FYM This...!

[solemole]

Give me some time to address replies.

Thanks.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by LJT

I am not sure what your aim was with this thread, it seems a scatter-gun attack on psychiatry or meds at least, with little reasoned analysis. There are plenty of issues and problems in the field psychiatry, but they are all fairly recognised by most that work in it.

much more succinctly put than i've been able to string together.

[solemole]

Originally Posted by anitram

From what I remember when I was doing research on my paper for this, it takes longer to wean xanax (and benzos in general) than heroin - referring specifically and only to the length of time when you'll feel physical withdrawal symptoms. But I'm not sure you can say it's "tougher" to get off heroin because heroin addicts have much higher rates of falling off the wagon and typically a much stronger mental dependency on it.

The physical withdrawal symptoms are a little more complicated. It can take as long as 10 years to wean off benzos. Stories of being restless, awake, and tired all at the same time, your body deprives you of sleep. The more you want to or fall closer to sleep, the more your body won't let you fall asleep. Stories of hair falling off...

Speaking of molting hair, Stevie Nicks experienced this. She took Xanax to cope being off cocaine, and then took years to get off xanax. “The biggest mistake I ever made was…going to see a psychiatrist” (Stevie Nicks) – Beyond Meds

Benzo Info – Beyond Meds

The truth about benzos (Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Xanax, etc) – Beyond Meds

GABA/Glutamate cycle in withdrawalfrompsychotropics–SSRIs,benzos,andLamictal – Beyond MedsAntidepressants cause downregulation of serotonin receptors. In a mechanism of brain self-defense, the receptors actually disappear, becoming more sparse so as to take in less serotonin. It is thought among withdrawal researchers that people who experience the worst withdrawal are slower than others to repopulate serotonin receptors.

In a parallel action, benzos cause downregulation of benzodiazepine receptors.

Relative slowness to upregulate receptors doesn’t mean there’s anything intrinsically wrong with our brains, it just means there’s variability (of course) among nervous systems.

Even among people suffering the most severe antidepressant withdrawal syndrome, repopulation of serotonin receptors probably occurs long before symptoms disappear. However, while the serotonin system is repairing itself, an imbalance occurs in the autonomic nervous system and the “fight or flight” glutamatergic system becomes more active than normal. This is called disinhibition of the glutamatergic system, and it generates symptoms that are awful: panic, anxiety, sleeplessness, and dreadful imagery among them.
This paper explains the mechanism in withdrawal causing glutamatergic disinhibition: Harvey, et al: Neurobiology of antidepressant withdrawal: implications for the longitudinal outcome of depression; Biological Psychiatry. 2003 Nov 15;54(10):1105-17. The PDF is available at Paxil Progress, if you register to become a member first. Registration is free.

Once disinhibition of the glutamatergic system takes hold, it becomes self-perpetuating. The whole question of neurotransmitter imbalance — a chimera of psychiatry anyway — becomes moot. No manipulation of serotonin, norepinephrine, or dopamine is going to help. In fact, it usually makes the condition worse.

....

In the medical literature on antidepressant withdrawal, symptoms of glutamatergic disinhibition — anxiety, panic, sleeplessness, irritability, agitation among them– are sometimes misidentified as “unmasking” or emergence of bipolar disorder. It’s always the victim who’s blamed, not the drug. This leads the clinician to medicate with a cocktail of drugs upon which the patient does poorly, the neuropsychiatric damage from antidepressant withdrawal being compounded. In Anatomy of an Epidemic, Robert Whitaker describes this process as the way many children, suffering adverse effects from antidepressants, are led into a lifetime of medications for misdiagnosed bipolar disorder.

[solemole]

Originally Posted by solemole

VA recently stopped administering anti-psychotics to veterans with PTSD.

Originally Posted by Irvine

seems preferable than having them blow their brains, or other people's brains, out because they weren't put on medication.

