What is Wrong?
- dreamwriterariaros
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
I was in my car listening to the radio on a dash as FEMA was on furlough so long I ran out of unemployment, and I couldn't hear it all, but something stopped me cold.
Teens are diagnosing themselves with mass misinformation.
Not a little.
Not occasionally.
Constantly.
And it is dangerous.
I had to do something about it and it was in my head of projects. I might have a few rolling around. And so I am working with Lord Sinjin on Biology and Botany and I was like this too also couldn't wait to get started.
And so I sent Claude off to check the research. Oh I so want volunteers so I can get the information required.
BUT THE NUMBERS STOPPED ME COLD.
Up to 95% of teens aged 13 to 17 use social media.
Not Proper Research
Not WebMD even
JUST Social Media.
One in three says they use it almost constantly. Pew Research Center
Of 500 TikTok videos tagged mentalhealth or mentalhealthtips, more than 80% were misleading. American Psychological Association
Researchers have found that people are 5 to 11 times more likely to incorrectly diagnose themselves than to correctly identify a mental illness. Harvard Law - Petrie-Flom Center
63% of all U.S. teens are on TikTok. 16% of them use it constantly. Harvard Law - Petrie-Flom Center
The hashtag #MentalHealth has 15.1 million posts on TikTok alone. #ADHD has 3 million. #Autism has 2 million. Most of it has no licensed professional behind it. Taylor & Francis
About half of the content creators observed used their videos to sell products or coaching despite having no mental health credentials. Harvard Law - Petrie-Flom Center.
SELL PRODUCTS OR COACHING--- SELL THINGS LIKE
Weight Loss Drugs
Male Enhancement
Bust Enhancement
Cures....
The Medicine Man Show Selling Snake Oil at CHEAP Low Prices that is nothing but Moonshine in a cheap glass bottle has a digital audience and the price is no where Near Cheap in the End. It is one of the most EXPENSIVE things.
WHY GETTING IT WRONG
IS NOT JUST AN INCONVENIENCE
This is where it gets serious, so serious with consequences that extend years beyond the information, years beyond the product bought, years beyond reason.
Some medications used for ADHD can trigger manic symptoms in people with undiagnosed bipolar disorder. That is dangerous enough when a doctor gets it wrong. Now add what the internet makes possible when you guess?
Did you know that in Canada certain medications available only by prescription in the United States can be obtained more easily? You go to the store, buy it, and they even ship it.
They have controls on some things. You cannot easily get stimulants. But the wrong over-the-counter medicine can also have consequences.
And Canada is not even the full story about how easily someone can get bad medicine.
No single nation on earth operates with zero pharmaceutical controls. Every country has laws on paper, and they are meant to protect you.
But the gap between law and enforcement is where the danger lives, and that gap is enormous.
How many can list someone they know of or know personally
taking an illicit street drug?
How many know of a kid
who takes something or took something legal incorrectly?
I had a caffeine pill addiction for a bit and needed serious help with that. Addiction is something that can strike anyone. Are caffeine pills controlled?
No. I was studying my tail off for exams. I had a full ride scholarship I lost because not only was it a new scholarship, they changed the requirements from the offer.
They decided mid the first semester one that instead of a 3.0; I required a 3.7.
Imagine that. I am a dyslexic math major of all things and I knew the math of where I was at — a 3.4 with 18 credit hours, taking language classes, 20 extra curricular things I was involved with helping, and trying to do all of it.
I needed perfect scores to raise them up in semester one. And so I studied and studied.
Ha ha ha. I dropped to a 3.1 with my attempt.
They in the next semester came to the decision that well, 3.5 is okay.
That would have been more readily achievable.
I am not blaming them at all. I should have just tried my best. I took more of them than I had realized and the reason was I was chasing something that kids chase:
Achieving the degree.
Accomplishing what was asked.
Not disappointing my parents.
Finishing what I started.
So many reasons.
And I took them not even realizing after a bit how many I took each day.
I have made so many mistakes, and I am going to make more in my life. I am no saint. You will find it took me a long time to get to this place of wisdom. I am an empath, yes, but it is not even something you can use as a parlor trick. It is the most useless of my gifts as the only thing it does is let me know the world is hurting in various ways, but I would have that without needing a gift. My wisdom comes more from living on a very hard road.
I was still taking the amount listed on the package. You might think I took more than that. I took too many for me because I was super skinny and I flip side effects on their head. Every body is different. That label does not know your body. It never did.
