Monday PSA: Buzzy Scoffs at that Deep Dark Secret

October 2nd, 2006

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

Buzzy scoffs at That Deep Dark Secret! Click for the full page.This coming Friday is the National Depression Screening Day, where physicians and other providers are urged to take an extra minute or two to screen their patients for depression.

In commemoration of the day, I thought I’d post this PSA from 1950s dealing with mental illness. (Of course, when you read the PSA you’ll realize that the “Deep Dark Secret” they’re referring too is not having a mental illness yourself, but instead having a relative who has a mental illness. I guess that actually having a mental illness is the deeper darker secret. Still, this is a pretty enlightened approach to mental illness for its time.)

Click on the image for the full PSA

I encourage anyone concerned with depression or other mental illness to talk to their primary care physician, health provider, or counselor. Feeling a little down but not sure whether it’s depression or not? I recommend the Zung Questionnaire — it’s not perfect, but I fnd that it gives a good snapshot of how a person is doing.

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3 Responses to “ Monday PSA: Buzzy Scoffs at that Deep Dark Secret ”

  1. Laura
    October 2nd, 2006 at 11:46 pm

    Huh. That Questionnaire told me to see a doctor right away. Good thing I’m already seeing a doctor for depression.

  2. DrObviousSo
    October 3rd, 2006 at 10:24 am

    If only depression was as curable as a garden variety infection…
    Good advice though, and I like the idea of the depression screening day. Seems like most family doctor’s don’t have enough time for this kind of thing “any more”*.

    *this assumes some utopic “way back then” when doctor’s spent all the time you needed to tell them how your nose was stuffy, and children respected their elders. That may or may not have existed. I don’t know

  3. Laura
    October 3rd, 2006 at 11:41 am

    Some of us are lucky. I respond to the medicine I’m taking well, although there are times it definitely fails. Thanks to a naturopath, I added a B supplement to my diet which has also helped, and gets me through the bad times. But I talk to too many people who get no benefit from any medicine. I wish a cure could be found.

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