I received difficult news the day after giving birth. It was completely unrelated to my maternity. The OB/GYN immediately prescribed Zoloft to "ward off" post partumn depression. I took it for a few days, felt horrible, and threw it out. But that didn't stop me from doubting I had done the correct thing because of the doubt placed in me. They have no shame.
This is not new. Psychiatry has been doing this since it began a few centuries ago. They called themselves alienists. I think that’s so appropriate. They pluck out the people the authorities deem alien to society’s norms that the authorities themselves decided on and managed these aliens (very inhumanely I might add) in asylums. It’s no different now. Now they use drugs and Shame in hospital psych wards, drug rehabs, halfway houses, jails, group homes, nursing homes…
In 1984, at age 17, I was taken by my loving mother to a shrink. My grades had dropped & I had lost my friends and I was in bed most of the time not grooming.
The shrink put me on Melaril, after I complained to him of a tummy ache, as I was so afraid of my step dad I dared not say anything else. I became psychotic. (I now realize it was a paradoxical reaction, as before being on Melaril I was not behaving psychotic, just very subdued and withdrawn) He gave me ECT to treat the profound serious mental illness he diagnosed me with. And that was the beginning of my 4 decade career as a full time mental patient. I was given 3 more ECT series plus maintenance ECT for a year and sterilized somewhere along the way too!
I finally escaped 3 years ago in my mid fifties. And yes! I feel like a teenager in many ways in an adult body trying to navigate an adult world still physically disabled from multiple traumatic brain injuries both synthetic and electrical. Plus now I have a pseudo child—who is that same, now prematurely aging loving mother, who was also physically disabled by statins, gabapentin and an SSRI. Yes they got her too—treated her for her worries about me & her abusive spouse, the same man who abused me and why I had taken to my bed back in 1984.
The inpatient shrink at the Menninger Foundation where I was locked away in 1985 for three straight YEARS (plenty of time to get to know my circumstances) laughingly said in one of my 1/2 hour sessions—“you’re not here because you had a difficult childhood, dear!!! No! No! No! You’re here because you were born mentally ill. And you will always be this way”
I wholeheartedly believed her until December 2022 after I took my very last pill out of my 6 psych drug cocktail!
But it was a LIE!!
I’m free now!
Free at last!!
And I’ll always RESIST Dr McFillin.
I’m my own doctor now. I have one VIP patient—me and my name is Dr Awesome! I have self-confidence and self-love now. I am happy. I am incredibly sad. I am terrified. I am enraged. I am a beautiful human being. No better but certainly no worse than any other human being. Thank you for using your credibility to fight for humanity!! I do what I can but my social credibility was taken in 1984.
People should know that it causes measurable, permanent brain damage with every single treatment. And they usually keep administering shocks until the patient stops complaining.
A psychologist told me that those shocks are about $5,000 per treatment. Extremely lucrative, and evil.
I really appreciate your acknowledgment, validation & especially your compassion. I don’t get a lot of that. I get zero from healthcare providers. Mostly I get revulsion from healthcare providers.
I’m in a much better place now as far as self love but I struggle with the neurological damage (people don’t even understand that it’s not just memory loss altho that’s horrible enough) and I will struggle for the rest of my life. It very well will be what I die of. And so unnecessary! I really do thank you for your kind words.
I myself have bipolar disorder caused by Zyban (aka Wellbutrin, aka bupropion) from the navy smoking cessation program. I learned from Dr Peter Breggin, who's active here on Substack, that bupropion is famous for *causing* bipolar disorder.
And I've had more than my fair share of "chemical lobotomies" from antipsychotic (neuroleptic drugs), which gave me some wicked akathisia over and over again. And the VA just kept on giving them to me, by force if necessary.
It took me years to get away from all that, and still if I ever want to check myself in for a voluntary stay, it gets dicey immediately because I say I don't want those drugs, that they give me akathisia and make me worse. I have an advanced directive, but you know how it is, they don't give a fuck.
These days psychiatrists in psych wards don't even see interact with patients at all; they don't feel that they need to. If you do actually talk to a psychiatrist for five minutes, it might be towards the end of your stay.
It's remarkably evil. Nothing less than chemical slavery and torture, and yes, early death. And the treatments don't even work! But they do make people rich.
