Comments by Sandra Villarreal

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  • Dear Derek, I am a psychiatric drug survivor who’s just finishing up writing a book describing what it’s like to be prescribed psychiatric drugs for 35 years, detailing my multiple cold-turkey withdrawals (barely surviving), then full recovery (minus cognitive impairment we’re left with.)

    Your stories, for some reason, hit a heart nerve for me. I’m asking if I can have permission to add your article Ambushed by Antidepressant Withdrawal: The Escape Story, inside my book.

    I’m happy to send you the manuscript if you’d like to see how I’m using your article in context with the rest of my ‘story’, along with other survivor stories I’ve included.

    God Bless you Mr. Blumke, and thank you for your devotion to helping save other hearts, minds & souls across our great nation by informing the public of iatrogenic harm directly related to psychiatric drugs.

    Most sincerely,
    Sandra Villarreal

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  • What a story Reed! You just described our SSRI withdrawal HELL so beautifully I almost wept reading it. And yes, this tragedy is happening across America and every continent, due to Doctors refusing to believe our withdrawal symptoms and how they drive us completely, and utterly MAD. But it was pot that literally saved me enduring my multiple cold-turkey withdrawals when they drove me to become extremely homicidal. The pot was able to take me from a 10 down to a 0 melting all homicidal thoughts away but I didn’t always have it. Those months were very trying times. You’re a beautiful man Reed, I’m so thankful you survived your ordeal and I’m most gracious for your having told your story. Thank you!!

    Just a side note: Jail personnel didn’t provide my son with his Lexapro prescription upon his final release back into society after serving a 5 year jail sentence. He went into full blown Lexapro withdrawal and while in his paranoid state of mind he (over)reacted when assaulted by someone, now he’s looking at 20 years in prison. Psychiatric drugs just never stop destroying our lives, ever.

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  • Great article Robert!
    I was ecstatic to read Marci will soon be free. My heart goes out to her on her new journey in life. I admire her strength & courage to keep fighting. When she gets settled, physically, mentally, emotionally & spirtually, I hope she starts writing her story. It will be one the hardest things she’ll ever do. Psychiatry may have silenced her but she deserves to be heard, everyone needs to listen. People are suffering indescribable hell trying to get off their psych meds, most notably benzos. Hundreds of dead inmates are littering dirty cell floors across America right now after being denied their benzo upon admission then mentally tortured, many physically tortured, to death. The public really needs to start paying attention.

    Thank you again Robert, you do such remarkable work.

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  • ‘Where Can Families Turn for Help?’ – This story is beyond tragic, my heart goes out to this Mother. I’m realizing there is no where for families or iatrogenically harmed patients to turn for help, especially when withdrawing cold-turkey from our neurotoxic cocktail of drugs. We’re still being blamed for our justifiable anger at the system. ‘Anger isn’t good for you severs no purpose’ they say. We eventually do forgive, but oh boy what a process! Even long into recovery from decades of taking our ‘medicine’ suffering unimaginable adverse effects along the way, our behaviors, integrity, morals & ethics are put under a microscope and judged by those who’ve never taken the drugs for years or decades, experienced the true horrors of a c/t benzo withdrawal or an SSRI withdrawal that drove them to become homicidal when that’s not their true nature. As the editor of my book just did with me. When I became extremely homicidal during my SSRI withdrawals admitting myself in a psychiatric hospital begging them to treat me without using more drugs. They’re response: ‘You complain about one more side effect and we’ll start injecting’. I was locked in knowing I wasn’t going to receive any kind of care what so ever, but filled with more drugs that caused me to be there in the first place. So I began telling them everything they wanted to hear. ‘Yes, I’m mentally ill, Yes, I’ll take my medicine, Yes, I understand the need for them’. All total lies. But my goal was to get out of there as fast as I could which still took weeks. If I wanted to save any sanity I had left, and after 35 years of being psychiatrically drugged & harmed with ECT’s, I knew it wasn’t much. But it was something. So NO, there is no where inside the Medical or Psychiatric field for us to go for help. Self education about psychiatric drugs was my only salvation and to this day when trying to inform family members how dangerous psychiatric drugs are, none of them believe a word of it. And every single member of my family, extended family and one grandchild is being prescribed and taking one or more psychiatric drugs. It’s honestly so tragic to watch that I’m glad I’m old and my time on this planet is limited.

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  • Stephen Gilbert – yes, they have their grimy fingers in all of it. ‘Sage will charge $34,000 for a single treatment course of Zulresso, before any discounts or rebates. There will also be the added expense of a short hospital stay. Jonas, Sage’s CEO, expects wide reimbursement for Zulresso, based on talks the company has already had with insurance companies. The most significant commercial challenge, Jonas adds, will be helping hospitals prepare and train staff to administer the drug.’

    ZULRESSO can cause serious side effects, including:
    ‱ Excessive sedation and sudden loss of consciousness.
    ‱ Increased risk of suicidal thoughts or actions. ZULRESSO and other antidepressant medicines may increase suicidal thoughts and actions in some people 24 years of age and younger. (Miraculously this new drug is going to be able to tell how old you are. That’s pretty amazing.) Zulresso insert: All patients with loss of or altered state of consciousness recovered with dose interruption. (Altered states of consciousness!!) Concomitant use of opioids,antidepressants, or other CNS depressants such as benzodiazepines or alcohol may increase the likelihood or severity of adverse reactions related to sedation[see Warnings and Precautions (7.1, 7.2)]. (How likely is it that patients are only going to be prescribed this ONE drug when we’re typically given FIVE psychiatric drugs simultaneously.)

    ‱ 9.3DependenceIn the PPD clinical studies conducted with ZULRESSO, end of treatment occurred through tapering. Thus, in these studies it was not possible to assess whether abrupt discontinuation of ZULRESSO produced withdrawal symptoms indicative of physical dependence. It is recommended that ZULRESSO be tapered according to the dosage recommendations, unless symptoms warrant immediate discontinuation[see Dosage and Administration (2.2), Warnings and Precautions (5.1)]. (They deliberately did not study for abrupt withdrawal syndrome. That was pretty handy. And it works through the GABBA receptor so that’s going to be a lovely withdrawal. How many Dr’s taper patients off drugs? I don’t personally know of any. My Mental Healthcare workers said it was ‘just fine’ to cold turkey off Klonopin, and my psychiatrists & hospitals repeatedly abruptly stopped my SSRI and antipsychotic’s. So how realist is it really to think your doctor is going to taper you down?)

    It’s a home-run for Sage pharmaceuticals, a disaster waiting to happen for patients.

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  • pro-mentalhealth – Well it sounds to me like your patient may have been in Full-blown withdrawal from stopping her medication when admitted. Did you re-instate the drug she stopped taking or just give Ativan which seems the standard drug in ALL the psychiatric hospitals and emergency rooms. While enduring mental tortures from my cold-turkey benzo & SSRI withdrawals Ativan was the ONLY drug given in ER and 2 trips to the psychiatric hospital, and whereas it put my withdrawals into somewhat remission, once released from the hospital and back home the drug wore off I was right back in terror, seizure, psychosis land from my withdrawals. But you jumped from Ativan directly to ECT’s! With all due respect to you, I’m glad I’m not your patient.

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  • Thank you James & Laura for this remarkable interview. Laura’s telling my story, she’s articulating many of our stories exceedingly beautiful, as horrific as our stories are. After being drugged for thirty-five years including ECT’s to treat the drug induced depressions and the final cold-turkey withdrawals left me feeling very angry that took years to gear toward another direction (realizing it was further hindering my healing process. In fact, it was killing me.) So I wrote a book detailing it pouring all my emotions out on paper when I had no where else to vent.

    I don’t like the word ‘victim’ and never use it. I’m not a victim, I am a survivor. We’re all survivors. Following my my c/t Klonopin withdrawal my motto is: Benzo withdrawal doesn’t have any hero’s, it only leaves survivors. I don’t have any cute sayings following my homicidal rages during my SSRI c/t withdrawals other than I’m fortunate no one was murdered although it was well planned. It’s why I admitted myself into yet another psychiatric hospital where the word ‘care’ was replaced with forced psychiatric drugs throwing me into more turmoil.

    But we do heal. And I couldn’t have healed if not for all the other’s suffering the exact same thing from around the world since ‘help’ was unavailable from my mental healthcare system, my family doctor, my neurologist where I sought it out. Not one of them believed a word I was telling them as I struggled to live just one more day from withdrawal symptoms so horrendous I couldn’t even put them into words.

    Whereas I was given a new lease on life since my multiple withdrawals, it’s heartbreaking having to watch the drugs destroying everyone in my family being prescribed psychiatric drugs.

    Thank you James & Laura

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  • As a psychiatric drug survivor, Peter Gotzsche you’ll always be my Hero. You gave voice to those of us suffering needlessly and endlessly from ‘taking our medicine’ and then were silenced by our mental health-care workers & psychiatrists. It’s tragic what happened to you at the Cochrane Institute. But I’m watching in real-time that Truth is being outlawed, and gunned down by big pharmaceutical companies where here in America it is legal to murder for profit.

    I’m happy to hear of your new endeavors, you did just as we psychiatric do after our psychiatric medicine has destroyed our entire lives, we pick up whats left of the pieces and carry on. We love & support you and yes, the truth will prevail. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul.

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  • The Mental Health System certainly is B-R-O-K-E-N. I could write an entire book on the subject having been misdiagnosed & over drugged for thirty-five years, and then went on to heavily research Psychiatry, Mental Health field, and psychiatric drugs collecting over 800+ pages of documentation proving just how dangerous & deadly the drugs are.

    Mental Health has no problem loading us up on drugs more addicting than heroin and then proceed to inform us it’s just fine to abruptly stop taking them sending our brains into the world of suicide & homicidal ideations, complete psychosis when that’s not what we signed up for. A psychosis so terrifying many commit suicide to escape it’s clutches. I was one them many times over. I only survived by the grace of God.

    Our 10 minute psychiatrist appointment consisted of holding our hands out, touching our index finger to our nose, and sticking our tongue out. He just wanted to make sure we’re still alive so they can prescribe more neurotoxin’s for us. I will never again walk into a Psychiatrist office, a mental health clinic or even a General Practitioner’s office when suffering ANY kind of mental distress unless I desired to have what few years I do have left in utter suffering. No thanks. This girl has had enough. I’m lucky to be alive as it is.

