Fear is a persuasive sales tool. Marketing experts have been using it forever.

     “If a hurricane hit, you’ll be ruined financially if you don’t have flood insurance.” “You know, if your transmission went and you had this warranty, you’d be all set. If you didn’t…I hate to say.”

      Today Big Pharma’s marketing of antidepressants and psychotropic drugs is based on this successful sales model, and they start it by scaring you with a screening form to fill out when you visit your regular doctor.

      “Have you been feeling sad at times recently?” “Are there moments when you have felt anxiety before going to work or school?”

      In other words, “Do you think there might be something wrong with you? Take a good look now.”

      Fear sells.

      They get to ask those questions only because of the bogus diagnoses listed in the psychiatrists’ Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It’s the “bible” insurance companies use to authorize their payment for the drugs that treat mental illnesses like “Grief” and “Anxiety” listed in the DSM, and also for those obviously made up “illnesses” like Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (an uncomfortable menstrual period) or Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (a temporarily unruly child).

      Moments of sadness or moments of anxiety are part of life. They come and go. Family members get sick. Pets die. Stressful projects at work or in school occur. They’re normal, as is an emotional response to them.

      Big Pharma, though, wants you to think you’re abnormal if you experience sadness or anxiety. They’re playing into the universal human fear of not being normal, of not being “one of the crowd.”

      That’s their first lie.

      Then comes the second lie. Those feelings are not you. They’re your brain. It’s got a chemical imbalance. So you yourself are not responsible.

      Of course, there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance causing your sadness or fear, but that false idea then opens the door for their solution.

      “We can re-balance your brain. We’ve got drugs that can do that. Tons of them.”

       Big Pharma uses irresponsibility to sell…as well as fear. You aren’t responsible for all those “abnormal” feelings of grief or anxiety that you’re having, all those moments of irrational behavior when you cry for no reason or feel nervous about who knows what.

      It’s not you, Big Pharma says. You’re not responsible.

      “Just take this little pill and you’ll be fine. In fact, take lots of them.”