From Psych Central: “After sharing my eccentric journey to recovery in a new book, I’ve been accused of being anti-psychiatry. I’m not anti-psychiatry. I’m only anti-psychiatry if it means questioning the long-term efficacy of antidepressants, drug-biased research and the accuracy of making quick diagnoses without objective evidence. I’m anti-psychiatry if it means campaigning for a better mental health system that views a patient in a broader, holistic light and meaningfully addresses things like sleep hygiene, exercise therapy, workplace social capital and diet. I’m anti-psychiatry if it means talking about my horrible experience on antidepressants and how I luckily stumbled on an unconventional path to healing that worked. I’m anti-psychiatry if it means thinking our heavy use of medication, and how fast we jump to medication as a first approach, is dangerous, especially in kids and the thousands of functioning individuals who fall in the middle ground between severe and symptom-free.
By merely telling my story, I’ve been accused of pill-shaming and fueling the stigma against those with diagnosed mental illness who take medication. I’ve been told that my message is dangerous and to ‘shut up.’ This is a bitter taste of irony, because now I — and anyone else who has a story in which psychiatry or prescribed drugs aren’t the heroes — are being told that our stories aren’t wanted. Our stories can hurt people. Our stories are the regurgitations of bitter, uninformed, daft activists. I’d call it reverse stigma, but since we’ve also experienced symptoms of mental illness, it’s more sinister. It’s an Et Tu, Brute moment. The Et Tu, Brute stigma. Questioning the effectiveness of drugs and current clinical practice doesn’t fit the mainstream advocacy narrative, so shut up.”
