Instead of years of ineffective ‘help’ offered to those in distress, the sense espoused here is most welcome.
Thanks for posting this…slowly, slowly, the narrative is being eroded.
Maybe it’s time you educated yourself about our current political climate, and I don’t mean MSNBC.
As I get older, I’m less concerned about what other (talking strangers) think of me…I DO try to maintain my mostly good reputation, practice listening skills, and aim for kindness as a lodestone. But in my advanced age, I know a lot about myself, my strengths and weaknesses, my intuition tells me when to let loose and when to hold back. Yeah, honestly, I haven’t got to a place where (for example) I feel comfortable not wearing a bra I HATE WEARING A BRA! in certain situations…and while self-reflection is important, this obsessing about how one is perceived seems to me a part of this hyper-individualized atomization that is encouraged in this culture.
The fact is: nobody really thinks that hard about YOU! Having an opportunity to get to know someone who looks or acts different makes one realize we all have our burdens. Everyone is doing the best they can.
In the scheme of things, you really aren’t that important.
Just my take…
I just ran into the Zizek quote randomlly…and it seemed relavent to this ‘discussion’. I don’t know jack about philosophy…
All this self-absorption seems narcissistic to me…in a perfect world we all would be judged (ha, here’s another one from the ol’ jumbled brain vaults:) by the content of our character. Unfortunately, we live in this society where cultural norms have been established by Bernaisian advertising schemes. Brought to you by…capitalism. Our common enemy.
The first thing a human notices when encountering another human is what sex they are…I wished for years that I could just be seen as another ‘humanbeing’ and not just a meatsock. Now that I’m old, I’m just invisible. (Hey, maybe I should write an article about how unfair THAT is…)
Self acceptance, imnsho, comes from spending time *outside oneself*, involved with the world, where eventually you DO learn not to give a shit what other people think.
‘scuse the incoherence and clumsiness…my ‘device’ is a pos added to the fact my Internet connection unreliable. No sleep for several days inhibits good communication.
But yeah, Identity Politics keeps our eyes (& hearts and minds) off the ball…
Slavoj Zizek makes this point as well:
If I were to engage in paranoiac speculations, I would be much more inclined to say that the Politically Correct obsessive regulations (like the obligatory naming of different sexual identities, with legal measures taken if one violates them) are rather a Left-liberal plot to destroy any actual radical Left movement. Suffice it to recall the animosity against Bernie Sanders among some LGBT+ and feminist circles, whose members have no problems with big corporate bosses supporting them. The “cultural” focus of PC and #MeToo is, to put it in a simplified way, a desperate attempt to avoid the confrontation with actual economic and political problems, i.e., to locate women’s oppression and racism in their socio-economic context…Liberals will have to take note that there is a growing radical Left critique of PC, identity politics and #MeToo…
Your choice…yup.
What next on MiA? An article describing the oppression of cigarette smokers?
Same arguments apply…
Where is Dr K?
Autoimmune Hashimoto’s disease. An epidemic of it’s own.
No lithium taken: offered at one point while trying to find “the right combination” but I declined.
Me, too.
Stayed on the lowest possible dose, thinking what a good patient I was, and every time I brought up my concerns about Klonopin being ‘addictive’ I was told (over and over by different ‘providers’ over a ten year period that “it’s such a small dose and you don’t have an addictive…”yadayadayada”). And then there’s the part where none of my ‘health care providers’ knew what tolerance withdrawal was/akathisia when I was crawling out of my skin during one rather stressful Thanksgiving.
I’d like to thank Rebecca for her contribution. I’m copying this blog post and handing it to my nurse practitioner next time (the last time?) I see her. I’m dealing right now, at the moment, with a health care ‘provider’ who is NOT LISTENING to what my concerns are regarding my ongoing PAWS/ID symptoms and instead, lowered my thyroid supplement (Armour) by 30% because she seems to think that’s the source of all my discomfort. (Those TSH test results are so damn accurate /s)…and the whole HPA axis dysfunction that plays into all that. Yes, Dr. K, I’m reveling in my Hashimoto’s autoimmune issue and becoming ‘dependent’ on my Armour…I need MORE…cuz I’m an addict. O! And she recommended via the lab tech who called with the happy news, over the counter lithium!!!
What I would love to find is a functional medicine doc *that I can AFFORD* who could help me figure out what is going on with my adrenals…even the drug insert for Armour mentions fixing adrenal deficiency before addressing the Hashis. But straight medicine doesn’t “believe” in adrenal insufficiency. I know; huh??
I tell ya, ya get a real education sleuthing this shit out. And *everyone* needs to do it when dealing with ‘modern medicine.’
Yeah, WHY don’t the doctors know??? Hard for me to believe that doctors DO know…but then they go to great lengths to distance themselves from the damages they cause, cognitive dissonance and all.
In nursing school we had exactly one semester of pharmacology. So many drugs…so much ignorance.
Here we go with the victim blaming theme; and total ignorance regarding thyroid issues.
I’m not sure I have the energy to attemp a coherent rebuttal to “Dr.” K’s assertions here and my Internet device/connection tenuous…but a rebuttal is surely needed to this guy’s drivel.
Yes, thank you Sarah, very timely for me as well.
I hate it when I get out of ‘control’ with anxiety/fear. Your links are useful, and reinforce what I know to be true intellectually; emotionally I still have a ton of work to do.
Can anyone here tell me anything about “Brain Gym”? It’s incorporated into my local (free!) yoga class, and recently been introduced into the school system. I suspect it could be another tool in the ol’ chest.
Thanks again. Bookmarking this one!
Ding ding ding!
Perhaps he doesn’t want to acknowledge the damage he’s done prescribing those poisons calling themselves ‘medication’…
Just like all the other health care ‘professionals’ I’ve talked to regarding my iatrogenic damage…going on post all meds for 51 months now. Tell me, “Dr” , what do you know about gaba receptors, about their being ‘reabsorbed’ with the ongoing ‘therapy’ with the benzodiazepines, the assault from years of ‘trying to find the right combination’ for my alleged ‘bipolar’ (diagnosed at 46 years old…after antidepressants)…I’m wondering just how up on brain physiology the good doctor is…and all this ‘brain plasticity’ promotion…is that a REAL thing, or is it a trendy, pseudoscientific ‘ catch phrase…and then there’s KINDLING. Look it up, Lawrence…it’s happening to millions of us. Sorry I didn’t have a better option than to turn to psychiatry and drugs…with no counseling available to me at any time for my distress, unless of course I could pay the big bucks.
A lot of folks on the support websites say, “i wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy”…but I tell ya, when I’m not sleeping (again) night after night, year after year, I DO WISH it upon certain, select, “DOCTORS” who prescribed that shit to me, all the while telling me how I NEED it…for years at a time.
Lack of insight? Criminal damages? The loss of my once ‘gifted’ brain?
And then to have the denial about it all here on the pages of MiA…
Agreed.
Done with this guy.
Totes.
This piece is perfect, Sera.
Thank you.
Wow,
You know ‘us’ so well, Dr. K./s
Walk a mile in my shoes, and then tell me to what *I* should be doing with my life, eh?
How does this ‘conversation’ help anyone who found themselves in the MH system?
For who???
A good portion of the Israeli population has access to no such thing!
O, yes, there’s shame involved, but not (in this case) oldhead’s.
Long live BDS….Palestine endures.
Imperialism is ugly, wherever it manifests itself.
Lawrence
If “we” can keep people out of the system, GREAT,
but I don’t see where this mean-spirited Disability ShamingTM that goes on here is either productive or inspiring to those of us who ARE stuck in the system. What do you propose to do with those of us already harmed by psychiatry?
My BRAIN has been damaged by the “treatment” I received during a time of turmoil and loss…with NOWHERE else to turn. Fix THAT, and offer options for those in despair, or, as we see from this report from RW (whose book clued me in to why I received a bipolar diagnosis…it’s the drugs, stupid), a diagnosis that I can’t really escape from…impacting employment possibilities (my age doesn’t help, either) plus the litany of symptoms/impacts wrought by PAWS. Have any of you gone days and days without sleep, suffered from metabolic changes, cognitive deficits (some days I can’t understand a bloody thing I read), the depersonalisation, derealisation etc. for more than 4 years after d/c-ing the poisons (to fix my “brain chemistry”)? Huh? I am doing all I can in my small, threatened world to keep people I find myself around from falling into the “mental health” system…by being *available* to my friends, neighbors and family when distressed and vulnerable. Most people don’t even have time for a cup of tea with a friend anymore just trying to keep the bills paid. I have the luxury of my own TIME, which often feels a lot like hell…
Not sure why I now feel the need to justify myself to you bootstrap lovers out there (think structural poverty)…many people, especially trauma survivors, are finding it nigh impossible to survive in this poor-shaming, dog eat dog culture we find ourselves in. Keep watching MSM to reinforce you prejudices and the stories *you all* tell yourselves about poverty and psychiatric disability.
