We Need a Culture That Embraces Emotion Instead of Numbing It

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America is in a mental health crisis; but not the crisis you might think. The real problem isn’t in our minds, it’s in our medicine cabinets.

As a junior in high school, I fell into what many would consider a depression. An already timid introvert, I would stumble through the school day with my head down, just trying to make it through without bursting into tears. The activities I used to enjoy—baseball, watching sports, lunch with friends—didn’t excite me. I wasn’t actively suicidal, but the thought of death was inescapable. After a few weeks the anguish became unbearable and I did what many in my position would—I asked my parents to take me to see a doctor. My pediatrician posited that I was experiencing a depressive episode, and recommended I start seeing a therapist. I was open to the idea of therapy, but I expected, and even hoped, that he would prescribe me drugs. Yet the topic of antidepressants was never raised—an omission to which I unmetaphorically owe my life. Had they been offered, I would have welcomed psychiatric drugs with open arms.

The process of therapy was slow and painful at times, but I eventually began to see improvement in my mood and outlook. I was taught to embrace my sadness and anxiety, to treat them not as intruders but as parts of myself asking to be understood. I learned the triggers of such emotions, and tangentially, the triggers of happier emotions. Therapy was in essence a self-awakening; I grew to understand myself on a deeper level.

Unfortunately, my experience in the mental health system is an exception, not the rule. Consider my friend’s story, who I will refer to as Sal. Sal’s journey began in a similar place to my own, with the fog of sadness and anxiety slowly thickening within his pubescent mind. The parallels end there. When Sal went to his parents, he was met with a presumptive diagnosis. His mom mentioned that she also struggled with negative thoughts, and that they were a sign of depression, a chronic condition that ran in the family. It must have been passed down to Sal. Sal was taken to the family psychiatrist, who had been prescribing mom antidepressants for decades. Within 15 minutes, Sal was diagnosed with depression and given a bottle of SSRIs. Most damagingly, he was told that he had a chemical imbalance, a famed but never proven staple of psychiatric jargon since the release of Prozac in 1987. The doctors, and Sal’s own mother, blamed his sadness on a hereditary condition, essentially an innate problem with Sal’s brain chemistry. There was no cure; medication was the only viable treatment.

For the next two years these drugs became Sal’s reality. At the mercy of a chronic illness, Sal’s only hope was that the “medicine” would dampen the weight of his sadness so he could live a semi-normal life. It never did. Sal felt increasingly numb, not increasingly happier. Elements of life that used to bring joy now felt mundane. He was just going through the motions—robotic. His suicidal thoughts, a stalwart of his recent past, persisted. Then one day, one heavenly day, Sal stumbled upon a YouTube video. The creator, whose name Sal forgets, debunked the chemical imbalance myth. He preached self-determination, the antithesis of the subservience that had been drilled into Sal from a young age. Depression wasn’t a chronic condition, it was an episode spurred by life events. Sal began to realize that there was nothing inherently wrong with him. He could control his own outlook; his happiness wasn’t dictated by genetics. Midway through his freshman year of college, in a blaze of anger and bravery, Sal stopped his meds cold turkey. Refusing to cede power to an imaginary illness, Sal regained control of his life and hasn’t looked back since. He is a graduate of a top-15 university and now works in IT. Suicidal thoughts are a half-forgotten piece of the past.

Sal was sold a bill of lies by doctors and society. He was deceived into relegating all agency, effectively transferring control to his SSRIs. Sadly, Sal is one of millions of American youth who fall victim to psychiatric medication. 1 in 6 American children take such drugs; many remain on them for years with no improvement. And strikingly, more than 20% of children aged 12-17 have been diagnosed with at least one mental health condition—anxiety and depression the most common.

Worse yet, antidepressants often fail to do what they promise. For instance, a reanalysis of the landmark STAR*D trial found no subgroup of patients who meaningfully benefited from the drugs. In many studies, while there is a slight statistical edge over placebo overall, researchers have deemed it clinically insignificant.

