I have had a terrible experience with psychiatry, and their medication in particular. I have an entire tale to tell, but let’s first, get the background information.
I was diagnosed as bipolar at the age of 27 because I tend to experience what is classified as “psychosis,” a beautiful, incredible experience on my part, but let’s keep it medical and classify it as “bipolar 1.”
The first time around I got risperidone (Risperdal—bear with me, the Americans and Europeans use different names, which is extremely confusing. It is all down to patents). I don’t remember the exact dose I was given, but I was playing with different ones, and none of them worked. At least, in my perception. I was determined to still lead a marvellous and successful life, and even if I was willing to try “their” medication, I decided from the first time around to do it only on my terms.
I was working then as a financial analyst of banks in Amsterdam, and while I knew the job wasn’t my dream one, I had enough of life desire to discover the right one for me, build a happy future, meet a nice man, have a child, and in general lead a meaningful and interesting life. I love life, you see. I love it with all my might. It’s amazing, life, it has so much to offer!
Risperidone was making me feel depressed, I had put on weight and felt miserable—that’s not my “normal” state of mind.
So, I stopped risperidone eventually, only to get back on medication during my next “psychosis” a few years later. I need to make a small disclosure now and admit that I love my psychoses—beautiful, amazing experiences where I am in direct communication with God, and see the devil too. I also communicate with angels. I have extremely powerful, incredible visions, but I need a safe place to process them, and go to the hospital by myself each time, where my experiences are always punished by psychiatry: it is not allowed in our current society, they say.
I was put on olanzapine (Zyprexa) which made me zombielike. Olanzapine works as a marvel to get one out of psychosis, but after it, one has to stop it at once. My psychiatrist tells me it works well on some people, but I always answer:
“Show me these people! Who are they?”
I have a PhD in qualitative research, and thus, I need to see these people, I need to hear their stories, I need to believe in a narrative. The only example I have is me, and I didn’t have a good experience, and the couple of people I know who tried it as well currently live on benefits and don’t work. If that is a successful example, then sorry, that shouldn’t be the case.
One can lead a good life with a “mental illness” and I am the case. I lead a beautiful life, and I am determined to continue doing so, where I work almost full-time, where I write, where I learn languages, live in different countries, get a PhD, raise a son, fall in love and out, build amazing friendships, and live in general well. Yes, it is possible. Even with a diagnosis of “bipolar” above your head.
After olanzapine I was put on quetiapine (Seroquel), which turned out to be a marvel, but only on my own terms. It was my holy grail when I determined my own dose: 75 ml at night, as it treats insomnia, exactly what I actually suffer from, and not the “bipolar” disorder (what’s that, can someone explain?). I came to my “doctor” with my own dosage, and he had no choice but to accept it (he even advised me to just stop any medication entirely).
Thank god that back in the UK you still have a choice, you can determine your own treatment, but you need to know what you are doing and why, and definitely not just trust your psychiatrist (they don’t know what they are doing). The dose of Seroquel that they prescribe makes you disabled.
After that, I was put on lithium (and I also tried another mood stabilizer in between—in fact, I tried all their medication, and they should be paying me for my deep qualitative research from very much lived experience). My intuition was very fast in this respect, as immediately after I was put on lithium, and started to put on weight and felt zoomed out, a friend who worked as a psychiatric nurse took me to a park, and she told me: “We had a woman who has been on it for years. Her kidneys failed her, but she is still terrified to stop it. She weights a ton, and she is miserable, but doctors told her to take this stuff.” I reckon I stopped lithium on the very same day. Thanks, K.
After lithium, I tried many other different medications. It was back in the UK. After a good break of five years I ended up in another “psychosis” (a marvellous, amazing experience on my part) and was chilling in the hospital, after I had said I was Anne Frank in my past life and had to suffer a psychiatric nightmare for two months as a result.
The doctor there, an intelligent, amazing lady with a PhD, was determined to “heal me” and we tried the rest of what was left (of the psychiatric medications) until we reached the good one: aripiprazole (Abilify), but damn it: she didn’t research that it should be taken in the morning, and definitely not in the evening (it provokes insomnia, as this medication gives you energy) and I stopped it several months after starting it, as I was going straight into another “psychosis”—induced by psychiatric drugs this time. I was given it at night in the hospital. Unbelievable, but yes, it’s true: psychiatry harms you, if you let them do it to you. But quite often, we simply don’t have a choice.
