SSRI’s Anti Depressant’s cause normal healthy depression to become long term and chronic?

A quick share today….

SSRI antidepressants implicated in causing long term depression http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/antidepressants-long-term-depression_b_1077185.html

The beginning of the truth that set me free….

Convincing me that my brain was broken was a brilliant strategy to convince me that I needed the drugs. Then convincing me that the withdrawals were actually my “disease”…also brilliant and this kept me dependent and compliant because I was terrified of what might happen if I did not follow “doctors orders”. Realizing the drugs were the actually causing the problem was the beginning of a truth that set me free.

 

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The Spiral Down

A share from my Facebook page today….

I knew enough to know that what psychiatry called psychosis, paranoia and other “extreme states” were a stress response so I didn’t “buy into” those ideas…I never reported those experiences to the “providers”. What I didn’t know though…was that the “mania” was caused by the drugs they gave me for the “depression” that was caused by the stimulants they gave me for “adhd” which was actually PTSd on steriods. Learning to frame my experiences in the context of life allows me to learn the life skills to well, have a life outside of the idea that I’m broken and defective. I ended up victim to the lie of psychiatry because I believed that when I sought help to stop re creating abusive relationships in my life I was told that the problem was not that I was being abused but that I was the problem.

 The spiral down for me began when I was told that my normal reactions to being abused were a disease.

This in turn left me helpless to stop the abuse and in fact allowed it to continue and perpetuate these power/control dynamics to my children.

 We are told to “tell” when others are hurting us.

Yet when we do tell and are then told “what did you do to make them hit/hurt you”…?

Or when we are taught “there are two sides to every story so lets see what you need to do differently to MAKE the abuse and mistreatment stop”….

Not. Helpful.

At all.

 There is no negotiating with those who are hurtful.

It does make sense to put out the effort to work things out…

 But the truth of the matter is….

Is when we approach dysfunctional relationships with the tools that work in functional relationships….we often end up re-victimized because we are doing what we are told by the professionals…like…..

 ”When you ______ I feel ________ and I’d like you to do/not do ____________”.

 In healthy relationships this becomes a healthy respectful negotion; a place where ones thoughts and feelings are respected. A time where we have an opportunity to show we care by caring about each others feelings.

In dysfunction though?

The one we are asking to respect our feelings will most often turn this around and make it about you and how it is your fault they can’t change, why they are hurting you….

In the end – trying to work things out with someone who is coming from a history of dysfunction often ends up with the victim being re victimized and made responsible for the situation.

The idea that it is possible to “negotiate” with someone to stop being abusive….is absurd.

Why?

Because the issue becomes about them sidestepping the issue by somehow changing the subject, becoming defensive, argumentative…

 We often walk away wondering if WE are the crazy one.

So when we turn to a mental health system that does not acknowledge their own power plays and dysfuntion – how can we expect to get approproiate support to become healthy self empowered individudals?

The change for me came when I learned how to put my foot down about the way others were treating me while letting go of what they decided to do with the limits I was setting for myself.

Learning to say “no” is one thing.

Learning to stand my ground about no longer being mistreated another.

This – was how I finally broke free of the cycle of being that doormat that had kept me feeling “crazy” for so many years.

This – was when I finally saw that the “mental health” system….?

Is pretty much clueless about “mental health”.

A deadly epidemic….

A quick share today….read up here: http://beyondmeds.com/2012/05/21/a-deadly-epidemic-psychiatric-drugs/

Reblogged from Proactive Planning:

This is a great post to learn more about withdrawal syndrome – which is important because many will take these symptoms of removing a drug from their body as evidence of mental defect/disorder thus justifying going back on or increasing the amount of chemicals being consumed. The trick to going of psychotropic drugs is: 1. Be informed. This article is a good way to do that so you understand what you are experiencing.

Read more… 104 more words

Sharing from the Proactive Planning site today...great post on learning to recognize drug withdrawal syndrome. Knowledge is where we get the power to do what we want to do. :)

Me and “PTSd”

I posted this at my Facebook profile page this morning….

Yesterday there was discussion around a graphic I posted that said “PTSD is a normal reaction….”. I, like many others, had came to believe that “ptsd” was something that happened “to” me. That it was a “disorder” that I’d have to live with for the rest of my life.