If SSRIs don’t even make people better, why are they still our first line of defense against mental illness—especially when they are far from harmless? SSRIs can produce heavy numbing effects—emotions of all types are dulled; life becomes a bland, muted middle ground. These drugs also bring a host of side effects (insomnia, nausea, and sexual dysfunction among the most common) and withdrawal symptoms can make them difficult to stop.

We are failing our youth. Diagnosing teenagers with serious mental health problems is a death sentence. The label becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that strips away any sense of personal sovereignty. Imagine being told you were born with an incurable mental illness. You begin to view your life through the lens of depression; each new challenge is a confirmation of the diagnosis. At the exact moment in life when you’re figuring out who you might become, you’re handed a verdict of who you’ll always be. The diagnosis turns from a description to a destiny.

Psychiatric drugs are anti-human. They serve to suppress the very essence of humanity—emotion. The ability to feel—to laugh, to cry, to yell, to love—is the building block of the soul. It differentiates us from all other living beings. We are medicating away the most innate aspect of our existence.

Furthermore, medicating depression and anxiety does nothing to address their root cause. SSRIs clear away the smoke without putting out the flame. Thoughts and feelings are responses to life. Treating them as guides, much as I was taught in therapy, is an essential component of a fulfilling life. Antidepressants cover up the inputs that contribute to negative emotions by concealing their associated outputs. They numb the pain of problems that remain unsolved.

Our mental health system needs an overhaul. We need a culture that embraces emotion instead of hiding from it. Psychiatric medication should be used sparingly—as a last resort in tandem with additional treatment, with short-term use as the goal.

I created UnScripted, a movement focusing on youth education, to solve these problems. With the help of Dr. Marissa Witt-Doerring, a psychiatrist and advocate, UnScripted will educate children and their parents about the dangers of psychiatric medication and offer alternative solutions. On a broader level, we aim to return the self-agency that labels and diagnoses have stripped away by teaching the youth that emotions are a precious sign of humanity. The mental health care I received was a rare blessing; I want the next generation to have the same opportunity.

Nobody is broken. Nobody is powerless. Join us as we change the future of America, one freed mind at a time.

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Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

45 COMMENTS

  1. Marcus, I totally support your views, but strictly speaking, psychiatric drugs are not medications..This term should be reserved for substances used in treating conditions with a verified physical cause.
    Dr. Peter Breggin makes this important distinction in such works as “Toxic Psychiatry” and “Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry.” Manipulation of language is one of the tools used by mental health practitioners to promote the misleading biomedical narrative that emotional distress requires various kinds of medical intervention. Even well-meaning advocates of alternatives to the current system sometimes fall into this linguistic trap.

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    • Psychiatry’s medical legitimacy has already been unraveled / disproven. And the psychologist’s has, too.

      As one who has learned a psychologist, who I refused to hire, had illegally hacked into my computer and phone about seven years ago, and followed me around the internet for that time, like a complete psycho. And recently he has illegally deleted about 30,000 of my emails … many of which were emails I’d sent to myself, to record my research.

      I’m truly disgusted by the criminal direction the debunked psych industries have devolved into. But I am glad I shared most of my medical research findings, prior to MiA publishing my “You’re Going to Hear Me Roar” painting.

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  4. OH no. No no no. You almost had me until bringing up the Witt-Doerring name. You mean Marissa and Josef, two PSYCHIATRISTS who run an extremely expensive for-profit drug tapering clinic? You mean these two PSYCHIATRISTS who use their so-called expertise to extort suffering people out of thousands of dollars? You mean the Josef Witt-Doerring who thought Tucker Carlson was a good person to go talk to about drug harms?

    No, I don’t think so. This story should be about why we should avoid psychiatrists, not an ad for more of them.

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    • The Witt-Doerrings have integrity and compassion. They have dedicated their practices to spreading the word about the possible difficulties involved in discontinuing psychiatric drugs, as well as the dangers of using psychiatric drugs as first line treatment, a vital service in a field overrun with educated ignoramuses.

      I have no doubt they would charge less if it were financially feasible to do so, but health and malpractice insurance are exorbitantly expensive for physicians in private practice.