I am back on aripiprazole though, after another episode of “psychosis.” They put me back on olanzapine, but I know the dangers. One can’t work on it and lead a meaningful life. They also offered me lithium. I wouldn’t be writing this article now if I was on it. I would be claiming benefits.
I don’t want to claim benefits, no. I will continue living my life as I want, where I work almost full-time, where I raise my beautiful son, where I build amazing friendships and where I live at more than hundred percent capacity, because this is how we should live our lives, I believe. I love life, I love it with all my might. It is a marvellous thing. It is amazing!
But I have a “nice” psychiatrist now who listens. I came to him with my demand for aripiprazole and he put me on it, in a smart way, where you temper, and don’t jump. And he did the research. Aripiprazole should be taken only in the morning, which is so obvious, and yet, most of them (the psychiatrists) don’t even care.
Surviving psychiatry is like surviving your biggest nightmare, but it is possible if you do your own research. Well, I hope so.
I do it, and I live a wonderful, marvellous life. It is amazing, my life. I love it! And I wish the same to you, if you were ever diagnosed with what they call as “mental illness.” In fact, I don’t believe that “mental illness” is what is presented to us as such.
“Mental illness,” for me, is a state of mind that is presented to us as normality, where kindness is no longer a virtue, but striving for status and wealth is, where we are reduced to quick fixes via the apps and the likes, where Big Brother is sold to us as a nice show to watch, where unusual, mystical experiences, when acquired without the help of psychedelics, are classified as “psychosis,” and where we judge other people because they are different from us.
The “mental illness,” for me, is when we are asleep in constant consumption, and where no one is asking any longer the question: but how is it possible that we still believe in the Bible (well, some of us) and God, when a person who says “it is all real, and I even talked with God,” is put on the scale of classification of a psychiatric disorder?
How is it possible, how?
Abilify gives you energy in the sense that it causes movement disorders where you are in pain or discomfort if you are not moving. All neuroleptics cause this in an estimated 25-75% of users. Serotonin and Benzo drugs also cause the movement diseases though at smaller rates.
Neuroleptics may temporary knock out psychosis (though there isn’t any evidence this is true because all the studies have the placebo group in drug withdrawal). The problem is that the drugs disable the mind, kill, and increase long term psychotic symptoms. They are a trap with zero long term benefits.
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I had the common adverse withdrawal effects of a “safe smoking cessation med,” actually a mind altering antidepressant, misdiagnosed as “bipolar,” and was subsequently drugged up for belief in God, too. The ELCA religion in America, and probably many other paternalistic religions, entered into a faustian deal with the “mental health” industry long ago, according to an ethical pastor of a different religion.
He called what happened to me, “the dirty little secret of the two original educated professions.” I was actually misdiagnosed and drugged up because my former ELCA pastor wanted to cover up the sexual assault of my very young child, for what I eventually learned was his Bohemian Grove attending, “cocaine dealing,” pedophile “soul mate.”
At least I was able to scare the school, where that pedophile was on the school board, into closing forever. Once the medical evidence of the child abuse was finally handed over, and that school closed forever, on of all days, 6.6.06. But I’ve since learned from my extensive research, that covering up child abuse is, indeed, the number one societal function of the “mental health” workers.
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/01/23/18820633.php?fbclid=IwAR2-cgZPcEvbz7yFqMuUwneIuaqGleGiOzackY4N2sPeVXolwmEga5iKxdo
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/
As one who still talks to God, and who is still moved by the Holy Spirit, but has been off all psych drugs for over eleven years now. I’m quite certain God does not want this “dirty little secret of the two original educated professions’,” systemic child abuse covering up, medical/religious “conspiracy” to continue.
And the “mental health” community needs to garner insight into the reality that it is NOT legal to drug up Christians in America, for belief in the Triune God. Nor is systemically covering up child abuse legal. Nor was it legal for an ELCA Lutheran psychologist to recently attempt to steal all my work and money, because my work “too truthfully” describes this “dirty little secret of the two original educated professions.” And because he thought there might be a market for a “Chicago Chagall.”
I agree with you, Ekaterina, psychiatrists in general have no idea what they are doing, and they have no idea what the adverse effects of their drugs are. Their drugs are neurotoxins. Based upon my research and experience, the “serious mental illnesses,” are iatrogenic illnesses, created with the psych drugs. And the psychiatrists’ entire DSM “bible” of stigmatizations is “invalid,” “unreliable,” and “bullshit.”
