Changing Mental Health, One Published Case Report At A Time

Kelly Brogan, MD, ABIHM
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Bipolar Disorder is a chronic condition that involves dangerous behavior, requiring lifelong medication stabilization and optimization. Right? Well, that’s what Ali once believed. As I wrote in my “Four Stories of Recovery” blog last year, Ali had been labeled with multiple diagnoses as multiple medications and hospitalizations somehow yielded more and more instability instead of less and less. Her perception of herself as sick, broken, and beyond help seemed like the only rational conclusion. Every month, she experienced a delusional rift with reality, steeped in a hall of mirrors of self-hatred. She had made five serious suicide attempts and was heading toward a residential facility, bumping up against the glass ceiling of outpatient treatment.

When she came to my office, it was the end of the line and she was at the end of her rope. But amidst the despair, there was a flicker of determination. A small light of belief that there had to be another way. That perhaps she wasn’t broken in the ways that she had been led to believe, and that it was possible to end her relationship to psychotropics. We implemented the lifestyle medicine I outline in A Mind of Your Own and Vital Mind Reset, completed her medication taper, and she went on to heal her symptoms and then to experience a total rebirth before my eyes.

Because she had begun the process of medication taper before our work together, we agreed to a strict commitment around a self care and lifestyle protocol, and she implemented it to the letter. Within two cycles, she experienced resolution of her luteal phase psychosis and suicidality. Nine months after our work together, she stated, “Of all the bridges I’ve crossed over the last year I think the biggest hurdle has been the actual withdrawal from the drugs.”

The early wins in her symptom resolution gave her the strength and resiliency to weather the withdrawal process. She knew what was required to heal, and she committed even further, stating, “…while I know I have a lot of healing and work to do, for the first time in my life I feel empowered to heal myself and not at the mercy of a doctor or a drug.”

As is detailed in the report that follows, this case draws from twenty years of published scientific literature around psychoneuroimmunology and the connection between the gut, immune system, endocrine system, and the brain. Through this systems biology lens, lifestyle interventions are the only corrective measures that are sufficiently complex to resolve the stress response factors that drive pathology.

We are taught — in medical school, as patients, and as a populace — that mental illness is a disease entity that requires lifelong pharmaceutical management. We are also not properly educated about, nor given the opportunity to consent to, the dependency risks and adverse behavioral effects of psychotropics. We are never given the opportunity to believe in a full recovery and a reclamation of wellness and vitality. Ali is an exception that violates the dogmatic perspective of chronic, medicated mental illness so thoroughly that the entire paradigm should be threatened if her single case were to be documented. It is my hope that the publication of this case does just that. Click here to read the full case study. 

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Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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15 COMMENTS

  1. “Bipolar Disorder is a chronic condition that involves dangerous behavior, requiring lifelong medication stabilization and optimization. Right?”

    No. Bipolar Disorder is a fictitious disease that was invented by psychiatrists and incorporated into the DSM-V in order to mass market dangerous, neurotoxic chemicals and to deceive innocent people into thinking that they are “mentally ill.” Of course these fake diagnoses and dangerous neurotoxins CAUSE they very symptoms that psychiatrists and doctors claim to heal. “Hospitalization” is a euphemism for involuntary incarceration, just like “medications” is a euphemism for neurotoxic drugs.

    Naturally, and no thanks to psychiatry, withdrawal from psychotropic, neurotoxic, thanatophoric drugs will eventually produce positive results. But what is this talk of “luteal phase psychosis”? This is the kind of psycho-babble that draws innocent people into the web of psychiatry. This poor soul wasn’t “luteal” or “psychotic.” She had been deceived, drugged, and iatrogenically immobilized by psychiatry.

    “As is detailed in the report that follows, this case draws from twenty years of published scientific literature around psychoneuroimmunology and the connection between the gut, immune system, endocrine system, and the brain.” This is the latest trick. Psychiatry is trying to justify its existence by this supposedly new science of gut and brain connections. Should we eat well, take care of our guts and our brains? Of course. But let’s not pretend that psychiatry has anything to do with healing or taking care of health. Psychiatry is the pseudo-scientific system of slavery that subjects innocent people to a regime of drugging, involuntary incarceration, and labeling. It is deception masquerading as medicine.

    Once psychiatry has been abolished, “mental illness” will disappear, as will all of the iatrogenic harm that psychiatry causes.

    • Well, the relationship between what you eat and your moods wasn’t discovered by psychiatrists at all, but in our time, came about initially through the late MD’s, Theron Randolph’s work. He was a pioneer allergist who began to explore “psychiatric” symptoms in his patients and found he could switch them on and off, by water fasting them until they weren’t symptomatic, and then testing them by having them consume foods one at a time, logging the ones they were reactive to. When he presented data to shrinks at a 1950’s APA event, the members greeted his presentation with an indifferent shrug, even though he had a 2,000 patient group he’d worked with.

