Bullshit: Anti-Psychiatry and Anti-Medication Song

This song is from the album “Songs from the Locked Ward,” written and recorded in the summer of 2009 by Daniel Mackler.

I wrote it as a testament to the horrors people suffer at the hands of psychiatry—the lack of empathy, the forced medication, the involuntary hospitalizations, the pseudoscience of psychiatric studies, the lies about genetic causes of mental problems, the corrupt ties of researchers to Big Pharma, the shallow and emotionally blind therapists, the denial of trauma, and the denial of full recovery, to name a few . As a therapist, I’ve heard these stories—in painful detail—from my patients all too many times. A few notes: I mention E. Fuller Torrey, the author of “Surviving Schizophrenia,” in this song. I find his biological and forced treatment point of view repugnant. He’s on Youtube, so you can see him for yourself. I also mention Peter Breggin. He’s a radical psychiatrist and heroic critic of psychiatry. He’s also on Youtube—and I’ve put up some video interviews of him as well.

More at: http://wildtruth.net

LYRICS:
They tell me my problem’s genetic, I’m born with a flaw in my brain
They tell me I need medication, and force me to bury my pain

CHORUS:
BULLSHIT, bullshit, I’ve learned to smell bullshit from miles and miles
BULLSHIT, bullshit, I’ve learned to smell bullshit from miles

Their pills make me shaky and sweaty, I fear that they’re breaking my will
They told me that this is quite normal, and added another new pill

They put me inside a straightjacket, they locked me inside of a cage
They inject me with Haldol to calm me, yet wonder why I’m full of rage

They give me a shrink I can talk to, but she is just spiritually dead
She only repeats the same question, “are you still taking your meds?”

They force-fed me E. Fuller Torrey, but he is sadistic and gross
I asked them about Peter Breggin, they replied by increasing my dose

Their studies are so scientific, and based on assiduous work
But-they don’t share their affiliations, with Lilly and Janssen and Merck

They absolve all of my traumatizers, and the horrors that they did to me
They tell me to put it behind me, and say that I need ECT

I said I think I can recover, and taper off all of these meds
They tell me that’s just my delusion, an illness that lives in my head

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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.