Actually, the reason's reversed.

http://davidhealy.org/benefit-risk-m...s-and-suicide/

But does treatment come with risks? DSM IV, for all it is castigated, recognizes that antipsychotics cause akathisia and that akathisia can lead to suicide. Is there data rather than just the opinions of a DSM committee? Some of the data has already been posted. The following is from What would Batman do now posted just before James Holmes turned up at the cinema in Aurora (See The Hidden Gorilla).

In the 1950s, the VA hospital system commissioned Norman Farberow to look at rising rates of suicides among veterans. He studied veterans hospitalized for either medical or psychiatric conditions during the periods 1950 through to the mid 1970s. The 3 figures below bring out the findings.


Figure 1 shows a set of fluctuating suicide rates year on year for veterans admitted to medical beds. The rates are higher than national suicide rates but these rates and their fluctuations are in keeping with what might have been expected in a set of younger men. The increases in the late 1950s and early 1970s may mirror the effects of the Korean and Vietnam wars, or perhaps other social factors or they may be entirely random.
Figure 1



Figures 2 and 3 are strikingly different to Figure 1. Figure 2 does not show the expected fluctuations linked to social factors or any randomness. It shows a steady rise in suicide rates in those who have been hospitalized for a mental condition. Until 1955 the rates are identical to the rates found in those hospitalized for a general medical condition.

But as of 1955, they start climbing in an uninterrupted fashion. The rises and falls we see in Figure 1 that might or might not be linked to social factors such as the Korean war are not there. This can be seen clearly in Figure 2 when the two sets of figures are superimposed and again in Figure 3 which show admissions to psychiatric beds on their own.





Why the bifurcation in 1955? This was the year of the introduction of chlorpromazine. Year on year after 1955 a greater number of tranquilizers (antipsychotics / neuroleptics) like chlorpromazine were consumed by veterans with mental health problems as an ever greater number of these drugs were marketed. These drugs were given to veterans who were depressed, anxious or psychotic – they were not as might be thought now restricted to veterans who were schizophrenic.

...

These clinical trial data are ambiguous. They are not good quality data. There is no adjustment for patient exposure, and in this case some adjustment is called for but there is no way to undertake it. There should also be data for suicidal acts during the withdrawal period but these data are not included.

As they stand the data show a statistically significant increase in risk. This doesn’t mean antipsychotics cause suicide, it means that in these trials they caused a significantly greater number of suicides and suicidal acts than happened on placebo.

Although the data are poor, you might have thought journals would be interested. Far from it. They are not prepared to publish, even though this is the best we have and there is not a journal editor who does not trumpet clinical trial data as the gold standard.

In fact clinical trials are close to useless when it comes to suicide. It is easy to design a study of a drug known to cause suicide that would show a reduced rate of suicide compared to placebo (See Healy 2012). Clinical trials function instead for public health officials and journal editors as a bureaucrat’s tool to avoid exercising judgement. When they pose problems like the data here do – better they remain unpublished.

[anitram]

Originally Posted by solemole

The physical withdrawal symptoms are a little more complicated. It can take as long as 10 years to wean off benzos. Stories of being restless, awake, and tired all at the same time, your body deprives you of sleep. The more you want to or fall closer to sleep, the more your body won't let you fall asleep.

Nobody is arguing that at all.

But I'm just not sure what your basis is for saying that it is much more difficult to wean off benzos than heroin. Heroin addicts have a much higher rate of "re-offending" so to speak, a higher incidence of committing crime in order to get access to the drugs, etc. The physical effects of withdrawal are shorter, but the mental ones and the drive/desire to use again appears to be much stronger.

[Galeongirl]

Originally Posted by solemole

In the short run, probably. In the long run, unlikely.



Mmph. That wasn't my point. My advice is: don't/never take your kids to see a psychiatrist. In the short run, it's a quick fix. In the long haul, it'll be something your family will be dealing with for the rest of your lives.

But in any case, love your kids, give them attention, work life out with them.

