A CVS pharmacy recently sent me a standardized form by fax with a dire warning about one of my patients. The elaborate document was titled “CVS caremark.” It came from “Prescriber Services” and provided “Patient Information for Your Consideration.” This link takes you to the document sent to me by a CVS located a number of miles outside Ithaca, New York. It constitutes an enormous and potentially harmful infringement on the privacy of CVS customers.
Pharmacists and Pharmacies Do Have Responsibility to Report Medical Errors
There are many good reasons for pharmacists to contact prescribers. Out of ignorance or carelessness, or simple human error, doctors make prescription errors. In my forensic work, I have seen ethical pharmacists inform doctors that their patients were being prescribed addictive benzodiazepines, such as Xanax and Ativan, in doses that were too high for too long a time. I have also been an expert in legal cases in which pharmacies have warned doctors about potentially dangerous drug interactions.
In one case, an infant was brain-damaged over several months while being prescribed a whopping overdose of a CNS drug. A new pharmacy warned the doctor that the dose was much too large, and it turned out the pediatrician had made a mathematical error when calculating it for the infant.
Overall, I am strongly in favor of pharmacists reporting to a prescriber when potential errors have been made by the prescriber.
CVS Was Not Reporting a Medical Error; It was Tattling
So what about this warning distressed me? The form was called “MEDICATION NONADHERENCE THERAPY ADVISORY.” CVS instructed me, “A review of your patient’s retail and mail prescription history indicates that the patient has not obtained his or her first refill. Consider discussing your patient’s therapy to reinforce that nonadherence to his or her medication regiment could lead to a hospital or emergency room visit, or death.”
Notice the assumption that a patient’s failure to utilize a renewable prescription for a psychiatric drug was a form of disobedience! Notice the presumption that it was necessary and ethical to report this to the prescriber.
The drug was quetiapine 25 mg. Quetiapine or Seroquel is an antipsychotic medication and a dose of 25 mg is the smallest available. So why did the pharmacy care? Because, they assumed, as their form states, that my patient was suffering from “nonadherence,” more commonly called “noncompliance.”
Noncompliance or nonadherence is a sin among psychiatric prescribers. Nonadherence costs the pharmaceutical industry vast amounts of money and causes many prescribers to lose their patients. Noncompliance most commonly results from patients experiencing such intolerable adverse effects that they stop without “asking permission” to do so.
Spokespersons for psychiatric drugs complain mightily about noncompliance in the published literature, and prescribers too often lie to patients to make them feel safer about taking their neurotoxic drugs.
Treating Prescribers Like Idiots
In a bold print heading to a bulleted box, CVS advises in their nonadherence form for prescribers, “Please consider discussing the following with your patient:”
Some common reasons why patients may stop taking their medications are because they:
- Can’t afford it. Consider a generic alternative, if applicable.
- Forget to take it.
- Don’t like the side effects.
- Are unclear about what medication they are taking.
- Don’t understand the long-term consequences of not managing their condition.
I appreciate the irony of pharmacists lecturing psychiatric prescribers as if they are ignorant dunderheads who need the most elementary guidance from their brethren pharmacists; but I fear the consequences of their interfering in the lives of patients who may want to stop taking their medications without their doctor’s knowing it. Isn’t this still America—where you have a right to stop taking your medication with or without your doctor’s approval? Maybe not. Apparently not. Indeed, in America patients are commonly forced by doctors and the courts to take lifelong, life-destroying neurotoxins.
Refusing to Comply with Psychiatric Drugs Often Saves Lives and Prevents Tragedies
In my clinical and forensic work, I have seen many patients whose health or lives have been saved because they stopped taking drugs like Seroquel without telling their doctors. It can be dangerous to do so abruptly, and I do not advise withdrawing from drugs without experienced clinical supervision; but that does not justify pharmacists interfering in the lives of patients. Nor is withdrawal listed in the nonadherence form as one of the pharmacy’s concerns.
Seroquel, like all commonly used antipsychotic drug drugs, causes tardive dyskinesia, a potentially disabling disorder that afflicts any of the voluntary muscle systems in the body. Prescribers often fail to inform patients about these effects and the most unscrupulous ignore the symptoms while the patient gets worse. Often families must intervene to stop the medications against the doctor’s strong advice.
My Patient
So what was actually going on with my patient? Working together and with her family, she and I had successfully withdrawn her from several psychiatric drugs over a five-month period. Fully informed, and with careful supervision from me and cooperation from her husband, she had come down from quetiapine (Seroquel) at 800 mg to 25 mg, and then stopped taking the drug. That is why she did not renew her prescription—she was drug-free!
In this patient’s case, she was obtaining her medication at a CVS outside of my immediate area. Because the pharmacy was unfamiliar with me, with my patient’s permission I had educated the pharmacist about what we were doing, so he would not be concerned about the unusual prescription pattern associated with withdrawal. He was very cooperative. This is one reason I suspect that my patient’s local pharmacy had little or nothing to do with the seemingly automatic warning sent to me as her prescribing psychiatrist. In fact, all of my experiences with CVS pharmacists have been positive.
