Beyond Fear: Battling Stigma Now

Let’s be clear: mental health care is health care—just like care for your heart, your teeth, or your eyes. And when we don’t treat mental health conditions, the consequences can be serious.

That’s why it’s concerning to see increasing skepticism toward therapy and psychiatric medication, including the framing of these tools as excessive or even dangerous. The Make America Healthy Again executive order, for example, raises important questions about stimulant diversion—but by focusing narrowly on “over-utilization,” it risks casting life-saving treatments and the clinicians who prescribe them in a negative light.

We absolutely should address concerns like misuse and diversion. But we also need a broader, more compassionate approach—one that values evidence-based mental health care and acknowledges the real harm stigma can cause. People are finally finding the courage to speak up about their mental health. Families are already carrying so much. The last thing they need is to feel judged for seeking support—whatever form that support takes. Let’s make it easier, not harder, to get the care they deserve.

Let’s step back and talk about what’s at stake. What actually happens when you don’t treat a mental health condition?

If a child has untreated ADHD, they’re at increased risk for:

• Dropping out of school
• Car accidents and risky behavior
• Depression and anxiety
• Substance use and addiction
• Teen pregnancy
• Isolation, rage, and aggression

Untreated anxiety? That can lead to school refusal, social withdrawal, job instability, and long-term loneliness.

Untreated depression? That carries risks of suicide, eating disorders, self-harm, and—again—substance use.

These aren’t hypotheticals. These are well-documented outcomes. As a psychiatrist and a parent, I don't find these risks acceptable—and I don’t think any family would, either.

Therapy works. Medication works. And sometimes, we need both. Many kids do great in therapy alone. But others—often the ones struggling the most—need additional support through medication. That’s not a failure. That’s just treatment.

Here’s the part that’s frustrating: mental health is the only area of medicine where people act like the medicine is the problem. No one blames insulin for diabetes or inhalers for asthma. But when it comes to mental health, suddenly we hear: “They just need to toughen up.” Or, “Why are we medicating kids instead of teaching resilience?”

It’s not either-or. Building resilience and treating mental illness are not in conflict. We do both. We must do both.

The decision to start therapy or try a medication isn’t taken lightly. It should be based on the best available evidence, guided by trained professionals, and made by families—not driven by fear or political posturing. These are personal, private decisions, and every child deserves the chance to feel better.

Right now, stigma is being repackaged as skepticism. And while it might sound thoughtful to say “we’re just asking questions,” the truth is: casting doubt on care options pushes kids back into silence, families back into shame, and providers back into impossible positions.

You can’t muscle through mental illness. No one beats depression with grit alone. And suggesting otherwise doesn’t make kids stronger—it makes them feel like failures for struggling in the first place.

Let’s shift the conversation. Away from fear, and toward facts. Away from shame, and toward support.

Because kids don’t need judgment. They need help.

And we should be doing everything we can to provide it.