Let me ask those who question me: For how long has the person you've known to be on medication? ... Do they suffer any other health conditions doctors would deem serious, such as diabetes, high cholesterol, or obesity?

You have no idea how much I disagree with these statements.

Do you know ANYONE at all with any psychological illness?

Do you have ANY idea what an impact a psychological 'illness' or 'dysfunction' has on the life of a child? Talking to each other isn't going to solve ANYTHING in that department. Simply because the child won't be able to explain them what's going on. The child is confused, they don't know why people don't understand it. They don't know how to tell what's going on. That's what psychiatrists are for. To figure that out. And when that is figured out, people can start talking, figuring out if the family situation needs to be changed. More/less attention to details, sensory overloads and everything.


The people I know who are on medication for the likes of ADHD are not suffering from any health conditions deemed serious, on your list. At all. They're simply ver, very overactive and cannot focus without their steroids or ritalin. It's their choice when they use them and when they don't, and it changes them completely. Makes them able to go to university, where they wouldn't have even made highschool without the meds.


Medication isn't even in the question here. If it helps, it helps. But saying that attention and love will help kids with psychological illnesses like Autism? Absolute utter bullshit. And FUCKING insensitive and offensive at that. I invite you to live ONE day in my head. You have no fucking clue what it would be like, and you probably would never comprehend it. All the love in the world wouldn't have made a difference, but if I had known in my early childhood what I know now, it would've made a hell of a difference. So I wish my parents would've sent me to a psych way before I figured things out on my own and got my shit done at age 18.


Fuck this thread offends me to the bone. Congratulations. It's not easy to completely and truly piss me off.

[solemole]

Originally Posted by Diemen

It's a little unrealistic to expect random internet strangers to do substantive research into a topic you just foisted on them not even a day ago. Particularly if you're going to respond to dissenters with the assumption that they simply lack the knowledge to come to your viewpoint.

You're right. It is unrealistic.

People all over the Internet calls for stop stigmatizing "mental illness" as well as start identifying the mentally ill. They take "chemical imbalance" as a common fact, and medication as the silver bullet.

People say they want to stop the stigma? http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/m...ental-illness/

The “epidemiologic reality that the vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent stands in stark contrast to the impression most Americans get from the popular media,” Friedman writes, citing a 2005 study that showed “39 percent of all stories published about the mentally ill focused on dangerousness — the single largest area of the media’s coverage of mental health. In contrast to stories that discussed mental-health treatment or public policy, those that touched on violence were also far more likely to be front-page news.”

A “wave of amateur diagnoses” followed the identification of Jared Lee Loughner as U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords’ shooter, Vaughan Bell wrote in Slate in 2011.

Free Your Mind. Foist Your Mind. We're here to be challenged with preconceived notions and presumptions, and to exchange thoughts and ideas, right? Or are we to mildly agree on somethings and shut out the unacceptable topics by consensus?

Yeah, I've got a ton load of information. And it isn't fair to dump it all.

But if people want their world shaken and see things differently, well, here's a crash course.

[solemole]

Originally Posted by Galeongirl

You have no idea how much I disagree with these statements.

Do you know ANYONE at all with any psychological illness?

Yeah, I do. Or I'm diagnosed. Are you diagnosed?

Do you have ANY idea what an impact a psychological 'illness' or 'dysfunction' has on the life of a child? Talking to each other isn't going to solve ANYTHING in that department. Simply because the child won't be able to explain them what's going on. The child is confused, they don't know why people don't understand it. They don't know how to tell what's going on. That's what psychiatrists are for. To figure that out. And when that is figured out, people can start talking, figuring out if the family situation needs to be changed. More/less attention to details, sensory overloads and everything.

Yeah. Me. Been on meds since my early teens.