Doctors, nurses, friends, family... Once you're lost your mind once, you're not really a person any more in their eyes, and you can be locked up without committing any crimes, and drugged/shocked out of your mind by force, and they tell themselves they're doing the compassionate thing.
Psychiatry is simply one of biggest manifestations of evil there has ever been.
I’m so so sorry for what has been done to you. Also, I thank you for your service to our country.! It breaks my heart what we are doing to our veterans!! My “SMI” was also drug induced. The first drug the doctor gave me induced psychosis, then the subsequent ones gave me akathisia over & over too and the ECT gave me “adhd” (hahahah) then clozaril gave me severe OCD. At 40!!! They just scratched their heads on that one! A poIite “no thank you”
to the pills got me held down, tied up in “restraints” and injected with the threat that that would continue to happen until I said “yes please” instead. [if my family only knew… but of course they wouldn’t have believed me at the time. They do now tho] I only found out 3 years ago that all that was drug induced!! We have all been so betrayed. They’re lucky we are peaceful, loving souls. May the universe have mercy on their souls (if they have them).
And may you be blessed and safe from further harm. Stay strong brother
They are still using ECT in Australia. The peak medical body even calls it 'safe and effective.'
>The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) has developed this position statement to support the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a safe and effective clinical psychiatric treatment.
Great story. Shows how drugs never can fix anything. They are nothing more than a crutch that comes with extreme safety concerns. The "chemical imbalance" lies are right up there with cholesterol causes heart attacks, too much acid causes acid reflux, and too much sun causes cancer. It's all a crock.
Dr. McFillin, if you’re not following the work of Chris Masterjohn, you should. His explanation of SSRIs as mitochondrial drugs with withdrawal symptoms likely being driven by mitochondrial dysfunction. The other important insight is that serotonin is *throughout the whole body* and has a role in stress by dissociating the cell from its stressor - mitochondria from hypoxia stress, gut from food or microbiome stressors, etc. This coincides well with the observation that most people feel emotional numbing as the primary effect - dissociating from life experiences? Given serotonin’s body-wide role in stress, anyone who thus thinks SSRIs are predominantly psychiatric drugs or predominantly about regulating mood, misunderstands what these drugs can do to the whole body.
I am so grateful for you Doc. In some cases (like Sarah) there can be bursts of rage, trashing the house, confusion, 'lost time,' waking with severe, prolonged doom/anxiety as cortisol spikes in the morning and suicide attempts/successes. As you have described here - this is not 'depression.' It is withdrawl.
Often even when people taper slowly over a year the withdrawl effects do not peak until the following year *when they are completely off.* Asshole doctors say 'oh there is a half life of a few weeks' but NO. When someone is on these things for decades they cause brain damage that needs to be slowly repaired.
This is what these fucking drugs do to people. If people do not hate pharma and the doctors that push it with the fire of 1000 suns they are dead inside.
The medical system didn't "fail" Sarah - because it was never meant to help her in the first place. The medical system oppressed and abused her. The medical system is an industry with its own private interests, which contradict the patient's interests in most cases. It is not a neutral, philanthropic institution. It's an industry who bases It's expansion and profit on the idea of health. "Health" is its business model, but it's only making people more sick.
Ivan Illich saw this already long time ago. So did a few good others.
The medical system has nothing to do with health (except some fields of emergency medicine when you break your bones etc.).
“This is the radical act of seeing people as divine beings temporarily struggling”, and UNDERSTANDABLY SO, because our families are dysfunctional as a result of inter generational, our environment is full of toxins, our consumer culture is devoid of human values, and our social conditions formed in the basis of an insane economic system are inimical to health and happiness. Instead, they promote the Big Lie that the problem is within the brain of individual, as if you could separate mind and body or the person from their total environment and relations in both time and space. Because they have a vested interest is diverting
attention and deflecting blame from the truth and real root causes of both our own suffering and collective social ills. The unfortunate reality is that the rich psychopaths who own and control everything benefit immensely from the status quo at the expense of the equally immense misery of the many, and they will do anything to maintain it, regardless of the human, social, and ecological costs.
Sigh... I suppose like RFK Jr. the good Dr. McFillin can spot children with "mitochondrial dysfunction" while he's walking through the airport.
Anti-vaxxers, Anti-psychiatry, Anti-science... all the same.
Psychotherapy is very helpful. Medicines are very helpful. Both together are usually the best.