I was in the “care” of “mental health providers” who for 2 decades had written ptsd in my charts – but NOT ONCE was I “treated” for it. It was expected that I “had” ptsd and would have it forever.

I was given powerful mind altering drugs all those years that were effectively a chemical straight jacket, a chemical lobotomy. When I had “symptoms” I was instructed to call my doctor or therapist and THEY would do something to ease my distress.

NOT ONCE* was the idea that the “symptoms” of ptsd were a normal human response to the HORRIBLE life experiences I had survived.

In fact – the drugs and the “treatments” became ANOTHER source of trauma for me as in 2007 ANOTHER psychiatrist decided that I no longer fit the criteria for being given those drugs and forced me OFF them – in one day.

And as I started to “wake up” from this state of drug induced zombie-like existence….I realized that I had never needed the drugs and had basically experienced a chemical lobotomy that made me a docile compliant “consumer”.

Try waking up after 20 years of THAT and realizing that you had been lied to and been incapacitated by drugs – not some mysterious “disease”.

BUT – the good news is that after going through a horrendous period of withdrawal…I had my mind, my brain and my body back under my control and – I learned how to work through the past experiences so I no longer suffered from them.

The drugs? Actually made the “ptsd” worse as the side effects induced MORE ptsd type symptoms and other terrible side effects like a 60 pound weight gain – and that was used to validate that I really was “sick” AND lazy.

PTSd is a normal RESPONSE to abnormal life experiences.

I learned the emotional and cognitive SKILLS I needed to put those experiences in perspective and make them part of my memories that I no longer lived the trauma nightmare that my “providers” told me I would.

Think about it folks. It is not profitable for those who bill their time to teach us how to live beyond these symptoms. (And the truth is that most of them don’t have a clue HOW to help us because of course…they are educated by the interests that profit from our dependence on the drugs)

Residual income – almost 20 years of insurance billings – and now they no longer get that from keeping me dependent on them.

Your experiences were real. Your pain is real.

Yet – the path to emotional healing is so similar for those who have found freedom from it.

The “disorder” about PTS…is the extremes to which we go to avoid “triggered” memories. I made “order” by choosing to learn to “work through” that pain instead of continuing to avoid it.

Was it easy? HELL NO.

Was it worth it? DAMNED STRAIGHT.

*Note: in late 2007 early 2008 I had the good fortune to fall into a situation with a LMSW who had trained with Colin Ross who developed the original Trauma Model. This individual taught me the skills and shared the kind of insightful information that enabled me to empower myself to live beyond my original trauma experiences. I have used this same model and process to heal myself of the raging anger at having been brainwashed and lobotomized for over 15 years and the next 5 years of withdrawals that I have experienced….and survived. I now have made meaning of my experiences by sharing with others the path I followed to find freedom from both the original trauma of my developmental years and the secondary trauma of psychiatry and devastating and crippling “mental health” “treatment”. Find more and join my community at www.proactiveplanning.org and www.facebook.com/empoweringsolutions

You can find the individual who taught me the skills and validated my life experiences here: www.traumarevolution.com

From Scientific Journalist, Robert Whitaker: Now Antidepressant-Induced Chronic Depression Has a Name: Tardive Dysphoria

Yes. This is what it sounds like.

Further fraud on America and it has spread around the world like a nasty virus, incapacitating millions of unsuspecting individuals who believe their doctors do anything but push the pills that the pharma sales rep pushes to them. 

Unsuspecting health care providers that believe they are doing right by their patients….patients who trust their doctors blindly…

Like I did for nearly 20 years.

Yes. Its true. These drugs cause the thing they are supposed to be curing.

I know this because I’ve been there and done that too. 

Read the story here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad-in-america/201106/now-antidepressant-induced-chronic-depression-has-name-tardive-dysphoria

Violence in psych hospitals….usually triggered by staff not patients

A quick share today. From Dan Fisher, head of the National Empowerment Center.

Link to this article:http://gaia-health.com/gaia-blog/2012-04-17/violence-in-psychiatric-hospitals-usually-triggered-by-staff-not-patients/

This would be a good article to forward to your local media….they love dissension and drama.

This piece will certainly give them plenty of mileage:)

A story about withdrawal…Elaina’s story of the past year

This is a comment I recieved from a reader over at this post (click here to read Going of Psych Drugs is more than just stopping them)

Sharing….