The people I know who are on medication for the likes of ADHD are not suffering from any health conditions deemed serious, on your list. At all. They're simply ver, very overactive and cannot focus without their steroids or ritalin. It's their choice when they use them and when they don't, and it changes them completely. Makes them able to go to university, where they wouldn't have even made highschool without the meds.

Not going to argue that ADHD medicine are brain boosters for everyone, even those who take them and don't have ADHD.

Medication isn't even in the question here. If it helps, it helps.

It is the question. It's the question nobody chooses to look at.

But saying that attention and love will help kids with psychological illnesses like Autism? Absolute utter bullshit. And FUCKING insensitive and offensive at that. I invite you to live ONE day in my head. You have no fucking clue what it would be like, and you probably would never comprehend it. All the love in the world wouldn't have made a difference, but if I had known in my early childhood what I know now, it would've made a hell of a difference. So I wish my parents would've sent me to a psych way before I figured things out on my own and got my shit done at age 18.

I've been through worse more than most can imagine. In fact, the things I've shared with people in the past, have sent them to therapy.

Fuck this thread offends me to the bone. Congratulations. It's not easy to completely and truly piss me off.

Got nothing good to say, say nothing at all.

[BoMac]

Maybe, just maybe, you'd have a better response, or at lease more eyeballs reading this thread, if the title was somewhat indicative of its contents.

[anitram]

solemole, I think the issue you are having is that you've taken an absolutist stand - no drugs, no psychiatrists, it's all a racket, etc.

There are people out there who have legitimately been helped by therapy and medications, who feel happy about their progress and their treatment and for whom that has been a life changer.

Why can't you accept that different forms of treatment work for different individuals? Nobody is saying to you that you can't go off the drugs if you think that you're not well served by them. But there is not a chance in hell that you are going to convince me that my paranoid schizophrenic aunt wasn't better on them. Because you know nothing of her story and nothing of her life on vs. off the meds and without psychiatric intervention and support.

[BoMac]

But Martina, how can you say that? The information, it's all out there if you would just OPEN YOUR MIND.

[maycocksean]

It seems to me that solemole is speaking from personal experience as much as anything else and that is both a great strength and a great weakness in his argument.

Personally, I'm glad my brother who is a schizophrenic is on medication. Ever since he started taking his meds regularly some years back, it's been a HUGE improvement. In many ways he's "himself" again, a person I hadn't seen since we were both kids.

I'm generally skeptical of zero sum solutions or panceas. I realize given solemoles negative experiences with his own meds, why he might feel that medication is a uniformly bad idea, but I do disagree with his conclusion because I've seen meds make a real, positive difference.

[MrsSpringsteen]

Yes, I think it's because it's a personal issue. Meaning it's unique to each individual. I for one would never presume to tell anyone in that situation what's right/not right for them. What's not right for any individual, well that doesn't make it automatically not right for someone else.

[LJT]

Again I am unsure of what your getting at? David Healy is a well known critic of Prozac and it's ilk in regards to what seems to be it's link with increased suicides. He doesn't actually argue as far as I can ascertain against it and other SSRIs use, just that there should be more research into it's risks to better inform and monitor patients. He is an advocate to make sure people are on the 'right' treatment.

The first bit when you are talking about Benzos, cites this article: Biological Psychiatry. 2003 Nov 15;54(10):1105-17. As far as I can make out since I can't access the actual paper seems to centre on antidepressants and their sudden withdrawal or noncompliance, which are well known to cause people issues.

[LJT]

Originally Posted by solemole

You're right. It is unrealistic.

People all over the Internet calls for stop stigmatizing "mental illness" as well as start identifying the mentally ill. They take "chemical imbalance" as a common fact, and medication as the silver bullet.

People say they want to stop the stigma? How can we explain shootings if we don’t report on mental illness? | Poynter.



Free Your Mind. Foist Your Mind. We're here to be challenged with preconceived notions and presumptions, and to exchange thoughts and ideas, right? Or are we to mildly agree on somethings and shut out the unacceptable topics by consensus?

