Panic attack is a slowly creeping mental disorder that
Americans or any other nationality for that matter are falling victims
to, according to the January 19, 2013, issue of The New York Times
weekend supplement in the Manila Bulletin.
The oil plant workers may be given psycho-social rehabilitation of sort, it was explained briefly on TV by officials.
The Filipinos arrived last Sunday, January 20. Some of them may be psychologically disturbed by their near-death experience.
How competent are our health authorities in handling local patients diagnosed to be suffering from such mental disorder as anxiety or panic attack?
For one, the Philippine Mental Health Association or any other government instrumentality that is tasked to manage the problem, seldom makes known its developmental strides through the media. To the public, what it knows about mental disorder is what people read about it in, say, newspapers.
Many of us are only superficially informed about the ailment. It is a rare occasion that these professional groups are in media explaining their goals and related activities.
To the general public, Filipinos appear to be the least bothered by mental health updates like panic attack. We are kept in the dark by these agencies on how they combat the ailment and in tackling the problem like restoring patients back to health, and so forth.
So when the public is not informed adequately on mental health developments, and the traumatic causes and treatment of the ailment, we may be immersed in ignorance of something which is vital to family and society, experts claimed.
There were two inter-related news articles in the "Times" weekend supplement in the "Bulletin." They dealt with mental cases in the US and the potential of such illnesses in striking anywhere in the world.
A feature story, "Anxious in a World of Dangers," recounted the experience of a celebrated American golfer, in the middle of a championship round, who thought he was having a heart attack and asked that he be sent to a hospital.
There was nothing physically wrong with him, doctors who examined him noted. And back at the fairways, he felt in top shape and improved his swing to win the championship.
Says the article, in part: "In a world where danger does truly lurk and tragedy does strike, a runaway fear of a panic attack - a neuro-chemical event that causes a flight response without immediate cause - is especially disorienting."
While anxiety occurs when a kind of fear - rational or irrational - interferes with our daily life. Widespread anxiety is a leading mental disorder in most developed nations.
The article also mentions the fact that some 40 million American adults experience some form of anxiety. Thus, it is the most prevalent mental health condition in the US.
Another news feature titled, "A Movie in Which Murder and Pills Collide," analyzes the substance of a current movie, "Side Effects." It zeroes in on "a world of psychiatric medicines that have become deeply familiar to the tens of millions of individuals who use commonly prescribed mood-altering drugs."
Why are these drugs so popular? "We live in a world where everybody wants a quick fix for their problems," says Dr. Sasha Bardey of New York University's Langone Medical Center. That is why these drugs are increasing in number, as well as their side effects.
In the first place, many of the patients were not sick enough to need them, the journal declared.
So, go easy with those antidepressants. You may not need them, to begin with.