PSYCHIATRY disabled me with their drugs after I stumbled into it after a personal trauma.
Since I can’t afford a lawyer to sue the bastards, I can only hunker down with my paltry disability payment while clinging to the brain plasticity theory. After 50 months of hell, permanent damage is seeming likely…
As usual, all you opposed to anyone diagnosed SMI collecting SSDI/SSI really don’t have a clue.
And I’m more convinced than ever that people suck.
Pull up on yer bootstraps, slackers!
Thank you for bringing this to our, and to the world’s, attention.
We’re all capitalism’s guinea pigs.
It’s not just about the brain, either; the prevailing wisdom on the support sites (BenzoBuddies, Surviving Antidepressants) talk about changes also occurring in the HPA axis…I know I have adrenal issues/thyroid issues…
gaba receptors have been ‘reabsorbed’; gaba is used all over the human body
There’s some pretty technical stuff talked about over at BB, unfortunately, my comprehension levels keep me from grok-ing it fully.
It’s beyond ‘clearing’…it’s about the changes to structures in the brain, which for me, 48 months later, still have me severely impaired.
Gah.
hear hear!
It’s a topsy-turvy world we live in, eh?
The meaning of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ have absolutely switched places…
Huh?
“psychiatrists could also address the current drug epidemic.”
you mean the one they started?
It appears to me that psychiatrists have no clue about the drugs they prescribe to those who end up in the ‘MH’ system; they have no clue about the long term damages caused by their drugs, or any knowledge about how to safely wean people off them.
Please…
I guess in the end it comes down to this: Are you an ally? Or are you part of the problem?
I’m sorry you feel as if your concerns are not being heard, and I empathize with what sounds like ‘burnout’…the nuclear family seems to isolate people when it (sorry) “takes a village”.
I used to think my autistic brother was faking it.
He certainly never had to be responsible for much of anything when I was growing up, and the burden of his care fell disproportionately on me, the eldest daughter.
A thoughtful person would course-correct with feedback from the environment, but how often do ‘normal’ people do that?
It’s up to us to decide what we can deal with and what we can’t…the older I get the better I am at setting boundaries.
Many of us ended up in the MH system *because* of our SO/family members.
Why is THAT so hard to understand?
also
I know I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with someone if there was a marked lack of reciprocity…not beneficial for either of us ultimately, eh?
“normal adult burden”
Who gets to define this? What gifts might a person possess that aren’t valued in this society and are discounted (don’t make money)?
If no gifts are perceived (by the deciders), is that person then useless and thus, a burden?
And things are different now, how?
Thank you for taking these issues on, professionally, RightsRNotWrong.
And thank you for the clarification regarding what does and does not occur via AOT/Laura’s Law in California.
Pretty scary stuff coming at all of us from many different angles. Good work, also, Michael, for bringing this issue up–saw it in the news days ago and knew it had to get some air time here.
california resident/humanbeing
Yeah, just imagine what losing your kids to your abusive ex in a dirty, corrupt custody fight does.
And nope, still not ‘over’ it all these years later.
Justice is a lie, karma is a lie…and life isn’t fair. Get used to it.
Can we extrapolate then that Sylvain is swimming in ‘water’ he is oblivious to?
Thanks, uprising, for trying.
Working at Planned Parenthood for years taught me just how common molestation and rape were…and my own personal experiences (my mother was raped, my sister was raped, I’ve damn near been raped TOO MANY times), my circumscribed ambitions and activities…no, I would never want to be a man, but when I read essays like I did last week at another site basically saying that the way teenage girls dress ‘these days’ they are asking to be raped, it’s obvious how steeped in the patriarchy we all are. Rape isn’t about sex, it’s about *power over*. Power is a drug…
‘Tis~
And it’s worked so well in the past…for accomplishing nothing. O wait; the rich still manage to hold the reins. Huh.
OMG!
Lessig’s thesis: Trump is removed because he was helped by “Mother Russia” (!), Pence “should” resign since he got the same help, Ryan steps in. “If Ryan becomes president, he should do the right thing and choose Clinton for vice president. Then he should resign.” This is where we are. Poor Larry. Such a shame.
Lifted from the links portion of Naked Capitalism today.^^^
Look like the usual bunch of Goldman Sacks/Exxon/corporate slime bags as ever to me.
DO tell.
Doesn’t keep us from being part of the economic system tho, does it? Still have to pay the rent and buy groceries…
Thanks, OH.
This whole discussion is discouraging.
Eric Coates had some good ideas in comments from another blog post but can’t remember (thanks, psychiatry) which one.
My comment has been removed for not being helpful.
Can’t really see anything in this discussion that is.
Commodifying ‘caring’ is not the answer. Rebuilding relationships in one’s community, workplace, sharing burdens and tasks, sharing childcare/eldercare, having tea with your neighbor…being HUMAN with one another without selling pieces of ourselves off as ‘consumers’ is what is needed, imnsho. They mine our data, they use our bodies so we can house, clothe and feed ourselves, they dangles shiny toys incessantly in front of us so we always feel less than complete, they divide us by creating controversy (life is life and the rankings of who or what is important is imposed on us by hubristic humans and their flawed economic systems), our recreations are other directed and costly etc etc etc. The set-up of our lives is fraudulent. I am not an economic unit. Reciprocity and the reverence of sanctity of life in all it’s forms are what I try to strive for, admittedly not always successfully. Power-over structures are to be avoided…there are cultures who have practiced these ( e.g. the Zapatistias) living arrangements. You don’t hear about them largely due to their smallness in their ecological niches. What’s coming up for all of us in the coming years will teach the lesson (again) on how to live simply…if humans survive at all. Certainly we are losing much of the diversity of life on the planet as the steamroller of capitalism grinds everything in it’s path into dust.
Commodifying caring is creepy. Making money off someone else’s misery is wrong.
Caring for money; that’ll fix it.
Capitalism *is* the elephant in the room.
Not ‘crony’ capitalism.
The whole premise is not sustainable, and we’re living at the end of the road. The ‘resources’ are played out, more growth (capitalism) is killing us all.
Good essay, Will, but I don’t’ think Lessig has any answers. He’s a player, too.
Yep.
Great essay, Kalina.
Shared it with a local paper in a community that is hellbent on opening an inpatient psych facility to spare them the taxpayer expense of shipping folks in distress outta there. O, and to relieve law enforcement from having to deal with ‘those people’. It’s frightening for me to see that folks really don’t want a ‘solution’–they just want to not have to deal with the ‘homeless’ and the marginalized who act out.
Moar grof~~until we kill everything on the planet…for money.
Capitalism. On a finite planet. With finite ‘resources’.
Nice, insightful discussion.
Thanks for posting!
Lots of good stuff here, Eric.
I agree with John.
Spread ’em.
Enjoy your legal cocaine.
Duh
GREAT RANT
Thanks 😀
I’m GLAD GLAD GLAD they’re talking about pills pills pills!
Blah blah blah blah….
Indeed!
My concern with this article, Monica, is that it seems to support what the federal government has been claiming for decades.
I’m with you about legalization of all drugs…and I never meant to imply that pot cannot be a ‘bad trip’ for some folks. The comments inspired by this article are frightening to me…and seem to have an agenda other than just ‘warning’ folks of the possible dangers from using cannabis products. I also think psych/pharma drugs, which are legal, cause way more damage to unsuspecting and trusting ‘consumers’ than pot ever did.
I’m also reacting to my one experience in the county ‘crisis’ unit after a brutal separation from my abusive husband. I was monitored closely for ‘marijuana’ use when out in the world fulfilling my only part-time job at the time. The staff couldn’t understand why I would drive a half hour to do this job if it didn’t involve my injesting marijuana somehow. Except I wasn’t. I was keeping with a routine that gave me a modicum of meaning while in a state of chaos.
OK, then.
Guess that’s why the federal government keeps it listed as a class one drug.
Guess all those people serving time in for profit prisons for marijuana offenses is justified. It’s a dangerous drug.