    • I think we need to be careful, that while psychiatrists have broken our trust, that does not mean all medical care is useless. There are more general health conditions that can cause psychiatric changes, certainly. Thyroid disease, celiac disease, and urinary tract infections in the elderly come to mind. This is not the chemical imbalance theory repackaged. We can reject the DSM without dismissing the reality of psychiatric changes arising from health problems. In fact, I think doctors should pay more attention to this, and that there should be a differential diagnosis process instead of an immediate prescription for SSRIs.

      • Medical care is very useful. But because of psychiatry’s influence the whole discipline is hopelessly corrupt and dangerous to navigate with an SMI label.

        Sad that so many of us are afraid to see MDs. And it’s not “paranoia”–our fears are legitimate. If you know someone who lies whenever convenient and still trust him there is something wrong with you.

      • Psychiatry is driven by the concept that all “depressed” or “psychotic” people have the same problem and need the same intervention. Real medical care is not the enemy, but psych diagnoses often have the effect of obscuring any physiological problems that actually ARE going on, by lumping everyone into a category and not looking further. So yes, I agree absolutely, real medical care is sometimes essential, and there are real physiological conditions that can cause “mental health” symptoms. But you’d have to actually LOOK in order to find them, and 99 out of 100 psychiatrists don’t even bother to ask those questions.

    • My Bipolar Disorder–like many others–was created by my shrink for big profits. He put me on an SSRI drug that made me higher than a kite and kept me awake for 3 weeks straight.

      All needed to cure this “disorder” was to quit the drug and catch upon sleep. Instead they blamed ME for the drug’s reaction and put me on a cocktail.

      I wonder how many people would not be labeled “bipolar” without this kind of drug reaction.

  2. “Ali is an exception that violates the dogmatic perspective of chronic, medicated mental illness so thoroughly that the entire paradigm should be threatened if her single case were to be documented. It is my hope that the publication of this case does just that.”

    Thank you, Kelly, for working to document the truth. Bipolar is not a real disease, nor are any of the DSM disorders real diseases. But the psychiatric drugs do create the symptoms of the DSM disorders.

  3. “Ali is an exception that violates the dogmatic perspective of chronic, medicated mental illness so thoroughly that the entire paradigm should be threatened if her single case were to be documented.”

    Many of our stories violate the dogmatic perspective of chronic, “meditated mental illness” quite thoroughly. The issue seems to be more the dogmatic resistance on the part of “the establishment” to hear truth and reason, and also to be humble to the information of others. That is not easily gained by psychiatry, if at all.

    I think a revolutionary change in perspective on what it means to be a human being–along with owning, as individuals, our right to self-agency–is what will eradicate this notion of “mental illness” and all the bs that goes along with it. Admittedly, that is a tall order because it involves tons of money and status, and this insane “need” to be right. The ego issues run deep when it comes to not seeing the truth of these matters.

    My belief at this point is that this is about community and social structures, and abuse of power which has become the social norm, and not an individual’s permanent “condition of being.” The latter is the big lie here which rakes in the bucks, maintains the status quo of marginalizing others, and the aggressive perpetuation of which is a perfect illustration of the former.

    • There are pay offs to accepting your role of the “hopeless bipolar.”

      Besides fear of being locked up and more drugged or shocked, there are some benefits.

      1. You can reject all responsibility for your behavior. “Not my fault! The Bipolar made me do it.” If a friend or loved one complains, whine how you can’t help yourself. You’re not the one acting like a jerk; it’s your illness taking over.
      Forget self control. As a professional “Bipolar” it’s your civic duty to cut loose with mood swings, public temper tantrums and other out-of-control behavior. It’s also a great excuse for becoming a party animal. “Just my old mania acting up. Heh heh.”

      2. It’s a great way for gaining attention. Endless opportunities for self dramatization. If you’re an actor–tell-all books and documentaries can only help your career. Regale the audience with long winded melodramatic descriptions of your insanity–ending with you seeing the light and tearfully converting to the Church of Psychiatry.

      3. You don’t have to grow up but can be an infant forever. Forget marriage, family, career. You don’t have to do crap but lounge around taking pills and watching TV 16 hours a day to rot whatever brain cells those “safe and effective treatments” left.

      Lest I seem too harsh, I myself plead guilty to the first two. I never planned on being a professional junkie/bum/outcast but was seduced into the role with promises that the right pills would make me functional enough to be almost normal.

      The years went on. I got worse instead of better–like everyone around me. When I acknowledged the Truth I was so upset I came closer to suicide than ever before.

  4. Psychiatry is a pseudoscience, a drug racket, and a means of social control. It’s 21st Century Phrenology, with potent neuro-toxins. I’ve heard of Dr. Kelly Brogan for several years now. She’s an exception which proves the rule. I can also recommend her book, “A Mind of Your Own”. KEEP UP the GOOD WORK, Kelly!

  5. I would like to publically thank Dr Peter Breggin. He is the most beautiful person I have ever learned about. He has been trying to educate the world on love for his entire adult life. I just learned that the chemical imbalance theory is wrong. His you tube videos explain my so called bipolar disorder perfectly. I wish you tube was around in 1985 when this nightmare started for me.

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