Editor’s note: I had encouraged Lydia Green to write about her experience as a medical advertising writer whose work involved promoting Risperdal, and on August 9 we published her piece, which triggered several angry comments from our readers. I then asked Lydia if she would be willing to address that anger in a follow-up blog, rather than respond in the comments section, as I think this is an important dialogue for all of us at Mad in America to hear. —Robert Whitaker
When my piece on Risperdal was published on Mad in America, I didn’t expect the flood of comments that followed—many of them painful, angry, and deeply personal. At first, it was hard not to feel defensive.
Some readers called me greedy and evil because of my work in pharma advertising. I understand why. I was part of the machine that marketed Risperdal, and yes, that means I was part of the problem. I helped tell the stories Pharma wanted the world to believe, and people were harmed by those stories—people I loved, people I never met, and maybe even people reading this now. That’s not something I say lightly.
But I would like to make one thing clear. Once I became aware of being a cog in the Pharma marketing wheel, I changed direction, realizing that I wanted to be a force for change. I write looking backwards, and if I knew then what I know now, things would have turned out differently.
Several commenters asked me to apologize for what I have done. Apologies are easy. I believe in making amends. For me, that has meant trading a lucrative career for one that often leaves me broke but aligned with my values. I rent out spare rooms, check my bank balance more often than my email, and have a personal relationship with Grocery Outlet.
As for those who are curious about my car—no, it’s not a luxury model. It’s fourteen years old, dented, and the front bumper is held in place with duct tape. When I drive over a bump, the body shop guys reattach the bumper with a push and shove. Meanwhile, my roommate drives a BMW.
I say all this because it made me realize I needed to share my whole story. This is a story about the doubts I carried for years, along with the career detours and failed exits. And the harsh realities unfolding in my own family.
Here’s the story.
My Two Worlds Collide
Just as my doubts about pharma advertising were beginning, the hoopla about a new generation of psychiatric drugs was underway. It was 1987/1988, the years that Prozac—the first blockbuster selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)—won FDA approval and shook up the medical world. TV, books, and news stories were extolling the “chemical imbalance” theory, even though it soon seemed questionable to me.
In 1987, my seventh year after graduating from pharmacy school and becoming a medical copywriter, I was helping out on an antidepressant account. I wasn’t the primary writer, so I wasn’t familiar with all the details of the marketing strategy. My clients said the drug was a breakthrough, and I believed it.
Until things started to spiral in my own family. Suddenly, I realized that the things we were telling doctors about antidepressants were rosier than they seemed.
My older brother Michael was a brilliant attorney—smart, funny, and charming. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 32, after two tours in Vietnam, he managed well for many years. With medication and therapy, he always seemed to find his footing. There were one or two hospitalizations, but each time he recovered and rebuilt his life.
But that year, things spiraled out of control. Hospital stays grew more frequent, and recoveries shorter. In twelve months, he spent almost as much time in the hospital as out. A few weeks before he died, he called and asked if he could move in. I said no—unaware of how serious things had become. Not long after, when we couldn’t reach him, the Los Angeles police did a welfare check.
Michael was dead, an empty pill bottle at his side. He had taken his life with the very antidepressants that were supposed to cure him. I had no idea antidepressants could be lethal in overdose. If they were so safe, how could this be?
I felt devastated—angry, horrified, and in disbelief. And with it came doubt, cracks in the polished story we were telling doctors.
My father also struggled with severe depression; he died a year before my brother. Medication and therapy didn’t seem to help. After a suicide attempt and entering a near catatonic depression, he lost his business and spent years rarely leaving the house. The psychiatrists told us his depression was “treatment resistant.” In the end, he was hospitalized and scheduled for ECT. Ten days later, he died from undiagnosed cancer.
It was also the year I started my 37-year journey of sobriety.
Cracks in the Story
In the years that followed, my doubts continued to grow. I didn’t want to be in pharma anymore. I applied to journalism school, hoping to change careers entirely. When I didn’t get in, I moved to Montana to work on a political campaign. Four years later, I was down to my last $200. I burned through my entire 401(K) chasing that dream.
I moved back to New York City. Overnight, I went from an $11 an hour job as a pharmacy technician at a VA hospital to $100,000 a year at a Madison Avenue ad agency. My main account was Risperdal.
In my 2020 TEDx Talk, I shared how Risperdal was the straw that broke the camel’s back—what I called my “night to remember.” My agency manager came to my office one night, fearful Janssen would pull their business from our agency if we couldn’t prove Risperdal didn’t cause obesity, diabetes, and enlarged breasts in men.
The next morning, I quit.
Trying to Leave Pharma Behind
I decided to try medical device advertising, only to discover that the industry was no better. So I decided to leave advertising.
I was lucky to land a job at a healthcare technology start-up—a company dedicated to improving medication safety by giving doctors access to mobile drug information. From 2000 to 2015, I worked with medical information specialists, professors, software engineers and government agencies in various communication roles, including Director of Corporate Communications. It was the first time I felt I was helping to fix a problem instead of fueling it.
I loved working at Epocrates. I collaborated with journalists, federal agencies, state Medicaid offices, pharmacy benefit managers, retail pharmacies, scientific publishers, medical educators, medical schools, and professional associations. It opened my eyes even wider.
I saw that greed reaches into every part of the healthcare system: medical education, policy, publishing, and research. No one seemed immune. Academic physicians making $350,000 called me on the phone asking for free premium software rather than pay a reasonable $79 subscription fee. Medical school professors—running clinical trials—naively hired large healthcare consulting firms to help with communications on NIH trials, only to get fleeced. And the company’s business model was based on delivering Pharma’s ad messages to doctors’ phones.
Healthcare, I realized, wasn’t about healing. It was about finding ways to extract money from the suffering of others.
Pharma People Are Nice—So Why Do They Do Harm?
If you met a pharmaceutical executive at a barbecue or church supper, they’d probably seem warm and likable. Yet the same person who would give you the shirt off their back will stretch the truth without regard for the public’s welfare.
Denial is a powerful force.
Most colleagues pushed back when I expressed my doubts about medical advertising, insisting our client’s claims were factual, rigorously reviewed, and accurate. Others seemed insulted, as if I was questioning their integrity.
Feeling uneasy, I kept searching for answers.
Reading Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society was an epiphany. Niebuhr wrote that well-intentioned individuals, once inside an organization, can behave in ways they would never consider as individuals. Later, hearing Harvard professor Max Bazerman speak at a conference on the corporate psychology of ethical dilemmas was another wake-up call. Bazerman explained how “ethical blind spots” lead people to act unethically even when they know better, because humans have an enormous capacity to rationalize bad behavior. He told us that this is why corporate compliance programs often fail.
Suddenly, I had a framework for what I’d been struggling to understand for years. My clients weren’t bad; they were just unaware. The harm wasn’t caused by personal evil, but by a system that put profit ahead of moral behavior and normalized the compromises needed to keep it going—a system I was still complicit in.
My anger and frustration now had a purpose—I would work for change.
Starting RxBalance
In 2014, I launched RxBalance when a Stanford professor invited me to collaborate on an NIH-funded study. She had noticed some of our work hanging in another professor’s cubicle.