Yeah, I've got a ton load of information. And it isn't fair to dump it all.

But if people want their world shaken and see things differently, well, here's a crash course.

In nursing school at least here in the UK this was one of the first things they taught in the mental illness unit. We also had a week of lectures from various people with mental health issues, including one person who was actively hearing voices, good guy bought my whole class a beer after his lecture.

This is not something that is not recognised at least within healthcare circles...the media is a different ballgame.

[solemole]

Originally Posted by LJT

A lot of the anti-psychotic meds have quite bad side effects which are quite well known, including parkinsonian type effects such as drooling and ataxias. But I imagine the sample size for people with mental health problems not on meds is quite small to compare with those on meds and might be hard to determine whether cognitive degeneration could be linked to the disease or the meds themselves. That said it would not surprise me if it was the meds, but whatever your quoting from seems quite vague.

True. The topic I bring up is large and complicated one. For me, it's hard for me to articulate the subject well enough to make a point. In fact, all the articles in my RSS is overwhelming. I've stopped reading it for a while.

Mental health is a hard area to work in filled with ethical minefields, it's one area where it almost feels like people are presumed guilty before convicted of any crime, when they are sectioned for their own safety or others, but what other way is there to effectively manage those who may be a danger to others? I have never heard a psychiatrist recommend wholly medical treatment by itself and the best effects are often had with combined therapy.

Yeah, it's an ethical question, a "Minority Report"-sort of dilemma. There's evil in the world. Even a rational man could do some sort of unspeakable violent act, and he chooses to do evil. Is every person who commits an unspeakable violence "mentally ill"? Is BTK killer mentally ill or evil? Have you seen MSNBC's raw interview tapes with Timothy McVeigh? He is mentally ill or evil?

In the US, there's at least 2.4 million people receiving SSI or SSDI because they are ill with schizophrenia (or some other psychotic disorder), as I have quoted. Now, how many people in that pool are mentally ill and insane? We have them on file at the SSA. How would you or the government calculate the odds for anticipating the unforeseeable?

There remains much to learn about brain chemistry and the drugs administered, but I do not see this as a reason not to continue with many of the treatments that do effectively work for people. They can be often hit and miss because it is a truth we all have variations in our genes that make us less or more susceptible to certain treatments and this does not just apply to mental health medications.

The brain is a complex organ. The drugs are administered because of desired effect, but scientists don't completely know how it works. They themselves can't explain the "chemical imbalance" theory. And just because everyone accepts the theory, they still can't answer why the number of mental illness has increased since the advent of psychiatric medication. Does that seem odd to you?

I am not sure what your aim was with this thread, it seems a scatter-gun attack on psychiatry or meds at least, with little reasoned analysis. There are plenty of issues and problems in the field psychiatry, but they are all fairly recognised by most that work in it.

Yes, it's a scattershot of arguments. I can't coherently explain it all, that's why I'm posting quotes from sources nobody's here seems to read.

My hopes for this thread is mental healthcare reform that offers freedom of choice. My hope is that mental health services is offered to anyone who needs or wants them, but also they may choose alternative treatments, other than psychiatry and medication. Alternative treatments include Eastern medicine alternatives, the choice to stay in psychotherapy and not in 15 minute sessions with a shrink. Alternative treatment for me means basically living healthy without some medical machinations.

I've been thinking about how most people with disability go about their day-- living. My guess is that the disabled all try to make it through the day, some having it harder than others.

I'm going to go out on the limb of common sense to say that the "mentally ill", particularly those on disability, definitely do just try to get by in life. I'll go out on the limb to say that we're too busy on the Internet than to scheme some grand plan of terror and mayhem. In fact, we're too busy suffering; and we're suffering for having suffering. We're suffering from trauma and adversity that has detoured us from a norm of living. We end up being diagnosed from being depression to everything possible on DSM (probably not exaggerating), and being prescribed from one antidepressant to a cocktail of meds (definitely not exaggerating). We're being denied of our original trauma and actual problems that are most likely not due to chemical imbalance in the first place.