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It depends on what you mean by “works.” If you mean, “Can I manipulate my mental and physiological states by experimenting with mind-altering drugs,” then yes, they “work.” If you are asking can such drugs improve ones’ biological well being, balance brain chemicals that are theoretically “out of balance” (with no evidence, of course), or “heal” some sort of purported “Mental illness,” the answer is a resounding NO.
As Peter Breggin pointed out almost 20 years back, these drugs don’t fix anything. Every one of them acts by disrupting normal functioning of the brain (and other parts of the body). If someone likes the way this disruption makes him/her feel or think, that’s up to the user. But it’s past time to stop pretending that these drugs “work” in any sense of healing the body, or helping the body heal. They absolutely do not.
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And they never just disrupt the distress. They actually prevent a process of possible meaning making. The meanings that can make sense and come to closure.
It’s similar to disrupting grieving. I mean it really sucks if you are in deep grief for years, but the drugs do NOT deal with that process. If anything, the grieving is still going on, but it cannot be expressed. Like yelling under water.
Yes people experience crap. But psychiatry is a liar.
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Well said!
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Sam, that’s often precisely the point.
Except these days you don’t even have to express your distress. All you need is to fall for that marketing slogan “it’s good to talk” and you might find yourself in therapy – talking-and slowly being turned into a self absorbed solipsistic bore. Or maybe just fill in tic box form… Aaaaaahhhh!
In the past many probably escaped the grasp of psychiatry by not expressing their feelings to the wrong person in the wrong way at the wrong time. Of course they still didn’t escape whatever traumas, adversities or deprivation they suffered. Oh the injustice!
Take care.
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Whatuser,
well said.
thing is, no therapist had ever admitted to me that I talked to much about myself 🙂
talking is highly encouraged.
I want to see therapists offer outings. Like going out and knocking back a few beers with a game of pool.
A canoe trip.
Camping.
but at $150 bucks an hour, a week long camping trip would not be a frugal purchase.
I think it would be great if cops would show up at a needy call and take the person to an isolated cottage with fishing equipment. Loaded cupboards. Fresh bait.
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“Fishing therapy!” I love it!
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@Sam, I don’t neccessarily like fishing even if its less unwelcome than some other activities. Indeed their might be some tasty morsels at the end of such a trip.
@Steve, haven’t you noticed, well no doubt you have, that the mere act of attaching the word therapy can make almost any worthwhile activity a drudgery and ten times as expensive.! Indeed it may see previously free acts incurring a cost – but I suppose such is the cost of financialisation. Don’t encourage the bastards, people need an exit strategy out of psychiatry wherein they can make, cement and sustain genuine relationships.
Do you all recall the scene in one flew over the cuckoo’s nest wherein a group of ‘patients’ visit the local ice cream parlour. Many such potentially interesting, amusing, worthwhile events take place during psychiatric care but are sometimes stripped of meaning by the deadening effect of drugs and the artifical nature of the relationships. They can be quite welcome nonetheless. These sort of events are often the nearest to genuine socialising many victims of psychiatry have in their lives.
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I do agree. I get very upset sometimes when they take things like going for a walk and call it “Nature Therapy!” I call it, “Doing normal things that make you feel good about life.”
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“Do normal things that make you feel good about life” whoever would have thought – I’m going to suggest that to my therapist! But maybe go for a walk in the park first.
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You should charge him/her $100 an hour for the suggestion!
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We do run the risk of “therapizing” everything which cheapens it as we pay big bucks to do it. The other point of “therapizing” everything is that actually makes it “virtual” and “virtual” is what therapy is. So the conclusion, which I realize what is addressed in another article on this site is that “virtual therapy” is a “double redundancy.” We need to live life not “virtually” but in honest realness; which “psychiatry, etc.” wants to deny us. Thank you.
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Steve the suggestion to meet my therapist in the cafe of a local museum occurs. We might discuss our shared passion for music. I shall let you know if she picks up the tab!
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I couldn’t agree more with this statement!
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Ditto!
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“Medication” didn’t work for me.
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Then try pilsner as it works for almost everyone and has for hundreds of years.