Her study would explore whether ad-style messaging could make dry, technical information memorable—and actionable—for doctors and patients, competing with Pharma’s slick promotions.
Today, my goal is twofold: to demonstrate how advertising can promote evidence-based medicine and to expose the hidden sides of Pharma—things people rarely see.
Consider the FDA’s Form 2253 process. Officially, every new promotional piece must be submitted electronically to the division responsible for overseeing accuracy in drug marketing. For years, even I—an insider—believed that FDA experts carefully evaluated claims before doctors or patients ever saw a word.
Only recently did I learn the truth. Pharmaceutical companies submit up to 80,000 promotional pieces a year. The FDA requires it. However, with only 60 to 70 reviewers in the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion, most are never reviewed. They remain in the cloud—officially “filed,” but rarely examined.
From RxBalance’s beginning, I also drew a hard line: we would never take pharma money. That boundary isn’t easy, but it matters. You can’t promote rational drug use if you’re financially entangled with the very system you’re trying to question. Unfortunately, virtually every healthcare stakeholder—including patient advocacy groups, medical associations, and even the FDA—takes money from industry.
Anger Feels Good, Strategy Gets Results
Outrage at the pharmaceutical industry may feel satisfying, but outrage alone won’t change the system. Excessive use of medicines may look like a problem to you, but to the pharmaceutical industry, it’s a revenue stream.
Pharma doesn’t just have deep pockets. It has a strategy.
We need one too.
Pharma is deliberate, disciplined, relentless. It shapes opinion, bypasses regulations, and neutralizes anything in its way. My clients slipped past every hurdle and every safeguard—that’s what they do. You try to rein them in, and they find another way to bend the rules.
Pharma wants us tangled in the weeds—debating every data point, every statistic, every so-called finding—because that’s where they hold the upper hand. They have entire medical affairs departments of PharmDs and physicians whose full-time job is to churn out “evidence” that backs their story. Add to that their consultants, PR firms, and communication specialists, and they can shape the news, journals, and even medical education.
If we want to counter pharma’s influence on the “medical information pipeline,” we can’t just resist their claims. We need to offer better ways to understand and treat severe mental illness and its root causes—and back them with solid evidence showing they work as well as, or better than, medication.
Anger has its place. But it’s most powerful when you channel it into action.
What You Told Me
In the comments to my article in Mad in America, certain topics came up repeatedly: drug risks and the lack of informed consent, frustrations of doctors not listening to you, and the desire for alternatives to antipsychotics. I want to share my thoughts on these issues
The Illusion of Consent
Informed consent should mean that patients know what they’re agreeing to. But over time, it has devolved into paperwork: forms, signatures, and fine print. What was meant to be a safeguard has become a box-checking exercise that prioritizes protecting institutions over people.
Valid informed consent isn’t just handing over information. It means making sure that information is actually understood. And that’s not easy. When you’re in crisis, it can feel impossible to take in everything being thrown at you. That’s why patients, families, and caregivers need information that’s clear—so they can be well-informed and make the right decisions.
I saw this firsthand while working with medical school faculty on a project for heart patients who had received medical device implants. Doctors insisted they had explained the risks, but many patients were still misinformed—some only learning about serious complications after the fact.
Even more troubling, many overestimated the benefits of the device and didn’t understand the trade-offs or how it could impact their daily lives.
That gap—between what doctors say they told patients and what patients actually grasped shows just how fragile “consent” really is.
Being Heard
Doctors are trained to respond to data. If you want to get your points across, do your homework. Be confident, ask questions, and stand up for yourself or your family members. Trust your instincts and what you observe—the doctor isn’t there day to day, you are.
While Wikipedia, YouTube, and social media can be tempting shortcuts, most doctors won’t take them seriously—and you risk losing credibility fast. Trusted sources are a stronger way to make sure your voice is heard.
The good news is you don’t have to become a medical librarian to get there. Reliable resources outside of Mad in America include:
- MedlinePlus (National Library of Medicine) — plain-language information on drugs and treatments
https://medlineplus.gov/ - Google Scholar — access to the same studies your doctor reads
https://scholar.google.com/ - NIH Fact Sheets — evidence-based information on dietary supplements
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/list-all/ - NHS (UK National Health Service) — clear overviews of psychiatric conditions; compared with U.S. sources, it gives more attention to talking therapies and community care, not just medication
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/
NOTE: Some readers may wonder why I left the US National Institute of Mental Health off the list. While the NIMH offers decent information on general mental health topics, it has been criticized for its close ties to industry and for overstating the results of trials like STAR*D.
Beyond Medication: The Alternatives
There are proven models of care for severe mental illness that don’t center on medication, but most people never hear about them. And count me in—as a medical ad writer interested in psychiatry, I know little about anything beyond drug therapy.
This is why I was intrigued by the mention of Open Dialogue in the comments section. I was surprised to learn how much research supports it.
Open Dialogue demonstrates that treating someone with psychosis at home, rather than rushing to hospitalization, can lead to better outcomes. After five years of Open Dialogue treatment, a remarkable 81 percent of people had no remaining psychotic symptoms and 84 percent were back in full employment—that’s striking. Even more so because it doesn’t rely heavily on antipsychotics—only 33 percent had used them. That’s not wishful thinking; that’s data.
The problem is that doctors and the public mostly hear about drugs. During medical training onward, physicians are taught to see medication as the bedrock of treatment for mental illness. This entrenches a system where non-pharmacologic alternatives, no matter how strong their evidence, remain sidelined.
When a new drug is launched, pharmaceutical companies make sure it’s everywhere: mainstream news, magazines, medical conferences, and professional journals. But non-pharmacologic alternative treatments don’t get the airtime, the headlines, or the marketing push.
We need to make sure that the psychiatric community—especially residents entering practice—are exposed to alternative treatments.
Building a Movement for Change
The problems with consent, the struggle to be heard, and the lack of visibility for alternatives all point in the same direction: the current system will not change unless we organize and change it in ways the system can’t ignore. That’s why communities like Mad in America matter. They create space for truths most institutions won’t touch.
But truth-telling alone isn’t enough.
I believe that many psychiatrists feel conflicted about psychiatric medications and the biomedical model. Some, though, are hesitant, cautious, and reluctant to question the status quo. We need to reach out to them because, right now, pharma companies only fund those who represent their interests.
If we want real change, we have to be as deliberate as pharma. That means putting emotions in their place—not erasing them, but channeling them—so we can stay clear-eyed, conserve energy, and act with strategy.
We’ll never be able to outspend Pharma. But we can outmaneuver them—not by playing their game, but by changing it. Because in the end, the only power strong enough to counter their grip on psychiatry is an informed public that refuses to play by their rules—and starts making its own.
That’s the kind of power money can’t buy.
I’m sorry about your brother, my condolences. Everyone makes mistakes; no one is perfect.
The important thing is to recognize your mistakes, avoid repeating them, and learn from them. As far as I can see, you’ve acknowledged your mistakes and honestly described what happened here. Congratulations, and please continue this honesty.
Because… you can save hundreds of millions of people worldwide from the “genocide of psychiatry.” Possibly… psychiatry kills and maims millions of people worldwide every year. In other words, psychiatry commits a hidden genocide—as yet unnamed—every year. You could be one of those who say STOP to this hidden genocide of psychiatry.
