The Problem of Over-Medicating for Grief

Ten years ago, I lost my husband to an automobile accident. He was thirty-one years old, and he left me to raise my five year old son on my own. Compounding this tragedy was the realization that we had no life insurance. Needless to say, this was all quite depressing. I can't tell you how many people readily assumed that I would not only be medicated in order to "get through" the funeral, but that I would also then seek longer term treatment to cope. Instead, I chose to work through my grief at my own pace. Was I "sad"? Of course. Shouldn't I have been?

Recently, my mother retired at the age of 72. Mom had always been quite social, and so, those first few weeks of retirement were depressing to her. She was mourning the loss of many things including her circle of colleagues, the faster pace of her schedule, and the challenges that work provided. Rather than ride this wave of mild depression for a few weeks, she immediately scheduled a visit with a psychiatrist to get help in "fixing her problem." He immediately provided her with a strong, highly-addictive anti-depressant. She has since regained her energy; however, she now runs on fast-forward from sun up to sun down. Her physical health is deteriorating, she has spent thousands of dollars on impulse buys, has no control of her actions, but is no longer "depressed." Her personality has completely transformed.

Since this has taken place, I have found out that a large number of people of various ages and stages of life have been treated chemically for depression. Reasons for the depression have ranged from losing loved ones, moving, divorce, retirement, empty nest syndrome, and the diagnosis of chronic illnesses. Why has the United States become a nation that assumes that major life events require pills to "get through" them? Why are we not allowing legitimately sad people to be sad for a while? Why are psychiatrists able to assume that these people are diseased and in need of medical treatment?

My mother is not coping with her recent retirement; she is running away from it. Could the answer to her difficulties of retiring really be long-term, brain-altering chemicals? How many otherwise mentally healthy men and women who are merely undergoing mild depression, understandably due to current, temporary life changes, are addicted to these brain-altering chemicals? Why is "being sad, when sad events take place considered abnormal? And when is someone going to point out to these people that being "sad" when sad things happen in their lives makes complete, logical sense, and might actually be necessary and beneficial to the emotional growth of anyone experiencing difficult life events?