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  • Thank you Marci for writing how we suffer at the hands of psychiatrists, and GP’s. That was truly beautiful given the subject matter. It’s very hard describing mental torture isn’t it? Although we spend a lifetime trying. Does anybody even believe us? I’m finding out most certainly do not. So we’ll stick together, become our own family, help each other when no one else will. My heart is with you, and thank you.

    Sandra Villarreal

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  • This was a powerful essay. I don’t know if anyone’s noticed the level of deliberately created division in this country, and that something is terribly wrong with our world today. Although many are waking up to this fact. A conscience awareness shift is taking place. But I know when I nurtured my utter hatred and outrage at the mental health field for years it ate at my soul like a rabid virus, blocking a conscious shift from taking place. Whereas ‘knowledge is power’, love is even a greater power. And I’m afraid nothing will ever change in this Twilight Zone world we’re living in if it’s governed by hatred. That only feeds the beast. And it’s so easy to get caught up in the constant (deliberate) division of hating one another for their race, religion, or culture so Peter Breggin gets a great big thank you from me for posting this wonderful essay.

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  • Julie, not sure where or how to find your blog. I left a message on nomorenuthouses.com (is that the right place)? I’m not very computer savy, and do have left over cognitive brain damage, that I can laugh about today, from being on psych drugs for decades. Yes, lets chat. I so greatly appreciate your offer Julie. Let me know if you received the message I left you.

    Thank you Julie

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  • Fiachra, I hear you. After I endured the worst mental torture I could even imagine with my c/t Klonopin withdrawal, and just 6 months past that a Effexor, Trazodone & Lithium cold-turkey withdrawal that induced so much homicidal rage thus admitting myself into a psych unit so I wouldn’t kill anybody and it was there they once again, forced, then court ordered to take their poison one more time. The results devastating. Just weeks past that going through withdrawals again, I lost my home to fire. There is no way possible I could ever survive taking any psychiatric drugs ever again. Being drugged for thirty-five years alone almost did me in so many times over as it was with continuous suicide attempts, coma’s, ICU stays and a trip to the burn unit with massive 3rd degree burns that took a year to heal. Life on psychiatric drugs was pure hell. But we seem to be good little fighters and warriors, thank goodness. I will read the links you left. And God Bless you!!

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  • David, I remember reading your tragic story awhile back. Yes, I too became so psychotic and homicidal while going through c/t psychiatric drugs that I had to put myself into yet another God for saken psychiatric hospital so I wouldn’t kill anyone. It was like walking right back into the same nightmare I just walked out of. I don’t understand why no one listens to us when we’re screaming from rooftops telling the world how psychotic we become from either starting our drugs, but especially while coming off them. It outrages me. The men in white coats who call themselves Doctors’ are nothing more than drug dealers and murderers. Whereas, you may be long past being angry with the psychiatry field, you can tell that I am not. Every single person in my family is being prescribed one psychiatric drug or another believing they’re actually taking ‘medicine’. So I have to watch the qualities of their lives diminish by the day, watch them deteriorate, but they believe their Dr’s in white coats considering me the ‘crazy’ one. Thirty years ago after being prescribed heavy doses of Thorazine and becoming severely depressed, lethargic & psychotic I almost took the lives of my children too, my parental rights terminated. So I understand every word your saying. We are living in an upside-down world – The Twilight Zone where truth is suppressed and big pharma flourishes. Where in America it’s legal to murder for profit. Mr. David Carmichael, it’s so good to see you again! Thanks for posting your story.

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  • Rachel777, yes I get $900, had to have a co-signer for my apartment although I can & do make my rent. It comes off the top as I don’t like being homeless. My Mother left me her house on 5 acres but lost it due to fire (you know that story) leaving me homeless. No one in my family who lives nearby would house me so I slept in my S10 truck in my garage (unattached, so it didn’t burn) in the winter. The garage had no doors so it was very cold. One night my alternator went out which meant no heat, by morning my feet were so cold I could no longer feel them, but I made it. My niece has a 5,000 sq foot home with 7 bedrooms but because I was the ‘crazy’ one in my family help wasn’t offered. I recently donated all my psychiatric researched material to a woman (2 1/2 yrs worth) and she never even emailed me to say thank you. The memoir I’ve written is apparently written so badly no one will edit it. This is why I’m becoming so discouraged with humanity lately. It seems no one cares about anything but themselves, this may be a selfish narcissistic thing to say, but I’m going to say it anyway. I’m sure they’ll say I’m feeling sorry for myself, self-pity (I’m sure this is just sadness & loneliness talking). When one has no purpose to their lives, why are we here? I was never ‘hopelessly’ insane either, and I’m not now, although I certainly was on my medications, the drugs induced every mental disorder listed in the DSM. Especially during the cold-turkey withdrawals. I’m happy your doing well, have hopes for your future, making plans.
    What state are you in?

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  • I don’t quite understand why everyone’s worried if MIA is using cookies or whatever when every internet site records every keystroke of the keyboard, every tweet, comment, email, your Cloud where you store information. Your phone records the same information. The internet was set up by the CIA as a spy tool. I don’t understand why people don’t seem to realize this.

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  • Hi Rachel777, I don’t mind giving out my address. I live in Kalamazoo, MI paying $535 for rent, market price, plus another $200 for all bills. No food stamps, no Medicaid. It is a pleasant one bedroom apt, I feel safe here, can walk anywhere I need to go although I do have a car, don’t use it much because it’s a gas hog.

    Why are you forced to live in HUD housing? Living in the city is very depressing but don’t know how I can get back to the country. I lost my 5 acre property when my house burned down shortly after fleeing the psychiatric hospital I had to put myself into (psychiatric drug withdrawals induced so much homicidality I did it for everyone’s protection) but was forced, court-ordered more drugs after begging them to treat me without using them, and going through withdrawals now for the third time while still cognitively healing from a cold turkey Klonopin withdrawal I left a stove burner on – again, thus losing my home leaving me homeless. While no one in my family was willing to house me. I’m still trying to find my place in this world, my purpose, but having great difficulty. Thank you Rachel777 for asking. Sometimes just talking about it helps ease the frustration.

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  • Carlene, the answer is no. My entire family, including my grand-daughter are on psychiatric drugs actually believing their taking ‘medicine’ instead of the neurotoxic poisons that they are. Although drug free today, I’m still living on my 11,000 disability check. I don’t live in Section 8 housing, nor do I get food stamps or have Medicaid so paying the high price for more holistic counseling is out of the question. I have no friends or social life but never feel lonely. Communicating with others online is my only social life. I’ve acclimated to this little world that I live in very comfortably, but do wish, at times, I had someone to bounce feelings, idea’s & hope with. But, I don’t, so it is what it is. I did write a memoir of being psychiatrically drugged for 35 years, including ECT’s but can’t find anyone interested enough in editing it so it sits up on the shelf in the closet. I don’t have a problem vomiting my feelings on paper. It’s a good release. Thank you for your reply. And God Bless you….

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  • This story was so well written it brought tears to my eyes. I do hope everyone knows it’s not just Facebook that’s tracking our every move, our phones (whether on or not) are too, Alexa’s also recording, and so are the Smart TV’s in our very own living rooms.

    Yes, I’ve too had a therapist, who I had very good rapport with, from ACT call the Police to my home to do a home check after she interpreted something I had said as a suicide threat. Thank God I wasn’t home and I immediately cut off all ties to ACT and anything resembling ‘Mental Health’ care and went into hiding. Unfortunately, I know whats its like to voluntarily enter a psych ward, refuse medications thus throwing me into ‘involuntary’ status, now court ordered and forced drugs. The outcome disastrous. Although psychiatrically drug free today there is nowhere I can go and voice my ‘true’ feelings without threat of being forced drugs again. Nowhere. Even when I feel so distressed I fell like taking my own life. I guess I was brought into this world alone, and it looks like I will have to die the same way.

    Thank you for sharing your story with us. It was beautifully written.

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  • CatNight, thank you. The system certainly is B-R-O-K-E-N. I have to now watch psychiatric drugs thoroughly destroying my daughters life as they did mine. Her children often neglected or abused not because she doesn’t love them. Because she can no longer function as a Mother, she lives in drug induced delusional world as I once did. And it’s heartbreaking that I can’t help her although I’ve repeatedly tried. Every single person in my family is on psychiatric drugs including my grand-daughter, yet when I try to explain to them how dangerous their drugs are, I’m the crazy one. I don’t know why I stay on this Earth. I really don’t. I’m so sick of it I could just scream. It wouldn’t bother me a bit if I was dead tomorrow.

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  • Stephen, thank you for your heartwarming, heartbreaking story. Yes, sometimes families help is a death sentence. They drop us at the door to the torture center without even realizing it. They’re completely brainwashed by mainstream, pseudo-science of psychiatry. Psychiatrists have no idea how we suffer at their hands, nor do they seem to care. But, truth prevails. Love does win out in the end. Our problem is after being so heavily psychiatrically drugged, will we survive to see it. Thank goodness you did Stephen.

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  • grievingmother, can relate so very well to your words for Meschelle. Big pharma has every one of my family members in their clutches. Every one is on 1 or more psychiatric drugs, and I am forced to watch the quality of their lives go from happy, spontaneous people to anxiety ridden, depressed and sickly. But it’s the hardest watching my 41 year old daughter who’s been polydrugged for decades. It’s hard watching my grandchildren neglected and abused by a mother who can no longer function in any capacity of the word from taking so many toxic drugs. Psychiatry made sure she followed right in my footsteps. Dr.’s told her the same old lie they told me over 35 years ago, chemical imbalance and the need to take drugs for the rest of your life. I have to watch the drugs literally destroying her life, and that of her children’s. It’s heartbreaking. It’s more heartbreaking listening to someone who’s lost a loved one due to our so called ‘medicines’. I mean how many lives have be sacrificed to Psychiatry? How many lives do they want? expect? The mental torture the drugs put us through is very difficult to live through. Extremely difficult. Most have no idea. Dr. Brogan, Robert Whitaker, Dr. Breggin are fantastic advocates, but my all time favorite is Peter Gotzsche. I love that man beyond words. Keep up the good fight, and in the meantime, us psychiatric drug survivors will continue screaming from the roof tops until some one actually hears us. God Bless you grieving mother.

