Went for a routine check up the other day. Was handed this questionnaire with no reason given. It is reproduced here, by hand, for purposes of critical review:
Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been
bothered by any of the following problems?
(use "[check mark]" to indicate your answer)
[Note: options are rated "Not at all", "Several days", "More than half the days", "Nearly every day". No option is given for "rarely" or "every day" or ... bolds are my own ... ]
1. Little interest or pleasure in doing things
2. Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless
3. Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much [!]
4. Feeling tired or having little energy
5. Poor appetite or overeating [!]
6. Feeling bad about yourself — or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down [FFS, are there any surprising situations in life that don't qualify as depression?]
7. Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television [!!!]
8. Moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed. Or the opposite [!!?!] — being so figety [sic] or restless that you have been moving around a lot more than usual [!?!?!]
9. Thoughts that you would be better off dead, or of hurting yourself
[and their emphasis, not mine ...]
10. If you checked off any problems, how difficult have these problems made it for you to do your work, take care of things at home, or get along with other people? [Options are: "Not difficult at all", "Somewhat difficult", "Very difficult" and "Extremely difficult"]
So let me get this straight. If nearly every day, I feel sad about a thing
or merely don't enjoy something, and I have too much energy
or not enough, eat
less or eat
more than a previous pattern, feel an obligation toward family or toward myself, and I dislike reading the newspaper or watching television, and I so much as entertain philosophical concepts of existentialism or contemplate self-sacrifice on some level, and if any of these things — which make up my character — cause the natural human element of differing viewpoints, which cause the majority of interpersonal conflicts ... I am "depressed"?
Says who?
Copyright 1999 Pfizer Inc. ... PRIME-MD is a trademark of Pfizer, Inc.
Oh. Zoloft. Of course!
The over-diagnosis of clinical depression to sell snake oil pills with mostly placebo effect is one of the biggest fucking scams in history. My god, it reminds me of what kind of shitty treatment I got as a kid who naturally saw things more casually, more optimistically or just differently ... and all the money my generation's parents and the next have sunk into Freudian solutions! Thank the heavens it's
minimally effective at treating any symptoms for those who escape it! I have only anecdotal evidence from friends that therapists do them any good, and by their own admission it is 99% of the time for want of opportunity to simply make and be with friends.
And this was handed to me
before the Doc asked me if I'd recently hopped on a plane to chase after and contract Ebola! Luckily, there didn't seem to be any difference about whether I actually filled this sheet out or not so I took it with me to show friends and laugh at.
I suspect pharmaceuticals are behind a lot of these PsyOps, and hence why doctors are "helplessly" led to rattle off the latest hype to every customer. It is plausible that Big Pharma is even working in tandem with law enforcement and the military-industry lobbies to argue that a
duped, fraudulently terrorized populace is a Visa card-carrying
medicated, dependent and docile populace that watches TV for simulated creature comforts of cultural acceptance.