I'm frightened enough by Scientology that I'm not at all sure I want to do more than the most minimal discussion (for fear of getting jumped on by a Scientologist somewhere in LJ) but I am quite sure that if at least one of my three diagnoses (the big one is "acute clinical depression, agitated variety") had been diagnosed and treated when I was a high school senior, my life would have gone far differently and almost certainly quite a bit better. (I actually got my first med for this 15 years later.) I can't put myself in Ms. Shields' shoes for the same reason Tom Cruise can't, but I would like to think that in a sane world, the use of psych meds would be between a patient and her/his doctor. (Although that can be iffy, too -- I had one doctor who insisted that there was nothing wrong with me except that I'd just gone through the breakup of a relationship. I tried frantically to tell him that the breakup had happened because I was too depressed to cope, not the other way around, but he didn't get it.) In any event, please keep saying sane stuff on LJ -- we need it.

Nate