Medical women's emotions

According to an article from the New York Times written by psychiatrist Julie Dhond, “at least One in four women in the United States currently takes psychiatric medication, compared to one in seven men. Women have twice as probabilities to receive a diagnosis of depression or anxiety disorder than men. For many women, these drugs greatly improve their lives. But for others they are not necessary. The increase in psychiatric drug recipes, often by doctors of other specialties, is the creation of a new normality, encouraging more women to seek chemical help. If a woman needs these medications, they must be a medical decision, not a response to group pressure and consumerism."

Apparently the most prescribed medications are those that influence serotonin levels, and that is, to simplify things, when there are serotonin levels in the brain too high, it is as if we left our concerns behind; But if they are too low and everything seems to us that it is a problem.

According to Dra. Dook says, If serotonin levels remain artificially high, women run the risk of "losing their emotional sensitivity With its natural fluctuations, and modeling a more masculine, static hormonal balance. Apparently, "this emotional blocking encourages women to assume behaviors that are normally approved by men: that seem to be invulnerable, for example, a position that could help women ascend in companies dominated by men".

Dhond remembers a patient who called saying that his insufficient antidepressant dose, to increase it because he kept crying at work. It turns out that she was upset by something degrading that her boss had made her. Fortunately, after talking about the subject, the patient realized the situation required an answer, but no more medications.

Life is moving so quickly, there are so many demands that

Who has time to face strong mood fluctuations that are perceived by oneself and others as "difficult" or "negative"?

It is too easy to believe that feeling strong emotions are "bad".

But who says that emotional fluctuations (which derive from natural processes related to our biology)- are something negative, useless, and that they have to block?

Women are not men, they are women, and this is something good.

With this the Dra. Dook is not affirming that women should never take medications for problems such as anxiety or depression, of course. His point of view is that Many women are being medicated too often for something that is natural and good. More generally raises the question of whether our society allows - and supports - or not to women to be what they really are.

As women fight to compete with their male peers, one of the golden rules is never crying at work. Tears, of course, are a sign of emotional sensitivity, weakness, and that a woman is "too emotional."

"The women who cried at work felt intense shame, shame and disappointment of them."" On the other hand, many felt the crying had been very harmful to their success ".

Of course, men are encouraged (they often do) to show their emotions at work, although it is usually labeled as "passion", or in the worst "anger" cases, which is almost universally accepted as a rational emotion (and, often rewarded). On the contrary, a woman who expresses her emotions faces the direct consequences that affect her position in her career (emotional women are often seen as a passive or lack of decision).

Let's try to separate therefore a serious psychological problem from a transitory and fluctuating emotional or affective state like life itself. Let's stop medicating emotions if they were an evil of our time.