CVS, Please Respond
I have always enjoyed good personal and professional relationships with CVS pharmacists both as a prescriber and a customer. I doubt that the pharmacists at my patient’s drugstore were involved in tattling. The warning sent to me was probably computer generated, but it had the potential to intrude enormously on the privacy and the autonomy of my patient. Sent to a different prescriber than myself, it could have resulted in the doctor pushing her into continuing to take a dangerous neurotoxic medication.
I hope that CVS will respond to the concerns expressed in this report. It is important to know if this policy is aimed at psychiatric drugs and perhaps especially at antipsychotic drugs, as I suspect it is. Did the company consider the ethical implications of trying to tattle on patients to enforce “adherence”? Why did it feel compelled to lecture psychiatric prescribers about the rudiments of how to relate to their patients?
Psychiatry’s Obsession with Noncompliance
Psychiatry’s obsession with enforcing compliance stems from the fact that patients often display sound reasoning and common sense when they refuse to continue taking their neurotoxins. To avoid pressure and even threats of involuntary treatment, it is in their interest to stop taking neurotoxic drugs without informing their doctors.
CVS and any other pharmacies involved in tattling should stop reporting to prescribers when their patients fail to renew prescriptions for psychiatric drugs. CVS should stop reporting on its customers, or its customers should stop going to CVS.
If you wish to withdraw from your psychiatric drugs, please do so carefully and with the best clinical supervision you can find.
Meanwhile, be wary: Your pharmacy may report you if you stop filling your renewal prescriptions for psychiatric drugs.
Thanks for the forewarning about CVS, Dr. Breggin. Walgreens advertises that it’s pharmacists will warn patients about major drug interactions, but they did not do so for me in reality.
And in general, I noticed long ago that the medical/pharmaceutical industrial complex is utilizing the tools of the information age for nefarious reasons.
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According to this CVS document, “non-adherence” can lead to “hospitalization” or death. Of course, precisely the opposite is true. “Adherence” to psychotropic drugging is what leads to “hospitalization” (involuntary incarceration), and sometimes death.
The CVS document refers to neurotoxic psychotropic drugs as “medication.” “Medication” is a euphemism. There is nothing remotely medical in nature about these drugs. Unless we are willing to call cocaine, heroine, and LSD “medication,” there is no reason to call these drugs “medication.” Unless we are willing to call jumping off a 200 foot cliff onto jagged rocks or driving a bullet bike 200 mph into a brick wall “medication,” there is no reason to call neurotoxic psychotropic drugs “medication.” Perhaps the Athenians medicated Socrates with hemlock? Perhaps chattel slaves were medicated with whips and chains? Perhaps Nazis medicated Jews and others with hydrogen cyanide? Is Bashar al-Assad medicating Syrians with chlorine bombs and sulfur mustard?
Another obvious psychiatric euphemism in this CVS document is the word “therapy.” There is nothing remotely therapeutic about psychiatry. Unless we are willing to call torture, abuse, labeling, involuntary incarceration, and drugging “therapy,” which is exactly what psychiatry does. Psychiatry is an insidious branch of what Szasz called the therapeutic state. This CVS document is just one vivid example of how psychiatry, under the aegis of the therapeutic state, attempts to coerce and oppress its victims.
Benjamin Franklin proposed the following slogan for the seal of the United States: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” Sanctioned by the therapeutic state, psychiatry is nothing more than a pseudo-scientific system of tyranny. Psychiatry is tyranny in blatant and subtle ways. There are blatant tyrannical measures that are promoted by psychiatry, such as this CVS mandate. Psychiatry also uses more subtle methods of tyranny.
“Isn’t this still America—where you have a right to stop taking your medication with or without your doctor’s approval?” No. This is America where innocent children, youth, adults, the elderly and even the homeless are subjected to psychiatric force, labeling, abuse, drugging, involuntary incarceration, shock, torture, and even death. This is America where the therapeutic state seeks to dominated the original constitutional democratic republic. This is America where brain destroying chemicals are called “medication,” and pseudo-scientific jailers and drug dealers are called “doctors.” This is America where psychiatry, a pseudo-scientific system of slavery, is considered to be a field of “medicine.” This is America where the myth of mental illness rules, and the chemical imbalance hoax prevails. This is America, the home of the therapeutic state.
CVS provides the ammunition for the psychiatric branch of the therapeutic state. Like the SOMA drug in the brave new world of which Huxley so presciently wrote, CVS prescriptions are designed to keep the once vigilant citizens of the United States drugged into a chemical stupor. A fearful and sedated citizenry is the joy of a tyrannical government. Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty. And where the government supports psychiatric oppression, you have a new form of tyranny that Szasz rightly called the therapeutic state.
C.S. Lewis foresaw this kind of tyranny long ago:
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
The time has come to slay the dragon of psychiatry.
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Whips WERE considered a valid form of treatment for the “mental illness” known as drapetomania. Shrinks aren’t about to put that diagnosis in the DSM6 for obvious reasons.
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I’ve got news for you Dr. Breggin. Every pharmacy reports nonadherence to psychotropic drugs to the patient’s doctor. It’s not just CVS. Not all the time, but often. Even for antidepressants. It’s not just neuroleptics. We would have to boycott all pharmacies. Which just isn’t realistic. Because some of us do take other prescription medications. Sometimes we can’t just take the supplement that is nature’s equivalent to a medication. Even if it’s for financial reasons because insurance companies don’t pay for supplements.
