many drugs are addictive, even cortisone. For this reason it is necessary to administer only with a prescription and only with medical supervision.
Can xanax harm the user, even death? Roughly yes. Overdose of the drug can become very dangerous. Starting with 0,25mg gradually you will need 2mg to catch you and so on. The patient's stomach may react somewhat violently to a dosage that is not… friendly.
Social stigma, mental illness, self-medication
Mental illnesses are also divided into categories and each category has its own grade. Depression, for example, can be recurrent and treatable, or it can recur and live with it forever. The only thing that has been shown to be linked to genetic factors is schizophrenia. In fact, if a patient with schizophrenia develops depression, it is considered by psychiatrists to improve the existing disease, because the patient perceives - or acquires - knowledge of the Ego, of himself.
A mental illness can be caused by circumstances, such as a pandemic or a personal trauma, be genetically predisposed, be caused by changes in the body's chemistry due to another illness, such as an autoimmune or cancer, or be born with it and at some point to manifest. Unfortunately, Greece is a country that, while having good public mental health structures, still carries a huge social stigma.
People who speak openly about the disease in the public sphere are insulted or, at best, treated differently. The fear of social outcry leads to very wrong choices: Isolation and self-medication, with the latter being the most dangerous.
Examining the rise of benzodiazepines in the sewage of Athens, we see that the residents, in order to face the terrible changes of the time, preferred to get pills without medical supervision - always in connection with the disproportionate visit to mental health specialists. Like any drug, Xanax makes you feel good. And then it makes you feel worse. Xanax is not antidepressant, nor does it cure any other mental illness. To be precise, it cures absolutely nothing.
The fact that it became a pill of fashion, perpetuates a very problematic mentality, that of ostrichism. No illness can be cured on its own and schematically, treating depression with xanax is like treating dandruff with chamomile.
What could the release of the prescription mean?
In our country, psychiatric - and other - drugs are fortunately administered only with a doctor's prescription. This means that you must have gone to a psychiatrist and, along with benzodiazepines, be prescribed antidepressants. That is, to deal with the disease and -mostly- to have a chance to win it. Be functional.
It is observed mainly in the youngest social networks, such as Tik Tok, a romanticization of such sedative drugs. Something like Alice in Wonderland, taking pills and flying.
It is almost certain that the release of the prescription would create a wave of addiction, which is both violent and difficult to stop. In combination with alcohol or other substances, it could even be fatal.
Xanax is not a well-known drug, in fact, it is known to the mentally ill, some of us have even gone through the stage of addiction and gradual withdrawal and we know that it is characterized by violence. The big difference is that benzodiazepines given by a psychiatrist are always given "in company", never alone and never for a long time. In the case of the release of benzodiazepines it is possible to face a new addiction to a highly addictive drug, but at the same time "chic" and therefore more insidious.
in.gr