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The truth is the they disrupt the brain and the body by putting them to sleep in some way. So, I guess, in a way that makes them a narcotic or kin to the narcotic. For years on these drugs, I was in and out of “zombie” hood until one day in the spring of 2013, I could not be awaken, not even when someone called my name or a telephone ringing loudly in my ear. I think my brain and body was saying “enough is enough” with these drugs. I am awake now! Oh, by the way another problem (side effect) with abilify is that a person can have trouble swallowing. This happened to me and I had to be taken off abilify. Of course, they put me back on risperdral. From what evil to another evil. Six years next May, 2021, completely drug-free! Yeah for me! Thank you.
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“…. is put on the scale of classification of a psychiatric disorder?”
Yes it’s a scale they use and they even push their hand on one side to tip it in their favor. I definitely know that people benefit from help. HONEST help. Psychiatry has drugs but the help has never been honest.
It’s the thing that keeps biting them in the ass.
It’s all society has now, or so we are taught… so they think PSYCH is the norm.
Ekatarina, have you been in Trieste Italy? Have you ever looked at their system?
The mind is not like the body, so there are no “targeted” mechanisms. Even after years of making pills for the body, there is no TARGET. Prednisone invades the whole body and brain, even though it was given for the big toe, or a chest inflammation. It hurts the heart, causes diabetes, “psychosis”, depression, and on and on.
EVERY drug causes damage and psych drugs are the worst.
But people need sleep, don’t they. And we sure do not need psych for the prescriptions NOR the made up diagnosis.
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My new friend has bravely shared another part of her true experience with us! I respect her for being willing to do this.
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‘I was diagnosed as bipolar at the age of 27 because I tend to experience what is classified as “psychosis,” a beautiful, incredible experience on my part, but let’s keep it medical and classify it as “bipolar 1.” ‘ Sometimes italics are just angel wings fluttering…
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Just to be clear:
“psychosis”
“bipolar”
With the italics used to describe what’s really a spiritual experience, a breaking away from accepted limitations to see things that are real but not even considered as possible, the words: “psychosis,” and “bipolar 1” with the italics, the italics look like angel wings. And, Ekaterina, with your picture, I noticed you’re standing holding your two hands rather like people do when they make a movement with their fingers to denote what they said is meant to be in italics. Perhaps again transforming the diagnosis of who you are supposed to be to something more real, and spiritual.
I hope you find a gentle wind to sail in, to glide in, or a gust to soar in, or a lull to gently hover in….
Whatever it is, you have those “”
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“Does it work” is absolutely the wrong question. It works to do exactly what it is meant to do — to keep dissidence under control. The real question is what should be the penalty for prescribing it, and whether or not the International Criminal Court should take this up.
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Some people when in psychosis tend towards mutilating or murdering or otherwise terrifying others and you consider that to be dissidence.
LOL as they say.
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Musta been a lotta psychosis in human history. Seems then that we have so much maiming and killing, just to be sure for it not to happen, we have to drug everyone. You know, the drugs work, and since we have no clue who will murder, the drugs could be like a vaccine.
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Much history is the history of mass psychosis and what happened next. That’s the good and the bad.
All the obvious examples but I think the most egregious are often the most telling.
For instance, the grieving widow I once encountered whose husband had his skull battered by a mob who were very upset about two things: their football team had lost 1-0; and that the woman’s then husband had a scarf on that vaguely matched the colours of the opposing football team.
Wrong place, wrong time but the widow’s husband didn’t have any interest in football. He was making his way home after work. He’d gone off his usual track to detour to a florist.
Fleeting psychosis doesn’t get much press.
We don’t mass drug to prevent psychosis because, as I’m sure you know already, so much depends on mass delusion. Without delusion and self-deception, everything would fall apart.
So to glue society together we agree on acceptable delusions and deceptions.
Psychosis is non-acceptable delusion and deception. It’s only ever a situational circumstantial phenomena.
But yes absolutely the determination of psychosis is arbitrary. There’s no escaping that. How could there be?
But on the other hand the woman that mistook her infant child for firewood should not be thought of as simply eccentric.
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Well there you go. Psychosis happens and so everyone with improper delusions should be drugged. But who knows when they become improper so just to be safe.
Just curious if all matters of killing then are due to improper delusions because medicine killed a ton of people. Oh wait, so did many others.
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The drugs work real well if you happen to own stock in the pharmaceutical enterprise concerned.