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Dear Dr Breggin,
It’s very good that you were able to get her off all the heavy drugs, AND the 25mg of Seroquel as well.
I was prescribed 25mg of Seroquel per day in 2005 and I only consumed maybe 1/4 of this. But I developed worrying “drops” on heartbeat, plus a pink chest in the morning, with every other part of my body white.
My “nerves” were better for the discontinuation, but my sleeping was worse.
In my observation it’s not just the Pharmaceutical industry and Psychiatry that are misbehaving. It’s the overall Medical Profession, Politicians and most other responsible bodies. I would imagine that with the amount of damage that has occurred – they cannot afford not to.
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Dear Dr Breggin,
25mg of Seroquel IS the lowest dose available. But 25mg of Seroquel per day is not prescriptive for any Mental Disorder whatsoever (as far as I know).
The antipsychotic dosage begins at 150 mg per day. And Seroquel at 25mg is an antihistamine.
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So the Warning must have been computer generated.
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I still take legitimate medicines like thyroid supplements for my underactive thyroid. And usually antibiotics like penicillin for severe infections.
In a bit of a bind. I am not attending a “mental health” center but I say I am to doctors treating me for a real medical problem–a malabsorption disorder probably triggered by decades of SSRI use. I just give them the name of a local center, saying I’m not troubled by bipolar symptoms now that they are perfectly under control thanks to my effective treatments. Then I say a little prayer they will take my word and not call them. I remember the rule of effective lying. Provide the bare minimum of details! Scary how even doctors are gullible enough to think my peace of mind and clear thinking result from these drugs when the reverse is true.
Unlike you, Dr. Breggin, many doctors welcome this snitching. Even if they find the accompanying sheet slightly insulting.
I figured something like this was going on before reading this. My CVS refills will run out soon. I got my brain drugs from a GP during my taper–plus I had to deceive my parents. 🙁 Till they do I pick them up at the pharmacy a day or two after they inform me through text of my automatic refill. I live alone. Every two or three months I throw a bunch of bottles of drugs away at the bottom of my garbage.
This crap is bad for the environment. Many disposal warnings acknowledge as much–albeit subtly. Don’t flush expired “meds” down the toilet. You might damage the ecosystem of micro organisms living the sewer. But don’t worry. It’s perfectly safe for your own consumption. (We value you less than what grows in the sewer.)
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It’s not just the micro organisms in the sewer that are affected by flushing these damned drugs down the commode. Birth control, SSRI’s, and all kinds of other drugs are now found in the streams and rivers of this country in levels that can be detected in fish and amphibians. Waste water systems cannot filter these chemicals from the water, which then often gets pumped into rivers and streams. Tadpoles are changing their sex in attempts to deal with all the birth control chemicals in the water and fish are filled to the gills with SSRI’s. Obviously this is not meant to happen so we’re affecting large portions of the ecosystem, portions that are woven intricately into the great web of life. What happens when this web of life, in which we are certainly included, starts changing in the attempt to protect itself from what’s being done to it?
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Of course it’s not just frogs, salamanders and fish that are being affected. All life forms are suffering, from water insects to crayfish etc.
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Hey, these magical medicines can do no harm. So obviously they can’t hurt the environment. We’ll just have some really happy frogs, fish, insects, etc. Everything is awesome! 😛
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I would expect no-less than this in a surveillance society. I know nothing about CVS or working practices, yet am confident in predicting that a computer system would have triggered the advisory.
The pharmacist would have been alerted by the computer system; if they had chosen to do nothing the computer system would have recorded that too. Although, many of these uber-stasi systems don’t allow the lack of action to be recorded as an action. The pharamacist would have been endlessly harassed by the computer system until they made a loggable action.
In the chain of coercion sometimes the best, and loggable action, is to pass the problem on down the chain of coercion.
Maybe 25mg is a low dose of antiemotional. To put that into perspective, even at that dose, you’d struggle to give it away. Even still, a cold turkey withdrawal isn’t a smart move. Everyone in the chain of coercion — and everyone officiating the chain of coercion is also under coercion — should do their utmost to avoid cold turkey withdrawals.
Chances are the prescriptions hadn’t been picked up because the patient had snuffed it. Or maybe they had disocvered that high doses of niacin enabled them to wake up into their shamanistic healing magic, and they were busy undertaking that journey to nowhere.
Or something else entirely.
The important message to get out is that in a post-stasi surveillance society, you win by beating the computer system. So long as everything is logged and quantified everyone is happy.
So: don’t cold turkey; and during non-official withdrawal, continue picking up your ‘scripts.
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Good Advice,
Because withdrawal is an erratic process. So you might find that its going okay but then find that it needs slowing down.
It might also be a good idea after the taper, to keep the prescription active for a respectable period, to substantiate the post withdrawal period (if required).
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My experience with CVS was the following, not in order of occurrence:
2013: While I was inpatient at Mount Auburn Hospital, I was asked by the attending physicians which drugs I was on. To be totally clear about this, I wrote them down on paper. I also said the names and doses aloud. I also stated that I had picked up two prescriptions in person at my local CVS on August 11, 2013, a day prior to my hospitalization. I was on the medical floor for kidney failure.
The psychiatrist came back into my room later, pointed his finger straight at me, and said, “You are a LIAR!” Then he said, “I called CVS myself! They said you were not in there on Sunday. They said those are not the drugs you take!”