But most I've noticed lately is that people lump the "mentally ill"--the "mentally ill" encompasses the depressed, the bipolar, the anxious, the phobic, the "schizo*"... all lumped into one. As if we're all time bombs ready to go off. As if we should be herded and warded off into some camp, like cattle or subhumans.

But whatever the "Other" (politicians, docs, neighbors) may have in mind to treat us, I don't want the conventional methods of meds, electroshock therapy, and hospitalization for treatment. I don't want treatment; I want healing. Healing from healthy living and relationships. Not medication, diagnosis, and isolation. And it is the prospect of healing and its possibility that government and public policy could preclude it, is what concerns me the most.

[Galeongirl]

Originally Posted by solemole

Yeah, I do. Or I'm diagnosed. Are you diagnosed?



Yeah. Me. Been on meds since my early teens.



Not going to argue that ADHD medicine are brain boosters for everyone, even those who take them and don't have ADHD.



It is the question. It's the question nobody chooses to look at.



I've been through worse more than most can imagine. In fact, the things I've shared with people in the past, have sent them to therapy.



Got nothing good to say, say nothing at all.

So because YOU were on meds, that means people shouldn't see their psychiatrists anymore?

I happen to be diagnosed, yet I don't take any meds. And the diagnosis changed my life. For the GOOD way. So without that psychiatrist I'd still be lost and confused, and I would've failed my studies and everything else.

So to state that nobody should og to their psychiatrists anymore? Fucking bullshit. Absolute, utter bullshit.

[solemole]

Originally Posted by anitram

solemole, I think the issue you are having is that you've taken an absolutist stand - no drugs, no psychiatrists, it's all a racket, etc.

There are people out there who have legitimately been helped by therapy and medications, who feel happy about their progress and their treatment and for whom that has been a life changer.

Why can't you accept that different forms of treatment work for different individuals? Nobody is saying to you that you can't go off the drugs if you think that you're not well served by them. But there is not a chance in hell that you are going to convince me that my paranoid schizophrenic aunt wasn't better on them. Because you know nothing of her story and nothing of her life on vs. off the meds and without psychiatric intervention and support.

I accept other people's choices.

I mentioned to you earlier, antiram, that I'm sorry to hear about your family stories and nothing I say about your family's history can do it justice.

[solemole]

Originally Posted by LJT

Again I am unsure of what your getting at? David Healy is a well known critic of Prozac and it's ilk in regards to what seems to be it's link with increased suicides. He doesn't actually argue as far as I can ascertain against it and other SSRIs use, just that there should be more research into it's risks to better inform and monitor patients. He is an advocate to make sure people are on the 'right' treatment.

The first bit when you are talking about Benzos, cites this article: Biological Psychiatry. 2003 Nov 15;54(10):1105-17. As far as I can make out since I can't access the actual paper seems to centre on antidepressants and their sudden withdrawal or noncompliance, which are well known to cause people issues.

Biological Psychiatry. 2003 Nov 15;54(10):1105-17

You have to have an account and log in.

[solemole]

Originally Posted by Galeongirl

So because YOU were on meds, that means people shouldn't see their psychiatrists anymore?

I happen to be diagnosed, yet I don't take any meds. And the diagnosis changed my life. For the GOOD way. So without that psychiatrist I'd still be lost and confused, and I would've failed my studies and everything else.

So to state that nobody should og to their psychiatrists anymore? Fucking bullshit. Absolute, utter bullshit.

I AM on meds.

Good for you, you saw a psychiatrist who pinpointed your problem, AND you're NOT on meds. DOUBLE POINTS. (My saying that you specifically aren't on meds, shouldn't offend you, should it? ... Or do you really want me to say, well, too bad, you missed it by "that much", you really should have tried the meds. I'm applying thought this to you, not anyone else.)