I see the light now.
I call bullshit.
I have been around pot smokers my entire adult life. Some people react badly, sure. I know people who don’t do marijuana because they have had negative experiences (mostly anxiety/paranoia). But ‘mania/psychosis’? I suggest there were additional drugs in play.
Again, as I stated above, I lived in an area whose economy revolved around marijuana. In my non-scientific, personal opinion, I saw FAR MORE damage from alcohol and methamphetamine than I ever did pot.
Pot is smoked by *all kinds* of people, not just bums and deadbeats. Humans have been altering their consciousness for millennia! Herbs and plants have been used in rituals and ceremony for eons! Pharmaceuticals cause far more damage than pot, imo.
Those who go on to other recreational drugs and become addicted have more going on in their social milieu that predisposes them to escape their pain with drugs. *gateway drug* HOW QUAINT!
Who funds this author? Who funds these naysayers? Who is threatened by legalization? Cui bono?
The history of the criminalization of marijuana is an interesting one; it has everything to do with threatened industries and not much to do with ‘protecting’ the public.
If I wasn’t feeling so impaired after my years of psych meds, I’d give out some links, but in my world all this is common knowledge.
You new commenters; where did you come from and who do you work for???
It’s Reefer Madness all over again!
WOW people.
“Sadly, the cannabidiol (CBD) concentrations in currently available marijuana have remained the same or decreased.”
Maybe in *your* neighborhood, but as someone who has lived in an area almost wholly supported by the pot industry, this statement is bunk. Lots of growers are specializing in CBD strains; it’s all the rage.
This author needs to get out more.
Dr. K
I wish I could recall where I found the link, somewhere on this site tho. It was an article by a fellow ‘mental health’ professional, and you stated in the comments something to the effect that forced treatment was sometimes necessary.
Have you revised your views?
My brain is still not up to par after a slow taper from long term prescribed Klonopin, but I’m pretty sure I read that comment/sentiment by you somewhere. I’m interested in getting to know you, and your views on forced treatment would be welcome as part of my personal evaluation. I’m sure many of us who populate the MiA site would be interested as well.
Dr. K support forced treatment; maybe you could talk about *that*.
Kristina
Heartbreaking, with echoes of my own experience but somehow managing to escape the suicide. The doubling down on the ‘medication’ bit seems to be the protocol–where do they get such outlandish advice? The drug reps?
My mission in life at this point is to educate as many as possible about these horrible drugs. I grieve for all the losses incurred as a result of the profit motive. Isn’t it funny what is considered to be ‘normal’ (profits more important than life)?
But it’s not the CORRECT term for what’s happened to us! If there’s ever to be any sort of support from ‘the medical community’, it needs to be recognized and not blurred with a whole ‘nother phenomena. ‘Detox’ clinics do not work for those of us who have become dependent on psych meds, and that is generally all that’s available to us when we decide to get off our prescribed ‘medications’.
I can tell you’re trying and I appreciate that about you.
Sorry if I was abrupt. For kicks sometime, you should take a gander at BenzoBuddies or Surviving Antidepressants.
I have never, ever, had the urge to take any benzo after finally ending my taper. I don’t think many of us with PAWS do. I tried NA for support earlier in my process and I found it to be not helpful: I am not an addict, and I won’t ever confess to being one. It isn’t about stigma, it’s about the language we use, and the terms are important when it comes to helping those with ID from benzo use.
Eat your GMO/Round-upTM factory farmed watered with fracking well water food, and shaddup! It’s GOOD for ya!
Did you know that commercial wheat is sprayed after harvest with Round-up as a desiccant? Yummmmm! Did you know that the wheat commercially grown these days has 4x the number of genes than what our ancestors cultivated? Gluten sensitivity and celiac disease are two different things…
Look it up.
I went thru it and lived.
No drugs…I just white knuckled it. It does ease off after a period of time (for me about 3 months). I DID get some acupuncture done, and that seemed to help a bit with the sleep, but eventually I had to learn some self-soothing techniques: meditation, taking one moment at a time, distraction, exercise as tolerated-and getting outside. There’s lots of support online i.e. “Surviving Antidepressants” and “BenzoBuddies” and others. You are stronger than you think! It IS hell. And for me it continues to be hellish when waves of symptoms hit, but there have been windows of time when I almost feel normal, and that keeps me going. All of it unpredictable with no time-frame.
Coming off psych drugs is not for the faint of heart. It’s your choice, it’s your body. I just wanted my brain back and not be a slave to BigPharmaTM. You also might want to check out Robert Whitaker’s “Anatomy of an Epidemic”…I stumbled on a review of it in the NYRB, and the lightbulb went on; my whole experience with psychiatry there on the pages.
Good luck to you.
WTF *is* “Mental Health”??? Keeping the term around will always imply that there are “EXPERTS” who know what’s ‘healthy’ and what’s not.
What’s annoying about the ‘think positive’ thing is this: it DENIES the room for discussion about what’s going on with a person. It cuts off communication. The message really is, “SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY”.
Fuck that.
Bright Sided is very good, and gets to the political roots of when and where all this ‘think positive’ stuff seeped into the culture.
I’ve been seeing more and more push-back on the whole ‘think positive’ meme that is so pervasive in our ‘culture’…and this from Good Housekeeping? Bravo!
Riding it out. Knowing what is happening to you is helpful. I didn’t have a clue when the akathisia hit.
A good support system and true informed consent is required.
Finding BenzoBuddies saved my life.
Wow.
That’s a bunch of pills….
It’s actually quite difficult to OD on just benzos.
from Wikipedia:
The oral LD50 (lethal dose in 50% of the population) of diazepam is 720 mg/kg in mice and 1240 mg/kg in rats.[19] D. J. Greenblatt and colleagues reported in 1978 on two patients who had taken 500 and 2000 mg of diazepam, respectively, went into moderately deep comas, and were discharged within 48 hours without having experienced any important complications, in spite of having high concentrations of diazepam and its metabolites desmethyldiazepam, oxazepam, and temazepam, according to samples taken in the hospital and as follow-up.[68]
Overdoses of diazepam with alcohol, opiates and/or other depressants may be fatal.[67][69]
They were considered to be much safer than barbiturates when they came out in the late 50s and early 60s…see “Mother’s Little Helper”
Thanks, Cole, for your refutation of Dr. Shipko’s benzo stance.
As another benzo/SSRI/SNRI/’mood stabilizer’ merry-go-round survivor, trading one evil for another should not be the protocol.
Benzos kill. As do SSRIs/all brain drugs. And kindling is a real thing…polypharmacy is rampant in our present system of ‘mental health’ care.
O for the ever elusive ‘right combination’ of meds to ‘fix’ our ‘chemical imbalances’…
Thank you, JanCarol, for all your wonderful, succinct, and on-point comments~
It’s thought by some of us ‘guinea pigs’ that a phenomenon call KINDLING happens when the brain gets jacked around by one too many drug changes/withdrawals. Antidepressants play a huge part of that. It would be great if the good doctor looked into that.
When that ‘opinion’ harms others, ummmm, no, it’s not OK to let it slide.
It’s a very big deal around here: iatrogenic damage.
And who the heck are YOU?
A Celebration of Ignorance
Carl Sagan: “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time–when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no representing the pubic interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)
an excerpt:
“How is the distortion of the notion of freedom by neoliberal beliefs related to political humiliation? The state, in serving the market, functions as a disciplinary regime, especially in relation to people who are working-class and poor. Sociologist Wacquant (2009) indicates that the state punishes the poor for their failure to be entrepreneurial-consumer subjects. The poor receive bare amounts of resources from the state, as a way of punishing them for not serving the state/market. From this perspective, humiliation involves communicating to people who are poor that they are economic failures (on the dole), and failed political subjects—hence disposable. Other sociologists dispute this idea of punishment and instead argue that the state disciplines the poor by devising ways to force poor people to live by market rules (Soss, Fording, & Schram, 2011). By receiving austere levels of resources, it is believed poor people will be motivated to work hard and improve their lot. Whether one sees this as discipline or punishment, each involves dependency on the state that is more concerned about the vitality of the market than it is about its poorer residents. The state, in other words, distorts political freedom by equating it with economic freedom and in the process disciplines or punishes poor persons who are constructed as failures. We might call “these people” economic-political losers who have demonstrated misuse of the “freedoms” the state provides. “They” are shamed in myriad ways in the media, which may function to incentivize some segments of the population to work harder. Shame, in this instance, becomes a tool of the market to produce and maintain entrepreneurial-consumer subjects who exercise their “freedoms” by obeying the imperatives of the market society. In short, the state is directly involved in humiliating poorer persons instead of working to facilitate parity of political participation and a just distribution of resources.”