I do find it interesting that many psychologists like to bash psychiatry but not the other way around.
Suppose they know better...
And yes, sun exposure can lead to skin cancer. And yes, high cholesterol can lead to heart attacks. But you guys keep talking amongst yourselves. Good Luck!
This article made me cry. I’ve been on meds since teens and I’m 33 and just now beginning to taper off the SSNRI that I took my entire pregnancy! I cold turkeyed Adderall and Klonopin but they made it seem as those Cymbalta was safe during pregnancy! With what I know now, I’m ashamed that I believed them. I have no clue who my daughter will be or what mental issues she may have, but I will never allow her to get on this poison. It’s not helpful; these drugs are life ruiners. Period.
It is very difficult to resist without alternative sources of help. Watched the Eben Alexander interview, I went to hear him speak years ago. I know there is more to reality than the physical. My one question that I struggle with regarding Eben's story is that he saw so many people and they were wearing clothes. Would someone from an indigenous tribe have a similar experience under the same circumstances. Why would the afterlife be different depending on your heritage? The nuclear family is a set up for stress on parents and children, also both parents working outside the home is stressful on children. Modern life is a set up for chronic anxiety and depression. We need to think outside the box to create lifestyles that don't break people. We can't get rid of so-called negative emotions; we do need them as short-term indicators. Recently, I have encountered several mothers who work from home, keeping their young children close. I hope this trend increases.
Resisting doesn’t mean stop psychiatrizing g and do nothing.
Resisting means do something else instead.
There are many things. Create a better environment inside yourself first and that will naturally trickle outwards. You do that by eating good food, hydrating, moving your body, being mindful—practicing gratitude, forgiveness and LISTENING to yourself and other, acting with compassion towards yourself and others yet holding yourself and others accountable.
Right. Some people though are so paralyzed by anxiety they can't even make it to the shower. They don't even have the wherewithal to take care of the basics for themselves. I think that level of suffering requires outside intervention, and that can be expensive, not paid for by insurance, which is another problem. Retreats with holistic help seem to be for the rich. Then there is the danger of spiritual bypassing, it would be great if we had some modern-day Shamans to intervene with shots of wisdom and empathy. No empathy available in 'the system.'
Yes. I feel so awful about people in that place in their lives. I was there too. For 38 years. I escaped. But i know how difficult that is. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. When it’s gotten that bad it’s usually after you’ve tried psychiatry. Or after you’ve self-medicated. Or because there’s an underlying medical condition like Lyme disease or you’ve been exposed to mold or some other toxin.
There is no “place” esp for the poor but even for the rich at that point. So together with those that aren’t at that point like Dr McFillin & I need to keep trying to create a better world so we can have more support for everyone. In the meantime at least stay away from even further harm (the MH system)as much as possible
The system needs a fundamental overhaul. Alternative approaches are better, but so often the practitioners lack a good biological science foundation which is important also.
I've worked in psychiatry for nearly two decades. I agree that often, most often in fact, providers don't spend time with a patient getting to know them and using psychotherapy to help. And, many times, there is an authoritarian approach. Clearly --VERY clearly -- a patient has a right to not take medications, and that should be reinforced.
The young woman in this article should have been offered therapy as well as meds. But, that doesn't mean that those medications when she first was put on them did not help her get through a tough situation. What I routinely tell patients is if you live in a bell jar, you don't need meds (unless you have a true schizophrenia) because you won't have any stressors, that INSIGHT is the number one thing that will help you, and I teach them how to replace problematic schemas with instant mantras. But, I also rx medications when a pt is struggling because I KNOW THEY HELP. If someone is numbed out, then it's not the right med for them. As well, it is debatable whether the emotional blunting is CAUSED by the antidepressants or whether it is residual depression. The research showing emotional blunting shows approx half patients report it but it does not show causation. Correlation is not causation. Depression is also correlated to emotional blunting.
If you read the comments below, and your own article, what you are doing is further demonizing the use of psychotropic medications, medications which have been shown to save peoples lives. These kinds of articles further push people to use "natural" therapies such as supplements, about half of which have been shown to contain nothing but grass clippings, and all of which have not been FDA approved and are not monitored for heavy metal infiltrations (like lead).
The tone of your article sounds very much like the tone of the MAHA movement.