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  • Meschelle Linjean, Meschelle, your words are music to my ears when not anyone from my mental healthcare ‘team’ who I saw every week, their psychiatrist, or my GP ever believed I word I was telling them as I began my descent into hell concerning my c/t K-pin withdrawal. It’s the worst acid trip anyone could ever imagine. It’s torture – medically induced mental torture. Plain & simple. My horror story was recently published here, too, although it’s very difficult to cram 35 years of being psychiatrically poisoned in short form. I’ve also detailed it in book form, ‘Life Sentence: life behind bars of the Mental Health-care system’ that tells in detail my Klonopin then Effexor, Lithium & Trazodone cold-turkey withdrawals. Welcome to hell all over again …our benzo stories so bizarre that if one has never been ‘there’, in that psychotic hell abyss where ‘time’ doesn’t even exist, only endless terror, pain and utter insanity, they’d never believe it. This is how far out it takes your mind. And then it wants to know if you’re going to be strong enough to live through it. Tragically, so many don’t. It was difficult writing my memoir because I had to relive it to write it. Excruciatingly painful at times. Only another psychiatric drug survivor knows the hell we go through. It seems to be Psychiatry’s dirty little secret. Only evil, grows in the dark. So, thank you for your compassion and dedication to educating others, and shining that light. You know America comes in First Place for drugging the most children than any country on Earth. This offense is so shameful it’s disgusting. Children have no voice, they can be tortured to death. They have no voice. We have to be the children’s voice. So thank you for your part in saving humanity. Could I ask you a question in a more private setting? Would that be alright?

    Sandy

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  • Mescelle, those of us who’ve been ‘there’ in that world of pure psychotic mental torture of benzo’s don’t just read your words, we feel them, we relive them. The left over trauma sees to it. But I have never heard anyone describe the unrelenting hell we have to go through all in the name of Psychiatry, where the ‘Hippocratic Oath’ does not apply, as articulately and eloquently as you just did. I have nothing good or positive to say about Psychiatry. They stole decades from me, they even went after my soul, in the end they stole everything from me they could steal. All psychiatric drugs, especially the benzo’s take your mind places you never even knew existed, and once you get there you quickly realize you’re living in for the worst nightmare imaginable, living in abject terror every waking second absolutely terrified we’ll never be able find our way out of this nightmare we’ve found ourselves in with no help from anyone in the medical field. I equated my c/t Klonopin withdrawal to taking 10 hits of pure LSD, went completely insane which most people can’t understand what this feels like, let alone believe it. And those lucky enough to survive are never the same again. My motto is and will always be – ‘benzo withdrawal have any hero’s, it only leaves survivors.’ And I’m ever so grateful that you are one of them. Although you suffered endlessly and needlessly, your beautifully written words is the best gift we psychiatric drug survivors could ever hear. They provide something no one in the Mental Health field ever gave me, and that is – hope. And thank you for that.

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  • streetphotobeing, and I just read this minutes ago. This is how they keep brainwashing the masses.: NIMH’s Portfolio Balance: Quality Science Comes First By Joshua Gordon on February 26, 2018, ‘In the 2000s, NIMH concluded several large clinical trials, including STAR*D, Step-BD, and CATIE, real-world studies of the effectiveness of antidepressants, mood-stabilizers, and antipsychotics, respectively.’ and they threw this in as a joke.: ‘I think it truly important that we be as transparent as possible about the kinds of research we fund and the balance of investments we maintain.’ – when I was researching psychiatry & clinical trials I saw nothing but completely omitting data, deceit, massaging data, and out right lies.

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  • Can someone, anyone please confirm for me where Marci is now. The Dec. story said she was at Elgin, then transferred to Chicago Read. The Feb. story says she’s at Elgin. They transferred her back to Elgin? I sent her a short letter, card & stamps to Chicago Read by mistake. (I make them often, mistakes). I doubt they’ll forward it to Elgin if this is where she’s currently being held hostage. So I’ll buy the exact same things and send them to her at Elgin.

    Thank you….

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  • Feelindiscouraged, I just read this two seconds ago. Oh, I must share if MIA will let me. Read every word carefully. This is how they brainwash the masses.: NIMH’s Portfolio Balance: Quality Science Comes First By Joshua Gordon on February 26, 2018 ‘In the 2000s, NIMH concluded several large clinical trials, including STAR*D, Step-BD, and CATIE, real-world studies of the effectiveness of antidepressants, mood-stabilizers, and antipsychotics, respectively.’ I also don’t know if they threw this in as a joke.: ‘I think it truly important that we be as transparent as possible about the kinds of research we fund and the balance of investments we maintain.’
    Yes, I wish the trial was publicized but they sure don’t want any of their dirty little secrets to escape into the public in case some ‘truth’ is exposed.

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  • Dear Cindy, what a heart breaking story. Unfortunately I’ve read many exactly like Cindy’s. Without boring anyone with details I will say I too, was very close to wearing your shoes. After two years of being prescribed heavy doses of tricycylics and MOA’s I became very despondent, severely depressed and suicidal. So Dr’s increased the doses. I couldn’t get out of bed, working my full time job was extremely difficult, taking care of my toddlers impossible. I spent every waking moment in bed, neglecting my beloved children, wishing I were dead. Couldn’t remember the last time I smiled, or laughed. Always sad, always lethargic, no hope for my future. All I wanted was what every one else had: to smile, be happy, have hope, a future. But I saw none of it. I was too heavily medicated. So I decided to take LSD so I could laugh again. It made me laugh back in the 70’s. I took one, two, my depression and sadness only intensified. So I took more until I’d taken 10 hits of LSD. As the psychosis set in I knew I wanted to die – I had to. But I couldn’t leave my children behind. I loved them with all my heart. So I lined them up with a gun in my hand. I searched and searched for my room-mates bullets and couldn’t find them. I searched some more. I turned his bedroom upside down searching. In my delusional, psychotic mind I was doing absolutely nothing wrong. I felt a burden to my family, to society believing If I were dead I was actually doing society a favor. Somewhere in time, my sister came over to find this insane situation. I was taken to the local hospital, then transferred to the Kalamazoo State Hospital for almost a year. My children permanently removed. My ever changing psychiatric medications abruptly stopped, changed, or increased for the next 30 years. Because I’ve been in your shoes, so to speak, all I have for you is compassion, tears, and heartbreak for your situation. I will support you any way I can. No one ever understood why I did what I did. They were too busy praising my addicting, dangerous, deadly psychiatric drugs. And they never will. Stay strong. Smile if you can, have hope. And never give up. I understand why you did what you did. And I cry as I write this because I am a mother too. You will only get support, compassion, and understanding from this ex-psychiatric patient.

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  • Julie, it’s in full force here in America. I know this is not the place to discuss this here, but I will just once. We have poisonous GMO foods, fluoridated water, vaccines, flu shots, chemtrails (geoengineering) and everyone’s on pharmaceutical drugs, and/or psych drugs. The depopulation agenda is not only targeting the poor, they’re targeting everyone (Georgia Guidestones, NWO agenda.) Genocide used to be legal here, they just renamed it genetics. Pretty clever huh.

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  • Oldhead, your comment created much anger in me. I do happen to know what it’s like to overdose on LSD, and my K-pin cold-turkey withdrawal not only took my mind to the exact same place during that withdrawal, but while I was living in Klonopin interdose withdrawal I kept feeling as if I was high on acid, and I’ve heard many others say the same thing due to dilated pupils, and a brain over flooded with serotonin & dopamine. So I’m going disregard your ignorant comment. You come across to me as every one of my mental healthcare workers who denied my reality when it came to cold-turkey psychiatric drug withdrawal symptoms. I supposed next your going to tell me that I really didn’t become homicidal as well when coming off my SSRI’s? I am all done here.

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  • Kitty, I do not see where to respond to your questions so I’ll try to do it here. I was given around 10 ECT’s until I told my Dr. to end them due to severe short-term memory loss & violence. I’m sure he would have been more than happy to ‘shock it to death’ if allowed. It’s hard to answer your question as to what was worst of the lot. I had to give up my entire life for all of it, even my children. I was in & out of intensive care so many times from suicidal attempts to end my iatrogenic illness caused by my psychiatric medications I wasn’t able to take care of anything. If I had to name one tho, it would be the mentally torturous cold-turkey withdrawals. My Klonopin withdrawal was equivalent to taking 10 hits of pure LSD. Total psychosis in a constant state of unrelenting fear where I suffered PTSD from it and severe cognitive impairment. The SSRI induced homicidal behaviors. When I went on my quest to find out why I had been so sick for so long I had to read many books twice, read scientific information 10 -20 times. And if I wasn’t able to understand it then, I filed it until I could. Even when my house burned down taking all of it with it, I started all over again. There was no way I was going to let Psychiatry win. I’m currently looking for a home for the over 700+ pages of researched documents I have. And think I may have found one. But, your absolutely right. No one cares about our demise as long as Dr’s & big pharma profits. They don’t create cures, they create customers. I do wish you much happiness Kitty. You deserve it.

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  • Oh, not so fast truth, I just found this and can’t wait to read the book. I affectionately bonded with my psychiatrist at the hospital as the anesthesiologist was covering my nose & mouth with his apparatus to do it ‘ever so gently’ right before every ECT, because he knew how I sometimes panicked feeling as I felt as if I were suffocating. I was so impaired & suffering from my devils cocktail of psychiatric drugs that I actually mistook this for caring. I now find this ludicrous. People care…

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  • Julie Greene, MFA, this appears to be good news. Dear AllTrials campaigners

    For several years AllTrials has been asking the FDA to censure sponsors who break the law in failing to report clinical trial results. The FDA has assured us, publicly and privately, that new clarifying rules – the FDAAA Final Rule – will help them do so but though there are trials on ClinicalTrials.gov whose results are years overdue, to date they have not issued a single fine, despite the power to levy up to $10,000 per day.

    So we have sent an open letter to the FDA telling them that today is the launch of an an online tracker (FDAAA.trialstracker.net) so that we can all see who is late according to the FDA’s own registry data. Today is important – it is 13 months ​since the​ FDAAA Final Rule that made it crystal clear who needs to report results within a year of a trial ending (13 months includes the extra 30 days grace FDA allows for administration issues). We thought you would like early sight of this letter as the tracker launches: http://www.alltrials.n et/news/open-letter-to-the-fda

    ​We are going to write to them every week from now on with a list of those trials that breach the reporting requirements, as well as a rolling total of the fines they could be levying. We will succeed in recovering missing trials.

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  • Diana thank you so much for your story. I blame our Community Mental Health-care system directly for my demise after what they did to me. And I remember coming across this during my research too because it appalled me. And I know it’s coming to America. There is a de-population agenda here and what could accelerate it any faster than a patient suffering endlessly & needlessly from taking our devils cocktail of psychiatric drugs. If this would have been available to me I would have begged for it to end my ongoing suffering. ‘Netherlands sees sharp increase in people choosing euthanasia due to ‘mental health problems’ – The Netherlands has seen a sharp increase in the number of people choosing to end their own lives due to mental health problems such as trauma caused by sexual abuse. – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/11/netherlands-sees-sharp-increase-in-people-choosing-euthanasia-du/ Mental Health seems to know only two ways to treat ‘distressed’ people. First you drug them, then you kill them.

