lady Gaga was recently on Oprah Winfrey's show and she kind of had a bad
take on the current state of mental healthcare and while she did make a good
point this conversation is a little bit more
nuanced and we need to have a discussion about it so we can hopefully have some
reform in the United States and that way you can get the mental health care that
you need what is up everybody this is Chris from the rewired soul where we
talk about the problem but focus on the solution and if you're new to my channel
my channel is all about mental health so if you're into that stuff make sure you
subscribe and ring that notification about follow me over on Instagram and
Twitter at the rewired soul all right so I was I was informed about this subject
from the video from YouTube's resident doctor dr. Mike all right and Lady Gaga
was recently on Oprah Winfrey and dr. Mike made a video about this because
Lady Gaga said by the way if your primary care doctor is prescribing you
an antidepressant this should not be happening primary care doctors should be
introducing you to a psychiatrist and expert in brain medication all right so
I will link doctor Mike's video down below he makes some excellent points and I
highly highly recommend that you go check it out all right so I'm gonna be
discussing you know some of my own personal experience both you know just
from my life and my struggles with mental health and getting prescribed
mental health medications but also working at a drug and alcohol rehab
where I had to help clients kind of navigate the mental healthcare system
after leaving treatment all right so the first thing we need to talk about when
it comes to Lady Gaga when it comes to celebrities when it comes to youtubers
it's something called appearance bias all right
so appearance bias is this bias we have where if somebody is you know attractive
or wealthy like they're rich and they're famous we're like hmm
this person must know what they're talking about right this is one of the
reasons why people have an issue with like celebrities endorsing candidates
and everything like that right we need to just be mindful of this just because
somebody has a lot of money or a lot of you know success in their realm it
doesn't necessarily mean they know about the topic that they're discussing so
just always be skeptical of that stuff hell even me even my videos
be skeptical do your own research fact check it double-check it whatever you
got to do alright so let's talk about this like I will start out by saying
that I absolutely agree with part of what Lady Gaga is saying like we have a
massive problem the United States with over prescribing and over diagnosing
people like it isn't uncommon for you to go see a primary care doctor and they're
like oh you have problems with your attention here's some adderall oh you
get anxious take some xanax oh you have a little aching pain
here's a prescription opioid you know what I mean so that is something that we
have to be mindful of and I think doc and bike is really good about talking
about you know turning to medications especially mental health medications as
a last resort rather than a first resort so as a side note not every patient with
anxiety and oppression needs antidepressants and in fact that's the
beauty of family medicine we understand that cognitive behavioral therapy DBT
all these options work very well for our patients and because we have existing
relationships with these patients because we're their primary care
providers we treat them for years we know what works we know what medications
they do well with they have direct access to us and it only makes sense
that we continue this line of treatment until it passes that complexity line
where we do need to get a specialist like a psychiatrist involved like dr.
Mike seems like the type of doctor where if you saw him and you were going
through a difficult time and he wanted depressants he would try to guide you on
the path of you know building some resilience you
know what I mean but we do have to be mindful of it when it comes to you know
primary care doctors or even psychiatrist over prescribing
medications I am very passionate about that subject because I am a recovering
prescription drug addict I used to go around a doctor shop and easily get
medications to fuel my addiction you know what I mean so it's something that
I think about a lot so one book that I highly recommend is the book called
saving normal all right it's written by the guy who was actually the head of the
dsm-4 and he really does a great job discussing how we're over prescribing a
lot of medications and we're over diagnosing people right and how the DSM
isn't always the best tool to use to diagnose somebody you know what I mean
for example we talked about depression something that was eliminated from the
DSM was if if you just experienced the loss of a loved one right that is now
not a factor in the DSM when it comes to diagnosing depression right so if you
lose you know someone close to you right parent a significant other a child
basically it says if you've been depressed for over two weeks you have
clinical depression but it's like how long are you allowed to be depressed
about the loss of a loved one okay so let's talk about psychiatry okay so by
the way if you are confused about the difference between like psychiatrists
psychologists therapists counselors and all that this is actually Katie Morgan's
books okay morton is like the therapists of youtube she does an excellent job in
her book discussing the differences between those so psychiatrists are
medical doctors and they are there to prescribe medications but here's the
thing they're not magicians all right like they are trained in psychiatric
medications and if you have the resources to go to a psychiatrist
go ahead and do it but like I was reading somewhere
that the average visit with a psychiatrist it's like 15 minutes 15
minutes like how much can you really get done in 15 minutes like sometimes it
takes us longer than 15 minutes to figure out what we're gonna order off
the menu at a restaurant so it typically takes longer than that to diagnose
somebody so with what Lady Gaga is saying like sometimes you know it's not
too much different than what primary care doctors are doing so real quick
based on my experience so my my primary care doctor she prescribes my
medications but but she's a very very good primary care doctor like she will
not even attempt to prescribe me certain medications as I listen if this doesn't
work we need to get you to a psychiatrist right like she is very
humble about what she knows about and what she doesn't know about you know
what I mean and I appreciate that about her but here's one of the issues when it
comes to psychiatry and I'll just give you a quick little anecdote here working
at the drug-and-alcohol treatment center part of what I did was I would follow up
with clients after they left and we would always send them off with a refill
of their prescriptions and an aftercare plan and all that stuff right and
sometimes the person wouldn't refill their prescriptions or they would have
follow up with the aftercare plan like we have case managers who would set them
an appointment with a psychiatrist you know what I mean and the person would