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      • If they had integrity and compassion, their youtube channel wouldn’t be full of clickbait and they wouldn’t talk to people like Tucker Carlson. Are you really defending psychiatrists right now? They just want more business.

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        • I am here to defend Tucker and people like him. He has shown that he is willing to talk to anybody and let them say what they think. I don’t know what’s wrong with that. Look at all the guests Joe Rogan has had! Is he also a “person like” Tucker?

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          • No. Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan are evil people who do not care about facts and truth. They promote racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia, bigotry, climate change denial, and anti-science conspiracy theories. Tucker Carlson is a Nazi. He’s willing to talk to anyone, alright, like Nick Fuentes, a proud Nazi incel who thinks women shouldn’t be allowed to vote and literally says “your body, my choice,” with a hearty little laugh.

            I do not want antipsychiatry to be discussed in the same breath by the same people who think gay people shouldn’t exist, and neither should anyone else. We deserve better than that, because I’m sincerely hoping we’re not Nazis.

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        • Josef Wit-Doerring and his wife do a tremendous job at the Taper Clinic. I have found Dr Josef’s YouTube channel immensely helpful, a tremendous resource to learn about the iatrogenic harm caused by psychiatric drugs as well as how to go about safely tapering off them. And all for free.

          I’m extremely cautious of medical professionals within any of the psy disciplines, however the Wit-Doerrings (and many of the guests Dr Josef has interviewed on his channel including Dr David Healy, Dr Mark Horowitz, Dr Joanna Moncrieff, Dr Anders Sorenson, Dr Nicole Lamberson etc) are doing ground breaking work & are helping many people who’ve been caught up in the maelstrom which is the mainstream psychiatric system.

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          • No. Again, anyone who would voluntarily go on Tucker Carlson the Nazi’s show to do an interview is not a person with compassion. They are not good people, they are trying to make a business out of psychiatry’s failings. If you think Tucker Carlson is worth defending, you either have clearly only heard a very curated sample of him, or you’re a Nazi.

            They’re just out for money. Any good they do is in spite of them being money-grubbing Nazi sympathizers, not because of it. There are a million and one other outlets they could have gone to for interviews but they picked one of the most popular modern Nazis and that alone should destroy their credibility and reputation.

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  5. Good to see a younger person taking on these issues. They go deeper than many imagine.
    That is to say, psychiatric influence in life on Earth shows up everywhere, not just in the “mental health” system. It shows up in education, academic research, law and politics, the broader field of Medicine, even religion.
    But we all have to start somewhere, and rescuing people from the “mental health” system is a laudable activity. You have teamed up with a psychiatrist, which is a red flag to me. But she is a specialist in tapering which is an important step for many.

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  7. Yep, indeed. I was prescribed antidepressants AND antipsychotics, the reason being.. I’ve always been bad at making friends, so in my teenage years I stopped trying, connecting felt impossible, and so my social skills were in the negative. What I needed was someone to tell me “it’s FINE to be awkward and cringe and panic at the thought of talking to another human, let’s start with saying hi to random cashiers once a day”. Not even to make friends, but just to not let the fear dictate what I do.
    Luckily I never took the pills, I even practiced hiding them in my mouth in case my parents checked, I had seen people on them, that zombified existence. No thanks. But I had no say in it.
    Nowadays I can talk to people, even get dates! (something -absolutely impossible- some years back). I’m still a social fuckup, but I take failure as experience instead of proof of how broken I am.

    In comparison, I have a friend that’s been on ssris for 5 years or so. I remember her from when I was completely closed off, it’s a small place. She liked to go out, hang out with friends, do stuff. She smiled, a lot. Now, it’s like she’s dimmed. She just exists, works and goes home to browse tiktok all day, wasting away. And even she knows she isn’t happy, she’s not stupid. But the pills let her avoid the anxiety, and not facing the anxiety lets her keep living a life she hates.

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  8. This article is fine, but nothing revolutionary for MIA. Perhaps the target audience is someone a bit newer here than I am.