Ya Basta!
*What* jobs?
Living wage jobs?
Minimum wage jobs?
What freaking jawbs?
Our standard of living has been eroded by the corporations who have bought our ‘government’ and shipped all decent jawbs overseas~
You’re right, there’s plenty of work to be done, unfortunately, it isn’t compensated for in a way that sustains a mere individual in our present economic system. How many gigs does it take to pay the rent, *and* the gas money to get there, let alone afford a vehicle?
I went without a car for 7 years cuz I COULDN’T afford one, let alone repairs, tires, insurance etc. and yet a vehicle is just about a requirement for employment. Public transit has been gutted–those of you preaching about JAWBs obviously are living in a fantasy world and I’ll BET you’re getting some sort of benefit your own selves.
No Social Security for you, huh, Frank? Just how did you accumulate all your worldly goods anyways?; are you getting paid to sit behind a keyboard and pick on those unfortunates on the bottom of the food chain and rail about anti-psychiatry? As I mentioned to another regular on these pages; I’d rather have a root canal than sit in a room with you and work on the ‘movement’. Maybe one of the reasons there *is* no movement.
Your rants against the disabled and the poor are scapegoating pure
and simple.
Could you wait on customers with severe anxiety (or akathisia)? The jobs available out there are service jobs, dealing with *customers* for minimum wage. I know I still can’t deal with people on days/weeks when I’ve had zero sleep and my blood sugar drops out and when I freak out about every little thing–you all act as if iatrogenesis is just a little blip and we should just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get back onto the wheel even tho our gears are stripped.
How about we save a bunch of money by not subsidizing the medications that are damaging our brains, eh? Or put the MIC on a diet…that’ll save some dough. But no, people like Frank, and all you others behave like this psych drug thing is minor inconvenience.
Get real, and quit scapegoating those that suffer–believe me, living on disability is barely that. Why dontcha get pissed at some bankers or something? The mean spiritedness I’m seeing here is shocking; and yes, it’s SCAPEGOATING.
Deja vu all over again~
O and ps
Should we kick all those useless eaters on Social Security retirement off the ‘entitlements’ and make them bag groceries or work as greeters at Walmart? No man is an island. I’m guessing that not having any social supports is what brought a majority of us to the ‘mental health’ system in the first place.
pss to Frank’s reply below (no reply button)
I’m not claiming ‘mental illness’–but I am claiming IATROGENIC damage from involving myself in the ‘mental health’ system when I was distressed and had nowhere else to turn.
IATROGENIC DAMAGE.
“I believe”
And I believe my own experience and those that I read about in online support groups–the folks *damaged* by your ‘placebo effect.
I believe that the damages caused by psych drugs in general, and SSRIs/SNRIs and tricyclics in particular, is a unacknowledged epidemic.
Please listen, Doctor. Your position of power over others I believe is impeding your ability to be an unbiased observer.
Thanks to Richard, Dan Smith, Slaying et al who are bringing this to your attention.
Good comment, Richard:)
Important, but still subscribes to the concept of ‘mental illness’ as being valid, and supports ‘treatment’, however benign.
As I said~
Of course it’s a slippery slope when it comes to a decision like that in regard to those who are labelled ‘mentally ill’…I didn’t mean to ignore the point of the article. It’s just that I’ve thought about it long enough, and many of my older friends have as well–I think we should all have the right to decide when to leave the planet, and not give Modern Medicine ™ another nickel on the backs of suffering elders. Modern Medicine ™ acts almost like it’s a personal affront to ‘lose’ a patient, even if they’ve already been coded 4 times…Death is part of life, and pretending it’s not part of the great circle of life is part of our problem as a society. IMNSHO.
I would love to have some Nembutol on hand–with the way the world is going *I* want to make the choice about how/when I want to die. When the shit hits the fan, just knowing that I have the option would give me a great deal of peace.
Der!
Yep
So glad there’s finally some organized movement behind the benzo holocaust.
Thanks for all your efforts; I do what I can here in my immediate environment given the limitations I presently live under.
The carnage needs to stop.
The toll is huge.
BenzoBuddies uses the Ashton Manual like a bible–from what I’ve seen online in my limited experience over the last 45 months, it seems to me a micro taper is the way to go.
Lots of information about that on Surviving Antidepressants~~~~
Why is it so hard for you to believe that *your* experience is not universal?
I discontinued Klonopin after a few months use cold turkey the first time I was prescribed them. It was a rough 2 weeks or so but I got past it. It’s the ‘kindling’ phenomenon you seem to be ignorant of. Again, everyone is different. I’m 45 months out from what I thought was a slow taper after a subsequent ‘script that I took *as directed* for almost 10 years. It has been hell on earth–no joke. How many commit suicide due to the myriad of horrific symptoms that occur after even a slow taper? It will never be known. Benzos are poison. I can see a use for them for only very short term, but brain changes happen as soon as 4 days. There is no true informed consent because practitioners are clueless when it comes to long-term damages caused by benzos.
Please stop.
Sara
You might look into the “Surviving Antidepressants” website. There’s extensive information and support about slow tapering Benzos. All those brain meds have similar PAWS profiles.
“Addiction Myth” is not good source for help with tapering.
Good luck.
You might also check out some of Robert Whitaker’s books, (the founder of this website) and youtube for videos regarding safely discontinuing benzos.
Benzos cause *brain changes*…even yours.
Some are lucky and escape the worst of the iatrogenic damage (did you know that benzos are derived from BENZENE, a well known carcinogen?) but piling on psych meds to mask the adverse effects of tolerance withdrawal helps ‘kindle’ the brain, making PAWS more likely.
But of course, *everyone* is just like you:)
Sorry for your situation, which is ALL TOO COMMON.
They call it “Benzo rage” on the support boards.
I, too, am ‘older’ and sometimes wonder what’s the point of the years of intense suffering.
I can honestly say that the iatrogenic damages have forced me to literally ‘live in the moment’ and find joy in the small. Getting thru yet another shitty day sometimes feels like climbing Mt. Everest. I *do* have periods of time when I feel ‘almost normal’ but they cannot be counted on to last…
Nobody gets it unless they’ve been thru it, and WE SHOULD BE COMPENSATED for the loss of our lives as we knew them…financially, physically, spiritually and interpersonally too; many of us have had our lives ruined without any sort of acknowledgement from the powers that be, which is just another insult to add to the myriad of crap we must contend with daily.
I hope you find someone who you can share your experience with who will listen and not judge. I had a good ‘friend’ dump me not long ago after supporting me for 3 years–I emailed a video made by a benzo victim that featured Dr. Heather Ashton and Dr. Malcolm Lader who speaks frankly about the brain damages and the duration of the suffering. I asked her to please just watch the first 10 mins. She came to visit a few weeks later and apologized; tears were shed and the friendship ‘patched’ up, but not really. I will never fully trust her again.
It’s such a long, hard, lonely road…and I’m still not sure I’m glad I’m ‘med free’ at this point~
You are not alone.
If you read to the end of the article, the writer is a proponent of the genetic theory of ‘mental illness’ which makes the rest of the article moot for this reader.
Cat
What your experience is/was does not necessarily translate into other’s.
I think there’s a lot to be said for micro tapers, which is discussed and supported at length on Surviving Antidepressants. I thought tapering over a year and a half was slow; 42 months later and still significantly impaired, I wish I would have known about *anything* at all regarding how to safely discontinue long term use of Klonopin.
There’s the social control issue, too.
IMNSHO
I think benzos should be used only in very specific circumstances short term.
ONLY!
They are *dangerous* and TOXIC and are handed out like candy impacting a huge segment of society, many of whom are unseen and are unknowing as they get medicated with additional drugs for the adverse symptoms that the benzos themselves cause.
Ummmm
Something something *trauma*? mebbe?
How freaking *civilized*!
Instead of years of ineffective ‘help’ offered to those in distress, the sense espoused here is most welcome.
Thanks for posting this…slowly, slowly, the narrative is being eroded.
Maybe it’s time you educated yourself about our current political climate, and I don’t mean MSNBC.