***
Informed consent… ‘Informed consent’ in psychiatry is absurd. In order for informed consent to be valid in psychiatry, the following must first be accepted.
1- Psychiatry needs to accept that ‘mental illnesses’ are not in the brain, but in the person’s own soul.
2- It must acknowledge that psychiatric drugs do not cure mental illnesses, but merely numb healthy minds.
3- It must acknowledge the “permanent lethal harm” caused by psychiatric medications.
4- It must acknowledge that psychiatric medications maim and kill millions of people worldwide every year. (This includes billions of people harmed and killed over decades…)
5- And all of this must be explained to patients, their families, communities, the public, governments, and the media.
RESULT /CONCLUSION:
Psychiatry does not accept any of this. Or it does accept it but ignores it. Accepting this information would mean the end of psychiatry. Psychiatry’s raison d’être is psychiatric drugs containing toxic chemicals and other harmful psychiatric treatments.
A STORY:
When psychiatrists can’t treat their patients with psychiatric drugs, they often tell lies like this:
“Look, your illness is ‘treatment-resistant.’ So, let’s give electricity (electroshock) to his brain so that the psychiatric drugs can work properly. Then the psychiatric drugs will work.”
When they SHOCK, the healthy brain feels as if it has been raped, and the person calms down. The person says, “Oh, there’s a world!” The psychiatrist consoles his patient by saying, “See, psychiatric drugs are working.”
“This is actually a very scary thing.”
***
Psychiatric drugs are so dangerous that, knowing these facts, it makes no sense to offer “informed consent” to innocent people. These people need a mental health system that embraces care, concern, love, and compassion, not informed consent. Mental health systems must be completely transformed with “drug-free treatment methods.” The genocide committed by psychiatry every year must be stopped.
This article is truly interesting, thanks, Lydia Green. Best regards.
With my best wishes. 🙂 Yildirim E. (Researcher blog writer (Blogger))
Report comment
Thanks, Yildirim, for your comment. So many great points in this. A few days I came across the August article, I saw an interview with Rob Wipond about his book “Your Consent is Not Required” related to forced admittals to mental hospitals and forced drug treatments. Talk about a difficult topic. The interviewer mentioned that in fifty years, we will look at how the mental health system is a genocide. I think he even mentioned the Holocaust and genocide of native peoples.
Do you have any blog posts or articles that include estimates of how many people have been hurt or have died over the last 40 years or so? Something else I can reference?
With regard to your first numbered statement above, even if psychiatry realized that the problem is in the mind (since some probably don’t believe in the soul) — that abstract element — and not the concrete brain, that would be a huge help.
I recently relaunched my YouTube channel. One of the first segments I posted was on the relationship between abstract concepts (ego, mind, psyche) and the concrete physical things (brain, body). When the distress or issue originates in the abstract, treating the physical element is much less likely to be helpful. And much more likely to be harmful.
Report comment
Can you post your YouTube channel, Penni? I’d like to watch it.
Report comment
Hi Lori, Sorry it has taken me a couple of days to reply. Here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/@PenniKolpin
Here is the link to the first series that I posted after my relaunch earlier this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBHVZkfx4cc&list=PLqKizHlz7ppP1N2XIouLmorb_KmvYua1v
Segment 4 is the one about Concrete and Abstract Consierations.
Segment 6 on Ego Collapse and Segment 7 about what I call an “Experiencebase” might also be of interest.
Two years ago, Bob Whitaker was gracious in agreeing to be my first guest. We both had a fun time. I have joked since then that if all I ever do with this channel is capture Bob laughing on camera, I will have done a great thing. 🙂
Here’s that link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsE9Y9BLYPQ
And I almost forgot that on this video, I didn’t realize until about 8 minutes that I had Zoom set wrong so that focus was only on the speaker. I changed that so that the rest of the discussion shows both of us. Hope you find some material that is useful.
Report comment
https://x.com/connection6556/status/1966941300189786321
I posted your Robert Whitaker interview on X. I’ve seen many podcasts of him being interviewed—I liked yours the best. Thank you!
I subscribed and look forward to watching more!
Report comment
Wow, Lori, what a compliment! I don’t have an account on X, so thanks for sharing it. And if I pick up more people commenting and subscribing, I will have an idea why. (And if I get people criticizing what I am doing, I will know where that came from. 🙂 My nervous system can still get dysregulated, which though uncomfortable, is valuable because I end up analyzing why it has been triggered and how that is likely a part of me that is either responding to past trauma or senses a threat of some type and is letting me know about it — that ties in with the IFS — Internal Family System — stuff.)
From the channel, click the Playlists and look for “Conversations and Interviews.” At this point, I only have five of them — with a sixth lined up. I am SOOOO thankful for all five people who agreed to let me interview them!
I don’t know if you are familiar with the documentary “Crazywise.” I know the creator, Phil Borges, wrote at least one article for MIA. If you search on his name, it should be listed.
His work is VERY important for experiences like mine. Well worth a watch of that documentary. And he, also, was so kind in having a conversation with me.
In the documentary, one of the people he follows says toward the end (her name is Ekhaya) “No one told me this was a spiritual matter!” Almost at the end, Adam (who was the other main person followed in the film says, “Phil has helped me so much. Someone coming to me with an honest
curiosity about my situation instead of an opinion.”
That’s what more people need to realize — the value of actual curiosity about these types of journeys — rather than having a lousy approach based on the biomedical model shoved at them.
In the conversation with Phil, at one point, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av63-7hAQHU&t=1766s, he talks about how Adam’s mother was so afraid and worried — and how that didn’t help Adam. Phil states “Fear is the enemy of the process.”
If you watch it, you can see my reaction. When he said that, I thought, “Preach it, Phil!”
Report comment
If you ever want to interview a survivor I am always up for another interview. I’ve done 5 so far and I’ve been in a documentary. I also have a blog here for a year’s ago. Lots has changed since then. https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/01/can-barely-breathe/
Report comment
From my own experience—both as a former ad writer and someone who’s spent years digging into medical literature—finding this information would take time and focus. First, decide what “harm” you want to capture: death, ER visits, ER admissions, disability, or a specific side effect. For example, ER visit data is different from ER admissions, so pay attention to those details early—it’s easy to miss and frustrating to fix later. Breaking it down by forced versus voluntary treatment isn’t realistic; just work with what’s available.
A good place to start is Google Scholar, focusing on U.S. and British medical journals from the past five to ten years. Quickly scanning titles of all the studies helps you see what kinds of research get published and how data is collected. From there, you can create a spreadsheet of 10–20 solid articles and refine your criteria for inclusion. Make sure none of the co-authors are affiliated with pharmaceutical companies and that they’re credible, independent sources.
Many studies on drug harms lump all psychotropic drugs together, not just antipsychotics in schizophrenia. My advice is to work with what exists and not get stuck chasing the ideal. It’s almost always smarter to cite published studies than try to interpret raw data yourself.
Feel free to reach out if you’d like to continue this conversation—and by the way, I did reply to your RxBalance email.
