“Dad, You Were Right”: I Got Better When I Stopped Treatment

123
Through all the years that I was a mental patient, my parents were excellent advocates who constantly questioned what the docs were doing, even though my own faith in psychiatry was unwavering.... Amazingly, what cured me was not some type of “treatment,” but getting away from drugs and therapy.
lithium salts

Lithium: A Survivor’s Guide for Parents

55
When I was a young adult, I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and placed on lithium. I am 61 years old now, living on the edge of end-stage kidney disease. If I could undo everything, by all means, I would not have taken this drug. It is not safe for anyone at any age.
Opening Up: The Parenting Journey by Anne Peretz

Book Review: “Opening Up: The Parenting Journey”

4
This is a book about stories, urging families to recognize their own strengths and create new narratives on the path ahead.
A photo of a teddy bear being stepped on by a work boot

Getting A Diagnosis Meant That My Sister Never Had the Chance to Resolve Her...

24
My sister was told if she took medications everything would be fine. But everything was not fine, and the medications sent her down a path of no return.

A Nurse’s Nightmare: Child Nearly Dies from ADHD Drug

30
My hope and prayer is that this dramatic look at a negative effect of this class of drugs will help you understand that, in my professional assessment, their risks outweigh their benefits.
abused child

The Abused Children to Bipolar Pipeline

33
The mental health system traumatized me further. They were allies with my abusers to cover up and continue my abuse.
3D illustration of a bunch of red and white pills labeled "ADHD"

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 9: ADHD (Part Two)

7
Peter Gøtzsche discusses the results of the MTA study on ADHD drugs and the misleading statements textbooks make about ADHD treatment.

The Role of Love in Mental Health

21
The one core ingredient on which any recovery from emotional distress depends is the one that never makes an appearance in any medical handbook or psychiatric diagnostic manual—that is, love.

Adolescent Suicide and The Black Box Warning: STAT Gets It All Wrong

71
STAT recently published an opinion piece arguing that the black box warning on antidepressants has led to an increase in adolescent suicide. It is easily debunked, and reveals once again how our society is regularly misled about research findings related to psychiatric drugs. STAT has lent its good name to a false story that, unfortunately, will resonate loudly with the public.

Garbage in, Garbage out: The Newest Cochrane Meta-Analysis of Depression Pills in Children

32
In May 2021, Cochrane published a network meta-analysis of depression pills for children. The abstract is misleading and reads like drug company marketing.
independent teen

The Diseasing of Defiance

16
Is every defiant child a freedom fighter? Of course not. Disrupting your fourth grade class is not the same as embarking on the underground railway. But is oppositional defiant disorder a label meant to subjugate and to serve the needs of the authorities? Yes, absolutely.

The Worst Thing: How My Mother’s Death Pushed Me to Overcome OCD

5
The goal of creating a legacy for my mother required that I go beyond managing my symptoms to confronting my OCD at its roots. I had to fundamentally change my understanding of anxiety.

Problem-Solving Through Skills-Building: Motivating Kids to Change

3
Children can overcome all sorts of difficulties by learning specific behavioural or emotional skills with the help and support of their social network.

Hearing Voices Network Launches Family & Friends Support Group

4
One of the HVN's fundamental principles is that "the person having these experiences is in the best position to decide or discover what they mean" and thus each person must "not try to speak for" another. The challenge for a family group will likely be for members to move past speaking about our loved ones to find or imagine the space where we ourselves are liberated.

Listen to the Victims: Senate Holds Hearing on Guardianship

13
I have seen the exploitation wreaked by court-appointed guardians. It is up to us to use our voices for those who cannot speak out.

So Long, Pill Mill: A Letter to My Former Patients and Their Families

I love being a psych nurse practitioner, and I never want to feel that my only role is pushing pills. The private practice I started is my effort to move away from this dysfunctional system.
Teenagers Lifestyle Casual Culture Youth Style Concept

Good Damage: How Community-Led Healing Challenges the Campus Mental Health System

8
Being re-grounded in my community reminds me that mourning and love are inseparable, and that “nothing about us, is for us, without us.”
Young professional scientist man wearing white coat over isolated background looking unhappy and angry showing rejection and negative with thumbs down gesture. Bad expression.

Collateral Damage: The Negative Impact of Antidepressants on New Zealand Youth

1
Health and wellbeing in young people are trending down in New Zealand. Are antidepressants to blame?

Bearing False Witness: Childhood Psychiatry, Trauma, and Memory

28
Through journaling, I realized that my lifelong confusion surrounding my memories of traumatic events was the direct result of the psychiatric labels and drugs I swallowed alongside years of parental abuse.

Ken Burns’ “Hiding in Plain Sight…”: Candid Interviews, Canned Conclusions

15
I was hoping for more accurate representation of youth mental health challenges. What I saw instead was a glossy patchwork of mixed messages.
A photo of a woman holding her bandaged wrist

Why Do People Self-Harm, and How Can We Stop It?

30
The psychiatric treatments I underwent did nothing to help me come to terms with my troubled past. Self-harm did not serve me well either. We must re-learn what to expect from ourselves.
sister

“Floss on the Waves”: My Sister’s Journey

8
It takes a long time to recover from a psychotic episode, I understand now, and I wish someone had found a way, especially during those early years of her troubles, to give Rachel more space and time to find her own path to health.

Making Mental Health an Ongoing Priority:  A Patch Adams Approach

16
My brother’s sudden death and Mental Health Awareness Month spurred me to spend May making small, very personal efforts to both honor his memory and move the mental health conversation forward.
Close up photo of hands dripping water on a plant outside

To Promote Mental Health, We Must Teach It

49
When we are quick to pathologize suffering, yet do not provide the fundamentals for healthy living, it is inhumanity of the highest order.
voice hearers

The Voices My Daughter Hears

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The voices were extraordinary; in a way, they were like ghosts. I could not see them, but only divine them by the turmoil they stirred up in Annie. They were not polite house ghosts who knew when to leave; they were ne’er-do-wells she could not get rid of. They were tormentors and torturers, testing the limits of her sanity, blackmailing her into submission.