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  • truth, Yes, I too was given ECT’s and damaged by them. What I’ve seen is all the psychiatrists who advocate our truth, who become our voice after we’ve been silenced, and they’re all different from one another. It’s hard for all of them to always be on the same page. Dr. David Healy has made many wonderful contribution’s to the truth about psychiatry regardless of whether he believes in ECT’s or not. In my little world, Dr. David Healy will always be ‘my beloved Dr. Healy’. So point well taken, and thank you for it.

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  • Connor M. Karen, what a brilliant, ambitious young man you are! Yes, my psychiatrist recommended ECT’s to ‘fix’ my drug induced severe, crippling depressions. After about the 10th shock treatment I began experiencing severe short term memory loss where I became extremely violent so my Dr. discontinued them. So where is my mind today after being drugged for decades, ECT’s, and multiple cold-turkey withdrawals? I’ve lost 85% of my lifetime personal memories. Wiped out, gone. I have abnormal EEG’s from a Klonopin cold-turkey withdrawal, from the seizures (I’m guessing), that effect me every night just like clockwork. They’re not pleasant. I’m dyslexic now when I never was before which I actually find humorous. But I sure am one happy camper to finally be drug free, and free from the death grip of Psychiatry. Best of luck to you Conner. You’re a remarkable young man.

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  • What a story. Good for you Bryan Sutherland! for fighting the corrupt system. Your so young, talented and driven to fight for the truth. Hurray!!! I too, filed a complaint against my Mental Healthcare system for ‘neglect of care’ and lost mainly due to the fact they right out lied. In order to hire an attorney I would have had to sell my country home and at that time, I wasn’t willing to do that. But, before I was all done with Psychiatry they would take that too. You’re such an inspiration to continually fight for justice. I know what you mean by not having to experience anymore crazy drug-induced symptoms. What a nightmare that was. At the age of 60, I was finally given a new life: drug free, symptom free, mentally ill free. Turns out I am no more Bi-polar than the man on the moon. And neither are you.

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  • guiding-lights, I don’t know why books have gotten so expensive. ‘Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry’ – $85.00 USD (When I purchased this book a few years ago it was only $45.00.) I have read that Amazon, who has a $600 million dollar contract with the CIA puts ridiculously high prices on books that expose truth so we can’t afford to purchase them to read. Check out the price of the Dr. Colin A. Ross’s book I’ve been wanting desperately to read. But, there’s no way I can afford it.) – Bluebird : Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists ‱ 20 Used from $97.46 3 New from $187.48 – 7 Used from $235.97 5 New from $438.94 If you provide me your address I’m happy to send you the copy of ‘Deadly Medicines’ by Peter C. Gotzsche I have. I’ve purchased it for others before just to educate them. But whether they actually read it is another story.

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  • Mad about long term benzo damage, I’m going to tell you how they did it. This is what I discovered through my research. They’re all corrupt to the bone. The pharmaceutical industry, the FDA, the CDC, even the EPA. It’s a house of cards that’s run on deceit, lies, omission, fraud and greed. Many great books have been written exposing this fraud but one of my favorites is Peter C. Gotzsche’s book, ‘Deadly Medicine and Organised Crime: How big pharma has corrupted healthcare’. Follow the money, it’s about unmitigated greed with no regard to patients health, well-being or safety. It’s all about the money. That’s how this happened. And it will NEVER be fixed. They don’t want it ‘fixed’. It would hurt the bottom line – profit. Only in America is it legal to murder for profit. We’re just lucky to have survived. Sadly, many don’t.

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  • After being prescribed the usual toxic cocktail of psychiatric drugs including Klonopin alone for more than ten years, and due to the severity of that cold-turkey withdrawal I have lost 85% of all childhood memories, lifetime personal memories and no longer dream, or can remember my dreams. I rarely wake feeling rested because of this. In my eyes, benzodiazepines are the most dangerous drugs on this planet yet they’re handed out like candy especially to children who have less of a voice than us adults who have been silenced by our Mental Health care facilities after complaining about side effects, adverse effects or the mentally torturous withdrawals that they said was ‘just fine’ to abruptly stop taking them. They provided no withdrawal symptoms I may experience, and when I filed my case against them for ‘neglect of care’, it was DENIED because I signed a simple one-page consent form the year before. Therefore, they stated they were under no obligation what so ever to inform me of anything more. So although that withdrawal took my mind to the most terrifying place that’s ever existed, total psychosis, seizures and unrelenting pure hell, we, the patient, are still not listened to, believed or helped in any humane way. If Psychiatry & GP’s can’t prescribe these toxic drugs (benzo’s) responsibly according to guidelines (no longer than 2 weeks) then perhaps they shouldn’t prescribe them at all. Or better yet, arrest them for dealing drugs. Because that’s all they are – addicting, toxic drugs that do far more harm than good.

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  • betsycam, I didn’t use any particular strain of marijuana while withdrawing, I used whatever I could get my hands on. It relieved the brain zaps, uncontrollable crying, racing heart rate, fluctuating blood pressure, escalating anxiety, excruciating migraines, chronic insomnia, flu like symptoms, obsessive-compulsive thoughts, roller-coaster mood swings, anger, rage, and violence, to name a few. I couldn’t have made it without the pot. It rescued me from the ravages of insanity from the withdrawals to being centered with the universe, God & humanity. And while in the midst of pure mental torture, I welcomed it.

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  • jordanfallis, the brain may be able to heal, but in my case the cognitive impairment seems permanent. I’ve lost 85% of all lifetime personal memories, I no longer dream, and when I do, I’m unable to remember them at all. I don’t believe the brain heals that much following decades of taking toxic psychiatric drugs, ECT’s and multiple cold-turkey withdrawals. Yes, I recovered my ‘normal’ range of emotions but as for the rest of my brain – it’s screwed.

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  • Poora, God Bless you for that. I become so angry when I write about what I’ve discovered in my research into the deep annals of so called ‘medicine’, psychiatric drugs, mental health field, FDA, pharmaceutical companies, CDC and more. I’m sorry, I used the wrong word ‘angry’, I meant to say OUTRAGED. Plus, after being heavily drugged for 35 years I had a front row seat to the horror show. And the theater was full.

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  • No! they should NOT screen for Adverse Childhood Experiences unless other more humane alternative solutions are offered other than drugging the patient into psychosis, suicide and death. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Seeks Comments on Draft Recommendation Statement on Screening for Depression in Children and Adolescents – WASHINGTON, D.C. – September 8, 2015 – The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (Task Force) today posted a draft recommendation statement on screening for major depressive disorder (MDD) in children and adolescents, stating that adolescents ages 12 to 18 should be screened for MDD when adequate systems are in place for diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. .. and with MDD, these feelings last more than 2 weeks. Depression can make it difficult for adolescents to function, relate, and develop, which can affect their performance at school or work and their interactions with family and peers. By screening for depression and identifying young people with MDD, support and treatment can be put in place to alleviate symptoms and lessen the risk of suicide. (We can’t go 2 weeks of feeling heartbroken, down or disparaged without being ‘labeled’ and heavily drugged? Just look how many psychiatric drugs come with a Black Box Warning of causing Suicide? There are no adequate systems in place. They only use neurotoxic psychiatric drugs to treat, and monitoring! That’s a joke. There is no monitoring.) And if that isn’t enough they want to go after pregnant women.:

    ‘Primary Care Screening for and Treatment of Depression in Pregnant and Postpartum Women: Evidence Report and Systematic Review for the US Preventive Services Task Force – The information in this article is intended to help clinicians, employers, policymakers, and others make informed decisions about the provision of health care services’ – policy makers? You mean the ones in Washington DC who are bribed by pharmaceutical companies to pass laws in their favor? and others. Are they referring to pharmaceutical companies directly, the only ones to benefit. It certainly isn’t the patient. It’s quite obvious they want to drug every man, women & child in America and will stop at nothing until they succeed. Most tragically, America drugs the most children than any other country on Earth. And if this doesn’t appall you, I don’t know what will.

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  • Carol, this is a beautifully written person story. Thank you. But, it left me scratching my head. Why do you even believe that your ‘bipolar’? When a bunch of psychiatrists are sitting around the boardroom table discussing new ‘diagnosis’ to come up with to appease big pharma, I have to wonder if anyone is actually ‘bipolar’. Sure, we’re human, we have an array of emotions, individually we handle them differently due to our upbringing, past truama’s, ect. I too, was diagnsosed Bipolar but now that I’m off all psychiatric drugs, I don’t see any ‘bipolar’ anywhere, or any other man-made psychiatric diagnosis. None. I’m just trying to understand why you see it in your life.

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  • mslilith13 – As far as I’m concerned, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in not a mental illness, and should never be classified as such. What I experienced following my two violent rapes was the normal reaction to trauma that my mind was unable and could not comprehend. Paula Caplan said it best regarding our returning soldiers from war. No one knows the absolute horror they saw and experienced during live combat out there on the war field but them. My 92 year old WWII Veteran Father tells me the exact same things, as he’s describing his atrocious war experiences to me of his life out there on the battle field, where he had to witness everyone of his buddies in his fox hole killed, he had to go back to his commanding officer and when asked where the troops were, my Dad’s only response to him was, “There all gone sir – they’re all gone.” This is traumatic shit, but he’s far from being mentally ill because of it. Was it traumatic to him? Absolutely, it still effects him today, but Thank God he doesn’t take any psychiatric medications to treat it, and never has. Soldiers then carry that trauma home with them and labeled ‘mentally ill’ for it, and heavily drugged with the most toxic medications on the planet. This is an injustice and a travesty to all of humanity to treat our soldiers this way. It’s an injustice and travesty to treat anyone like this.

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  • Feelindiscouraged, I hope this blows your mind. I know it did mine. http://mentalillnesspolicy.org “The most chronic and disabling of the major mental illnesses, schizophrenia involves a chemical imbalance in the brain, alleviated in most cases by medication. Symptoms can include confusion; inability to concentrate, to variations such as paranoia. Untreated, the disease is ravaging. It’s victims cannot work or care for themselves. They may think they are other people… or otherwise lose their sense of identity. They find it hard or impossible to live with others, and they may become hostile and threatening. They can end up living in the most degraded, shocking circumstances, voiding in their own clothes, living in rooms overrun by rodents – or in the streets. They often deteriorate physically, losing weight and suffering corresponding malnutrition, rotting teeth and skin sores. They become particularly vulnerable to injury and abuse.” He goes on to say, “the cost of withholding treatment is permanent damage.” – This is quote-unquote. Can you believe this garbage? This is how this ‘reputable’ mental health website is portraying ‘schizophrenics’ to the world. And people believe it! When in fact, the psychiatric drugs will induce them all.