For the next two days I was given drugs I never took, some cocktail that didn’t make sense that I refused.
It took those bozos two days to figure it all out. They had misspelled my name and between them and CVS they had not even verified spelling, date of birth, address, etc. Mental patients aren’t worth it.
The inpatient doctor did not apologize and the entire staff there continued to abuse me until the day I left. About six months later I walked into CVS and the head pharmacist apologized but I don’t think she fully understood the potential implications of a name mix-up like that.
Earlier in 2013: A pharmacy assistant “advised” me not to take a drug my psych had prescribed for sleep. This was an antipsychotic drug Latuda. He said it was too new to be safe, and there was no evidence that it would help with sleep. I never filled the script.
All the years I went to CVS, I know in my heart they cringed seeing me on those massive amounts of drugs. I know they saw me get really sick in the end. They saw people die. They knew, and I bet they hated having to fill scripts for elders knowing that filling them wasn’t really curative after all. They were taking part in a lie.
I have hesitated to apply for jobs like that, where I have serious ethical concerns about what I am doing. I remember I questioned working for McDonald’s, which I was forced to do when I could find nothing else. I know some people can’t find work elsewhere. I’m speaking as a daughter of an engineer who worked many years for Raytheon. I know my dad struggled with that sometimes, too.
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I was on Latuda for a week. It made me ANGRY all the time for no reason. This scared me so much I got my case worker who saw my odd behavior to set me a special appointment with my shrink.
When I told her about my overwhelming unfocused anger she offered to double the dose! What???
Luckily I talked her into switching me back to abilify. The pills were easier to cut when I started my taper. 😀
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Where do the medical schools find these people????? Psychiatry must have the highest level of totally inept medical people possible. Why would any rational and aware person want to DOUBLE a dose of something when a person tells them it’s harming them? Ah….wait a minute…..I forget that those of us who’ve been diagnosed always lie so you can’t believe anything that we say so obviously the answer is to double the toxic drugs!!!
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Stephen, That’s what I was told, exactly. By a specialist trained in eating disorders. “I know you told me that, but I can’t trust anything you said because all anorexics are sneaky liars. Therefore, you must be lying.”
First of all, I wasn’t lying.
Secondly, there is indeed an origin of that stereotype. I do know some were affected at a young age, as young as six, who were forced into habitual lying because they were terrorized by multiple doctors, constantly hounded over their weight, forced to fake out the scale and fib about what they have eaten lest they be taken out of school and from their homes by force an locked up, possibly tied into bed and raped via the feeding tube.
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Lying is an extremely reasonable survival mechanism when suffering abuse is the only alternative.
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Hmm. If we lie all the time how do they know we weren’t lying when we described the symptoms they used to convict us of the crimes of bipolar or schizophrenia?
Interesting how they take us at our word for the B.S. questionnaires, then use these “tests” to discredit anything we tell them in the future.
Shrinks are not logicians!
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Another reason to be on nutrients instead of “meds”- no scripts to track you with.
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It is incredibly important not to be a slave to “scripts.” IMHO.
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Bcharris, I could use a good homeopath right now. (Can’t trust any allopaths right now, since they all lie and cover each others’ butts.)
Low on money now, but next month I could do a consultation. Unusual expense came up, so i need most of my remaining income for groceries.
My email is r dot nichols 42 at yahoo dot com.
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The medicine I take saves my life. Often I can barely function with how loud and mean voices are. I don’t really think they should be notifying dr. though. I care about privacy and personal rights.
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This kind of thing, the CVS surveillance, has gotten worse since I was in the system. Circumstance coupled with drug dependence will drag some people down. Resistance, what the system would deny, also has the potential to make people stronger. The “mental health” system’s assault on civil liberties expands daily. People will learn, or they will become compliant “mental patients”, that is to say, they will have become “adult children” having developed their own peculiar form of acquired ignorance.
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Many people–especially those in the MI System are anti-literate. Meaning they refuse to read much of anything. Manuals on home repair or car maintenance, cookbooks, show synopses on TV. Maybe magazine articles about celebrities, useless “self help” books, and frothy boring romance novels.
The friend of mine who refused to read Anatomy of an Epidemic–choosing to laugh at me for believing it instead–mentioned later that she never read except to relax. She wasn’t interested in learning anything. Popular Amish romances and other fluff. She wasn’t even on psych drugs. Some folks enjoy being ignorant.
Hobbes: Is being ignorant a constitutional right?
Calvin: I don’t know. And I refuse to find out!
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Does anyone know if “Pharmacist tattling” could happen in the UK? I have noticed a creeping trend towards more monitoring and scrutiny. I’m trying to stay cool about it because up until now I’ve been able access medical services in a way that suits me. Mostly I would go for 2 or 3 years without seeing anyone, but they were there for me on the rare occasions I needed their help. There was a cautious trust between us – as long as I didn’t deliberately draw attention to myself, they left well alone. But from around 2014 I’ve been called in for annual “reviews” where they check my weight and blood pressure, take blood, and ask me questions about what I’m doing with my life, that sort of thing. Then they put it all on my electronic record and send me a copy of a kind-of care plan through the post. I wondered why this was happening, and did a Google search – I worked out that my name had been added to the Severe Mental Illness register. This sounds super-creepy – in theory this register is simply about “Improving physical healthcare for people living with Severe Mental Illness”, but it means that I’m definitively tagged as SMI for all to see. I hadn’t been told any of this, but here’s what is says in the NHS England document about it…
“Unless the patient actively disagrees, assessment and actions are to be shared with relevant healthcare professionals in line with information sharing and information governance protocols.”