As I get older, I’m less concerned about what other (talking strangers) think of me…I DO try to maintain my mostly good reputation, practice listening skills, and aim for kindness as a lodestone. But in my advanced age, I know a lot about myself, my strengths and weaknesses, my intuition tells me when to let loose and when to hold back. Yeah, honestly, I haven’t got to a place where (for example) I feel comfortable not wearing a bra I HATE WEARING A BRA! in certain situations…and while self-reflection is important, this obsessing about how one is perceived seems to me a part of this hyper-individualized atomization that is encouraged in this culture.
The fact is: nobody really thinks that hard about YOU! Having an opportunity to get to know someone who looks or acts different makes one realize we all have our burdens. Everyone is doing the best they can.
In the scheme of things, you really aren’t that important.
Just my take…
I just ran into the Zizek quote randomlly…and it seemed relavent to this ‘discussion’. I don’t know jack about philosophy…
All this self-absorption seems narcissistic to me…in a perfect world we all would be judged (ha, here’s another one from the ol’ jumbled brain vaults:) by the content of our character. Unfortunately, we live in this society where cultural norms have been established by Bernaisian advertising schemes. Brought to you by…capitalism. Our common enemy.
The first thing a human notices when encountering another human is what sex they are…I wished for years that I could just be seen as another ‘humanbeing’ and not just a meatsock. Now that I’m old, I’m just invisible. (Hey, maybe I should write an article about how unfair THAT is…)
Self acceptance, imnsho, comes from spending time *outside oneself*, involved with the world, where eventually you DO learn not to give a shit what other people think.
‘scuse the incoherence and clumsiness…my ‘device’ is a pos added to the fact my Internet connection unreliable. No sleep for several days inhibits good communication.
But yeah, Identity Politics keeps our eyes (& hearts and minds) off the ball…
Slavoj Zizek makes this point as well:
If I were to engage in paranoiac speculations, I would be much more inclined to say that the Politically Correct obsessive regulations (like the obligatory naming of different sexual identities, with legal measures taken if one violates them) are rather a Left-liberal plot to destroy any actual radical Left movement. Suffice it to recall the animosity against Bernie Sanders among some LGBT+ and feminist circles, whose members have no problems with big corporate bosses supporting them. The “cultural” focus of PC and #MeToo is, to put it in a simplified way, a desperate attempt to avoid the confrontation with actual economic and political problems, i.e., to locate women’s oppression and racism in their socio-economic context…Liberals will have to take note that there is a growing radical Left critique of PC, identity politics and #MeToo…
Your choice…yup.
What next on MiA? An article describing the oppression of cigarette smokers?
Same arguments apply…
Where is Dr K?
Autoimmune Hashimoto’s disease. An epidemic of it’s own.
No lithium taken: offered at one point while trying to find “the right combination” but I declined.
Me, too.
Stayed on the lowest possible dose, thinking what a good patient I was, and every time I brought up my concerns about Klonopin being ‘addictive’ I was told (over and over by different ‘providers’ over a ten year period that “it’s such a small dose and you don’t have an addictive…”yadayadayada”). And then there’s the part where none of my ‘health care providers’ knew what tolerance withdrawal was/akathisia when I was crawling out of my skin during one rather stressful Thanksgiving.
I’d like to thank Rebecca for her contribution. I’m copying this blog post and handing it to my nurse practitioner next time (the last time?) I see her. I’m dealing right now, at the moment, with a health care ‘provider’ who is NOT LISTENING to what my concerns are regarding my ongoing PAWS/ID symptoms and instead, lowered my thyroid supplement (Armour) by 30% because she seems to think that’s the source of all my discomfort. (Those TSH test results are so damn accurate /s)…and the whole HPA axis dysfunction that plays into all that. Yes, Dr. K, I’m reveling in my Hashimoto’s autoimmune issue and becoming ‘dependent’ on my Armour…I need MORE…cuz I’m an addict. O! And she recommended via the lab tech who called with the happy news, over the counter lithium!!!
What I would love to find is a functional medicine doc *that I can AFFORD* who could help me figure out what is going on with my adrenals…even the drug insert for Armour mentions fixing adrenal deficiency before addressing the Hashis. But straight medicine doesn’t “believe” in adrenal insufficiency. I know; huh??
I tell ya, ya get a real education sleuthing this shit out. And *everyone* needs to do it when dealing with ‘modern medicine.’
Yeah, WHY don’t the doctors know??? Hard for me to believe that doctors DO know…but then they go to great lengths to distance themselves from the damages they cause, cognitive dissonance and all.
In nursing school we had exactly one semester of pharmacology. So many drugs…so much ignorance.
Here we go with the victim blaming theme; and total ignorance regarding thyroid issues.
I’m not sure I have the energy to attemp a coherent rebuttal to “Dr.” K’s assertions here and my Internet device/connection tenuous…but a rebuttal is surely needed to this guy’s drivel.
Yes, thank you Sarah, very timely for me as well.
I hate it when I get out of ‘control’ with anxiety/fear. Your links are useful, and reinforce what I know to be true intellectually; emotionally I still have a ton of work to do.
Can anyone here tell me anything about “Brain Gym”? It’s incorporated into my local (free!) yoga class, and recently been introduced into the school system. I suspect it could be another tool in the ol’ chest.
Thanks again. Bookmarking this one!
Ding ding ding!
Perhaps he doesn’t want to acknowledge the damage he’s done prescribing those poisons calling themselves ‘medication’…
Just like all the other health care ‘professionals’ I’ve talked to regarding my iatrogenic damage…going on post all meds for 51 months now. Tell me, “Dr” , what do you know about gaba receptors, about their being ‘reabsorbed’ with the ongoing ‘therapy’ with the benzodiazepines, the assault from years of ‘trying to find the right combination’ for my alleged ‘bipolar’ (diagnosed at 46 years old…after antidepressants)…I’m wondering just how up on brain physiology the good doctor is…and all this ‘brain plasticity’ promotion…is that a REAL thing, or is it a trendy, pseudoscientific ‘ catch phrase…and then there’s KINDLING. Look it up, Lawrence…it’s happening to millions of us. Sorry I didn’t have a better option than to turn to psychiatry and drugs…with no counseling available to me at any time for my distress, unless of course I could pay the big bucks.
A lot of folks on the support websites say, “i wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy”…but I tell ya, when I’m not sleeping (again) night after night, year after year, I DO WISH it upon certain, select, “DOCTORS” who prescribed that shit to me, all the while telling me how I NEED it…for years at a time.
Lack of insight? Criminal damages? The loss of my once ‘gifted’ brain?
And then to have the denial about it all here on the pages of MiA…
Agreed.
Done with this guy.
Totes.
This piece is perfect, Sera.
Thank you.
Wow,
You know ‘us’ so well, Dr. K./s
Walk a mile in my shoes, and then tell me to what *I* should be doing with my life, eh?
How does this ‘conversation’ help anyone who found themselves in the MH system?
For who???
A good portion of the Israeli population has access to no such thing!
O, yes, there’s shame involved, but not (in this case) oldhead’s.
Long live BDS….Palestine endures.
Imperialism is ugly, wherever it manifests itself.
Lawrence
If “we” can keep people out of the system, GREAT,
but I don’t see where this mean-spirited Disability ShamingTM that goes on here is either productive or inspiring to those of us who ARE stuck in the system. What do you propose to do with those of us already harmed by psychiatry?
My BRAIN has been damaged by the “treatment” I received during a time of turmoil and loss…with NOWHERE else to turn. Fix THAT, and offer options for those in despair, or, as we see from this report from RW (whose book clued me in to why I received a bipolar diagnosis…it’s the drugs, stupid), a diagnosis that I can’t really escape from…impacting employment possibilities (my age doesn’t help, either) plus the litany of symptoms/impacts wrought by PAWS. Have any of you gone days and days without sleep, suffered from metabolic changes, cognitive deficits (some days I can’t understand a bloody thing I read), the depersonalisation, derealisation etc. for more than 4 years after d/c-ing the poisons (to fix my “brain chemistry”)? Huh? I am doing all I can in my small, threatened world to keep people I find myself around from falling into the “mental health” system…by being *available* to my friends, neighbors and family when distressed and vulnerable. Most people don’t even have time for a cup of tea with a friend anymore just trying to keep the bills paid. I have the luxury of my own TIME, which often feels a lot like hell…
Not sure why I now feel the need to justify myself to you bootstrap lovers out there (think structural poverty)…many people, especially trauma survivors, are finding it nigh impossible to survive in this poor-shaming, dog eat dog culture we find ourselves in. Keep watching MSM to reinforce you prejudices and the stories *you all* tell yourselves about poverty and psychiatric disability.