    This article. ‘Drug manufacturers delayed reporting serious unexpected adverse events’ by Clinical Neurology News Digital Network
    Key clinical point: Drug manufactures delayed reporting about 10% of serious unexpected adverse events to the FDA.

    Major finding: Manufacturers broke the 15-day deadline for about 10% of such events, and those involving death were more likely to be delayed than others.

    Isn’t it interesting, first mental health pushes the ‘chemical imbalance’ theory, pushes toxic drugs to treat it, and we learn that extremely serious adverse events, including death are delayed being reported to the FDA, or not even reported at all, as I discovered many times through my research. I summarized these up into an 8 page document from their extensive list: FDA ‘Warning Letters’ to pharmaceutical companies from 1997-2015 for using fraudulent/ misleading advertising, lacking fair balance, Risk information is NOT presented, minimized safety risks, failed to show ANY information in Black Box Warning. Stattera(ADHD) – False and misleading information, [Completely] omits Black Box Warning regarding Risk of suicidal ideations in children and adolescence, and the list of charges goes on & on & on. – 99% of the psychiatric drugs I’ve been prescribed are on that list for using ‘False and misleading’ advertising. And they are still misleading the American public. We are still being lied to.

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  • Juliano, I grew up in the late 60’s & 70’s when it was socially acceptable to use psychedelics, and we all did for recreational use (I now know why Timothy Leary introduced them.) And we were told we were frying our brains. Do you remember the TV commercial they used dropping an egg into a hot frying pan? They even started the ‘war on drugs’. And now big pharma wants to profit from them. Big pharma has run out of new drugs, tweeked every drug they’ve already created and now want a piece of the pie by profiting from turning psychedelics into ‘medicine’. So back when we doing our ‘psychedic’s we were actually ‘taking our medicine’! I agree they may be helpful in treating so called ‘mental illness’ in minute doses. But, it will just be abused, sold on the street, and over prescribed making big pharma even wealthier. When psychiatrists/doctors put patients on drugs, they never take us off them. We become patients for life, and if they refuse to clinically study the long term effects of SSRI’s, neuroleptics, and benzodiazepines now, theirs nothing for me to believe they’ll ever study long-term effects of taking psychedelics on humans. Big pharma all about money. They could care less about people. Maybe we should bring LSD, mescaline, peyote of the early 70’s back to the streets. Sure made me laugh a lot back then. It was fun and there weren’t any adverse effects unless laughing is bad for us. I’d buy it on the streets long before I financially support Big Pharma, the genocidal machine. Dr. Breggin’s opinions on psychedelics & pot doesn’t effect me in the least. I look at the tremendous amount of good things he’s done. May we all take our psychedelics, laugh and be happy.

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  • Yes, we need a conversation concerning this topic. You’re very fortunate to have caring healthcare professionals on your side. I didn’t experience that at any stage. I refer to my so called ‘care’ as torture because as I’m exhibiting 99% of these symptoms listed below while taking my medication, and while withdrawing from it, I was always blamed, prescribed more drugs, or given a new diagnosis. And it was nothing short of MENTAL TORTURE.

    ANTIDEPRESSANT WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS (SSRI/SNRI)
    1. Crying spells
    2. Worsened mood
    3. Low energy (fatigue, lethargy, malaise)
    4. Trouble concentrating
    5. Insomnia or trouble sleeping
    6. Change in appetite
    7. Suicidal thoughts
    8. Suicide attempts
    9. Anxious, nervous, tense
    10. Panic attacks (racing heart, breathless)
    11. Chest pain
    12. Trembling, jittery or shaking
    13. Irritability
    14. Agitation (restlessness, hyperactivity)
    15. Impulsivity
    16. Aggression
    17. Self-harm
    18. Homicidal thoughts or urges
    19. Confusion or cognitive difficulties
    20. Memory problems or forgetfulness
    21. Elevated mood (feeling high)
    22. Mood swings
    23. Manic-like behavior
    24. Auditory hallucinations
    25. Visual hallucinations
    26. Feeling detached or unreal
    27. Excessive or intense dreaming
    29. Flu-like aches and pains
    30. Fever
    31. Sweats
    32. Chills
    33. Runny nose
    34. Sore eyes
    36. Vomiting
    37. Diarrhea
    38. Abnormal pain or cramps
    39. Stomach bloating
    40. Disequilibrium
    41. Spinning, swaying, lightheadedness
    42. Hung over or waterlogged feeling
    43. Unsteady gait, poor coordination
    44. Motion sickness
    45. Headache
    46. Tremor
    47. Numbness, burning or tingling
    48. Electric shock-like sensations in the brain
    49. Electric shock-like sensations in the body
    50. Abnormal visual sensations
    51. Ringing or other noises in the ears
    52. Abnormal smells or tastes
    53. Drooling or excessive saliva
    54. Slurred speech
    55. Blurred vision
    56. Muscle cramps, stiffness, twitches
    57. Feeling of restless legs
    59. Uncontrollable twitching of mouth

    Benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms (not inclusive):
    ‱ Electric shock sensations
    ‱ Muscular spasms, cramps or fasciculations
    ‱ Insomnia
    ‱ Blurred vision
    ‱ Dizziness
    ‱ Dry mouth
    ‱ Aches and pains
    ‱ Hearing disturbances
    ‱ Taste and smell disturbances
    ‱ Chest pain
    ‱ Flu like symptoms
    ‱ Impaired memory and concentration
    ‱ Increased sensitivity to light/sound
    ‱ Increased urinary frequency
    ‱ Numbness and tingling
    ‱ Hot & cold flashes
    ‱ Headache/migraine
    ‱ Rebound REM sleep
    ‱ Stiffness
    ‱ Fatigue and weakness
    ‱ Hypersomnia
    ‱ Metallic taste
    ‱ Photophobia
    ‱ Paranoia
    ‱ Hypnagogia-hallucinations
    ‱ Nausea and vomiting
    ‱ Nightmares
    ‱ Agitation and restlessness
    ‱ Anxiety, possible terror and panic attacks
    ‱ Hypochondriasis
    ‱ Impaired concentration
    ‱ Elevation in blood pressure
    ‱ Tachycardia
    ‱ Hypertension
    ‱ Postural hypotension
    ‱ Depression (can be severe), possible suicide ideation
    ‱ Tremor
    ‱ Perspiration
    ‱ Loss of appetite and weight loss
    ‱ Dysphoria
    ‱ Depersonalization

    If I, with barely a 10th grade education can find the truth about the dangers of my psychiatric drugs why can’t a Doctor or Psychiatrist so we can be better informed (rather than blamed?) Absolutely, everyone’s case is different but we all still deserve to be treated with respect, dignity, and provided the best/safest care available by our Psychiatrists & GP’s. Not pumped with more neurotoxic drugs then ECT’s to treat the drug induced crippling depressions then left to fend for ourselves. Never offered alternatives. I believe healing emotional trauma using genuine care, love, empathy, and understanding is much more effective than using neurotoxic drugs for decades. I now have extensive permanent cognitive impairment as a direct result of taking my ‘medicines’. I don’t consider this ‘care’. We all deserve happiness and I thank you for your post. Yes, we need a conversation. We can not keep sweeping this under the rug.

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  • ingriddheiner, It’s amazing to me how so many are diagnosed ‘mentally ill’ due to trauma in our lives. And I believe – deliberately. Oh yes, I not only received the Bipolar diagnosis, but BPD as well, and few more as I kept becoming more iatrogenically sick from taking my ‘medicine’ which prompts yet more drugs, more suffering, more permanent cognitive impairment, memory loss, sleep deprivation, deep depressions & suicidal attempts.

    I’m so proud of you for already coming off the opiates, K-pin, and alcohol. And I’m grateful you have good quality care to help with the rest. I have faith that when your ready, you will write your story. I wrote a complete memoir but have no one to edit or money so it sits on the back burner for now. I had to expel my gut-wrenching life story on paper so I could finally put it to rest. Writing about my children was the hardest. Thankfully, the human heart does heal, and I couldn’t have done it without the caring words from other psychiatric drug survivors. God Bless you too…

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  • TRM123, quite profound words my friend. Your very articulate. I’m going to comment on one statement you made, although I admire them all. (Sandra – Is it possible that the craving for alcohol might have been induced by SSRIs? – Ref. “Driven to Drink: – Antidepressants and Cravings for Alcohol. RxISK Blog. October 15th. 2012). When I was on my usual devils cocktail of psychiatric drugs, I turned into an extremely violent, raging, psychotic maniac. Yes, I drank heavily to combat side effects, adverse effects and continual withdrawal symptoms when doctors would ‘play’ with our prescriptions with no regard to withdrawal symptoms. Three drinks and I was in a black-out always waking up the next day full of bruises, broken glasses, and a deathtifying hangover that took days to recover from. After being drug free I no longer feel that ‘need’ to drink. There’s no more drug induced suffering. Although I still occasionally drink today, since my withdrawal, I have not had ONE black-out. There’s no more adverse reactions from mixing toxic drugs w/alcohol. Today, I’m far from being alcoholic. Yes, when I was researching psychiatric drugs I came across that article by the magnificent Dr. David Healy. It’s keeping company with over 700 pages of other documents, articles, and research I came across. So yes, my drugs drove me to drink. There’s no doubt about it. Thank you again.

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  • Thank you so much Lori. It was only after listening to other psychiatric drug survivors share their personal stories with me via emails on how they coped, how they suffered, even while standing at suicides door, and how they survived gave me one thing that none of my mental health care workers, therapists or Psychiatrists ever did, and that was HOPE. You summed it up perfectly. It is Medication induced torture. I do have joy, peace & happiness today and I pray that you do too. God Bless you Lori.