Needless to say, I haven’t been given the option to “actively disagree,” and even if I was, I wouldn’t dare.
So, now I’m wondering what to do if I am ever pressured into accepting prescriptions for regular neurotoxins – I would probably have the sense to nod dumbly and take the script from the doctor, then tear it up when I got home. But now I’m wondering if I would have to buy the damn drugs from the pharmacy and find some way to dispose of them, like Rachel777.
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At least I don’t have to pay for them. My Medicaid bills the credulous tax payers. They are happy to keep those like me crippled and sick since they think we’re all murderous freaks unworthy of life.
They deserve to lose their money. Their stupidity and selfish cruelty sicken me!
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Why don’t you actively disagree? I would for damn sure!
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No, you wouldn’t. You would never have trusted them in the first place – that was my big mistake. Now that I’m in this situation, I’m not sure what I can do. Challenging them would be a big deal – anyone with any sense acts placid and compliant no matter what. If you try to push it, the NHS can go from zero to sectioned-with-police-escort in a heartbeat. Psychiatrists bitch to the press all the time about how their “profession” is short-changed by the skinflint government, despite the billions in public money shovelled their way every year. And yet it’s amazing how quickly they can find the resources for doctors, social workers, police, lawyers and a nice long stay in a secure unit for anyone who steps out of line.
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Severe Mental Illness Register
I discovered my name on a Severe Mental Illness Register at Newton Medical Centre, London W2 in October 2012.
Near Fatal Modecate Experience Pg 1
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zhbh8V4MBAVk1KSmgwZTdKeHM/view?usp=drivesdk
Near Fatal Modecate Experience Pg 2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zhbh8V4MBAemlnNW0zUERieDA/view?usp=drivesdk
ADR Request ltr Pg 1
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zhbh8V4MBAZlVTbHdBRDFFSHc/view?usp=drivesdk
ADR Request ltr Pg 2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zhbh8V4MBAZ0otNjFyN0NJajA/view?usp=drivesdk
ADR Request Ltr Pg 3
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zhbh8V4MBAcExwMzhEMVRzdm8/view?usp=drivesdk
Irish Record Summary Pg 1
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zhbh8V4MBATlNoNTlpYy11X28/view?usp=drivesdk
Irish Record Summary Pg 2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zhbh8V4MBAMmlqS18xQVZlcms/view?usp=drivesdk
Admitting Doctor Dr Fadel on Presentation
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zhbh8V4MBANjBTZEtkbjBhMkU/view?usp=drivesdk
ADR Warning had been deliberately OMITTED.
False Reasurrance Ltr
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zhbh8V4MBAeUFLam5rYmtXd3c/view?usp=drivesdk
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Asperger Co operated with Euthanasia
http://www.rte.ie/news/world/2018/0419/955628-asperger-/
The Euthanasia is still in progress.
4 out of every 10 people consuming Neuroleptic Injections attempt suicide.
It’s common practice to hide these events.
My historical ADR Warning Request was blocked in Ireland, and my present day GP Surgery is blocking ADR Warning in the UK.
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Auntie, is relocating an option? What if you left the UK for over a year? Would that possibly get you off their radar? If you can’t, what if you could get off NHS? Of course this would leave you without any medical services at all. A few can do this. Depending on your needs this could work out. Unless you have something very serious or complex you likely don’t need doctors at all. Many problems are caused by seeing them, actually. When you stop seeing them, these problems go away, or become minimal. I see an optometrist (not MD) for glasses only. I avoid contact with Western Medicine as much as possible. It is a gateway to labeling.
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Fiachra – did you manage to get your name off the register? If so, how? I’m considering writing a letter to the practice manager to ask for my name to be removed – it’s supposed to be voluntary, so I guess that might do it.
Julie – you’ve reminded of something – there’s a new system in the UK in which you can register for an online NHS service. This is a legitimate alternative to registering with a bricks and mortar practice. It seems like a possible option for me because I could still get healthcare, but without all the Mental Health monitoring bull which my current practice has a financial incentive to do. I’ll have to look into it more…
https://www.gpathand.nhs.uk/our-nhs-service
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Auntie, if the internet service means avoiding actual office visits, then that’s a good thing. Try for telephone doctor service. You can quietly slip into telephone only and no office. I use a Voip phone to be on the safe side. However, I never give them a reason to call the cops on me in the first place. Don’t give out your relatives’ phone numbers, either, as “nearest family member.” Not unless you want your cover blown to bits if you are ever taken to the ER unconscious. Think about it…If you are hit by a car, they will call your family. If you are worried about family members ratting on you in a moment of panic, maybe it’s time to invent fake family members. Yes, it says on the forms you’ll be booted out of the clinic for falsifying info, but they’ll deal with that after you’ve croaked someday and they have a mess on their hands because they can’t figure out whom to contact.
