Self Medication for Mental Health Disorders
Introduction: Mental Health Disorders, Adolescents and Self Medication
Mental illnesses affect people’s moods, social interactions, eating habits, and/or sleeping
habits. The most common mental health disorders are anxiety disorders and mood
disorders. What categorizes a disorder is the extremeness of normal feelings and the
consequences. For instance, everyone feels anxious, sad, afraid, angry, distracted or
stressed at some point. However, with a disorder the person feels one or a few of these
feelings persistently and to a greater extreme to the point that it disrupts everyday life and
functions. It’s generally thought that mental health disorders have been around forever,
though there have been rising rates in disorders since World War II. However, it is hard to
tell if the disorders themselves are on the rise or if other factors make it appear this way.
Some of these factors include: diagnosis increases; media coverage and awareness
increases; changes in reporting; and differences in defining and assessing.
About 1 in 5 teens/tweens aged 9-17 have a mental health disorder. Also, the age of onset
of mental illnesses peaks in adolescence with about half of adults with mental disorders
having symptoms at age 14. While many have symptoms at this age, many are often not
diagnosed as teens. About 8 to 10 million teens have an untreated mental illness.
Symptoms can be difficult to recognize in teens for a number of reasons. One reason is that
most adolescents experience and show traits of mental health disorders like anxiety, stress,
anger or depression simply because of hormones and the turbulence of adolescent years.
This leaves the teen, parents, teachers and other important figures unsure if the teen has a
disorder or just going through the sometimes difficult, but normal, teenage issues.
Inability to recognize a disorder as well as unwillingness to get help with a disorder have
led teens to self medication. Self medication is the use of alcohol or any kind of drugs (not
prescribed by a doctor) to treat or alleviate symptoms/traits of mental health disorders.
Self Medication Facts
Self medication through drugs and alcohol can temporarily relieve symptoms of mental
health disorders and therefore is very attractive to teens suffering from them. However,
once the “high” or the effects of the drugs and/or alcohol wear off, people often feel worse
than they did before consuming the drug or alcohol. This often leads to drug/alcohol use
on a daily basis. Self medication usually develops into a substance abuse disorder.