PSYCHIATRY disabled me with their drugs after I stumbled into it after a personal trauma.
Since I can’t afford a lawyer to sue the bastards, I can only hunker down with my paltry disability payment while clinging to the brain plasticity theory. After 50 months of hell, permanent damage is seeming likely…
As usual, all you opposed to anyone diagnosed SMI collecting SSDI/SSI really don’t have a clue.
And I’m more convinced than ever that people suck.
Pull up on yer bootstraps, slackers!
Thank you for bringing this to our, and to the world’s, attention.
We’re all capitalism’s guinea pigs.
It’s not just about the brain, either; the prevailing wisdom on the support sites (BenzoBuddies, Surviving Antidepressants) talk about changes also occurring in the HPA axis…I know I have adrenal issues/thyroid issues…
gaba receptors have been ‘reabsorbed’; gaba is used all over the human body
There’s some pretty technical stuff talked about over at BB, unfortunately, my comprehension levels keep me from grok-ing it fully.
It’s beyond ‘clearing’…it’s about the changes to structures in the brain, which for me, 48 months later, still have me severely impaired.
Gah.
hear hear!
It’s a topsy-turvy world we live in, eh?
The meaning of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ have absolutely switched places…
Huh?
“psychiatrists could also address the current drug epidemic.”
you mean the one they started?
It appears to me that psychiatrists have no clue about the drugs they prescribe to those who end up in the ‘MH’ system; they have no clue about the long term damages caused by their drugs, or any knowledge about how to safely wean people off them.
Please…
I guess in the end it comes down to this: Are you an ally? Or are you part of the problem?
I’m sorry you feel as if your concerns are not being heard, and I empathize with what sounds like ‘burnout’…the nuclear family seems to isolate people when it (sorry) “takes a village”.
I used to think my autistic brother was faking it.
He certainly never had to be responsible for much of anything when I was growing up, and the burden of his care fell disproportionately on me, the eldest daughter.
A thoughtful person would course-correct with feedback from the environment, but how often do ‘normal’ people do that?
It’s up to us to decide what we can deal with and what we can’t…the older I get the better I am at setting boundaries.
Many of us ended up in the MH system *because* of our SO/family members.
Why is THAT so hard to understand?
also
I know I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with someone if there was a marked lack of reciprocity…not beneficial for either of us ultimately, eh?
“normal adult burden”
Who gets to define this? What gifts might a person possess that aren’t valued in this society and are discounted (don’t make money)?
If no gifts are perceived (by the deciders), is that person then useless and thus, a burden?
And things are different now, how?
Thank you for taking these issues on, professionally, RightsRNotWrong.
And thank you for the clarification regarding what does and does not occur via AOT/Laura’s Law in California.
Pretty scary stuff coming at all of us from many different angles. Good work, also, Michael, for bringing this issue up–saw it in the news days ago and knew it had to get some air time here.
california resident/humanbeing
Yeah, just imagine what losing your kids to your abusive ex in a dirty, corrupt custody fight does.
And nope, still not ‘over’ it all these years later.
Justice is a lie, karma is a lie…and life isn’t fair. Get used to it.
Can we extrapolate then that Sylvain is swimming in ‘water’ he is oblivious to?
Thanks, uprising, for trying.
Working at Planned Parenthood for years taught me just how common molestation and rape were…and my own personal experiences (my mother was raped, my sister was raped, I’ve damn near been raped TOO MANY times), my circumscribed ambitions and activities…no, I would never want to be a man, but when I read essays like I did last week at another site basically saying that the way teenage girls dress ‘these days’ they are asking to be raped, it’s obvious how steeped in the patriarchy we all are. Rape isn’t about sex, it’s about *power over*. Power is a drug…
‘Tis~
And it’s worked so well in the past…for accomplishing nothing. O wait; the rich still manage to hold the reins. Huh.
OMG!
Lessig’s thesis: Trump is removed because he was helped by “Mother Russia” (!), Pence “should” resign since he got the same help, Ryan steps in. “If Ryan becomes president, he should do the right thing and choose Clinton for vice president. Then he should resign.” This is where we are. Poor Larry. Such a shame.
Lifted from the links portion of Naked Capitalism today.^^^
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/18/2-or-3-things-i-know-about-capitalism/
Why is that?
Maybe it’s the system they operate in?
I’m losing my wifi signal
but here take a gander
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/13/the-legacy-of-reagans-civilian-psyops/
Really???
Look like the usual bunch of Goldman Sacks/Exxon/corporate slime bags as ever to me.
DO tell.
Doesn’t keep us from being part of the economic system tho, does it? Still have to pay the rent and buy groceries…
Thanks, OH.
This whole discussion is discouraging.
Eric Coates had some good ideas in comments from another blog post but can’t remember (thanks, psychiatry) which one.
My comment has been removed for not being helpful.
Can’t really see anything in this discussion that is.
Commodifying ‘caring’ is not the answer. Rebuilding relationships in one’s community, workplace, sharing burdens and tasks, sharing childcare/eldercare, having tea with your neighbor…being HUMAN with one another without selling pieces of ourselves off as ‘consumers’ is what is needed, imnsho. They mine our data, they use our bodies so we can house, clothe and feed ourselves, they dangles shiny toys incessantly in front of us so we always feel less than complete, they divide us by creating controversy (life is life and the rankings of who or what is important is imposed on us by hubristic humans and their flawed economic systems), our recreations are other directed and costly etc etc etc. The set-up of our lives is fraudulent. I am not an economic unit. Reciprocity and the reverence of sanctity of life in all it’s forms are what I try to strive for, admittedly not always successfully. Power-over structures are to be avoided…there are cultures who have practiced these ( e.g. the Zapatistias) living arrangements. You don’t hear about them largely due to their smallness in their ecological niches. What’s coming up for all of us in the coming years will teach the lesson (again) on how to live simply…if humans survive at all. Certainly we are losing much of the diversity of life on the planet as the steamroller of capitalism grinds everything in it’s path into dust.
Commodifying caring is creepy. Making money off someone else’s misery is wrong.
Caring for money; that’ll fix it.
Capitalism *is* the elephant in the room.
Not ‘crony’ capitalism.
The whole premise is not sustainable, and we’re living at the end of the road. The ‘resources’ are played out, more growth (capitalism) is killing us all.
Good essay, Will, but I don’t’ think Lessig has any answers. He’s a player, too.
Yep.
Great essay, Kalina.
Shared it with a local paper in a community that is hellbent on opening an inpatient psych facility to spare them the taxpayer expense of shipping folks in distress outta there. O, and to relieve law enforcement from having to deal with ‘those people’. It’s frightening for me to see that folks really don’t want a ‘solution’–they just want to not have to deal with the ‘homeless’ and the marginalized who act out.
Moar grof~~until we kill everything on the planet…for money.
Capitalism. On a finite planet. With finite ‘resources’.
Nice, insightful discussion.
Thanks for posting!
Lots of good stuff here, Eric.
I agree with John.
Spread ’em.
Enjoy your legal cocaine.
Duh
GREAT RANT
Thanks 😀
I’m GLAD GLAD GLAD they’re talking about pills pills pills!
Blah blah blah blah….
Indeed!
My concern with this article, Monica, is that it seems to support what the federal government has been claiming for decades.
I’m with you about legalization of all drugs…and I never meant to imply that pot cannot be a ‘bad trip’ for some folks. The comments inspired by this article are frightening to me…and seem to have an agenda other than just ‘warning’ folks of the possible dangers from using cannabis products. I also think psych/pharma drugs, which are legal, cause way more damage to unsuspecting and trusting ‘consumers’ than pot ever did.
I’m also reacting to my one experience in the county ‘crisis’ unit after a brutal separation from my abusive husband. I was monitored closely for ‘marijuana’ use when out in the world fulfilling my only part-time job at the time. The staff couldn’t understand why I would drive a half hour to do this job if it didn’t involve my injesting marijuana somehow. Except I wasn’t. I was keeping with a routine that gave me a modicum of meaning while in a state of chaos.
OK, then.
Guess that’s why the federal government keeps it listed as a class one drug.
Guess all those people serving time in for profit prisons for marijuana offenses is justified. It’s a dangerous drug.
I see the light now.
I call bullshit.