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Auntie and Fiaschra, I would think that the fact that such a list exists is a human rights abuse in itself. Some countries do have lists of people who have committed certain crimes. In USA there is a list of people who cannot work in health care (I found it!) and a list of those who cannot work around children, I imagine. But different countries do things differently. What have the so-called SMI actually done? Where is the evidence? What crimes?
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Part of the solution is to have backup in place to deal with any attempts to psychiatrize you, if you really think they would do that simply for objecting to something. You have engaged in some self-protection already by putting a public spotlight on yourself as an articulate anti-psych spokesperson, as they would expose themselves too clearly by exercising such heavy-handed retaliation when so many people are watching. Having a lawyer or two waiting in the wings would be a great help too. The people they disappear are those with no one to notice or speak for them.
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Or make it very clear you know a lawyer or two. I have bluffed in the past and it works.
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Another thing I hear is effective is if you absolutely have to go to Western Med, bring a trusted friend or relative. Make sure that person stays right in the room with you the entire time and if the doc demands that the person leave, insist yourself that the person stays put. You can even say you want a witness, or say that this person should be a part of your aftercare or at least informed. Perhaps this person provided transportation and “needs to know information,” you can say. Really, though, the person is there to make sure they don’t pull any shit on you.
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Dear Auntie Psychiatry,
Have you thought about taking the issue to your MPs Surgery?
Dr Simons at Newton Medical in Oct/Nov 2012 told me and put in writing, that my name had been removed from the SMI Register.
He also told me and put in writing, that he had removed “schizophrenia” from my records – but he was lying.
Dr Simons is also attempting to deny the existece of the ADR Warning Request Letter – but this can’t be done.
This 1986 Warning Request Letter describes AKATHISIA fairly Well :-
1. Extreme Restlessness
2. Unpredictability
3. The worst experience of my life.
Once:-
A) The 2012 Near Fatal Modecate Experience Statement;
B) The 1986 ADR Request letter;
C) The 1986 Irish Record Summary ;
D) Dr Fadels 1980 Impression on Admission;
….are reconciled then in my opinion, the only thing that “stands up” is Dr Shipman Type behaviour from Galway, Ireland.
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Fiachra,I think I’m going to try to get my name off that register, starting with a letter to my GP practice. If they are difficult about it, I might try to find an advocate to help. I don’t know about contacting the MP – I think that would put me well and truly on the radar as a awkward customer.
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I think the idea behind the Severe Mental Illness Register is to grab hold of vulnerable people and turn them into the longterm mentally ill.
Once a person is on the Severe Mental Illness Register a persons circumstances get forgotten and the person becomes homogenously Severely Mentally Ill; and they can be referred to as a person on the Severe Mental Illness Register.
Once they are described like this nobody knows anything else.
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Oldhead
In the state where I live all it takes for you to receive a summons to our little mental health court, right down the street from our state “hospital”, is for two people to go down to the sheriff’s office and swear out a petition stating that you are a danger to yourself or to others, or both. And if you don’t appear in court on the day assigned you will find deputies standing on your doorstep that very afternoon and you will be escorted to our Admissions Dept. of our wonderful state “hospital” where you will experience at least a seven day stay against your will. And if you don’t convince the psychiatrist assigned to you when you get on the unit that you are not a danger, you will be spending a much longer visit with us, until said psychiatrist decides you should be freed. I agree with Auntie Psychiatry. The smart thing is to lay low and stay off the radar.
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Read my response to AP. Self-protection is of course a priority. As Marley said, “he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.” It’s a matter of knowing when to charge and when to retreat.
One thing I know about the system and its denizens is that they feed on fear. They also know they live in castles made of sand, and will try their best to distract us from recognizing and acting on this, which is their great (and legitimate) fear.
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Only if she wants a free vacation at Ye Olde Funny Farme!
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Auntie, I have a valuable insight. They didn’t pressure you at your annual visits so looking hunky dorry. Keep documentation.
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Well, I kind-of get your point. My guess is that my name was added to the register because the GP surgery gets extra funding, and they are more than happy for me to stay the hell away and do my own thing as long as I show up for the annual checks. Trouble is, being branded SMI in this way has completely destroyed the tiny bit of trust I had in them. Having my name on this register was not part of the deal when I agreed to see a psych-nurse 10 years ago, and I have no idea how it might affect my life further down the line. That’s what makes me nervous.
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Exactly, Auntie. I would think your ultimate goal would be to get the hell off their list. You don’t know. Future employers, landlords, banks that are going to say yes or no, people that are going to matter down the road might have access, and if they don’t now, they may in the future. Never mind the gov’t. Plus I imagine you get far worse medical care if you are perceived as SMI. Even, say, if you show up and are having a legitimate heart attack. “You’re just anxious. Go home and do coping skills and come back on Monday and we’ll take your blood pressure.” I have seen people die that way.
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Julie – you are right. Another big thing is travel and insurance. You have to declare everything up front, even something as innocuous as “depression”. All these Guardian readers taken in by the “antidepressants work!!” baloney don’t realise that a visit to the GP for those “little lifesavers” might cost them dear next time they book a holiday.
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Newton Medical London W2 had my name on a Severe Mental Illness Register while I worked on Building Sites.
I was working as a subcontractor in the House of Commons Buildings when they put my name on the Register in 2002.