    The author presents people’s experiences within the mental health system in a binary way: Either you went the therapy route, or you went the medication route. The implication being that those who went the medication route were never offered therapy, and thus wound up feeling as though they had no control or responsibility for their recovery outcomes. However, the reality is that there is so much crossover, and many of us who were harmed by psychiatric drugging did try therapy first and/or were continuing to go to therapy while on meds.

    As for the author’s perspective on therapy, I’m glad he had a good experience. But that is certainly not everyone’s experience. Therapy can do harm as well. It can also disempower, encourage emotional suppression, and make people feel “broken.”

    Also, I understand that maybe it wasn’t the main focus of the essay, but Sal’s story sounds a little too good to be true. So he stopped psychiatric drugs cold turkey and didn’t experience any withdrawals? And all it took was one youtube video to convince him? And if his depression was “spurred by life events,” as the author aptly notes, it makes me wonder what they were, and if/how Sal was able to work through them. Surely it wasn’t instantaneous as the author portrays it.

    Of course, different words mean different things to different people, but to me, the word “control” in the context of recovery — such as “He could control his own outlook,” and “Sal regained control” — has a connotation of suppression or domination through sheer willpower. In many ways, recovery is often about relinquishing control. Psychiatry (and therapy in my experience) is the one that teaches us our emotions are something to be “controlled.” Perhaps “agency” or “free will” would be a better word choice.

    I hope I don’t sound overly critical; I agree with much of what this article has to say. We absolutely DO need a culture that embraces emotion instead of numbing it!

    The author sounds very earnest, passionate & young. (Though I am close in age myself, I feel much older because I’ve been through a shitstorm.) I’m sure his ideas will develop & mature with experience. Best of luck to him!

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    • Therapists also frequently “recommend medication” for their clients, and in fact in some settings are essentially required to do so under certain circumstances. I’d estimate that the majority also use the DSM and apply a “deficit model” to their clients. A truly empowering therapist seems to me to be in the small minority these days. Most are part and parcel of the larger system of “label-and-drug” and can’t be counted on to “embrace emotion” any more than the mainstream psychiatrist seems to do.

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  9. There is much with which to agree in this article. There is some confusion about emotions. All through the article, the writer is asking us to think about what is said and even “embracing emotions” takes the kind of thinking that allows one to do that. In my practice, I always let the client know and understand my model of therapy. This initial appointment is free because I want to set the tone for trust and prepare the client for the journey of therapy and the possible outcomes. I do start with listening to the client’s pain (shown in their emotions). But therapy starts with finding out what ideas, thoughts, and philosophies the client has that results in the behaviors and emotions they have. The causes in those ideas must be addressed. Once the client understands those unhealthy thoughts, then we move to goals for changing to healthy thoughts. The unhealthy ideas must be replaced with healthy thinking. If they are not, then painful behaviors and emotions will continue. Obviously, my philosophies will impact the therapy and in the beginning the client deserves to know what those philosophies are. The process of therapy is in the hands of the client with the therapist guiding the process. It is a process of progress and regress because no one automatically changes the habits of their thinking. Yet, progress is possible and probable with a quality model of therapy. Different therapists will approach a model with different kinds of philosophy. So the client needs to know that before the journey begins. It is all right for a client to decide that a different philosophy is needed. A therapist with integrity will let the client know that it is all right to change to a different therapist.

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      • I have been very successful. I will admit that once I have explained my philosophy of therapy and its model, some clients have sought other therapy models with which I am okay. Share your thoughts on what important mental mechanisms you have in mind.

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        • The basic mechanism that I don’t see acknowledged by most therapeutic philosophies of these times is the one that hides or buries experiences (or memories) that are therapeutically important. Most workers call this area of the mind the “subconscious,” though there are other interpretations.
          These therapeutically important events must be dug out and confronted, and they can become very hidden. This work can be difficult for both the therapist and the patient, and so is shirked by many, even if they realize it needs to be done.
          Some people can accomplish this by sheer force of will, but that’s not everyone. And that’s the real reason therapists are needed. But I know only a few who speak of this and have found satisfactory methods for discovering and relieving these buried events.