They don’t work to cure any ‘psychiatric condition’ but they do work on the brain sometimes by making you feel like a duvet has been stuffed in your head or otherwise disabling you.
Mostly though the seem to work to support the idea that you are undergoing a legitimate medical procedure.
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Yes agreed whatuser and Steve.
Hang the word therapy on it and it’s no longer that inviting.
People need to let go and have fun.
Pretty hard to have fun while sitting in a room, drawing with
your therapist.
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In actuality, in all humble reasonableness:
NOTHING WORKS
Absolutely nothing.
We humans cannot be resolved. We can’t be fixed. We’re utterly broken.
Anyone that claims to be fixed well… you’d do well to measure their sensitivities and so on… but really, realistically, what’s been fixed? What’s been sorted out?
There are some things that need shifting around, some energies need shifting, redirecting, refocusing but in no way is anyone fixable. You start out broken and you end up broken. There is no way out of that banal curse.
Do drugs work?
O yes absolutely and often they do wonders. Undeniable wonders.
It’s why they remain super super popular and will go on to be.
There is no right drug for you but there are drugs that are a pretty good fit for the moment so off ye go merrily with the rest of us to death.
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If what you hope to “fix” is already perfect, then nothing will “work.”
If a car has a flat tire, no amount of attention paid to its engine will “work.”
If a computer program, has a bug in it, no amount of yelling into your computer screen will “work.”
But if a being, as perfect as it is, want to get better at something, it can.
If you fix what is actually wrong with a car, it actually will run better.
If you locate and correct the program bug and reload it, the errors caused by that bug will disappear.
I hear despair here. It is understandable but it need not be your highest understanding of the truth. There are interventions that “work.” To my knowledge, psychiatry does not practice any of them. Psychiatry doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean that all is lost.
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If you hear despair then you are falsely attributing. I am not despairing and I’m not in despair. I certainly wasn’t in despair when I write it as I’d just completed a 107 mile bicycle ride and was feeling somewhat buzzed.
You missed my overall point. A 107 mile bicycle ride or a 10 hour binge on American lager (lol!) or an argybargy meditation on argybargyness or 6 months of popping pills fixes nothing but they all bring us that little bit closer to death.
My point is probably no more vivid than before I commented. Never mind. Happy Christmas.
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Sorry I misread your meaning. It happens. Hope you have a good holiday, too.
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It’s okay. I misread people too. We all do.
Just to clarify, as you never know what scoundrels are watching you and waiting to trip you up. I’m not on holiday, haven’t been on holiday. Holidays are banned in the UK. Unless you are in the Upper or Political classes. It was a 107 mile day ride. It’s a hobby I took up a while ago. Since lockdown my stamina has been steadily rising.
I think by Spring I’ll be doing 200 mile day rides.
All being good I’ll be realising my dream of hiking Yellowstone National Park, albeit riding it now I’ve knackered my Achilles.
Nothing works. But there are lots of things that can make you feel really good and give a sense of achievement.
Cycling the English Winter isn’t for everyone but for some of us it’s a wonderful natural high and a great way to meditate on life and death and encounter the ego-driven maniacs in their cars.
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That mileage really impresses me. 10X anything I ever do on my bicycle. Staying in good control over the body does tend to give one a “sense of achievement.”
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Ekaterina
Is it time for a very long vacation, get away from the bullshit, from the thirst for money, from the shame that we are being force to accept as normal?
I am headed there..
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I would not see what you are suggesting as a “vacation!”
But in the presence of criminals, it is very advisable to disconnect from them as much as possible.
Otherwise, any gain you make will prompt them to stomp down on you that much harder.
While you are “away” I hope you’ll read some really enlightening books and then pop back in now and then to tell us what they said.
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l_e_cox wrote: “That mileage really impresses me. 10X anything I ever do on my bicycle. Staying in good control over the body does tend to give one a “sense of achievement.”
Long-distance endurance cycling is an addiction. Make no bones about it. When I started out 12 months prior to UK’s first coronavirus lockdown I thought 100 miles in one day was an impossible goal. I got to 30 and felt so proud. Then I found the cycling community and was humbled.
Everyone has different reasons to push themselves physically, which also necessarily involves pushing yourself mentally. Your body strengthens and your mind does too. This isn’t for everyone but many people wonder what it is that is missing from their lives and end up misdirecting their energies and placing all their chips on a self-defeating addiction.