There was a fatality on the Site I was on at the time, as there has been on most building sites I’ve worked on.
I’m sure most of these doctors are “on medication” (themselves).
My GP Dr Simons last time I saw him assured me in writing “that he could see no reason that I couldn’t work on a building site”. And on another information sheet provided at the end of my interview was written “this patient has a diagnosis of schizophrenia”. My GP was not even aware of this.
The Diagnosis on the 1986 Irish Record was actually Schizoaffective Disorder not Schizophrenia. Newton Medical had altered my 1986 Irish Record by removing the last paragraph of the first page because they had originally guessed the Diagnosis as schizophrenia.
They only went looking for my Record when they thought they could get some money for it.
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Dang, Fiaschra , I gotta laugh at their “guesswork.” When I went to Gould Farm in 1984 and told them as plainly as I could, “Eating Disorder,” they said that wasn’t on their “list” so they arbitrarily told me they’d treat me for “depression.” Of course, treating a broken arm with broken leg treatment isn’t going to be too relevant. I complained that their “treatment” wasn’t working. They said, “How about disability?” Again, ED wasn’t on their “List” of possible “severe” disorders so I got stuck with “schizophrenia.” That got put on my disability form and I never saw the form, never filled it out nor was I interviewed by a third, neutral party nor was allowed a second opinion. Stamped and sealed by the end of summer. Funny, in September I started nursing school where I got straight A’s and I kept wondering, “What brain disease?” but was afraid to ask.
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Julia,
My GP at Newton Medical London W2 told me that the Severe Mental Illness Register was for people who at some stage might have had something wrong with them, and that it was purely a list held at the Medical Centre.
But, to any Normal Person a Severe Mental Illness Register, is a Register that contains the names of People that are Ongoing Chronically Severely Mentally Ill.
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I would suggest patronizing local independent pharmacists rather than robot corporations like CVS. This should be a solution for some, unless, maybe, whoever pays for the drugs — Medicare, Medicaid, etc. — also notices when they aren’t picked up.
If I had this problem I would probably pick up my “maintenance” prescriptions even — especially — if I didn’t plan to use them.
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I experienced something interesting concerning drugs prescribed by my surgeon. When he was getting ready to release me from the hospital he said he was giving me a prescription for hydrocodone for pain. I told him that I didn’t want any pain meds and he stated he wasn’t letting me leave the hospital until and unless I promised to get the damned prescription filled. I filled it and then never used it.
I recently had another surgery by different surgeon and he played the very same game with me. I lied and said that I had it filled, since I already had a full bottle of the very same thing setting in my medicine cabinet. It’s not just psych drugs that they’re pushing on people, pain meds are a big thing too. Of course, maybe it’s just my surgeons.
I agree; it’s better to just pick up the damned things. But then you have to waste the money on them and that’s a shame.
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I had a similar experience, despite telling the guy that I never took drugs for anything if I could help it, and was only there for antibiotics. I think they get kickbacks. Why else would they push so hard for us to get a prescription we’re making clear we won’t use?
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Yeah, oddly, I remember they pushed anxiety pills on me for minor procedures when I told them these pills were both not necessary and had no effect on me. Also I was offered various pain pills which oddly never do much. Most don’t work on pain nor have any effect except a few make me nauseous. I’d end up saying, “It doesn’t really hurt that much, ” and they’d say, “That’s good, the pills must be working” but I never took them.
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Oldhead it varies from locale to locale since some folks have limited access as far as where they go to pick up drugs. Besides, in my opinion, a lot depends on who works there and the “other” circumstances.
In my old pharmacy, I almost quit because they wouldn’t stop announcing my name on the loudspeaker when my drugs were ready. I kept telling them not to, and they would not stop. Also, buying at the self-register meant whatever I bought was announced out loud. The register didn’t name drugs but did name vitamins and other items. This was a privacy concern. People consider all sorts of things such as timeliness, maybe a certain employee who works there (and there’s turnover), knowing the pharmacist by name, or, in some cases, going someplace where they do not know you, or going out of town where you might not feel self-conscious. I knew people who felt less embarrassed going to a pharmacy where there was a drive-in, so they never had to walk in to the place. Nowadays some people get theirs mailed, but that involves risk of theft for some people.
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Oh, another thing….If you get a paper script, SOMETIMES you can drop it off, they’ll fill it, but you can just leave the script there, and if you never pick it up it’ll just sit there and you won’t have to pay. Eventually if they’re super busy they’ll either forget about it, you can ignore the auto-reminders and they’ll eventually toss it. Maybe they’ll just think you’re on “vacation.”
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The idea behind “Severe Mental Illness” is that a person is Severely disabled:- more disabled than being blind, or in a wheelchair (according to the Lancet). The only condition more disabling than being Severely Mentally Ill (according to the Lancet) is being paralysed from the neck down.
I have NOT cost a penny in Mental Health Terms in my 32 years in the UK. This is Fact not Opinion and is traceable.
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I know here in the USA the FBI keeps records called NICS, this is a record of people who cannot own firearms and one of the parts of this is MI, but it’s only those who have been court-committed and I suspect this would only contain some of us who have been court-committed on certain types of sections. Apparently you can write to the FBI to see if you are on this list. You can even ask to be taken off. I wonder if you could state that being on the list affects your employment and housing status (and possibly all sorts of other things, education, ability to get a loan, etc) and this is why you want to be taken off.