Here is one of many articles:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3349287/pdf/fphar-03-00076.pdf
Report comment
Your comment made me stop and think, especially these points: “These people need a mental health system that embraces care, concern, love, and compassion… with drug-free treatment methods,” and “Psychiatry needs to accept that ‘mental illnesses’ are not in the brain but in the person’s soul, and that psychiatric drugs do not cure mental illness but numb healthy minds.”
You said this message needs to reach several audiences, and I agree. What would you recommend to be the primary audience—medical students, psychiatric residents, community mental health providers, primary care doctors, families, or policymakers? It might help to ask: Who has the most influence in shifting things toward a more spiritually centered approach versus the current biomedical model?
And if resources weren’t an issue, would you begin with changes to medical school or psychiatry residency curricula, community or ER physicians, or public media campaigns?
One idea I’ve thought about is framing a “medication-last” model instead of the “medication-first” approach that’s so common in U.S. medicine. Or do you feel there’s no role for medication at all?
Saying all psych meds are terrible would be a tough message to sell. Scroll through Reddit or Facebook, and you’ll see how deeply pharma’s messaging has sunk in—many people roday genuinely believe ADHD, depression, and most mental health struggles are purely brain chemistry problems. Undoing that narrative won’t happen overnight.
From my years in advertising, I’ve seen pharma succeed by being realistic about what can and can’t be changed in people’s thinking—and by meeting people where they are. We must do the same.
How would you begin to change this system and move it toward the vision you outlined?
Report comment
If psychiatry ever accepted that ‘mental illness is not in the brain but in the person’s soul, and that psychiatric drugs do not cure mental illness but numb healthy minds, psychiatry would be not be psychiatry.
Build a community that embraces people when they suffer with care, concern, love, & compassion, then no one will need a mental health system nor drug treatments. Psychiatry and the Mental Health System are not going anywhere and they will not & cannot change. Build something new & separate (real community) and like all businesses who loose most of its customers, it will go out of business.
Report comment
Very interesting idea, putting them out of business. One way is to get health insurance to cover alternatives to psychiatric meds and this is already happening, but still the person helping you on your path must have a credential and is part of the insurance network. There is a a community here or would you suggest something more defined like compassionate homes for people in crisis.
Report comment
I wasn’t talking about just psychiatry, I meant the entire industry, including the insurance industry. And I don’t mean social medicine either. Build communities that educate & support each other— parents, their children & the elderly. Education & support on nutrition, movement, nature, breath… Encourage healers to charge the patients directly on a sliding scale. That way they are not dictated to by insurance companies but can treat their patients as they see fit. And people can decide what kind of healer they want based on that healers reputation. Not which MD their insurance company approves of.
RESIST going to the Dr, as hard as that is, because right now they almost always make it worse.
Unless it’s an acute injury & you will die unless you go—don’t go!
And build your community instead. Then we will only need doctors for emergencies—broken bones, serious cuts, serious burns, heart attacks, strokes.
Chronic illness will wane. Psychiatric illness will wane.
It’s not that simple only because we cannot see our way out of the trap we have made. But if humans made it & we did! Humans can make something else.
Report comment
I was an anti-war activist before I became a psychiatric survivor. I have always felt it was important to speak to people in ways that they understand in order to be able to persuade them. Everyone is a potential ally.
I don’t feel like I lack insight into my mental illness but rather that I’m better positioned to know the actual motives of psychiatry than your typical health care professional. I base this on my years of activism, work experience and scholarship.
I’m currently facing either and or dialysis or kidney transplant which my primary care physician attributes to twenty plus years of lithium being prescribed to me. I don’t find this situation to be any sort of honest mistake as I was told that I had a chemical imbalance like diabetes. To further convince me to conform to their treatment they flattered me by telling me that great historian figures like Lincoln and Churchill were also bipolar.
I have titrated off a slew of psyche meds, save for around 1.5mg of Zyprexa. Thankfully my primary care physician writes this prescription so at least I don’t have to interact with psychiatrists.
I’m overall a happy person who can point to an impressive list of accomplishments-twenty-five years of teaching experience in a wide variety of fields. I’ve been married for thirty years, my son is pursuing a post-doctoral experience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and I won the nomination for Congress in West Virginia.
I personally feel that it would be an indignity to have to talk to a psychiatrist as part of my transplant protocol considering their indisputable role in causing the problem. I personally feel that I can make better headway with the actual medical professions who are part of my medical team.
Report comment
Sorry to read what you have been through and what you are still facing. But also congratulations on your journey to happiness with accomplishments.
Report comment
Chris,
What an amazing story. I read about your run for Congress in West Virginia. This line of yours in the comments resonates with me: “I have always felt it was important to speak to people to be able to persuade them. Everyone is a potential ally.”
That feels relevant also when talking about mental health policy.
I’d love your take on the Charlotte stabbing last week, where the young Ukrainian woman Iryna Zarutska was killed by a man with severe mental illness who was recently released from prison. He (and his family said)
On MIA, opposition to forced care makes sense because so many here have been harmed by meds and hospital stays. But outside this space, stories like that fuel fear and calls for tougher measures.
It’s a significant issue in my hometown as well—Redwood City has just opened a police substation downtown in response to safety concerns. A lot of people living on the streets here are clearly very mentally ill, often yelling or intimidating shoppers, and folks are nervous.
I’m not here to argue a side; I’m trying to gain a deeper understanding. Actually, I am from New York City, so I am street smart, but many residents here cannot handle being accosted by someone who appears deranged.
From your perspective—someone critical of psychiatry and interested in politics—what’s your take on this topic of forced treatment, and how do you balance the MIA community, those harmed by psychiatry, while also taking the public’s fear seriously?
Report comment
Well thank you for sharing your and your family’s story. Woah!
All of this is not new to me. I was in the social work trenches when all of this bubbled up. And from where and why?
I still have issues of the use of the phrases mental health and or mental illness. The brain plays a big role but other organs and trauma and environment and spirituality. So we all need to create a better term. As in the use of the word living room for parlor circa 1919.
There are just so many complicated layers abd oh my you have the in the trench experience on advertising.
Since you have achieved so parity congrats and how do the 12 step programs play into this. Old 12 steppers never thought medication except for physical illness was helpful. Then the waves in those who were somehow in the crisis systems of help and support and 12 step programs just finally fine whatever.
The concept of chronic illness also was turned upside down when separated into various categories supported by many times Pharma monies. So we had a chronic illness center and a team approach but that ended with all the diseases having their own group/ agency.
The life of Henrietta Lavks also plays a role in this discussion.
I hope we can all work together and stop the guts the harms abd other worse things. People don’t go into helping professions not to help the majority are concerned and many times their families like yours like mine have multiple issues of stress and crisis.
Report comment
Yes! I relied on 12 Step programs in my early years in the USA, after leaving my estranged family behind in Canada. I was glad to learn that I was not responsible for “curing” my parent’s alcoholism, nor for fixing the damage they left behind. So with permission to fail, I chose to try to help my youngest brother, born with intellectual and physical disabilities, to leave home finally at 24. I learned from Black America (whom I met and loved when I drove school busses in desegregation and sang in a Black Gospel Choir) – to accept life’s trials, not see sleepless nights as a mental health liability, but a “lovely time, where we sort out all those niggly little issues that come up in the daytime”. I don’t like sleepless nights, and work to minimize them, but if they come, I don’t see likely source of failure the next day, but a natural phenomenon, that I solve as best I can, they don’t last forever. Black families in early USA did not use medications or substances, they used sharing music as ways to see visible cooperation among each other. I loved that idea – I got tired of white academic and aristocratic words promising “care”, but ignoring struggles after mistakes. I learned that different cultures have different histories and forms of struggle, and i learned in drug free residential treatment programs that hearing each others stories is motivational for all, the story teller and listener who finally sees life from the storyteller’s view.
