“Prior to treatment, patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression, and other psychiatric disorders do not suffer from any known “chemical imbalance.” However, once a person is put on a psychiatric medication, which, in one manner or another, throws a wrench into the usual mechanics of a neuronal pathway, his or her brain begins to function … abnormally.” - Pulitzer Prize nominee Robert Whitaker
"After several weeks on psychoactive drugs, the brain’s compensatory efforts begin to fail, and side effects emerge that reflect the mechanism of action of the drugs. For example, the SSRIs may cause episodes of mania, because of the excess of serotonin. Antipsychotics cause side effects that resemble Parkinson’s disease, because of the depletion of dopamine (which is also depleted in Parkinson’s disease).
As side effects emerge, they are often treated by other drugs, and many patients end up on a cocktail of psychoactive drugs prescribed for a cocktail of diagnoses.
The episodes of mania caused by antidepressants may lead to a new diagnosis of “bipolar disorder” and treatment with a “mood stabilizer,” such as Depokote (an anticonvulsant) plus one of the newer antipsychotic drugs. And so on."
I feel the article makes sense when it comes to transient type depression (which makes up most cases of depression). These days, people are given anti-depressants for what I would consider normal reactions to life events; the death of a loved one, job loss, divorce. My sister was given Zoloft when she was ‘depressed’ over her first break-up. The medication has no success and she got over it in due time, as expected. Most anti-depressants are designed for use in people with Major Depression but that’s quite different to the depression most people experience.
When it comes to SZ, it’s a bit different - the abnormal thoughts, hallucinations…these aren’t just reactions to life events. Clearly something IS wrong with a part of the brain; be it chemical, be it whatever.
Very interesting. There have been a lot of threads lately about the ongoing and lingering negative effects of psychiatric drugs. The problem for me is being able to lead a semi-normal life without them. People don’t just spontaneously recover from schizophrenia.
I think that psych meds are very useful in emergency type situations especially.
I honestly don’t know how effective they are as maintenance treatment, especially at higher doses.
Like my very smart and capable psychiatrist once said to me - "Sometimes these meds do more harm than good ".
Antidepressants do more damage to me than anything else- they induce horrific manic and mixed episodes.
Physically these class of meds take a toll on our bodies - but I do realize that sometimes they become necessary.
I have been swallowing these meds since childhood- I am not anti-med, I am a realist that is a bit weary of the medication game
the epidemic of mental illness is in large part because the illnesses are invented by the Psychiatrists. The Pharma companies create all sorts of meds to ‘treat’ these invented illnesses. It’s business, more than likely triggered by the fast paced world and increase in traumatic situations, competition, and the opening of negative spirit portals in the past 50 years or so.
Modern humans are expected to live in a fast paced, competitive, trauma filled and above all, an artificial un natural world. This creates mental illness in many cases.
Add on top of that pollutants in the environment and the total degradation of most of our food supply with additives (toxins) and GMOs, and pure poisons like aspartame and this just exacerbates the whole situation.
Someone stated back in the 80s that psychiatry was the only medical profession that helps create the disease it claims to treat…