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  • jfreedom, yes, I cringe today every time I hear someone praise psychiatric drugs. The fraudulent psychiatry industry has everyone of my family members on psychiatric drugs, including my grand daughter. My heart goes out to you at the damage and injustice done to you. What I discovered, in time, was that my brain did heal once the drugs were gone. Only, once we’ve had our central nervous system rammed through the meat grinder, my brain healed in it’s time, not mine. I had to be ever so patient. And most days I just didn’t want to hang on any longer. Yet, I found hope from others (all strangers) that gave me the strength just for that day. Your name says it all – Freedom. One day you will be Free. May peace always be with you jfreedom…

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  • Bradford, Your words tickled my heart. Still heavily medicated I was convinced I had the worst case of Bipolar doctors had ever seen. Especially the last five years constant Psych hospitalizations, Police contact, and endless suffering (all drug induced as I’m completely mentally fine today.) But I had a copy of Dr. Breggin’s ‘Toxic Psychiatry’ sitting on my coffee table for the longest time, and I have no idea to this day where I got it from, but when I began reading it boy-oh-boy did the light bulb go off. That too was my beginning. It was also other survivors that I talked to from all over the world that helped me heal the most. When I learned that what I’d experienced during my K-pin c/t withdrawal that I was not alone, after my own Mental Health agency completely abandoned me, it showed me a side of humanity I hadn’t seen in 35 years from any of my Psychiatrists’. It was the sharing of their pain that helped heal me the most. Thanks! *smile* it does the soul good doesn’t it!

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  • Fiachra, thank you for the kind words. What’s so funny is that after being heavily drugged for so long, including ECT’s, that after withdrawing from all my medications (unfortunately cold-turkey) and healing for 4 years I looked all over the place for that ‘chemical imbalance’ Doctors said I had. I searched high & low for my Bipolar/mental illness they were so sure I had – and it was nowhere to be found! Imagine that…

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  • Thank you Steve McCrea. I almost didn’t make it. That c/t Klonopin withdrawal induced the worst mental torture psychosis I’ve ever imagined. It was equivalent to taking 10 hits of pure LSD. Decades of mental torture is a mighty high price to pay to be ‘mentally well’ considering there was no mental illness to begin with. Yes, we psychiatric drug survivors are very lucky to be alive. But, my heart still cries today for those who didn’t.

    God Bless my friend…

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  • BetterLife, I was going to suggest a video called, MY EXPERIENCE ON, & GETTING OFF PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATION – https://youtu.be/7Ls698KaxUw where she talks about her withdrawals from Effexor. It was remarkable, but sadly do to Googles severe censorship of internet content [those exposing the truth.] Google deleted her channel. I too went through pure hell coming off Effexor. It drove me completely mad and homicidal. If it wasn’t for marijuana to calm those rages I would have killed someone. Pot was a life saver for me during my withdrawals calming the mental torture and physical symptoms. Between the pot & this music I discovered I wouldn’t have made it. The withdrawal madness lasted for five months where I was so homicidal my psychotic mind told me this killing spree I planned every day was perfectly fine. This is the definition of ‘insanity’. While psychiatry calls it ‘care’. So thankful to be off those toxic drugs.

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  • How many psychiatric patients have been told the information in this document when coming off your Klonopin? Not a one of my psychiatrist’s have ever breathed a word of it to me. Instead, they said that after more than a decade on Klonopin, it’s ‘just fine’ to abruptly stop taking it. (http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov) on July 28, 2015. Query: Records containing the term 1622 61 3 1 – HSDB
    NAME: CLONAZEPAM RN: 1622-61-3
    OVERVIEW:
    HUMAN TOXICITY EXCERPTS: Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), including Klonopin, increase the risk of suicidal thoughts or behavior in patients taking these drugs for any indication. The abrupt withdrawal of Klonopin, particularly in those patients on long-term, high-dose therapy, may precipitate status epilepticus.
    Therefore, when discontinuing Klonopin, gradual withdrawal is essential. Adverse GI effects of clonazepam include constipation, diarrhea, encopresis, gastritis, increased or decreased appetite, weight gain or loss, dyspepsia, nausea, coated tongue, dry mouth, abnormal thirst, and sore gums.[American Society of Health-System Pharmacists 2012; Drug Information 2012. Bethesda, MD. 2012, p. 2258] **PEER REVIEWED**

    Adverse neurologic effects of clonazepam include abnormal eye movements, aphonia choreiform movements, coma, diplopia, dysarthria, dysdiadochokinesis, glassy-eyed appearance, headache, hemiparesis,
    nystagmus, respiratory depression, slurred speech, tremor, dizziness, and vertigo. Clonazepam may also cause confusion, mental depression, forgetfulness, hallucinations, hysteria, increased libido, insomnia,
    psychosis, or suicidal tendencies. Muscle weakness and pains may also occur.[American Society of Health-System Pharmacists 2012; Drug Information 2012. Bethesda, MD. 2012, p. 2258] **PEER REVIEWED**

    The most frequent adverse effects of clonazepam are sedation or drowsiness, ataxia or hypotonia, and behavioral disturbances (principally in children) including aggressiveness, irritability, agitation, and hyperkinesis. Abrupt withdrawal of clonazepam following prolonged administration has resulted in severe withdrawal symptoms including seizures, psychosis, hallucinations, behavioral disturbances, tremors, abdominal and muscle cramps, vomiting, sweating, irritability, restlessness, sleeplessness, and hand tremors. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants and benzodiazepines (BZ) are frequently used to manage maternal depression during pregnancy. Such prenatal SSRI exposure may lead to a neonatal discontinuation syndrome [severe withdrawal symptoms]. (It’s unconscionable to me how doctors can deliberately do this to children. What I discovered was when I brought these horrifying side effects, adverse events to my GP, psychiatrists or mental health-care workers, I was not listened to or believed. They further blamed me for my demise and prescribed yet more pills.)

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  • Adaline, beautifully said. And I sure am sorry for your suffering too. I had full medical insurance, was heavily involved with Mental Health/ACT Team there. I saw my workers once if not twice a week, yet while enduring my withdrawals I was not believed. In fact, I was directly blamed for my endless suffering (withdrawal symptoms) where I not only become angry, I was outraged. And when I researched the entire Psychiatric madness Industry, that lead me down other rabbit holes. If what I didn’t learn from Psychiatry & psychiatric drugs didn’t open my eyes and mind, the rest of what you mentioned surely did. We are under attack literally from every direction. There is no way anyone can convince me there isn’t a de-population agenda on the table. God Bless you Adaline. All we have is each other. We’d have to be delusional to actually believe our government or President is going to help us. They are not.

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  • Stephen Gilbert, thank you for advocating on my behalf. I didn’t say marijuana helped me ‘get off’ my Effexor, Trazodone & Lithium. I said it helped me get through the excruciating mental & physical symptoms of those cold-turkey withdrawals. They induced such a level of irritability, anger, rage & homicidal ideations and planning, I must add, that I welcomed it. It also relieved my physical symptoms as well (extreme suffering). Thank you for your comment. It was very well taken. And no, I would never recommend anyone get off their psych meds ‘cold-turkey’, but my mental health-care workers had a habit of telling me that after decades taking them, it was ‘just fine’ to do when we all know, it isn’t. So thank you, again for your comment.

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  • Icagee, this story truly is tragic. But what I don’t understand, and I’ve experienced this first hand, that if we are undereducated, non-professional, ‘no bodies’ we are rarely ever listened to concerning the mental torture we experience while taking our cocktail of psychiatric drugs. If I, with a 10th grade education can research psychiatric drugs only to discover exactly how dangerous & deadly they are then why can’t Doctor’s, Psychiatrists, Pediatricians, ect? And yes, I did uncover that Klonopin, used to treat seizures can cause Status Epilepticus Seizures during withdrawals. It’s why I suffered them when I’m not even epileptic. But, do you think anyone in the Medical field could tell me this? No. When is enough suffering – enough? This poor man who mistakenly believed his doctors, as I did too, sadly and tragically, with devastating results.

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  • FeelinDiscouraged, if we knew before hand that this ‘chemical imbalance’ diagnosis was nothing but a blatant lie, and that psychiatric drugs are extremely dangerous & even deadly, why on Earth would we go to a Psychiatrist in the first place? Over 35 years of being heavily drugged going through many psychiatrists I never met one who had my best interest at heart. They all drugged, drugged and drugged until I had a gun pointed at my head to escape the mental suffering the drugs caused.

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  • Creative Minds: Designing Personalized Clinical Trials
    Posted on December 14, 2017 by Dr. Francis Collins

    It might have been 25 years ago, but Karina Davidson remembers that day like yesterday. She was an intern in clinical psychology, and two concerned parents walked into the hospital with their troubled, seven-year-old son. The boy was severely underweight at just 37 pounds and had been acting out violently toward himself and others. It seemed as though Ritalin, a drug commonly prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder, might help. But would it? – And isn’t this the most insane idea you’ve ever heard to treat a malnourished child. Instead of a more holistic, humane approach they’re first choice is to delve right into drugging this poor boy. This madness never seems to end.

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  • Bradford, that was profound. Profoundly true. Thank you for being another needed voice in telling our truths.
    My god you went through hell. I have read hundreds of other peoples stories and they’re ALL so heartbreaking. But you know, right after I barely survived my c/t Klonopin withdrawal psychosis, terror driven nightmare it was through others, their stories and emailing them is how I healed. I couldn’t have done it any other way. I was at home alone living in the country with no family or friends. No one. Mental Health workers who I saw twice a week for ACT wouldn’t even help me. I couldn’t drive anymore. The anxiety/panic was at 1000%. Living in abject terror every minute of every day while your mind is like it’s on 10 hits of LSD. My mind became totally insane without taking a thing. I had about 50 severe withdrawal symptoms from that one. That one almost killed me. I know for a fact, that I would never, ever be able to live through another one. Thanks for being a voice my friend. We need em. and Thank you for surviving.

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  • FeelinDiscouraged, that was said beautifully too. I read many articles on a Jpay website for prisoners where they forced inmates to cold-turkey of their psych meds if they didn’t have enough money in their commissary to pay for them. How friggin’ cruel is this.

    “No wonder men are killing themselves, women are killing themselves. Because these pills have everybody depleted. I felt like my soul was gone, like I was just a body with nothing in it.” ~Mikal Vega, Former Navy SEAL

    Psychiatrist’s forgot to tell us that in order for us to get well we had to sacrifice our souls in exchange. They left that part out. The psych meds slaughtered mine. But now off all the drugs and back in possession, your so absolutely right – Hands Off!

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  • FeelinDiscouraged, you stated that beautifully! But I hope your right when you said, “is rotting their souls.” I’m not so sure many of them have one. They can’t when they know exactly how dangerous & deadly the psych meds are and how we suffer endless & needlessly, yet they overly prescribe them anyway. People that evil can’t have a soul.