I've worked in psychiatry for nearly two decades. I agree that often, most often in fact, providers don't spend time with a patient getting to know them and using psychotherapy to help. And, many times, there is an authoritarian approach. Clearly --VERY clearly -- a patient has a right to not take medications, and that should be reinforced.
The young woman in this article should have been offered therapy as well as meds. But, that doesn't mean that those medications when she first was put on them did not help her get through a tough situation. What I routinely tell patients is if you live in a bell jar, you don't need meds (unless you have a true schizophrenia) because you won't have any stressors, that INSIGHT is the number one thing that will help you, and I teach them how to replace problematic schemas with instant mantras. But, I also rx medications when a pt is struggling because I KNOW THEY HELP. If someone is numbed out, then it's not the right med for them. As well, it is debatable whether the emotional blunting is CAUSED by the antidepressants or whether it is residual depression. The research showing emotional blunting shows approx half patients report it but it does not show causation. Correlation is not causation. Depression is also correlated to emotional blunting.
If you read the comments below, and your own article, what you are doing is further demonizing the use of psychotropic medications, medications which have been shown to save peoples lives. These kinds of articles further push people to use "natural" therapies such as supplements, about half of which have been shown to contain nothing but grass clippings, and all of which have not been FDA approved and are not monitored for heavy metal infiltrations (like lead).
The tone of your article sounds very much like the tone of the MAHA movement.
THIS!!!!
ALL of it!!
The emotional blunting of natural human responses to real life events.
The systemic pathologizing of these emotional responses by medical professionals and even our current society.
The self doubt perpetuated by the medical community as well as our culture.
How hard it is to fight back and recover our true selves…
And more!!!
THIS is why I am a paid subscriber!
Keep up the good fight!
Please!🙏
I received difficult news the day after giving birth. It was completely unrelated to my maternity. The OB/GYN immediately prescribed Zoloft to "ward off" post partumn depression. I took it for a few days, felt horrible, and threw it out. But that didn't stop me from doubting I had done the correct thing because of the doubt placed in me. They have no shame.
I think that is the only tool they have.
This is not new. Psychiatry has been doing this since it began a few centuries ago. They called themselves alienists. I think that’s so appropriate. They pluck out the people the authorities deem alien to society’s norms that the authorities themselves decided on and managed these aliens (very inhumanely I might add) in asylums. It’s no different now. Now they use drugs and Shame in hospital psych wards, drug rehabs, halfway houses, jails, group homes, nursing homes…
In 1984, at age 17, I was taken by my loving mother to a shrink. My grades had dropped & I had lost my friends and I was in bed most of the time not grooming.
The shrink put me on Melaril, after I complained to him of a tummy ache, as I was so afraid of my step dad I dared not say anything else. I became psychotic. (I now realize it was a paradoxical reaction, as before being on Melaril I was not behaving psychotic, just very subdued and withdrawn) He gave me ECT to treat the profound serious mental illness he diagnosed me with. And that was the beginning of my 4 decade career as a full time mental patient. I was given 3 more ECT series plus maintenance ECT for a year and sterilized somewhere along the way too!
I finally escaped 3 years ago in my mid fifties. And yes! I feel like a teenager in many ways in an adult body trying to navigate an adult world still physically disabled from multiple traumatic brain injuries both synthetic and electrical. Plus now I have a pseudo child—who is that same, now prematurely aging loving mother, who was also physically disabled by statins, gabapentin and an SSRI. Yes they got her too—treated her for her worries about me & her abusive spouse, the same man who abused me and why I had taken to my bed back in 1984.
The inpatient shrink at the Menninger Foundation where I was locked away in 1985 for three straight YEARS (plenty of time to get to know my circumstances) laughingly said in one of my 1/2 hour sessions—“you’re not here because you had a difficult childhood, dear!!! No! No! No! You’re here because you were born mentally ill. And you will always be this way”
I wholeheartedly believed her until December 2022 after I took my very last pill out of my 6 psych drug cocktail!
But it was a LIE!!
I’m free now!
Free at last!!
And I’ll always RESIST Dr McFillin.
I’m my own doctor now. I have one VIP patient—me and my name is Dr Awesome! I have self-confidence and self-love now. I am happy. I am incredibly sad. I am terrified. I am enraged. I am a beautiful human being. No better but certainly no worse than any other human being. Thank you for using your credibility to fight for humanity!! I do what I can but my social credibility was taken in 1984.
