Battery City and Medication
What is terrible for people who mostly live in and around Battery City is understanding when medication is needed and when medication is the unnecessary default. Medication is not the enemy, unlike what many people from the Zones will suggest.
The popularization and normalization of medication came as a response to mental illness being treated on a wide scale after the Helium Wars. Initially, medication was just administered to those who were prescribed specific things by their doctors. The demand grew as what looked like an entire generation of war and disaster survivors needed similar kinds of medical care. The campaign was eventually warped, and many of the well-marketed medical supplements became well-known and recommended by BL/I payroll doctors and nurse practitioners.
Those who agree with killjoy ideologies tend to struggle with the idea of medication. Some people run away into the Zones to find independent practitioners who will assess patients’ individual needs for various kinds of drugs. Doctors and experts in the Zones are seen as more trustworthy than those in the city because they rely on good patient reviews (spread only by word of mouth) and are, therefore, more motivated to do a good job.
But taking medication is so stigmatized in some parts of the Zones because of how acceptable it is in the City. Killjoys might judge a person right off the bat if one of the first things they learn about them is what pills or syrup they purchase. Mentally ill (and even some disabled) killjoys might go without most kinds of medicinal treatments because they’re so sure any kind of medicine will turn them into a walking corpse.
People who live around the City are frequently in the grey area between “city folk” and the killjoys of the Zones. They might take medication for specific conditions, but they might not have the resources to find a reliable doctor or specialist, and self-diagnosis is a dangerous game when the main up-to-date medical resources all come from BL/I.