And the label is not accounting for everything else either. I was drinking two to four two-liter bottles of soda like it was water on top of those pills. The caffeine in the pills plus the caffeine in the soda combined in my body too small at the time to handle it whether I was tracking it or not. I was not tracking it. Nobody told me to. I did put the daily amount of allowed pills by label into a little vial but my brain was exceedingly compromised and I couldn't recall I took them from day to day.
You have to combine all the things together when you take medicine. And that is exactly what a pharmacy tries to do. It cannot count your diet. It cannot know about the soda. But it can look at everything on your list and flag what it sees. That is the system working. That is what gets skipped when you go around it.
In Nigeria medicines are openly sold on street corners and at kiosks by unlicensed drug vendors.
Just walk on up.
Out comes the money onto the table
Where the snake standing there is ready to bite.
And how much worse is it when you also guess how much you even need?
People in warehouses repackage pharmaceuticals and tamper with expiry dates. They add things as well at times. Cut the aspirin with heroin or whatever. Possibly to kill people. Possibly to stretch it.
Prescription drugs, many of which are counterfeit, are available in unregulated open markets. They enter the shelves of stores and buyers think they have the real thing.
A single batch of counterfeit baby medicine
killed 83 children in documented cases.
Penn Carey Law
In low and middle income countries the unregulated market includes makeshift outlets at village fairs and street markets where medicines are sold alongside balms and tonics with no verification of contents. Just there. And once more, add on that they are guessing. Not every location has good information. Not everywhere has a doctor. PMC
In higher income countries the internet plays the same role. It offers almost limitless opportunities to sell drugs with delivery via postal or courier services and a level of privacy that enforcement cannot easily penetrate. PMC
The pharmaceutical black market reached 811 billion dollars in 2018 and continues to grow. Because these drugs are not regulated it is hard to know what you are actually receiving. Expired products. Drugs containing harmful or toxic substances.
Counterfeits with none of the active ingredient and all of the risk. North Jersey Recovery
The internet erased borders. A teen in Michigan, or anywhere on earth, can access that market from their bedroom. You do not have to go to the vendor.
He has a cart of supplies and is ready to peddle his wares to anyone willing to fork out the dimes.
A teen who has self-diagnosed from a TikTok video, guessed the medication, and found a source online has no pharmacist checking interactions. No doctor asking about family history. No one in the room at all.
That is not wellness. That is a crisis with a global supply chain behind it.
Inside that darkness I mean to be a light.
I mean to shed light on all the things
that are hurting us.
Help everyone get to a better place
while meeting them where they are at.
Meeting without judgement and hatred,
but with understanding.
WHAT I AM BUILDING
I want a resource where information is verified. Where doctors help compile the lists. Where patients who have lived inside these conditions share what has genuinely helped them cope, with full acknowledgment that no single solution fits every person and every method should be discussed with a doctor before trying it.
I am calling the project What Is Wrong?
It will cover conditions from rare to common. Symptoms. Treatment options that exist.
Coping skills with context and honesty about what works for whom.
History of each condition as medical understanding evolves because we do not always know everything yet and I will say so plainly when we don't.
No cookie cutters. No one-size-fits-all. No selling you something.
Like the kids books the words will be here on the site.
Want it printed or downloaded with pictures
Yes there will be books available.
But the information FREELY GIVEN and available.
Verified with Physicians.
Honest information built with doctors and patients together and maintained as knowledge grows. Sometimes solutions prove worse than the condition.... sometimes it is tragic ... they will give you what they know, but when we know something else we will update it.
I NEED HELP
I cannot do this alone and I will not pretend otherwise.
I need doctors willing to review and verify.
I need patients willing to share their real experiences.
I need people who understand that good information
saves lives and bad information takes them.
The misinformation needs to end.
I heard it on the radio.
I see it online.
I feel it every day.
So we build it.
This is but one project of the meaning in my healing literature.
It will span so many things and subjects so I am doing what I can with shoestrings and dedication to add the list of domains and a central hub to launch souls to their corner they need that day to get the healing and messages.
We will talk about it always like we are on the Comfy Couch and I am giving you real truth from a place of real care and commitment to others.
DWAR stands for Dream Warrior
And there are wars
All Around the war
Every single day.
I always write for the one who needs it and I ask for help getting the messages to the ones who need to hear it and share it.
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