But those programs were taken over by pharmaceutical-tied professionals, and ended up almost extinct. When I left, I sought community support in 12 Step programs – but found the philosophy different, by a general agreement not to cause any upset, so they accepted the use of medication among participants. The whole industry ends up supporting ideas for isolated people, which fit better in the 50s, not in an evolved world, where we must go out and learn about others, not just feel better at home. I appreciate supports that are sustained by those who use or promote medication – but I do not get directional support from such “helpers” because they only focus on making the moment feel better, no help to try to learn what would be a good direction for someone, and help them start and navigate to get closer.
Report comment
Cassie, I liked your comment—appreciated the touch of stoicism that made me think of Epictetus. You’re right about the lack of real community. I’d also add that social media has serious harms, especially in a youth culture obsessed with likes, shares, and comments. More and more people are turning to spirituality—not religion, but things like designed to connect with one’s Higher Self, e.g., 12-step programs, meditation, Tai Chi, somatic therapies, Reiki, CBT, and other approaches. But these shouldn’t just be “alternatives” people find on their own. I’d love to see the medical community recommend them more widely.
What do you think it would take to make that shift?
Report comment
Agree! It takes those of us who have recovered and are recovering Spiritually to get ‘out there’ and lead by example. In AA, we say, ‘it’s attraction rather than promotion.’ When someone wants what I have… That’s what draws them in.
Report comment
“Doctors are trained to respond to data. If you want to get your points across, do your homework. Be confident, ask questions, and stand up for yourself or your family members.”
I agree, and this is how I helped a loved one avoid getting entangled in “the system,” in part due to a medication error issue. But the psychiatrists do get a bit embarrassed when you tell them your knowledge of the anticholinergic drugs is due to having a “bad fix” on a broken bone covered up with complex iatrogenesis.
“Trust your instincts and what you observe—the doctor isn’t there day to day, you are.”
Indeed, doctors who only meet people in 15 minute increments, and don’t listen to people, really know nothing at all about a person. That’s why my former psychiatrist literally declared my entire life to be “a credible fictional story” in his medical records.
Report comment
Though I don’t always find that doctors respond to data. Especially psychiatric doctors. It often takes some pretty assertive advocacy to get them to listen, and I’d say most people don’t necessarily have those skills or the high amount of courage needed to apply them against professional “resistance.”
Report comment
Well, for anyone reading this, I will say when you start talking about the anticholinergic drugs (instead of the “antidepressants” and/or “antipsychotics,” both of which are anticholinergic drugs).
The mainstream doctors and psychiatrists do tend to take notice … probably because they were all taught about anticholinergic toxidrome in med school. And I didn’t even have to be all that assertive when helping my loved one – I just spoke the truth in a language doctors understand. Albeit, I am confident in my medical research findings / knowledge.
Thank you, as always, Steve.
Report comment
Someone else— I always love your posts. I’d love it if you’d write an blog here on MIA!! Or have you? Plz lmk.
I think most antipsychotics are anticholinergic drugs. But I am not sure all antidepressants are also anticholinergic drugs. Can you provide your references for that assertion? And by antidepressants do you mean SSRIs? I think Paxil is but not sure the other SSRIs are. A lot of tricyclic antidepressants have anticholinergic effects.
I’m very curious as to where you’re learning this. I have been on many many psych drugs of every type, including the first generation psych drugs. My autonomic system is very damaged.
Even tho I’ve been psych drug free for 32 months.
(But I was heavily polydrugged for 38 years)
Report comment
Steve, I really agree with your statement: “It often takes some pretty assertive advocacy to get them to listen, and I’d say most people don’t necessarily have those skills.”
With a clear strategy and the right team, though, I think it’s possible. To me, ideally, you could also find physicians and psychiatrists from medical schools or academic medical centers to help build credibility.
our writers can create messaging specifically for physicians, combining evidence, emotion, and a clear call to action.
MIA community members also add something essential: the voices of patients and MIA has health care professionals who haven’t “drunk the Kool-Aid.” That mix of lived experience and expertise feels like exactly what’s needed to push for real change and funding.
Report comment
I have personally witnessed the malleability of naive students. It is like watching a person being brainwashed by a cult.
A hired a very smart, kind, caring college student, as a home health aide, as I am disabled by protracted withdrawal & ECT, who had also just begun a second job at a drug rehab, as a tech. At first he was appalled by my iatrogenic damage. And he told me he was anti-psychdrugs. But a year later, he was convinced it was imperative, for the patients at the drug rehab he was still working at, to be put on psychdrugs or they would languish in their addiction and die. He was so indoctrinated that, one day, he confronted me with his newfound knowledge. Out of the blue, he actually demanded I tell him what I would do if I was an addict & had a choice between dying at home alone from alcohol & [street] drugs & being treated at a rehab where they would give me psychiatric drugs. I said I’d choose neither, that I would do something different to help myself. He then said—“NO! That is not what I asked you! You have to decide between the options I gave you!” I was shocked at his fierce reaction. And put on the defensive.
So I told him (probably shouted at him) “I would rather stay home and die alone!”Then he told me that he felt I was ‘putting him down’ and he walked out in the middle of his work day at my home and I’ve never heard a word from him since.
This was a complete about face from the young man I originally hired. I can only imagine that he learned those attitudes & behavior from the training he received at that drug rehab.
It frightened me. It broke my heart. It really did.
Report comment
The people *with* lived experience are the ones with the *expertise.* Everyone else is dealing with what they “witness” in some way, but not the actual experience. That is part of why we have ended up in this mess. Models and approaches haven’t been developed with the real experts involved.
People with lived experience are often dismissed, and even oppressed, because their experiences are different from what has been taught. Those people just walk away. And from what I understand from the Harrow and Jobe data, some of the follow up that was done was finding people who walked away — and over time, they were doing better functionally with their lives. Not always, I am sure, but as a group.
Models and approaches need to be developed based on what people with lived experiences say helped them. That isn’t based on experimental design, that is based on more of an observational study approach. People with lived experience are the customer, they are the priority. They are the ones with the real knowledge of the processes and experience. It is certainly a difficult experience for everyone involved, but as I have come to say often, the people who make the journey are in the best position to describe the landscape — and what helped and what harmed. Keeping in mind that what helped one person may harm another and vice versa. That ties in with a statistical concept called “combinatorics” which goes to how to find a good match.
Experience ties in with Peter Levine’s work with SIBAM in the 1970s.
S – Sensation
I – Imagery
B – Behavior
A – Affect (emotion)
M – Meaning
When I first learned of that a few years ago, he pointed out that of the five elements, the only person who experiences all five is the person who is struggling. Other people only experience the behavior.
As Albert Einstein said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.”
And believe me, that experience gets really weird, but that’s doesn’t mean it isn’t valid and doesn’t have value.