Hi, Susan. This is a very important message, thank you for posting it.

As you know, I went off my anti-depressant and anti-anxiety meds about a year ago. But I did it “right” — or so I thought at the time. I did it the way my prescribing psychiatrist told me to do it. He told me to take a couple of weeks to “taper off” my meds. I did it exactly the way he told me to, I took 3/4 of the dose for several days, and then went down to 1/2 of the dose for another few days, then 1/4 of the dose for a few more days, and then I stopped.

Well, as I found out the hard way, the psychiatrist was WRONG about that being a safe way to come off these powerful mind-bending drugs. My emotions became very raw and volatile. I’m sure it didn’t help that I was going into the final months of my menopause right at that time, too. But even so, I managed to keep my head together fairly well, until a few weeks after coming off my meds so fast, I ended up in the emergency room when the tragic death of a very close loved, coming less than a week after my primary childhood abuser had sent me an insanely long hate letter, and sent copies of the lie-filled letter to my family of origin… having those two deeply painful events happen back-to-back would have rocked my world on the best day, but having them happen at a time when I was already feeling really rocky due to having so recently gone off my psychotropic meds, way too fast… even though I followed my prescriber’s directions in the way I did it… it was enough to push me right to the brink of suicide.

SO, back on the meds I went. Back to being an emotionless, energyless, zombie.

Three months later, after doing a ton of research, both online and through books, I began tapering off my meds again. Only this time, I did it ultra ultra ultra slowly. This time, I only went off one med at a time, not both at once. And this time, I started out by taking just a tiny sliver off of one med, and this is the dose I took for 2 weeks. Then I took 2 tiny slivers off my med for another 2 weeks, and so on.

Any time I felt like my emotions were getting out of hand even a little bit, I bumped my dose back up for a few days.

Doing it this way has taken me a little over 6 months so far… although I still am not entirely off of the antidepressant. I am completely off the anti-anxiety med, and I’m down to about 1/8th of the original antidepressant dose I was taking, when I first started. Right now I am sticking with this small dose, because every time I go down below the 1/8th amount, I don’t do very well. I hope I don’t have to stay on the 1/8th dose forever… but, even if I do, I am still feeling and functioning much better than I have in years, overall, and for that I am very grateful.

Elaina

Thanks Elaina for being willing to put your experiences out there so others can know they are not alone in these experiences.

For more info on learning how to safely reduce or withdraw from psychotropic drugs you can visit the Proactive Planning site here. 

 

Going Off Psych Drugs Is More Than Just Stopping Them

A quick share today from my Proactive Planning site…..http://proactiveplanning.org/2012/03/28/safe-reduction-begins-with-knowing-where-are-where-were-going-and-how-we-will-get-there/

This post is inspired by the many stories I hear of those who use psychotropic drugs and their families and the devastation that they face because they just “stop” taking these drugs.

Never.

EVER

Just “stop” these drugs.

What I posted at Facebook Today…

To stop ANY mind altering chemical without forethought planning preparing and understanding what you are in for or doing is like standing naked in Times Square then getting pissed of because you got committed.

And within a few minutes had this comment from a fellow advocate…

Thanks Susan. Just visited a person sitting in jail yesterday after going off medications without appropriate planning. Thank you for the validation and resourse.

In all respect of your desire to be free of the hold and crippling effects of these drugs…

Grow up.

Get real and get informed so we can stop peeling you off the pavement, bailing you out of jail and visiting you in the Psych unit when you “go off” you meds.

Sorry – but for real. This is no joke.

You cannot just “go off” these drugs and then get pissed because you got arrested or committed.

It sucks.

It is hard.

And it is completely possible when we set ourselves up for success to find our freedom.

Get informed.

Make a plan.

Know how you’ll handle the withdrawal symptoms and the emotional distress that drove you to seek help to begin with.

Then take it slow and don’t expect life to be “normal” for a very long time while your brain and body recovers from being assaulted by these drugs.

So if I pissed you off….good.

Use that to fuel your quest for knowledge.

Get yourself empowered by getting yourself educated.

Then make a plan and put your supports in place BEFORE you take action.

Be informed. Be responsible.

#thatisall:)