miss that appointment and here's something that we need to take into
consideration is for your first psychiatrist visit like sometimes it can
take like a month to get in there this is from dealing with thousands of
clients who told me that I Kris I ran out of my medications I called a
psychiatrist because I missed my appointment and it's gonna take a month
to get in there so this is where we need to lean on primary care doctors and just
pray to the gods that they are accepting what they don't know about mental health
meds and also while we're trusting what they do know you know what I mean um
like but I always recommend that you do your own research on mental health
meds like I'm iffy about like you know asking others like what was your
experience with this medication all of us are different we can all react
differently to different mental health medications for example for most of you
know the last six years seven years or so I was on lexapro but I know so many
people who had a really bad side effect from lexapro you know what I mean
so if you asked me about my experience with lexapro
it was awesome if you ask somebody else it was terrible
so just be mindful when you're asking about other people's experience so the
main thing I want to talk about here is the current state of mental health care
in the United States so again when we see celebrities talking about this stuff
we need to be cautious all right because there are tens of millions of uninsured
Americans in the United States for most of the last year I was uninsured right
and this is something that millions and millions and millions of Americans are
struggling with and a psychiatrist visit is far more expensive than a primary
care doctor so when I see Lady Gaga talk about this stuff I'm like yeah but
everybody's not a millionaire not everybody can get into a psychiatrist
immediately not everybody can afford a psychiatrist sometimes you can't even
afford a primary care doctor visit you know what I mean so it's important to
know what you're working with and then see who you can see so I highly
recommend if you have no insurance at all and you're broke like check out your
state all right you can call I believe you can call for one one and ask them
like hey are there any you know government-funded clinics here right so
there are a lot of government-funded mental health clinics where you can go
in there you can talk to a therapist sometimes they have psychiatrists there
sometimes they have doctors who you talk to right and then like if you have
Medicaid or something like that they can prescribe you these medications so like
I said when I started this video it's much more nuanced than just saying don't
let your primary care doctor subscribe you medications because
sometimes that is your best option so one thing I want to talk about before I
let you go is in dr. Mike's video he discussed the dangers of self diagnosis
and absolutely please for the love of God never diagnose herself right and I
think dr. Mike was just on a roll when he was talking like I get into and I
talk and he mentioned self-help books right so like I said never diagnose
yourself but again with so many people who are without insurance for so many
people who are broke sometimes books or your best option to start working on
your mental health for example Kati Morton licensed
therapist wrote a book okay this book by the way is more helping you understand
therapy than methods that you can use to help yourself
but man books are cheap right you can go to your library there are many websites
where they sell thrift books and some of the top psychologists in the world are
putting all of their knowledge into books you know what I mean so like me I
am very fortunate to have a full time job and have health insurance and
everything like that like I you know I get my prescriptions refilled I still
got a co refill of today I have a therapist you know but I still read a
ton of books I'm constantly learning about new coping skills and everything
like that so I do think that self-help books are
extremely extremely beneficial to people who don't have the financial means to go
see doctors psychiatrists and all that stuff like once you get on your feet do
it but never use a self-help book to diagnose yourself but from what I've
seen like and I've read so many books like in the last year I'm almost at
about a hundred books most of them on psychology and mental health and
everything I can't think of any of them that I've read that's like hey
this is how you know that you have clinical depression none of them say
that most of them are just like hey depressed people this helps them anxious
people this helps them you can find the people who are like the leading
researchers in things like trauma and portal and personality disorder and all
sorts of other disorders and they have tools in there so what we need to
understand about therapy is I highly recommend you give therapy if you could
afford therapy because therapists are there to help you open up get down to
the root of your issue we always need somebody that we can talk
to about these things and therapists are also there to keep you on the right path
like it when you're on the road to your mental health recovery it is easy to
just start veering off the road all right and following up with a therapist
can help you get back on track and stay on track right because a lot of us we
don't want to put in the work like looking at yourself self-reflection
going into your past there's things we don't want to do so it's easy to just
Boop take off so a therapist keeps you on track but but if you can't afford a
therapist you have to have some personal accountability and just recognize that
there are so so so many tools out there that can help you all right so I want to
end with this I do think Lady Gaga's heart is in the
right place she has been very open about her traumas as she's been through she is
an advocate for mental health and everything but I just think we always
need to remember that some of these celebrities and I don't think she has
bad intentions in any way shape or form but some of these celebrities they lose
touch of what it used to be like when Lady Gaga was like that starving artist
like playing the piano at small New York clubs like she needs to recognize like a
majority of people are in that financial status you know what I mean so when
making these statements we always need to take those people in the
consideration you know I have worked with far too many people who don't have
insurance or lose their insurance and we need to be aware of the resources
that are out there all right but anyways double description below please as soon
as you're done with this video go check out the dr. Mike video it is phenomenal
alright but that's all I got for this video if you like this video please give
it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and ring that notification
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books over at the rewired soul comm that helps support the channel as well as
well as everybody who gets your hand on to mental health merch from the rewired
Souls store alright you're all awesome thanks again for watching I'll see you
next time