There have been blogs on here that don’t arouse much discussion or acknowledgement by people that have found the solace of endurance sport and adventuring as the answer to a gnawing pain that was slowly destroying them.
I think that more opportunities should exist in mental health systems to point people towards endurance and fitness pursuits. It won’t cure and in some ways may arrive at similar contentedness to popping pills.
But many people would do better to scale the mountain or hike the trail and so on, and look back on that, and experience that within themselves, as opposed to shortcutting with pill-pops and drug-induced accomplishments.
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My experience with Abilify for bipolar was interesting. I’d been on amitryptiline for depression and sodium valproate for hypomania for some years with cycling every one to three months. I’d tried a few other medications but all had problems. I also have chronic migraines and so need medications that work for them. Anyway, I ended up with something else that worked for the migraines, so my psychiatrist wanted me to try something else, and Abilify was the latest wonder drug. I got the talk they learn in training about how you can be better, you just have to give these medications a chance.
Anyway, tried Abilify. First night libido went through the roof. 3 orgasms in 2 hours, which is pretty good for a late fifties man and proves the warning is correct. Anyway reduced dose in half and everything fine. Then after a couple of months start needing more amitryptiline and libido is dropping off, plus I was feeling emotionally bland. Then no orgasms at all, and combination of both drugs was stuffing my heat tolerance. So stopped. Took me two years until I felt that my sexual functioning was normal. The one thing was that my moods were more stable but the price was too much.
I probably should do an article on all the treatments I’ve had.
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All of them (anti-psychotics) are bad. None of them is advised. Abilify is also very bad.
The most important is to keep balance and sleep, and for that some meds are probably recommended but not the anti-psychotics.
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Yes, anti-psychotics seem to be heavy-duty drugs for treating people with major psychoses. Otherwise they have too many problems. Psychiatrists seem to want to use drugs for prophylaxis, which really means that patients can feel awful for long periods just to avoid what may be minor problems.
Another point is that psychiatry has been using drugs with sexual side effects for a long time, but don’t seem to want to take that into consideration when evaluating treatments. Maybe this is because psychiatry of 50 years ago was mainly about patients who had severe problems and just keeping them sane was a success. These days the patients have less severe disease so other aspects of their quality of life is important.
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I think the main problem is also in doses they use.
Low dose of abilify is actually not bad and can help the patient to stay away from ‘problems’ for a long time. But it’s always about taking it back under your own control, and listening to your own body.
How they prescribe it (the psychiatrists) and usually ‘what’ makes the patients not being able to function normally in their daily lives.
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I will always see the main problem as their lack of a workable understanding of human experience. This then is often reinforced by not wanting to know, and the preference for using drugs as an “easy fix.”
As MDs, psychiatrists do about what other doctors do, although they violate their Hippocratic Oath much more thoroughly.
As healers psychiatrists are a total joke. And that’s what bothers me the most. The name of their profession means “psychic healer” basically. They should be true to that name, or get out!
The data is out there! Even a psych could probably learn how to deliver a Locational! If they don’t really want to heal souls, what the heck are they doing? Their excuses for their incompetence are all false, from my point of view. They could be honest and effective if they really wanted to be. Most of them really don’t want to be.
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What you said made me consider, the “psychic hotlines” I see advertised on tv, mostly after midnight on various cable outlets. “A Dollar for the first ten minutes, etc.” and they’ll “make up” something that sounds allegedly plausible. Another example is those morning horoscopes that used to be in the newspapers, but are now found online. You can even subscribe to such a service! Once, this was even before the big drug surge after Prozac, I had a therapist who literally told me that she had a revelation I would be involved in some aspect of hydrology. Well, I have been known to drink my share of lemonade, soft drinks, iced tea and Gatorade. Of course, that increased incredibly when they put me on Lithium and then added all the other drugs. Thank you.
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rebel, I guess every field has its charlatans.
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Doctors take their advice from drug companies, not patients. Which is strange, since the drugs do not have a magic target dose. And weird since every person’s metabolism or response is unique.
If I take hydromorphone, the “starting dose” for pain is 1 to 2 milligrams. For opioid “naive” or elderly, it suggests less to start. It says to take it every 4 hours. Lol it makes me laugh that everything is “every 4 hours”. Perhaps my body does best taking 1/2 milligram every two hours. Perhaps advil makes me feel better. Perhaps we need to try other painkillers. Perhaps I find the constipation factor “distressing” and NO thank you doctor :), that would not be a “psychological” reaction.