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          • Psychotherapy, with its intrinsic power imbalance, stigmatizing labels, and unverifiable cult-like dogmas, is definitely not needed. Dr. Phillip S.’s tribulations with the mental health system in his country prove this point quite emphatically.
            Sincere empathy, mutual support, and shared insights can be found more readily in other contexts, such as a non-hierarchical group of peers with relevant lived experience. I for my part have seen more understanding on the MIA website than in the pretentious, jargon-filled speculations of psychoanalysts and similar credentialed “experts.”

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          • When you speak vaguely of “healers” and “workable technologies,” you are merely parroting fallacious medicalized language and once more conflating metaphor with reality
            Emotions and thoughts, being incorporeal, cannot be treated and cured by means of any form of technology except in a figurative sense, although charlatans such as purveyors of ECT and transcranial magnetic resonance devices would have the gullible public believe otherwise.
            I frankly don’t trust would-be professionals with supposedly good intentions who take upon themselves the role of expert interpreters of what is mentally sound and appropriate. Their claims rest on nothing but blind faith in unverifiable, conflicting hypotheses.

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          • I find your position extreme and uniformed, Joel. Thoughts ARE energy forms and can be manipulated by Spirit, to advantage when proper healing technologies are applied. I am NOT talking about electronic technologies, as some think when they hear the word “technology.”
            To push effective healers out of the picture due to some ideological dictate is not helpful.
            People need to heal. It is actually a nearly universal need at this point.

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    • Terry, your approach sounds like a warmed-over version of cognitive behavioral therapy, a suppressive technique that assumes that being emotionally upset is a sign of dysfunction within the client, not in their surroundings—and certainly NEVER in the “mental health” system itself that tells them their thoughts and ideas are “unhealthy”.

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      • Do you believe that thoughts and ideas are “unhealthy” if the client indicates that is where the “pain” and “suffering” is? The following is a definition of CBT: “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a structured, goal-oriented talk therapy that helps people identify and change negative thinking patterns and behaviors that worsen emotional difficulties, improving mood and function. By understanding the link between thoughts, feelings, and actions, CBT teaches skills to challenge unhelpful beliefs, develop coping strategies, and respond to challenges more effectively, proving effective for conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, and insomnia.” I am open to a discussion of how this is “professional gaslighting”. In this forum, is it helpful to label a therapy model in such negative terms?

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        • I have been a counselor in the past, and seen CBT touted as the be-all and end-all of counseling. To me it is just a technique, useful in some people’s situations, not at all or even destructive in others. I’ve also seen and heard it being badly abused, where the counselor essentially tells the CLIENT what their “unhealthy” thoughts are and what they should change their thoughts to in order to be “healthy.” This kind of approach without the slightest concern for where this person’s beliefs come from is to me actually quite harmful and I would say abusive, even if that’s not the intent. A lot of times, actually most of the time, the so-called “unhealthy beliefs” ARE coping strategies that have been quite essential for the survival of the client in the past, and can’t simply be dismissed as “unhealthy.” In fact, I had a lot more success helping people find the reason why what you are calling unhelpful beliefs actually served them well in the past, and validating their wisdom and courage in finding a way to survive what are usually very difficult circumstances. Only then is the client him/herself ready to decide if that is a behavior they want to keep or change, or simply employ less often or in more limited situations. So the idea that the counselor/therapist can somehow inform the client of what is “unhealthy” or “negative thinking patterns” and then tell them how to change them is very disempowering to the client. I can easily see how such behavior could lead someone to feel “gaslighted.”

          And of course, it is OK for anyone in this forum to label any therapy model in whatever terms they feel apply. There is no rule saying that a therapy model can’t be referred to in “negative terms.” Kinda sounds like the sort of thing a CBT-based therapist might suggest, though. Why don’t we all just have the right to view any therapy model in any way that seems right to us? Surely you can agree that everyone’s experience is valid from their own point of view?

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        • The reason why I call it professional gaslighting is because the entire premise of CBT is that your thoughts & feelings are out of alignment with reality & therefore need to be “corrected”. The literal definition of gaslighting is “causing someone to question or doubt their own perceptions, feelings, powers of reasoning, or sanity, often leading to dependency on the perpetrator over time.” It can include tactics such as psychological manipulation, denial, trivializing feelings, and blame-shifting.