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In the USA you can get psych off your local records without getting off the federal disability payments if you can’t find employment right away. You used to be able to simply go from one clinic to another, but now, with electronic records, this is less simple than it sounds. Now you will likely need to relocate. I am shocked at how many people immediately then “share” their medical records. This is exactly what not to do. Tell them “Oh yes, I’m working on it,” but don’t.
Then, assure them you have already done it. Tell them the records have already been sent a month ago, if they happen to ask. So surely, they have them, but they are likely filed incorrectly, right? No one is going to know. They won’t pry any longer. Don’t complain about “depression,” “anxiety,” or anything even remotely resembling it. Don’t use their clinical language for mental distress and put on a happy face. Fake out the screenings. If you spent enough years on the nuthouses, you definitely know how to answer the questions. No, no one in your family ever had an addiction nor ever attempted suicide and there’s no known mental disorder in your family, either, that you ever heard of. Prozac? Doesn’t some movie star take that?
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Dear Auntie Psychiatry,
My case might be a bit different from yours.
My Severe Mental Unwellness Information comes historically from Southern Ireland, is extremely dated, and on investigation is very weak. But this might be the reason that a GP might want to promote it.
I was originally delivered over to Ireland from England in 1980. The UK Maudsley Hospital had me for 2 months but their information on me was “confused”, and the English doctor that accompanied me to Ireland in 1980, has since committed suicide.
Amsterdam where I had recently spent several months was not menioned on the UK records and the Doctor at Galway that recorded Amsterdam, has never appeared on the Irish Records. His account was updated to several days later and copied in by my Consultant Psychiatrist as his own.
In my 30 years in the UK I have never been Disabled. I have consumed low dose “medication” but not suitable for SMI. I quit this years ago.
The Non Irish admitting doctor at Galway in 1980 presented me in Wellness terms (and this is how I am presented in the 1980 Discharge Summary).
I was physically disabled on drugs while at Galway in 1980 with high levels of Haloperidol, Modecate, Chloropromazine (and others).
In 1985 my Consultant Psychiatrist Dr P A Carney was on the Royal College of UK Psychiatrists examining board; and in 1986 the Professor of Pharmacology at Galway Brian Leonard was President of The British Association of Psychopharmacologists.
In 2012 when I received my historical Irish notes snd proceeded to make a complaint against my historical Irish Psychiatrist P A Carney – Dr P A Carney himself was on the Irish Medical Council.
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Depressed Man Strangles Daughter UK
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-london-43894341
https://nypost.com/2018/01/24/antiques-dealer-admits-strangling-daughter-7-with-her-nightgown-cord/
https://troymedia.com/2018/04/24/madness-murder-antidepressants/
My Account + Record Examples demonstrate Suicidal Reaction to Psychiatric Drugs, is being covered up in both Ireland and England.
Every hospitalization I had in Ireland (bar the first) was a Suicidal Hospitalization. At the first hospitalization I presented as quite well – according to the Non Irish admitting doctor.
I never attempted suicide (nor suffered from any disability) before taking, or after carefully discontinuing, Psychiatric drugs suitable for SMI
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I had this experience after having a naproxen script filled last year while on vacation. Prescribed by an urgent care doctor, only ever took two of them, for a temporary injury, but I got calls for months reminding me to fill them. I got around it by blocking CVS 800 number on my phone.
Further, this is quoted verbatim from my mother:
“I knew this from personal experience, though it wasn’t connected to psychotropic drugs. When I was released from the hospital in January after surgery, I was given multiple prescriptions. (Nephew) arrived so late to pick me up that the only place I could get them filled was at the all-night CVS near the hospital. I started getting almost daily telephone reminders that I needed to renew my prescriptions. I finally got fed up with it and called the pharmacy to tell them to stop already. They said that the calls didn’t come from them but from ‘headquarters,’ and gave me a long distance number to call. That took care of the calls, but at my next doctor’s visit, the nurse commented that I had not had my prescriptions refilled, even though she must have known these things were only for temporary post operative use. It has taken me all of the five visits I’ve had to this practice to remove from my records the multiple drugs that were prescribed either for temporary use (10 days) post surgery, or to use as needed. One of them is available OTC and so I never had the prescription filled at all. But CVS kept yammering at me to get it ‘refilled’ and notified the doctor’s office when I didn’t. Your sister asks why I put up with the local pharmacy’s inconvenient hours. Because they don’t share my prescription information with anyone, for one reason.”
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That’s a good idea – blocking the phone number!
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Why not just to replace medications to special diet?
Old psychiatry model:
Mental disorders are genetic and can only be managed
Based in the biological model: some people have inherried dysfunctional neurotransmitters in the brain
Medication is given to balance neurotransmitters in the brain
GUT HEALTH GENERALLY IGNORED
New Psychiatry model (Holistic):
“Mental disorders” are symptoms of an imbalance that can be healed
Based in the psychoneuroimmunology model: the role between the psychological process and the nervous system/ immune system
Understands 90% of neurotransmitters are made in the gut so nutrition is the first intervention
GUT HEALTH BEGGINING POINT FOR TREATMENT
http://gaps-telepsychiatry.com/
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