My point is, no two bodies are alike and with psych drugs, there is no “magic” dose. All drugs and their dosages should be up to the person taking them. And the result should lead to “gee, I feel better”. If not better, then what is the point.
If I do not like Chemo, it is my choice. In fact, I see no reason not to make up my own tolerable dose of Chemo LOL
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Well if one has no sexual urge, less chance of making babies so in a way, forced sterilization.
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Also, these drugs virtually take away the women’s menstrual cycle. I remember fellow participants in this drug processes in a party mood, when they would get a menstrual period. It was so rare, a woman of “child-bearing age” on these drugs might get one once every few years, if at all; but they never tell you that that’s a “side effect.” Huh? Thank you.
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When I took Abilify, not only was it very expensive, but, it began to close my throat to such an extent that I had to be taken off if it. I was then put back on Risperadal, another evil drug. But, I did not understand at the time, that closing off my throat would be endangering my life. My father had to explain it to me. It is not that there was/is anything wrong with my intelligence. It is that the drugs dull your brain so very much that they erode all one’s natural intelligence, common sense and cut into any memory from one’s education. For several years while on some drugs that I can not remember, I could not even sign my name. It was totally and completely unreadable and probably could not be used legally. Thank you.
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Aripiprazole 10 mg a day, combined with pracyclydine (has other names and not sure how to spell it) heals the effects of trauma of bipolar disorder and restores schizophrenia into a manageable beautiful state of mind.
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In clicking on your reference to this post, the discourse on coffee in the Netherlands was equally of importance. For at one point, time was spent trying to realize a Ph.D. through the University of Humanistics in Utrecht, but then 9/11 occurred and the stressors if not the nature of security began to shift the nature of travel if not my well being. With your orientation towards philosophy and quality, a reading of Pirsig’s book, Zen the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance might convey a way to true the wheel if not the the joy associated with the coffee. However, recently a vieweing of a documentary about sleep, https://www.kanopy.com/product/mysteries-sleep might be worth a viewing. The former director of the community mental health clinic would share the nature of the research showed part of the problems we face are related back to the coffee. To really sleep and rest well, when the circadian rhythm gets out of whack…. what more can be said, in the efforts to understand how and why the qualities of light in motion are reflected most in the senstive lives of people. How the communities think there is a need to work 24/7 is beyond my ability.
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It can hardly be considered coffee’s fault that our circadian rhythms are not respected. I’d view coffee as mostly an effect – an attempt by individuals whose circadian rhythms are PERFORCE disrupted by a society that does not respect them to do something to maintain their alertness in spite of the constant assault on their natural rhythms of sleep and lots of other things. This disrespect begins in the cradle (remember forced feeding schedules and intentional waking of babies who “slept too long” for their arbitrary schedules?) and continues through school (how many days were we all forced to “go to sleep on time” and get up at a ridiculous hour to spend a day of largely wasted time in a building we hated with people we were forced to associate with doing things that someone else decided were important?) and of course is brutally enforced in the workplace for most of us who have had to do a “job” to maintain survival for ourselves and our families.
Let’s not blame coffee for doing a job that our society has created for it! Remember the Rat Park experiment – rats DON’T prefer cocaine to food when their social and emotional needs are met!
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Steve: To approach the story from the Arts, the Dutch as linguistics and the cultural experience of having a coffee, the experienced as related in the story is more than the coffee, though the beverage is strong. If not an incredible culture that has realized a network of transportation that moves the public around rather well. To view the reference about sleep and understand one of the key researchers in the film was from the Netherlands, to even absorb the complexities of the research in trying to understand the waves being generated in and through a night of restful sleep is important. To have attempted to realize sleep in a mental hospital, where my being was working just as now in typing, though the monetization for said creation of knowledge has yet to occur. Not that the effort was not made directly, but realize a non-0rofit or for-profit, there are certain skills of ordering the effort with the hope the service or role meets the expectations of the funding sources. I would think the disrespect may begin even earlier than the cradle, perhaps more in relation to a greater force (a cosmology of knowing), that may or may not be inevitable. Is it inevitable that we have become more apart of the machine? To be objectified into a discourse that keeps our presence within tghe bounded discussions aligned with roles, or does one have access to the resources that lifts the cover to show the larger community, how difficult the coffee tasting in the hospital can be when compared to one experienced say in the coffee houses of Utrecht?