Multiple books I read earlier this year describe experiences with non-ordinary states of consciousness (ie. “psychotic” experiences) as “ineffable” — “too great or extreme to be described in words.”
For me, the material from the 1960s and 1970s was or would have been the most helpful in healing from not just the initial ego collapse, but with the resulting trauma received from the very industry that is supposed to help people. When I *finally* found counselors who listened to me and didn’t try to project their model on me, that’s was when healing could take place. I made it through without the drugs and medication. And I would have made it through much sooner without the *additional* trauma after the initial stress breakdown.
Report comment
This would be quite a helpful project, organizing a knowledge base of alternatives to medications. Keeping it simple, you could start with identifying programs with guidance for responding to a acute psychotic episode and target it to people or families. If you had time and the available resources you design a searchable website organizing the content by state and zipcode. I mean a curated site not AI. Who knows even doctors might use it!
Report comment
I have found advocating for myself or family members difficult. There is much to remember with medical histiry. Our medical records are not ours and they should be. Time is squeezed and for me triggers from my own past sometimes crop up. I don’t know how Someone Else did it. Truly. Recording visits is one way. Having a professional advocate another if there really is such a thing. I have used the SOAP chart note to communicate
S Statement on physical state
I Observation what is seen
A What is going on in your eyes
P What is the plan.
With emotional crisis it can breve up quickly or sometimes a slow upward direction. Intentional Peer Support uses just let things go with the choice of the person. The huge problem is when in crisis sometimes who are so in a place of no trust that you can’t receive help and support. The other is our society does not have adequate supports available. 12 Steps are good if the group is good. Finding a home group is hard and exhausting. There are cancer support agencies that are wonderful. I wish mental health agencies would use their framework .
Boards of Trustees. I would think getting places that have boards and most nonprofits do another tactic and strategy. Two or three survivors on every board. Three because one wants to have collaborators. Just one is so problematic.
All sorts of ways to try to upend the normative system.
Report comment
I agree with you. First of all they have different schools of thought and each thinks theirs is right and they wrote books about it. For example, the guy that discovered the “alcoholism gene” has been trying to make his supplement the “gold standard” for many years even though his theory was debunked a month after he came up with it. Not once but twice.
One doc said he only believes studies done by him, one believed one study of the many I’ve shown him because it was conducted by a friend of his. One of them posted recently,
” A study found that most adults with overweight/obesity discontinued glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) therapy within one year.”
I said it could be due to cost or the many side effects they cause. He said,
“Some may have been due to side effects but I suspect some were afraid to not be ashamed of themselves”
And that’s who we’re dealing with.
Report comment
Lydia Green, thank you for sharing your story, and I admire you for leaving a lucrative career in the name of truth and integrity. You are an amazing person. I want to ask people who attack Lydia – What did you personally do to help medication victims? What did you personally sacrifice to help reveal the truth? Criticizing someone else and demanding apologies helps one to feel righteous, sure, but what we need to advance the movement represented by MIA is goodwill and unity, not finger-pointing. People make mistakes. Let the one without sin, the one who have never been wrong, accuse Lydia; everyone else can spend their time more productively correcting their own past mistakes and making up for their own bad actions.
Report comment
You’re right. I think Lydia Green is a wonderful person. Because she shared her story. She is an honest person for sharing her story.
I didn’t comment on Lydia Green’s first article, but I did read other people’s comments. There were criticisms. But there were also positive reviews. Everyone may have their own justification. We can’t know that. Criticism makes the people criticized stronger and more determined. It should not do the opposite – it should not cool them down.
I mentioned “mistakes” in response to criticism. Everyone can make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. We made mistakes too. Just like Lydia, we were unaware of what we “used to experience.” Mainstream psychiatry, pharmaceutical companies, and governments… have always deceived and deceived people. That’s why people were deceived and lost (or died) loved ones as a result.
For example, psychiatry caused chemical brain damage in my sister. Why? Because we were also deceived in the past. We were not informed.
Other millions of other people are being deceived by psychiatry. Mainstream psychiatry and the government are trying to inflict the same chemical brain damage on billions of people—just as they did on my brother.
***
And here’s the harsh truth.
Probably… the vast majority of people in mental health facilities today, such as ‘mental hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes, retirement homes, care homes, rehabilitation centers’, etc… are filled with people who have been subjected to permanent chemically induced brain damage (chemical lobotomies) by psychiatry. (I read a similar study in an article by Professor Peter Breggin, the conscience of psychiatry. He was right. Now, I’m conducting similar research. Regarding chemical lobotomy (chemical brain damage)…)
And probably… even now, hundreds of millions of people worldwide are subjected to chemical lobotomies induced by psychiatric drugs.
Probably… hundreds of thousands (perhaps tens of hundreds of millions) of people are get caught to these chemical lobotomies every year.
And again, probably… every year, hundreds of thousands (perhaps tens/hundreds of millions) of people are get caught from persistent and fatal physical illnesses — cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and so on.
And again, probably… every year, hundreds of thousands (perhaps tens/hundreds of millions) of people lose their lives — that is, are killed by psychiatry.
Therefore… Now is not the time to fight. It is time to unite and fight against the “hidden genocide” that psychiatry and pharmaceutical companies perpetrate every year.
Thanks. Best regards. 🙂 Y.E.
Report comment
Yulia, if you ever want to chat about ideas for overturning the psychiatric status quo, send me an email at [email protected]
Report comment
“I want to ask people who attack Lydia – What did you personally do to help medication victims? ”
That would be me since I basically called her a liar.
I’ve been helping Vietnam Veterans with hepatitis C since 2005. I helped them collect the evidence to prove that the instrument used to immunize them gave them hepatitis C. The jet gun they now own so they can prove their claims, I got it for them. I’ve been with them when they were hospitalized against their will or taken off meds cold turkey or died from liver cancer or suicide.
I, too, lost a 100K per year job…because I disobeyed a direct order from the HMO I worked for and helped a patient get a liver transplant. So I can tell you that it doesn’t take 30 years to decide to do the right thing.
What Lydia did were not mistakes. It was YEARS of writing things she KNEW were not true.
Report comment
Bravo to Lydia Green for her bravery in deciding to speak out at great personal cost. I’m deeply grateful for her tell-it-like-it-is essay, which doesn’t just expose the mess that passes for modern medicine—it points the way to change.
She carefully uncovered and dissected the machinery of psychiatric marketing and offered a solution: strategically informing the public about effective alternatives to psychiatric medications. That’s no easy task. I hope this outreach includes psychiatric residency programs, psychiatrists’ offices, and mental health clinics.
Apologies are a dime a dozen. Too few people bother to make amends—let alone publicly.
Hats off to Lydia Green.
Report comment
I disagree that “apologies are a dime a dozen.” At least not in my experiences.
Apologies are often part, and only part, of the effort to make amends. Often, apologies lead to healing. It breaks the relationship that one person feels dominant or expressed dominance over another person or people. It’s not about “righteousness” which was mentioned above, it’s about acknowledgement of experience to another human being.
From what I can tell, there are two main types of apologies — one of sympathy — “I’m sorry you are going through such a difficult experience.” That type of sorrow isn’t about active involvement in the source of pain that another person is feeling. It is an expression of support.