Keep fighting!!
I am so sorry about the ECT and everything else.
People should know that it causes measurable, permanent brain damage with every single treatment. And they usually keep administering shocks until the patient stops complaining.
A psychologist told me that those shocks are about $5,000 per treatment. Extremely lucrative, and evil.
I really appreciate your acknowledgment, validation & especially your compassion. I don’t get a lot of that. I get zero from healthcare providers. Mostly I get revulsion from healthcare providers.
I’m in a much better place now as far as self love but I struggle with the neurological damage (people don’t even understand that it’s not just memory loss altho that’s horrible enough) and I will struggle for the rest of my life. It very well will be what I die of. And so unnecessary! I really do thank you for your kind words.
I myself have bipolar disorder caused by Zyban (aka Wellbutrin, aka bupropion) from the navy smoking cessation program. I learned from Dr Peter Breggin, who's active here on Substack, that bupropion is famous for *causing* bipolar disorder.
And I've had more than my fair share of "chemical lobotomies" from antipsychotic (neuroleptic drugs), which gave me some wicked akathisia over and over again. And the VA just kept on giving them to me, by force if necessary.
It took me years to get away from all that, and still if I ever want to check myself in for a voluntary stay, it gets dicey immediately because I say I don't want those drugs, that they give me akathisia and make me worse. I have an advanced directive, but you know how it is, they don't give a fuck.
These days psychiatrists in psych wards don't even see interact with patients at all; they don't feel that they need to. If you do actually talk to a psychiatrist for five minutes, it might be towards the end of your stay.
It's remarkably evil. Nothing less than chemical slavery and torture, and yes, early death. And the treatments don't even work! But they do make people rich.
Doctors, nurses, friends, family... Once you're lost your mind once, you're not really a person any more in their eyes, and you can be locked up without committing any crimes, and drugged/shocked out of your mind by force, and they tell themselves they're doing the compassionate thing.
Psychiatry is simply one of biggest manifestations of evil there has ever been.
Check out Dr Breggin if you can. Thanks.
I’m so so sorry for what has been done to you. Also, I thank you for your service to our country.! It breaks my heart what we are doing to our veterans!! My “SMI” was also drug induced. The first drug the doctor gave me induced psychosis, then the subsequent ones gave me akathisia over & over too and the ECT gave me “adhd” (hahahah) then clozaril gave me severe OCD. At 40!!! They just scratched their heads on that one! A poIite “no thank you”
to the pills got me held down, tied up in “restraints” and injected with the threat that that would continue to happen until I said “yes please” instead. [if my family only knew… but of course they wouldn’t have believed me at the time. They do now tho] I only found out 3 years ago that all that was drug induced!! We have all been so betrayed. They’re lucky we are peaceful, loving souls. May the universe have mercy on their souls (if they have them).
And may you be blessed and safe from further harm. Stay strong brother
They are still using ECT in Australia. The peak medical body even calls it 'safe and effective.'
>The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) has developed this position statement to support the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a safe and effective clinical psychiatric treatment.
https://www.ranzcp.org/clinical-guidelines-publications/clinical-guidelines-publications-library/electroconvulsive-therapy-ect
Dear God.
Great story. Shows how drugs never can fix anything. They are nothing more than a crutch that comes with extreme safety concerns. The "chemical imbalance" lies are right up there with cholesterol causes heart attacks, too much acid causes acid reflux, and too much sun causes cancer. It's all a crock.
You are one of the very rare honest doctors in this dishonest profession. Thank you for speaking up!
He's not an MD but he's knows his stuff for real.
Psychiatry is an absolute sh*tshow of a specialty.
Psychiatry is the continuation of witch trials and inquisition plus eugenics.
If I may restate to secularize and broaden that thought:
Pathologizing abnormality is nothing new.
What I *would* argue is new are two things: 1) these profit margins and 2) the percentage of the population being treated.
According to sales data from a few years ago (link upon request), 23% of Americans are on a psych drug. By now I'm sure it's 1 in 4.
That's insane.