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Thanks for pointing out the subtleties of your comment! Your writing borders on the poetic!
I don’t think it is inevitable that we are required to disrespect our own instincts and rhythms. It seems to relate largely to having too many people for the space we have, and having too few people with too much power to direct others’ behavior for their convenience. And we all accept it at this point, or most of us. I think a lot of ‘mental illness’ comes from internalizing these expectations.
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Removed for moderation.
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Aripiprazole can be used (I feel good on 10 ml) only together with pracyclidine (it’s other name is Artane, 5 ml). Artane relaxes muscles and has an amazing effect on someone in a depressive mood. I really found cocktail for my schizophrenia/ bipolar disorder. I feel good and happy on it, while still enjoying my schizophrenia. I would benefit though from a good Scientologist and audit session, as well as Scientology’s rehabilitation retreat.
The only other thing I am missing is a good sleeping pill, capable of knocking me out to have undisturbed quiet, nice sleep. Once I find what it is as medication, I will let you know!
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Of course, alcohol feels good, too, and I used to enjoy marijuana before it started making me a little paranoid. I have no objection to people using whatever drugs work for them, but it’s sure not a sign of psychiatric drugs “working” to “treat mental disorders!”
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Ekaterina, I was re-reading your article. I respect what you have to say. I was also re-reading some of your posts in response to other posts. I believe that each person has the right to make their own choices about their life and about what steps one must take to adapt to its challenges, etc. However, when I re-read all that you have written (and, perhaps, you did not necessarily mean to make such statements) I feel as if you are either rationalizing these psychiatric drugs you still take or you might be tempting those of us for whom these drugs have caused so much damage. What I am trying to say is that on a site that questions very much the benefits and validity of using (or being prescribed these drugs) you seem to “applaud” and like I said, rationalize their usage. I don’t necessarily feel quite comfortable stating this but I don’t feel quite comfortable reading what you have written. I respect your life experiences, but, I am sorry, and I may have miss-read much what you have said, yet, I read a far greater acceptance and even promotion of these psychiatric drugs that I personally feel comfortable with… I can not think of any drug, legal or illegal, prescribed or not prescribed that is not it is own way bears some danger. And, after my experiences, psychiatric drugs might very well be the most dangerous of all. Please forgive me for saying what I have said; but, unfortunately this article and the other things you have posted give me extremely uncomfortable feelings. Thank you.
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I had the same reaction to Ektarina’s post, except your comment survived moderation. No one should EVER be promoting neurotoxins — not shrinks, not anyone else.
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Steve McCrea I think it is the fact that to make it in the modern world, we must disregard and “disrespect our own (natural) instincts and rhythms.” I think this is probably one of the main reasons that people are compelled to do everything from overeating to drinking (from coffee to alcohol, etc.) to worse, especially including the psych industry, its harmful, deadly drugs and therapies, etc. I remember from as early as my kindergarten, how upset I was that the whole world seemed to care less about when I wanted to eat, sleep, or even engage in beneficial behaviors. My kindergarten teacher was so upset that I only drank milk before naptime on Wednesdays. Well, that was chocolate milk day! Actually, from a very early age, we do try to impose society’s artificial rhythms. Eventually, the person revolts either subtly or not so subtly. At the time the person chooses to engage in behaviors that are not as beneficial. Of course, it depends on the person as to whether these not so beneficial behaviors are society approved or not. What is odd or maybe actually sad and tragic is that many who do behave in society approved behaviors end up as lab rats for the psych industry, etc. I think if there is one thing we can do to be anti-psychiatry it is to claim our natural instincts and rhythms and to no longer give them away. Thank you.
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I agree completely. School in its entirety was a total violation of any sense of safety or self-determination I had. I was in internal revolt for 13 years, but externally acted like things were OK, except for one or two incidents of acting out over the years. It is very damaging, and is only one of many ways in which we have to deny our intuitive sense of what is right in order to survive.
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I dis-agree completely!
For I wonder to the extent this site, is in reflection a universe of shared learning.
The intuition, the imagination is an incredible reality(s) to which we can realize just how discovery beyond self is a liberation of sorts. Your astute observation in the last line could be the launch pad for further justice actions. Be well, enjoy the day while orbiting along your path!
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