I have been around pot smokers my entire adult life. Some people react badly, sure. I know people who don’t do marijuana because they have had negative experiences (mostly anxiety/paranoia). But ‘mania/psychosis’? I suggest there were additional drugs in play.
Again, as I stated above, I lived in an area whose economy revolved around marijuana. In my non-scientific, personal opinion, I saw FAR MORE damage from alcohol and methamphetamine than I ever did pot.
Pot is smoked by *all kinds* of people, not just bums and deadbeats. Humans have been altering their consciousness for millennia! Herbs and plants have been used in rituals and ceremony for eons! Pharmaceuticals cause far more damage than pot, imo.
Those who go on to other recreational drugs and become addicted have more going on in their social milieu that predisposes them to escape their pain with drugs. *gateway drug* HOW QUAINT!
Who funds this author? Who funds these naysayers? Who is threatened by legalization? Cui bono?
The history of the criminalization of marijuana is an interesting one; it has everything to do with threatened industries and not much to do with ‘protecting’ the public.
If I wasn’t feeling so impaired after my years of psych meds, I’d give out some links, but in my world all this is common knowledge.
You new commenters; where did you come from and who do you work for???
It’s Reefer Madness all over again!
WOW people.
“Sadly, the cannabidiol (CBD) concentrations in currently available marijuana have remained the same or decreased.”
Maybe in *your* neighborhood, but as someone who has lived in an area almost wholly supported by the pot industry, this statement is bunk. Lots of growers are specializing in CBD strains; it’s all the rage.
This author needs to get out more.
Dr. K
I wish I could recall where I found the link, somewhere on this site tho. It was an article by a fellow ‘mental health’ professional, and you stated in the comments something to the effect that forced treatment was sometimes necessary.
Have you revised your views?
My brain is still not up to par after a slow taper from long term prescribed Klonopin, but I’m pretty sure I read that comment/sentiment by you somewhere. I’m interested in getting to know you, and your views on forced treatment would be welcome as part of my personal evaluation. I’m sure many of us who populate the MiA site would be interested as well.
Dr. K support forced treatment; maybe you could talk about *that*.
Kristina
Heartbreaking, with echoes of my own experience but somehow managing to escape the suicide. The doubling down on the ‘medication’ bit seems to be the protocol–where do they get such outlandish advice? The drug reps?
My mission in life at this point is to educate as many as possible about these horrible drugs. I grieve for all the losses incurred as a result of the profit motive. Isn’t it funny what is considered to be ‘normal’ (profits more important than life)?
http://www.benzobuddies.org has lots of information about the process…mostly adhering to the Ashton Manual.
and I personally prefer http://survivingantidepressants.org…there's a benzo section and sensible advice about micro-tapers.
But it’s not the CORRECT term for what’s happened to us! If there’s ever to be any sort of support from ‘the medical community’, it needs to be recognized and not blurred with a whole ‘nother phenomena. ‘Detox’ clinics do not work for those of us who have become dependent on psych meds, and that is generally all that’s available to us when we decide to get off our prescribed ‘medications’.
I can tell you’re trying and I appreciate that about you.
Sorry if I was abrupt. For kicks sometime, you should take a gander at BenzoBuddies or Surviving Antidepressants.
I have never, ever, had the urge to take any benzo after finally ending my taper. I don’t think many of us with PAWS do. I tried NA for support earlier in my process and I found it to be not helpful: I am not an addict, and I won’t ever confess to being one. It isn’t about stigma, it’s about the language we use, and the terms are important when it comes to helping those with ID from benzo use.
Eat your GMO/Round-upTM factory farmed watered with fracking well water food, and shaddup! It’s GOOD for ya!
Did you know that commercial wheat is sprayed after harvest with Round-up as a desiccant? Yummmmm! Did you know that the wheat commercially grown these days has 4x the number of genes than what our ancestors cultivated? Gluten sensitivity and celiac disease are two different things…
Look it up.
I went thru it and lived.
No drugs…I just white knuckled it. It does ease off after a period of time (for me about 3 months). I DID get some acupuncture done, and that seemed to help a bit with the sleep, but eventually I had to learn some self-soothing techniques: meditation, taking one moment at a time, distraction, exercise as tolerated-and getting outside. There’s lots of support online i.e. “Surviving Antidepressants” and “BenzoBuddies” and others. You are stronger than you think! It IS hell. And for me it continues to be hellish when waves of symptoms hit, but there have been windows of time when I almost feel normal, and that keeps me going. All of it unpredictable with no time-frame.
Coming off psych drugs is not for the faint of heart. It’s your choice, it’s your body. I just wanted my brain back and not be a slave to BigPharmaTM. You also might want to check out Robert Whitaker’s “Anatomy of an Epidemic”…I stumbled on a review of it in the NYRB, and the lightbulb went on; my whole experience with psychiatry there on the pages.
Good luck to you.
WTF *is* “Mental Health”??? Keeping the term around will always imply that there are “EXPERTS” who know what’s ‘healthy’ and what’s not.
What’s annoying about the ‘think positive’ thing is this: it DENIES the room for discussion about what’s going on with a person. It cuts off communication. The message really is, “SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY”.
Fuck that.
Bright Sided is very good, and gets to the political roots of when and where all this ‘think positive’ stuff seeped into the culture.
I’ve been seeing more and more push-back on the whole ‘think positive’ meme that is so pervasive in our ‘culture’…and this from Good Housekeeping? Bravo!
Riding it out. Knowing what is happening to you is helpful. I didn’t have a clue when the akathisia hit.
A good support system and true informed consent is required.
Finding BenzoBuddies saved my life.
Wow.
That’s a bunch of pills….
It’s actually quite difficult to OD on just benzos.
from Wikipedia:
The oral LD50 (lethal dose in 50% of the population) of diazepam is 720 mg/kg in mice and 1240 mg/kg in rats.[19] D. J. Greenblatt and colleagues reported in 1978 on two patients who had taken 500 and 2000 mg of diazepam, respectively, went into moderately deep comas, and were discharged within 48 hours without having experienced any important complications, in spite of having high concentrations of diazepam and its metabolites desmethyldiazepam, oxazepam, and temazepam, according to samples taken in the hospital and as follow-up.[68]
Overdoses of diazepam with alcohol, opiates and/or other depressants may be fatal.[67][69]
They were considered to be much safer than barbiturates when they came out in the late 50s and early 60s…see “Mother’s Little Helper”
Thanks, Cole, for your refutation of Dr. Shipko’s benzo stance.
As another benzo/SSRI/SNRI/’mood stabilizer’ merry-go-round survivor, trading one evil for another should not be the protocol.
Benzos kill. As do SSRIs/all brain drugs. And kindling is a real thing…polypharmacy is rampant in our present system of ‘mental health’ care.
O for the ever elusive ‘right combination’ of meds to ‘fix’ our ‘chemical imbalances’…
Thank you, JanCarol, for all your wonderful, succinct, and on-point comments~
http://survivingantidepressants.org
It’s thought by some of us ‘guinea pigs’ that a phenomenon call KINDLING happens when the brain gets jacked around by one too many drug changes/withdrawals. Antidepressants play a huge part of that. It would be great if the good doctor looked into that.
http://survivingantidepressants.org/topic/6175-limbic-kindling-hardwiring-the-brain-for-hypersensitivity/
I give up
When that ‘opinion’ harms others, ummmm, no, it’s not OK to let it slide.
It’s a very big deal around here: iatrogenic damage.
And who the heck are YOU?
A Celebration of Ignorance
Carl Sagan: “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time–when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no representing the pubic interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)
and the cherry on top:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/11/the-rise-of-neoliberal-culture-and-the-making-of-an-indecent-state-and-society/
an excerpt:
“How is the distortion of the notion of freedom by neoliberal beliefs related to political humiliation? The state, in serving the market, functions as a disciplinary regime, especially in relation to people who are working-class and poor. Sociologist Wacquant (2009) indicates that the state punishes the poor for their failure to be entrepreneurial-consumer subjects. The poor receive bare amounts of resources from the state, as a way of punishing them for not serving the state/market. From this perspective, humiliation involves communicating to people who are poor that they are economic failures (on the dole), and failed political subjects—hence disposable. Other sociologists dispute this idea of punishment and instead argue that the state disciplines the poor by devising ways to force poor people to live by market rules (Soss, Fording, & Schram, 2011). By receiving austere levels of resources, it is believed poor people will be motivated to work hard and improve their lot. Whether one sees this as discipline or punishment, each involves dependency on the state that is more concerned about the vitality of the market than it is about its poorer residents. The state, in other words, distorts political freedom by equating it with economic freedom and in the process disciplines or punishes poor persons who are constructed as failures. We might call “these people” economic-political losers who have demonstrated misuse of the “freedoms” the state provides. “They” are shamed in myriad ways in the media, which may function to incentivize some segments of the population to work harder. Shame, in this instance, becomes a tool of the market to produce and maintain entrepreneurial-consumer subjects who exercise their “freedoms” by obeying the imperatives of the market society. In short, the state is directly involved in humiliating poorer persons instead of working to facilitate parity of political participation and a just distribution of resources.”