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  • Leighgage, I truly am sorry for the loss of your daughter. After my mental health care workers told me it was ‘just fine’ to cold-turkey off my 10+ yrs on Klonopin, I too prayed for a gun every second of every minute of every hour of everyday for weeks to end the mental torture/psychosis induced by my K-pin withdrawal. So many have no idea how we suffer during withdrawals from psychiatric drugs because psychiatrists refuse to listen or believe a word we say. They just consider us mentally ill, therefore, what could we possibly know? For what it’s worth, I became so homicidal while cold-turkeying off Effexor, Trazodone & Lithium that it’s amazing I didn’t murder anyone and I’m a 62 year old grandmother. Psychiatric drugs have no place in society what so ever. I know the truth about the drugs now. I researched them non-stop for over 2 years. Dr’s know the truth too. But their lucrative paychecks are more important than our well-being, safety & humanity.

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  • Nancy99, what about those of us patients now forced to live on $11,000 disability after becoming so disabled by our psych meds we can no longer hold a job when we could before? Why should we give up our lives for those knowingly prescribe extremely addicting, dangerous, deadly psychiatric drugs and then we’re forced to endure the mentally torturous withdrawals ‘cold-turkey’ by ignorant doctors?

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  • First off, I have no sympathy what so ever for Psychiatris’s who would rather choose to keep their $80,000-100,00 lucrative jobs by continually poisoning, maiming & murdering their patients through over prescribing of psychiatric drugs while we, their patients, struggle to live on $11,000 a year after becoming so disabled by their cocktail of toxic drugs when we never were before. I was misdiagnosed and heavily drugged for 35 years. I had to give up my life over this imaginary ‘chemically imbalanced’ brain they claimed I had. My psychiatarist even informed me after being on my meds for 35 years that it’s ‘just fine’ to stop taking them as my world spiraled into nothing short of pure psychotic, endless hell. If I with a 10th grade education is able to research and discover just how dangerous, addicting & deadly psychiatric drugs really are, why can’t a damn psychiatrist who has higher education. If I sound angry I am. I’m outraged. Psychiatry has no idea how we suffer at their hands because we’re not listened to or believed. Nor do they care. Their paycheck becomes more important than a patients needless, endless suffering. After all, according to them, what the hell could we possibly know? We’re ‘mentally ill’. So what’s my reward for being a psychiatric drug survivor? Now I get to watch the exact same toxic psychiatric drugs destroy my daughters life in ‘real time’.

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  • God Bless you David Healy for continuing to be our voice for those of us psychiatrically drugged for 35 years. I became not only suicidal during my time on the drugs, but extremely homicidal while going cold-turkey off of them. What a living nightmare my life became. The suffering at the hands of my doctors and psychiatrists was endless. I truly am lucky to be alive, and so grateful I lived through the utter madness to see you and so many others advocating on our behalf after being silenced by our mental health-care workers and our psychiatrists.

    I can’t thank you enough.

    Most sincerely, Sandra

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  • Jarett, what a remarkable story I know all to well. I was mis-diagnosed Bi-polar 40 years ago and poly-drugged for 35 of them. The drugs destroyed my life, and that of my children. When the iatrogenic illness set in Doctor’s didn’t know what to do, so it was off to ECT’s. So fast forward 35 years and everyone of my Mental Healthcare workers informed me it was ‘just fine’ to cold turkey off all five of my current meds. They never informed me of one single withdrawal symptom I may experience, nor did they believe me when I began telling them weekly how strange and bizarre I was feeling. And I was refused access to my psychiatrist when I began losing contact with reality as I once knew it. They said, “Sandy, you just have to wait until your upcoming appointment a month away.” I told them I couldn’t wait that long. They didn’t care. They pretty much left me to die at home, alone. I also lived in Klonopin ‘interdose withdrawals’ for eight years that totally crippled me before my cold-turkey Klonopin withdrawal that threw me into the pits of Hell. It warms my heart to read a ‘success’ story of someone who was able to gain an education and proceed in life. The drugs did too much cognitive damage for me it would be impossible to even think about going to college, let alone try to help mankind in fighting Psychiatry & Big Pharma. But I sure am happy you did. Thank you….

    Sandra Villarreal

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  • First I’d like to thank you for your article exposing the truth. I almost don’t want to comment here, because I become completely outraged at how we suffer at the hands of our psychiatrists. I was mis-diagnosed, presumably deliberately, 40 years ago, and heavily drugged for 35 of them and given a dozen ECT’s after I became so iatrogenically ill from the drugs the doctors ran out of ideas. So although I survived (just barely) multiple cold turkey psychiatric withdrawals that my Mental Healthcare workers said was ‘just fine’ to do, I suffered withdrawal induced psychosis I never knew existed. It was equivalent to taking 10 hits of LSD without taking any. Pure HELL, and if I would have had a gun in my house at the time, I prayed for one every second of every minute of every hour of every day for months, I would have used it. However, following my Effexor, Lithium, Trazodone & Klonopin ( all cold turkey after 35 yrs) I did not come out unscathed. It’s taken me 4 years to heal the cognitive damage done. And I can easily work with what’s left. I also researched Psychiatry & drugs for 3 years solid to find out why I had suffered so much for decades, only to find out it was from the ‘medicine’/drugs my Psychiatrist’s prescribed. So God Bless you for writing and educating others.

    Respectfully,

    Sandra Villarreal

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  • Have you seen this report? Upcoming article: Antidepressant Nightmare. Ihttp://www.jimstonefreelance.com/antidepressants.htm l understand this may not be posted due to the included link. If so, it may be a good idea to look at it privately. I also don’t know the date it was posted. “This article will be approximately 50 pages long, and extensively documented, as well as have the classified internal documents linked in a zipped folder. Expect it to post sometime in July. (that is if I am still online!)” Although, I have read most of Dr. Breggin & Dr. Healy’s books I don’t know if they have already reported these GSK confidential documents in their books.

    Thank you…..

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  • Can someone please inform me what’s causing all the transgender population? My grand daughter is transgender and I know her mother (my daughter) was heavily psychiatrically drugged at the time. Is the use of pyshotropics during pregnancy causing this or is due to the epidemic use of vaccines? In my opinion – use of both are out of control, but during the 70’s and 80’s this was not prevalent at all. I’m just trying to understand what’s changing the genes in the fetus?

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  • Mini Quiz: New Patient Consult
    March 03, 2016 | Psychopharmacology, Child Adolescent Psychiatry, Quizzes
    By Margaret J. Yoon, MD and Maryland Pao, MD
    A 19-year-old new patient comes to you wanting to discontinue all his childhood psychiatric medications. What is the best next step?
    Choices
    A. State you cannot work with him if he discontinues his medication
    B. Contact his parents to bring them into the next session to discuss concerns about medication nonadherence
    C. Review indications and informed consent for each medication to understand his history of treatment and current ambivalence
    D. Agree to discontinue medications if he appears stable and keep close clinical watch while building a therapeutic alliance
    -And the answer is: C. Review indications and informed consent for each medication to understand his history of treatment and current ambivalence
    88% (1696 votes)

    I see they are still working on brainwashing the patient. I voted to take him off if he seemed stable but what I have experienced time and time again is they take patients off psychiatric drugs abruptly causing so more mental torture than they experienced while taking the drugs. And yes, all the psych meds I was prescribed over the years caused so much suicidality that I was caught in the revolving door to the ER, ICU and eventually landing in more psychiatric hospitalizations. The madness only Stopped when I went off ALL the medications although I had to endure pure psychotic hell from the withdrawals to get there.

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  • Of course 5 million people don’t actually have Bipolar. Most of us who have experienced trauma at some point are easily & readily mis-diagnosed with Bipolar much as I was. Also, our direct to consumer advertising wants us also to believe we are with all too happy psychiatrists ready to prescribe multiple drugs to treat it if not ECT on down the road after we’ve developed drug-induced ‘treatment resistant depression from being poly-drugged long-term. When was Bipolar considered a medical condition right next to diabetes and heart disease? Furthermore, where are the facts on how can medically prove this?

    ttp://www.hngn.com/articles/81058/20150330/bipolar-disorder-world-day-sets-out-inform-break-barriers-create.htm

    “Bipolar Disorder is a mental illness that represents a significant challenge to patients, health care workers, family members and our communities,” according to a press release from World Bipolar Day organizers. “While growing acceptance of bipolar disorder as a medical condition, like diabetes and heart disease, has taken hold in some parts of the world, unfortunately the stigma associated with the illness is a barrier to care and continues to impede early diagnosis and effective treatment.”

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  • Big pharma isn’t hurting at all, unfortunately. They just want us to think they are. They just merge to another country. And yes, we had a Pfizer right here in Kalamazoo, MI employing thousands of people at one time. This is not a political agenda point but Bernie Sanders seems to be the only politician remotely talking about taking on Big Pharma. And I love the old guy for that!!! This is his doings:

    Pfizer Must Pay Taxes
    Add Your Name to Help Stop Pfizer Dodging Taxes

    Pfizer is a giant pharmaceutical company based in New York City that is in the process of trying to merge with another company located in Ireland.

    If the merger is successful, Pfizer would technically become a foreign company, meaning it could dodge around $35 BILLION in corporate taxes here in America. Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies cannot be allowed to evade taxes like this.

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  • Robert, or someone, please write an article bringing to light information on Best Pharmaceuticals for Childrens Act (BPCA) – (children for God’s sake) on the FDA website: 17,000 reported adverse events from Paxil including 9 completed suicides. Celexa had 6,000 adverse events reported <5 pediatric (although I don't believe this low number) Citalipram adverse events – Psychiatric Labeled: Cognitive impairment, Aggression, Agitation, mania, and delusions, Suicidality and Psychotic reactions. Unlabeled: Violent behavior/homicidal behavior.