Dr. McFillin, if you’re not following the work of Chris Masterjohn, you should. His explanation of SSRIs as mitochondrial drugs with withdrawal symptoms likely being driven by mitochondrial dysfunction. The other important insight is that serotonin is *throughout the whole body* and has a role in stress by dissociating the cell from its stressor - mitochondria from hypoxia stress, gut from food or microbiome stressors, etc. This coincides well with the observation that most people feel emotional numbing as the primary effect - dissociating from life experiences? Given serotonin’s body-wide role in stress, anyone who thus thinks SSRIs are predominantly psychiatric drugs or predominantly about regulating mood, misunderstands what these drugs can do to the whole body.
Worth checking out in full (still not complete after eight installments) first article with tongue in cheek title - https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/prozac-is-a-performance-enhancing
I am following him and spoke to him recently. I am going to have him come on the Radically Genuine Podcast
That’s awesome!!
Don't forget the inorgasmia and genital numbing as well.
Dr. David Healy talks about this a lot.
I am so grateful for you Doc. In some cases (like Sarah) there can be bursts of rage, trashing the house, confusion, 'lost time,' waking with severe, prolonged doom/anxiety as cortisol spikes in the morning and suicide attempts/successes. As you have described here - this is not 'depression.' It is withdrawl.
Often even when people taper slowly over a year the withdrawl effects do not peak until the following year *when they are completely off.* Asshole doctors say 'oh there is a half life of a few weeks' but NO. When someone is on these things for decades they cause brain damage that needs to be slowly repaired.
This is what these fucking drugs do to people. If people do not hate pharma and the doctors that push it with the fire of 1000 suns they are dead inside.
Thanks for all your work.
The medical system didn't "fail" Sarah - because it was never meant to help her in the first place. The medical system oppressed and abused her. The medical system is an industry with its own private interests, which contradict the patient's interests in most cases. It is not a neutral, philanthropic institution. It's an industry who bases It's expansion and profit on the idea of health. "Health" is its business model, but it's only making people more sick.
Ivan Illich saw this already long time ago. So did a few good others.
The medical system has nothing to do with health (except some fields of emergency medicine when you break your bones etc.).
“This is the radical act of seeing people as divine beings temporarily struggling”, and UNDERSTANDABLY SO, because our families are dysfunctional as a result of inter generational, our environment is full of toxins, our consumer culture is devoid of human values, and our social conditions formed in the basis of an insane economic system are inimical to health and happiness. Instead, they promote the Big Lie that the problem is within the brain of individual, as if you could separate mind and body or the person from their total environment and relations in both time and space. Because they have a vested interest is diverting
attention and deflecting blame from the truth and real root causes of both our own suffering and collective social ills. The unfortunate reality is that the rich psychopaths who own and control everything benefit immensely from the status quo at the expense of the equally immense misery of the many, and they will do anything to maintain it, regardless of the human, social, and ecological costs.
Sigh... I suppose like RFK Jr. the good Dr. McFillin can spot children with "mitochondrial dysfunction" while he's walking through the airport.
Anti-vaxxers, Anti-psychiatry, Anti-science... all the same.
Psychotherapy is very helpful. Medicines are very helpful. Both together are usually the best.
I do find it interesting that many psychologists like to bash psychiatry but not the other way around.
Suppose they know better...
And yes, sun exposure can lead to skin cancer. And yes, high cholesterol can lead to heart attacks. But you guys keep talking amongst yourselves. Good Luck!
This article made me cry. I’ve been on meds since teens and I’m 33 and just now beginning to taper off the SSNRI that I took my entire pregnancy! I cold turkeyed Adderall and Klonopin but they made it seem as those Cymbalta was safe during pregnancy! With what I know now, I’m ashamed that I believed them. I have no clue who my daughter will be or what mental issues she may have, but I will never allow her to get on this poison. It’s not helpful; these drugs are life ruiners. Period.
It is very difficult to resist without alternative sources of help. Watched the Eben Alexander interview, I went to hear him speak years ago. I know there is more to reality than the physical. My one question that I struggle with regarding Eben's story is that he saw so many people and they were wearing clothes. Would someone from an indigenous tribe have a similar experience under the same circumstances. Why would the afterlife be different depending on your heritage? The nuclear family is a set up for stress on parents and children, also both parents working outside the home is stressful on children. Modern life is a set up for chronic anxiety and depression. We need to think outside the box to create lifestyles that don't break people. We can't get rid of so-called negative emotions; we do need them as short-term indicators. Recently, I have encountered several mothers who work from home, keeping their young children close. I hope this trend increases.