Ya Basta!
*What* jobs?
Living wage jobs?
Minimum wage jobs?
What freaking jawbs?
Our standard of living has been eroded by the corporations who have bought our ‘government’ and shipped all decent jawbs overseas~
You’re right, there’s plenty of work to be done, unfortunately, it isn’t compensated for in a way that sustains a mere individual in our present economic system. How many gigs does it take to pay the rent, *and* the gas money to get there, let alone afford a vehicle?
I went without a car for 7 years cuz I COULDN’T afford one, let alone repairs, tires, insurance etc. and yet a vehicle is just about a requirement for employment. Public transit has been gutted–those of you preaching about JAWBs obviously are living in a fantasy world and I’ll BET you’re getting some sort of benefit your own selves.
No Social Security for you, huh, Frank? Just how did you accumulate all your worldly goods anyways?; are you getting paid to sit behind a keyboard and pick on those unfortunates on the bottom of the food chain and rail about anti-psychiatry? As I mentioned to another regular on these pages; I’d rather have a root canal than sit in a room with you and work on the ‘movement’. Maybe one of the reasons there *is* no movement.
Your rants against the disabled and the poor are scapegoating pure
and simple.
Could you wait on customers with severe anxiety (or akathisia)? The jobs available out there are service jobs, dealing with *customers* for minimum wage. I know I still can’t deal with people on days/weeks when I’ve had zero sleep and my blood sugar drops out and when I freak out about every little thing–you all act as if iatrogenesis is just a little blip and we should just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get back onto the wheel even tho our gears are stripped.
How about we save a bunch of money by not subsidizing the medications that are damaging our brains, eh? Or put the MIC on a diet…that’ll save some dough. But no, people like Frank, and all you others behave like this psych drug thing is minor inconvenience.
Get real, and quit scapegoating those that suffer–believe me, living on disability is barely that. Why dontcha get pissed at some bankers or something? The mean spiritedness I’m seeing here is shocking; and yes, it’s SCAPEGOATING.
Deja vu all over again~
O and ps
Should we kick all those useless eaters on Social Security retirement off the ‘entitlements’ and make them bag groceries or work as greeters at Walmart? No man is an island. I’m guessing that not having any social supports is what brought a majority of us to the ‘mental health’ system in the first place.
pss to Frank’s reply below (no reply button)
I’m not claiming ‘mental illness’–but I am claiming IATROGENIC damage from involving myself in the ‘mental health’ system when I was distressed and had nowhere else to turn.
IATROGENIC DAMAGE.
“I believe”
And I believe my own experience and those that I read about in online support groups–the folks *damaged* by your ‘placebo effect.
I believe that the damages caused by psych drugs in general, and SSRIs/SNRIs and tricyclics in particular, is a unacknowledged epidemic.
Please listen, Doctor. Your position of power over others I believe is impeding your ability to be an unbiased observer.
Thanks to Richard, Dan Smith, Slaying et al who are bringing this to your attention.
Good comment, Richard:)
Important, but still subscribes to the concept of ‘mental illness’ as being valid, and supports ‘treatment’, however benign.
As I said~
Of course it’s a slippery slope when it comes to a decision like that in regard to those who are labelled ‘mentally ill’…I didn’t mean to ignore the point of the article. It’s just that I’ve thought about it long enough, and many of my older friends have as well–I think we should all have the right to decide when to leave the planet, and not give Modern Medicine ™ another nickel on the backs of suffering elders. Modern Medicine ™ acts almost like it’s a personal affront to ‘lose’ a patient, even if they’ve already been coded 4 times…Death is part of life, and pretending it’s not part of the great circle of life is part of our problem as a society. IMNSHO.
I would love to have some Nembutol on hand–with the way the world is going *I* want to make the choice about how/when I want to die. When the shit hits the fan, just knowing that I have the option would give me a great deal of peace.
Der!
Yep
So glad there’s finally some organized movement behind the benzo holocaust.
Thanks for all your efforts; I do what I can here in my immediate environment given the limitations I presently live under.
The carnage needs to stop.
The toll is huge.
BenzoBuddies uses the Ashton Manual like a bible–from what I’ve seen online in my limited experience over the last 45 months, it seems to me a micro taper is the way to go.
Lots of information about that on Surviving Antidepressants~~~~
Why is it so hard for you to believe that *your* experience is not universal?
I discontinued Klonopin after a few months use cold turkey the first time I was prescribed them. It was a rough 2 weeks or so but I got past it. It’s the ‘kindling’ phenomenon you seem to be ignorant of. Again, everyone is different. I’m 45 months out from what I thought was a slow taper after a subsequent ‘script that I took *as directed* for almost 10 years. It has been hell on earth–no joke. How many commit suicide due to the myriad of horrific symptoms that occur after even a slow taper? It will never be known. Benzos are poison. I can see a use for them for only very short term, but brain changes happen as soon as 4 days. There is no true informed consent because practitioners are clueless when it comes to long-term damages caused by benzos.
Please stop.
Sara
You might look into the “Surviving Antidepressants” website. There’s extensive information and support about slow tapering Benzos. All those brain meds have similar PAWS profiles.
“Addiction Myth” is not good source for help with tapering.
Good luck.
You might also check out some of Robert Whitaker’s books, (the founder of this website) and youtube for videos regarding safely discontinuing benzos.
Benzos cause *brain changes*…even yours.
Some are lucky and escape the worst of the iatrogenic damage (did you know that benzos are derived from BENZENE, a well known carcinogen?) but piling on psych meds to mask the adverse effects of tolerance withdrawal helps ‘kindle’ the brain, making PAWS more likely.
But of course, *everyone* is just like you:)
Sorry for your situation, which is ALL TOO COMMON.
They call it “Benzo rage” on the support boards.
I, too, am ‘older’ and sometimes wonder what’s the point of the years of intense suffering.
I can honestly say that the iatrogenic damages have forced me to literally ‘live in the moment’ and find joy in the small. Getting thru yet another shitty day sometimes feels like climbing Mt. Everest. I *do* have periods of time when I feel ‘almost normal’ but they cannot be counted on to last…
Nobody gets it unless they’ve been thru it, and WE SHOULD BE COMPENSATED for the loss of our lives as we knew them…financially, physically, spiritually and interpersonally too; many of us have had our lives ruined without any sort of acknowledgement from the powers that be, which is just another insult to add to the myriad of crap we must contend with daily.
I hope you find someone who you can share your experience with who will listen and not judge. I had a good ‘friend’ dump me not long ago after supporting me for 3 years–I emailed a video made by a benzo victim that featured Dr. Heather Ashton and Dr. Malcolm Lader who speaks frankly about the brain damages and the duration of the suffering. I asked her to please just watch the first 10 mins. She came to visit a few weeks later and apologized; tears were shed and the friendship ‘patched’ up, but not really. I will never fully trust her again.
It’s such a long, hard, lonely road…and I’m still not sure I’m glad I’m ‘med free’ at this point~
You are not alone.
If you read to the end of the article, the writer is a proponent of the genetic theory of ‘mental illness’ which makes the rest of the article moot for this reader.
Cat
What your experience is/was does not necessarily translate into other’s.
I think there’s a lot to be said for micro tapers, which is discussed and supported at length on Surviving Antidepressants. I thought tapering over a year and a half was slow; 42 months later and still significantly impaired, I wish I would have known about *anything* at all regarding how to safely discontinue long term use of Klonopin.
There’s the social control issue, too.
IMNSHO
I think benzos should be used only in very specific circumstances short term.
ONLY!
They are *dangerous* and TOXIC and are handed out like candy impacting a huge segment of society, many of whom are unseen and are unknowing as they get medicated with additional drugs for the adverse symptoms that the benzos themselves cause.