    How in the world can doctors still presume that the benefits out weigh the risks for children or adults for that matter? Until one has actually experienced these horrific 'side effects' as those of us prescribed these drugs have, no one knows just how truly disabling, crippling, devastating these drug-induced mental illnesses are not only to our own lives but to our families as well. To other people, these listed 'side effects' are mere words. Simple benign words. To those of us prescribed these drugs having to endure this type of torture, it's pure absolute hell. And why are people still not listening? Why do they still not care? Why don't we seem to matter anymore? To anyone??? And this is how America treats it's very own children. What a shame…

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  • I will let the intellectuals argue over the wording in Roberts article. I have all the proof I need sitting right in front of me concerning prescribing psychiatric drugs to babies, children, teenagers, and adults. Included in these clinical studies, with much of the critical information redacted, are for all of the above ages. The findings are horrendous: Intuniv (age 0-16) – deadly, Saphris (10-17yrs) – there are NO studies to assess drug abuse potential, rebound, or withdrawal in pediatric patients with bipolar 1 disorder (why?), 2 – Post Abilfy studies for irritability in a autistic children completely Failed, Celexa (7-11 yrs) could not find any efficacy between Celxa and placebo, Provigal (6 -16 yrs) – Failed efficacy, Risperdal again for irritability in autistic children states: no efficacy above 3 mg plus, , there are no controlled data to support longer term use of beyond 8 weeks which is a far cry from the multiple years we are prescribed Risperdal, Zoloft (6-17 yrs) redacted 12 pages of this study from the public eye, Effexor XR – “non approvable” – Failure – Failure, Seroquel (10 – 17 yrs) – efficacy was NOT established, Seroquel XR (13 -17 yrs) efficacy was NOT established, and the list for dangerous side effects, adverse effects and toxic effects is so long for all of these drugs that it would fill a volume. So I’ll let you intellectuals haggle over the ‘correct’ wording in this article. No psychiatric drugs are safe for children or adults for long-term use. Plain and simple. We psychiatric drug survivors who have been drugged for decades can easily attest to this. Those of us that lived… Thank you Robert for another amazing article.

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  • Reading this was so disturbing to me to continually learn what is happening to patients who endure adverse reactions or toxicity in this case, to prescribed psychiatric drugs. I too, became extremely homicidal while enduring SSRI withdrawals. Mr. Gottstein, is this what we are up against? Too me, this is criminal, for us patients gravely harmed by our prescribed medications, not to mention our families. :

    Jeffs v. West, 275 P.3d 228 (Utah 2012)

    Also under Professional Liability

    Outcome: Very unfavorable

    Issue

    The issue in this case was whether physicians owe a duty to their patients’ children, which can be breached through inappropriate care to their patients.

    AMA interest

    The AMA strives to avoid the expansion of liability theories against physicians, which can lead to abusive malpractice litigation.

    Case summary

    According to the complaint filed in this lawsuit, a patient was treated for psychiatric problems at a medical clinic. He was seen by an advanced family nurse practitioner, who prescribed a cocktail of seven psychotropic drugs, including stimulants, tranquilizers, antidepressants and steroids. Although Utah law requires that a physician must supervise and consult with a nurse practitioner before prescribing drugs of this nature, the physician in charge of the clinic neither supervised nor consulted with the nurse practitioner, and he failed to monitor the nurse practitioner’s treatment of the patient.

    During his visits to the clinic, the patient displayed “toxic side effects” from the combined medications. Furthermore, he advised the nurse practitioner that he was having marital problems and his wife had had a legal restraining order entered against him. However, the nurse practitioner continued to prescribe the drug cocktail without consulting the supervising physician. Under the circumstances, continuation of the drug cocktail was medically inappropriate.

    Ultimately, the patient shot and killed his wife in a church parking lot, in daylight and in front of several witnesses. Within two hours of the shooting, the patient turned himself in to the police. Blood toxicology reports showed that the patient was within the prescribed ranges of all his medications and he had no illicit substances in his blood stream at the time of the shooting. A causal factor of the shooting was the administration of the drug cocktail and the failure of the nurse practitioner, the supervising physician, and the clinic to provide alternative psychiatric care. The patient subsequently pleaded guilty to and was convicted of murder.

    The patient’s minor children (who were also the victim’s children), through their guardian, sued the nurse practitioner, the supervising physician, and the clinic. The defendants moved to dismiss, asserting that their legal duty was solely to the patient and not the children. The trial court granted the defendants’ motion, and the children have appealed to the Utah Supreme Court. The primary legal question on appeal is whether the defendants owed a common law legal duty to the children to provide proper medical care to their father.

    On February 28, 2012, the Utah Supreme Court found that the medical care providers did owe a duty of care to their patients’ children. The Court emphasized that, under the pleadings, the defendants’ affirmative actions of misprescribing medicine had caused their patient’s psychotic reaction, and the defendants should be responsible for the injury they had caused. The case was reversed and remanded.

    Litigation Center involvement

    The Litigation Center, along with the Utah Medical Association and other health care organizations, filed an amicus curiae brief, arguing that physicians should not owe a duty to their patients’ children on account of the medical care the physicians provide to their patients.

    Utah Supreme Court briefPDF FIle – Jeffs v. West, 275 P.3d 228 (Utah 2012)

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  • I don’t believe we are bashing psychopharmacology here. If anything, we are striving to learn the truth on the dangers of psychiatric drugs. Critical Withheld information that our doctors refuse to provide us with. Gp’s, pediatricians, and Psychiatrists prescribe these drugs to multi- millions of us, many greatly harmed. Myself included. I only want the truth.

    Carcinogenicity of psychotropic drugs: A systematic review of US Food and Drug Administration – required preclinical in vivo studies –

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275521284

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  • Great article! This is how they are handling psychiatric depression else where:

    http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2491354#Abstract

    Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide of Patients With Psychiatric Disorders in the Netherlands 2011 to
    Scott Y. H. Kim, MD, PhD1; Raymond G. De Vries, PhD2,3; John R. Peteet, MD4

    JAMA Psychiatry. Published online February 10, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.2887

    Is this coming to a country near us? Or is it already here and we just aren’t aware of it, yet?

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  • The article, ‘Setting the Record Straight on Antipsychotics’ in Psychiatric Times has been sitting on my desk for over a week. It’s a very hard read. I became so enraged when reading it that I had to keep setting it down to keep from becoming physically ill. Allen Frances seems to take no responsibility what so ever in his part for creating three major mental disorder epidemics in this country welcoming in millions of unsuspecting, naĂŻve (me) patients for big pharma. What a payday this must have been for him. As angry as I am with psychiatry for taking control and ruining my life by prescribing so many psychiatric drugs over a 35 year period that it’s amazing I’m alive today so I don’t like to venture in the ‘angry’ arena anymore. But this sentence in his article is what took the cake for me, “I and many others fought vigorously against these dangerous misuses of antipsychotic medication.” I wish he would have included proof at just how hard he really fought. We patients are the ones who fought just to make it though another day of suffering while being lied to, poisoned, and left to the wolves for becoming good, ‘compliant’ patient’s.

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  • Sure, anything to treat depression or any mental illness is better than being drugged to death, however, after I withdrew from ALL psychiatric drugs I enrolled in ACT (assertive community treatment) through InterAct in my hometown, funded in part by Kalamazoo Community Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services in which to partake in these services, it’s required that you work with an Act therapist. But after my therapist misjudged my walking out of her office as possibly ‘suicidal’, unbeknownst to me she called a Police Officer to do a home check. I was not suicidal. Nor was I home when he came but had I been he too, could very well as misjudged me and taken me against my will to a psychiatric hospital if he deemed necessary. And only just 2 years ago I was force fed (court ordered) multiple psychiatric drugs I begged them to treat me without using them. And while in a ‘court ordered’ drugs haze my house burns to the ground when I had neither house insurance or a savings account and left homeless for 8 months. So be weary when even signing up for CBT or ACT therapy. I finally had to cut ALL ties to anything that had to do with Mental Health as I don’t seem to be safe from any of it. Psychiatry and psychiatric drugs have completely ruined my life, and it’s sad that I now feel I have no where to go when feeling ‘distressed’, even suicidal. It’s not even safe to utter the word ‘suicidal feelings’ for fear of being locked up, heavily drugged, and once again having my life stolen from me. I am more than mad in america that there is no where else we can go for help anymore.

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  • Mr. Philip Hickey, this article was so truthful, eye opening, and so well written that it left me speechless. Thank you so very much for sharing your articulate wisdom with those of us less fortunate. And by that I mean, those of us who have actually developed Dementia from years of taking psychiatric drugs, ECT’s, and the devastating, permanent cognitive impairment from multiple psychiatric drug ‘cold turkey’ withdrawals. But, I sure understood every single word you said. Thank you!

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  • Just when I actually believed someone was listening to what’s really happening between Big Pharma, and the millions of doctors they pay to push their drugs, I am gravely disappointed. I:

    Energy & Commerce Committee – United States House of Representatives Chairman Fred Upton
    2015 Text of H.R. 6, 21st Century Cures Act

    http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20150706/CPRT-114-HPRT-RU00-HR6.pdf

    p. 292 Subtitle C – Encouraging Continuing Medical Education for Physicians (In large, BOLD font)

    (xiii) In the case of covered recipient who is a physician, an indirect payment or transfer of value to the covered recipient —

    “(I) for speaking at, or preparing educational materials for, an education event for physicians or other healthcare professionals that does not commercially promote a covered drug.”

    “(II) that serves the sole purpose of providing the covered recipient with medical education, such as by providing the covered recipient with the tuition required to attend an educational event or with materials provided to physicians at an educational event.”

    Are they kidding me? We all know that 90% of CME are sponsored by drug companies who pay handsomely to attract new doctor drug pushers. I see them everyday on psychiatric websites heavily sponsored by pharmaceutical companies that have so many pop-up drug ads that it’s difficult to even read one of their propagandized articles. I’m more than mad in america. I’m thoroughly disgusted.

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  • The 3 Reports that the USPSTF have published are so disturbing to me that I don’t understand the direction that our current Mental Health System is going. Although, what I do understand is that it’s Greed in it’s finest form coming directly from Big Pharma. “ALL members of the general population should be screened for depression.” ALL is a pretty big word. In which, ALL will qualify. The other two reports are just as horrifying, as they want to now include more than ALL. Now they are targeting pregnant and postpartum women – http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2484344, and then on September 8, 2015 – “12 to 18 year olds should be screened for MDD – and with MDD, these feelings last more than 2 weeks – USPSTF”. Isn’t it natural for most teenagers to be this depressed after a boy/girlfriend breakup, or they just got beat the night before, or sexually abused by a relative, or they’re living in extreme poverty, ect, ect, ect. And now our Society, our Country, and our Mental Healthcare System would rather quickly diagnose and drug them using drugs that will most likely ruin them for life, and that’s only if they’re able to live through all the iatrogenic illness the drugs are going to induce. And this doesn’t even cover all the mentally torturous withdrawal symptoms. I’m so glad that I’m old and I won’t be around much longer because what’s happening to every man, woman & child in this country by first, convincing them they have a mental disease, secondly, by over drugging them is so horrifying to me since I know full well what multiple psychiatric drugs do to a persons life. As a psychiatric survivor of over thirty-five years, the drugs completely destroy lives not improve them.

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