The other main type is acknowledging the harm and pain that a person’s actions caused another. “I’m sorry that I didn’t understand how my actions or beliefs (or whatever) harmed other people and I am sorry that brought you pain” or more simply “I’m sorry my ignorance or actions harmed you.” I find it fascinating that as human beings, we can’t do that very well.
I don’t think anyone expected Lydia to apologize for the whole system and the mess it has created. As I reread this article, I took the second paragraph to be an apology of sorts.
Being hopeful or requesting an apology is not an “attack” — criticisms are not attacks. I am thankful for Lydia’s articles. I have already shared the August 9 article to several people and told others about it. I have printed this one out and will be pulling out the key talking points and a couple of quotes to share as well.
Report comment
I never said or implied that being hopeful for or requesting apologies are an attack. Wanting one is natural.
I agree that sincere apologies are a part of making amends. But I stand by my statement that apologies are a dime a dozen—because too often, when someone says, “I’m sorry that I harmed you”, the person who was harmed is left holding the bag.
Apologies are easy compared to accountability—something Lydia has freely chosen to do at great personal cost. Not many people enough courage and integrity to do that publicly.
Report comment
Other people have used the word “attack” as a defensive response when talk about apologies.
Well, I am glad that you at least got some apologies. In my experiences, I have not. And it’s not about grinding someone into the dirt for apologizing. As a society, we are not prone to actual apologizing.
Yesterday after I scanned the first part of the article, I printed it out so that I could read through it later to highlight it. And there are any number of excellent parts to comment on.
About 25 minutes later, as I was walking through the grocery store, I was thinking about why people cannot apologize — especially when it becomes pretty obvious that another person has been harmed in the process — and yes, i was thinking of the article and discussion about apologizing.
I then noticed the song playing over the sound system was by Bryan Adams. I hadn’t heard it in a few years and couldn’t remember the title. Then the lyrics to the chorus played, “Please forgive me, I know not what I do.” Now the song in it’s entirely is about a love relationship — yet that part of the song was a nice touch of synchronicity.
Report comment
I wish you’d received at least one apology, Penni. Receiving one helps, but over time I’ve come to accept that I won’t receive all the ones I’d hoped for.
I’ve also wondered why apologies are rare, even when harm wasn’t intended. I think many people believe that not intending harm absolves them from responsibility, and no one enjoys feeling guilty.
Report comment
Penni, I’m not sure what I said that sounded righteous to you. I simply believe it’s right to show appreciation when someone chooses to do the right thing, as Lydia has chosen to do, at great personal cost.
Insisting on perfection from imperfect beings keeps people stuck in victimhood. Hoping for an apology often leads to disappointment, especially when it doesn’t come in the form you need. This is when letting go of wanting an apology starts making sense.
Making amends requires grace from both sides, not purity tests.
Report comment
Birdsong, in my initial response to you, I stated that the “righteousness” part was with regard to another comment above. So it was an attempt to deal with the concept of apology in general, not just your specific words.
I appreciate Lydia’s effort to expose the disastrous impact of advertising and marketing has had on the mental health system. I just find it interesting that the discussion around apologizing seems to suggest that people who could benefit from an apology (in general) have frequently been told to “get over it” and that they are “unreasonable” somehow for suggesting that an apology would help.
(For some reason, the MIA site is acting a bit strange in trying to submit this. So hopefully, it will be submitted correctly)
Report comment
Thanks, Penni.
I don’t believe in telling people to get over wanting an apology. Feeling the hurt is part of healing. But too much energy gets wasted on hoping for something that probably will never happen.
I think what Lydia is doing is worth a million apologies.
Report comment
Interesting. I tried to respond to this comment, but when I submitted it, the site said that what I was trying to submit was a duplicate. And yet a couple of hours later, I am not seeing what I tried to submit. So I will try a different version which will hopefully be posted.
In my initial response to you, I stated that the “righteousness” part was related to another comment above. So I was addressing the overall concept of apology, not your specific words.
Report comment
“.. people believe that not intending harm absolves them from responsibility, and no one enjoys feeling guilty”
I agree. I am not a big Bible person but this resonates with me:
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
It really matters not if my mental health professionals got paid to intentionally harm me OR I was horrifically brain and body damaged unintentionally by people just doing trying to do their job.
No matter how you look at it, the end result is iatrogenic harm that I have to live with. Or die with.
If I accidentally crash my car into another person, I still am held accountable for that. If I am a plumber, electrician or an accountant and my professional accidental mistake causes my client damages, I am still held accountable. Even if I followed all my professional guidelines, if the clients property is damaged or they loose money, it’s blamed on me. But somehow if I am a medical professional & I am doing my job according to standard practices and I maim or kill someone, I have absolutely zero accountability. None. But the patient is still disabled or still dead. I am under zero obligation to help, support, compensate for their losses or heal them. None. AND I get to keep the money I earned harming them!
Report comment
Lori, I think it’s because the medical system is run by Big Pharma & insurance companies.
Report comment
Making amends gives you a dopamine boost, apologizing doesn’t.
Report comment
Hi Birdsong – you are definitely a wise person. It takes a lot of work and growth to live one’s life according to this statement: “Insisting on perfection from imperfect beings keeps people stuck in victimhood. Hoping for an apology often leads to disappointment, especially when it doesn’t come in the form you need.”
Report comment
Not letting go of wanting an apology keeps the person who harmed you in the dominant position.
Wanting one is natural, but clinging to it keeps you emotionally tethered to the person who harmed you.
Report comment
Not necessarily. It also fuels the passion that is channeled to bring about the changes that Lydia mentioned in the article. I let go of expecting an apology decades ago, but being “attacked” in the comments for hoping for one (by other people who have commented, not you) is not appropriate either.
Report comment
You’re right. Wanting an apology can fuel passion but waiting for one leaves me frustrated. Asking for an apology from Lydia makes sense and it bugs me that people attacked others for doing that.
Report comment
Birdsong, totally agree that “waiting” for an apology is problematic — it’s frustrating, limiting, and leads often to shutting down. And as you mentioned, clinging to the expectation and hope of getting one is also problematic.
It was a few years after the mental breakdown / ego collapse in 1998 that I realized that due to the institutions involved — both in corporate America and the mental health system — I would never get closure, at least not any time soon. And I, of course, had to deal with that, mostly on my own. Does it bug me now? Not really. It bugs me that they — and other groups — got away with all the abuse, though, with no real repercussions.
Report comment
I don’t want an apology. I want them to pay for what they did. On this page she claims to be a pharmacist registered in the state of Montana…
https://www.emedevents.com/speaker-profile/lydia-green
But according to the Board of Pharmacy in Montana her license was terminated in 2014…and impersonating a pharmacist is illegal.
Report comment
Hi Sylvia, I do not claim to currently be a pharmacist as I retired in 2014 and your comment that I was terminated is incorrect. I was a pharmacist for many years and stopped paying the annual renewal fee to the state of Montana in 2014 when I finally left Epocrates and no longer needed my license. You night want to check out my bio on Mad In America or the About Page on our website at https://rxbalance.org/team/.