          So let’s break it down: How is CBT a form of gaslighting? Well, first of all, by labeling a client “mentally ill” in the first place, you are causing them to doubt their own sanity. The “perpetrator” in this case is the therapist, and by telling the client not to trust their own thoughts, they render the client dependent on them (the therapist) to tell them (the client) what reality is. As a professional, licensed by the state, they get to be the authority on what reality is & isn’t, while you, the “mentally ill” client are deemed an inherently unreliable narrator or reality. Huge power imbalances like these are practically a set-up for abuse.

          You said CBT has been “…[proven] effective for conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD…” I would like to challenge your conception of these as “disorders.” There is no such thing as a brain-based “illness” such as depression, anxiety, or any other so-called “disorder.” If someone is feeling anxious or depressed, it’s most likely directly caused by things objectively going on in their life. To imply that their “depression” or “anxiety” “disorders” are simply a result of their own “maladaptive” thinking is both absurd & cruel, denying the objective reality of their external circumstances.

          Let me give some examples:
          – a LGBT+ teenager who is “depressed” because they are being bullied at school
          – a single mom who has “anxiety” because she’s working 3 jobs just to pay the bills, and never gets to spend time with her kids
          – a woman surviving domestic violence who has been labeled with “bipolar”

          Do you think these individuals are truly “mentally ill” & just need to change their thinking? Are their thoughts & feelings actually “maladaptive” or “unhealthy” or even “inaccurate”? Or are they a reflection of their current reality? Would it even be ethical to ask these individuals to change their thinking to better adapt to the abuse, rather than working to stop the abuse and/or help them escape? This applies to systemic issues as well– instead of working to end systemic oppression (e.g. homophobia, transphobia, class oppression, misogyny), we apply a “bootstraps mentality” of victim-blaming & hyper individualism, where individuals are blamed for their circumstances & told that their only obstacle is from within.

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          • Not only CBT, but all other schools of psychotherapy cannot serve as a valid paradigm for a uniform concept of reality, inasmuch as the broad spectrum of cultures over the wide span of history in different areas of the world vary greatly in their definition and use of this concept.
            Should an atheistic CBT practitioner in New York City, for example, have the right to dictate his/her views regarding “appropriate” thinking and behavior to a pagan in South Sudan? The very notion is absurd.
            That’s the core fallacy of all psychiatry and, apart from its misuse of medicalized metaphors, precisely why it cannot be regarded as a legitimate, universally applicable branch of science or medicine.

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  10. People are broken. People are powerless. Our social system needs an overhaul, beginning with an embrace of empathy and compassion. For every American success story, there’s untold tales by millions of ‘nobodies’ whose ‘failure’ to measure up to mad pursuit of money laying waste all other value is at the root of so much suffering, including all the casualties of big money madicine mistaken for health care. “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” (commonly attributed to J. Krishnamurti)

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    • The irony is that the truly broken people are the ones who appear to be in power.
      Most people would be more or less fine if they weren’t being constantly hounded by the ravings of the mentally unsound who seek to control us through media outlets and by other means. What I’m saying is that if the psychopaths could be brought under control, our social system would begin to “overhaul” itself. There are a lot of honest people out there who are only afraid to act because of all the guns that seem to be pointed at their heads.

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  11. Thank you all for your comments although I am utterly confused now, both personally and professionally. Lol. As a women who was falsely diagnosed with Bipolar 2 Disorder nearly 20 years ago, I currently take an SSRI and Lithium for the past two years after a significant bout of depression because it keeps me sane (or numb).

    Additionally, I just finished a graduate program for Clinical Mental Health Counseling. As such I am well acquainted with the clinical use of the DSM 5, as well as the necessary professional discourse surrounding evidence based approaches as well as strength based approaches so as not to pathologize clients but help them heal. As I begin to look for a job in this field, I wonder how to be of service to my clients in a compassionate way.

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