Resisting doesn’t mean stop psychiatrizing g and do nothing.
Resisting means do something else instead.
There are many things. Create a better environment inside yourself first and that will naturally trickle outwards. You do that by eating good food, hydrating, moving your body, being mindful—practicing gratitude, forgiveness and LISTENING to yourself and other, acting with compassion towards yourself and others yet holding yourself and others accountable.
That isn’t easy. Nothing worth anything is.
Right. Some people though are so paralyzed by anxiety they can't even make it to the shower. They don't even have the wherewithal to take care of the basics for themselves. I think that level of suffering requires outside intervention, and that can be expensive, not paid for by insurance, which is another problem. Retreats with holistic help seem to be for the rich. Then there is the danger of spiritual bypassing, it would be great if we had some modern-day Shamans to intervene with shots of wisdom and empathy. No empathy available in 'the system.'
Yes. I feel so awful about people in that place in their lives. I was there too. For 38 years. I escaped. But i know how difficult that is. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. When it’s gotten that bad it’s usually after you’ve tried psychiatry. Or after you’ve self-medicated. Or because there’s an underlying medical condition like Lyme disease or you’ve been exposed to mold or some other toxin.
There is no “place” esp for the poor but even for the rich at that point. So together with those that aren’t at that point like Dr McFillin & I need to keep trying to create a better world so we can have more support for everyone. In the meantime at least stay away from even further harm (the MH system)as much as possible
The system needs a fundamental overhaul. Alternative approaches are better, but so often the practitioners lack a good biological science foundation which is important also.
Such a great article - thank you!
I've worked in psychiatry for nearly two decades. I agree that often, most often in fact, providers don't spend time with a patient getting to know them and using psychotherapy to help. And, many times, there is an authoritarian approach. Clearly --VERY clearly -- a patient has a right to not take medications, and that should be reinforced.
The young woman in this article should have been offered therapy as well as meds. But, that doesn't mean that those medications when she first was put on them did not help her get through a tough situation. What I routinely tell patients is if you live in a bell jar, you don't need meds (unless you have a true schizophrenia) because you won't have any stressors, that INSIGHT is the number one thing that will help you, and I teach them how to replace problematic schemas with instant mantras. But, I also rx medications when a pt is struggling because I KNOW THEY HELP. If someone is numbed out, then it's not the right med for them. As well, it is debatable whether the emotional blunting is CAUSED by the antidepressants or whether it is residual depression. The research showing emotional blunting shows approx half patients report it but it does not show causation. Correlation is not causation. Depression is also correlated to emotional blunting.
If you read the comments below, and your own article, what you are doing is further demonizing the use of psychotropic medications, medications which have been shown to save peoples lives. These kinds of articles further push people to use "natural" therapies such as supplements, about half of which have been shown to contain nothing but grass clippings, and all of which have not been FDA approved and are not monitored for heavy metal infiltrations (like lead).
The tone of your article sounds very much like the tone of the MAHA movement.
I've worked in psychiatry for nearly two decades. I agree that often, most often in fact, providers don't spend time with a patient getting to know them and using psychotherapy to help. And, many times, there is an authoritarian approach. Clearly --VERY clearly -- a patient has a right to not take medications, and that should be reinforced.
The young woman in this article should have been offered therapy as well as meds. But, that doesn't mean that those medications when she first was put on them did not help her get through a tough situation. What I routinely tell patients is if you live in a bell jar, you don't need meds (unless you have a true schizophrenia) because you won't have any stressors, that INSIGHT is the number one thing that will help you, and I teach them how to replace problematic schemas with instant mantras. But, I also rx medications when a pt is struggling because I KNOW THEY HELP. If someone is numbed out, then it's not the right med for them. As well, it is debatable whether the emotional blunting is CAUSED by the antidepressants or whether it is residual depression. The research showing emotional blunting shows approx half patients report it but it does not show causation. Correlation is not causation. Depression is also correlated to emotional blunting.
If you read the comments below, and your own article, what you are doing is further demonizing the use of psychotropic medications, medications which have been shown to save peoples lives. These kinds of articles further push people to use "natural" therapies such as supplements, about half of which have been shown to contain nothing but grass clippings, and all of which have not been FDA approved and are not monitored for heavy metal infiltrations (like lead).
The tone of your article sounds very much like the tone of the MAHA movement.