I never heard of the site you mention which says I am a pharmacist. It appears to be a website automatically pulling information from an outdated database and those sort of sites often cite inaccurate info.
Report comment
Thank you so much Lydia, not only for telling your story – once and then deeper – but for responding to criticism with dialogue and an invitation to continue it. Our communities are weaker when we believe that no one can change and past actions are pre-determinative for the rest of our lives. For Pharma to act differently, we need people in Pharma to act differently – and that means treating folks with both accountability and support in journeys of change. Your story inspires me about the possibilities for growth and community, and for navigating careers with more ethical dilemmas than we realized. May we all continue learning and growing towards our highest ideals.
Report comment
Susan, if you have ideas for changing the system, I’d really love to hear them—please share them here on the blog or email me anytime at [email protected]. We could even chat sometime if you’d like!
Report comment
“For Pharma to act differently, we need people in Pharma to act differently – and that means treating folks with both accountability and support in journeys of change”
I think what you’re pointing to is how revenge just breeds more revenge, or violence incites more violence, it never brings reconciliation.
Not unlike family feuds that span generations. But accountability plus rehabilitation (justice) brings hope for peace.
If all we do is offer damnation to those involved (Pharmacists, CEOs, mental health providers, politicians, journalists, advertising executives & advertising workers) the perpetrating of this very real and deadly harm then will never end. But if we offer a way to make amends and eventual forgiveness maybe there’s hope for change and healing.
I truly believe that. On the other hand, I also also truly believe it is not anyone’s place to demand or coerce or shame annother person into forgiving the person or people who harmed them or their loved ones! That’s not going to bring out justice or real change either. Another person (preferably one who shares your lived experience) can support a victim on that journey but forgiveness is a very personal & independent human right.
I’m on that path Lydia. But I am not at the finish line. However, I am much more inclined to forgive you and all the others who harmed me and my fellow human beings because you are making amends.
I will always welcome both apologies and amends. They do help!
I am appreciative of Lydia’s work after leaving pharma behind!! But a few cogs’ in the systems amends are no more magic bullets than the psych drugs are.
Report comment
Lydia does an excellent job of exposing the myth of informed consent—now reduced to a buzzword, a box-checking ritual designed to shield physicians from liability. That’s why expecting meaningful change from inside the industry is unrealistic.
It’s a sticky wicket: physicians are implicitly trained to ignore what patients say, regardless of whether they bring their own data. Legally, they’re bound to follow protocols fed by sources they’re taught to trust. It’s a David and Goliath battle—especially when doctors risk lawsuits for deviating from established guidelines.
The only force that can meaningfully shift the system is pressure from an informed public—people who’ve learned the true cost of ignoring those who tell a different story.
Report comment
Thanks, Lydia, for your article. I am still getting a lot of mileage out of the August article by sharing it and adding it into conversations related to the need for reform for the whole mental health system.
I haven’t read Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society, but will keep an eye out for it. A few days after reading the August article, I recalled a book by M. Scott Peck about “group evil.” But for the moment, I couldn’t remember the name of it.
The next day, I remembered it is called “People of the Lie.” I recalled that he had a chapter toward the back on how groups end up entangled in evil situations. His book was published in 1983. Chapter 6 addresses the massacre at MyLai in Vietnam in the late 1960s. What has happened with the mental health system is much less obvious than the events at MyLai, but your article reminded me of that book.
Later that day, I stopped in at a thrift store which has an entire wall of used book. There on the bottom shelf on one bookcase was “People of the Lie.” For a dollar I decided to pick it up. I noticed that the book next to it was “Parliament of Whores” which struck me a pretty funny given the role of “big money” in the corruption of so many things in our society.
Your bit about needing a strategy is, in my opinion, absolutely correct. I have long felt that we have WAY more information than we need to educate the general public and bring about change, but the key pieces of data are not organized well to reveal the bigger story and are not easily found to be able to refer to them easily or point other people to them. I am biased, though, I used to work as a knowledge engineer (yes, it’s a thing).
So thanks for another valuable article. I will be sharing it as much as possible — and not just over the next few days or so. These articles will be on my short list of tools to help educate the general public as to the need for reform within the mental health system.
What you describe is what I have come to call “predatory capitalism.” Fine, I get that some people might say that all capitalism is predatory. I don’t necessarily, but it does bring up the question of “What is responsible capitalism?” When people are predated upon, we should expect there to be problems overall. Just my opinion, of course.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I often describe the role of advertising with regard to mental health treatments. I point out the results of Open Dialogue and then ask, “When’s the last time you saw an ad for Open Dialogue on TV?” The answer, of course, is never.
Report comment
Sorry for adding yet another comment — I forgot to mention that in my opinion, what we are dealing with is a “crime against humanity.” So far in the comments, I haven’t seen that phrase used, though perhaps I missed it. It may not be as overtly obvious as other crimes in our collective history — genocide of native Americans, slavery, the Holocaust and such, but when you look at the devastation to a population of vulnerable people — people dealing with mental distress and even mental distress that is quite serious, it is still a collective crime against humanity.
Report comment
Penni, yes indeed, and imagine how nice it would be if we did see ads for Open Dialogue on TV or in psychiatry journals. If you have ideas for changing the system, I’d really love to hear them—please share them here on the blog or email me anytime at [email protected]. We could even talk.
Report comment
Glad we could set up a time to meet via zoom. I will email you the things we spoke about.
Report comment
I’m so very glad you wrote this second article! Brilliant idea, Mr Whitaker!
I read a lot of the comments from the 1st article. The vitriol was glaring! But I was not surprised nor do I blame anyone for being angry about the horrific iatrogenic harm caused by big pharma and big medicine. It is very righteous anger! I am angry too! And I express it! I think that’s healthy.
I also admire the fact that Lydia told the truth about her involvement in the iatrogenicy!
I think her second article shows she’s made ammends and then some! I for one, forgive her.
Sure I still wish she’d have ALSO she was sorry (in both articles).
Because that is would have meant something to me.
I personally would love to hear at least one pharma employee say it. And mean it.
And hearing Lydia say it—I’d know she would have meant it.
She has proven she regrets any involvement in the harm.
But I can rise above my need and I do forgive you Lydia.
Because I am human too. And I can say with assurance that I have no idea how I would have acted in your shoes. Would I have had the brave integrity? I simply do not know.
But I can honestly say this—
“If I had walked in Lydia Green’s shoes—I hope I would have walked away from my job & worked at great personal hardship to try to fix the problem just like Lydia has!”
My deepest thanks Lydia!
Report comment
I didn’t even think to ‘hate on you’ when I read your first article; we’re all victims and now survivors. The 12 Steps have changed my mind and my heart completely. I believe that anyone can be healed through this spiritual journey and then go on to support and help others to heal. In my opinion (and I have studied a lot), ‘psychiatric disorders’ are 99.99% unreconciled PTS. The Body Keeps Score…. Once the PTS is treated (EMDR done right is wonderful!), the mind and body heal and the Spirit emerges.
Report comment
Ginger, the psychiatric community could be recommending these non-pharmacological healing modalities. How do we make that happen? If you have ideas, post them here or email me at [email protected]—I’d love to hear also whether you’d focus on prioritizing and reach out first to the general public, patient advocacy groups, or healthcare professionals.
Report comment