Ssris - Is Continuing To Prescribe Them A Contravention Of "do No Harm"?

[Anarchy]

@shimmerz ,
I watched all three, I'd just intended to dip in, but got absolutely hooked. There are short comings, the economics reasoning was at best semi literate, with absolutely no reference to "regulatory capture" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture or to the problems of "economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth" (aka "the calculation problem" the wikipedia entry for this seems to be pretty chaotic at the moment) .

I was having a good chuckle while agreeing with the part about the "Stockholm Syndrome", especially after my criticism of the opening text.

A really good set of films. Thanks.

It wasn't until I started to take control when I realised medication was hurting me more than helping me, stopped it, and suddenly I could feel things and get on with what needed attention.

The films brought that out quite clearly, and described the opportunity cost, of time lost while people are not feeling, and then, when they finally get off them, (one person described 7 to 9 months of withdrawal) having to learn how to cope with living and caring again, and to begin to deal with all of the sh!te that got them put on the happy pills in the first place.

 

[anthony]

That is close to my experience. I had a good six months or so in withdrawal, basically learning how to cope without them, yet I was able to feel what was wrong so I could fix the core issue, instead of not feel anything due to being a walking zombie, and ticking time bomb.

Yup... mine made me constantly suicidal, with one very close attempt. If they work for you, great... but if you endure side effects you never had, get off of them immediately IMHO. Doctors tell you to keep taking them, up the dosage, start prescribing you more medications to counter side effects generated by the SSRI, and it just gets ugly as hell from there onwards.

 

[GWhizz]

My suicidal ideation was seriously heightened by ssri's yet they kept upping the dosages to try to treat the self-harming and suicide attempts. I made 2 close attempts and after the 2nd, I knew it wasn't just me so I quit cold turkey against all medical advice. I experienced some withdrawals going from a high dosage to nothing, but I pretty much instantly improved and quit self-harming. My psychiatrist won't put my improvement down to the meds though nothing else changed at that point but the meds. In fact, they'd probably be only too happy to give me a script for more should I show willingness to be a compliant patient!

 

[Queen Boudica]

It wasn't until I started to take control when I realised medication was hurting me more than helping me

You are lucky you could take control. Because if you are too far gone (and even if you are not), they will force you, or coerce your family. And use the guise that you are mentally ill and can't decide for yourself. Or if you have kids, they will threaten you because you are not doing the right thing with them. So much manipulation and coercion in this system. And the people you need help from are the very ones who abuse you again. And even the well meaning ones, have no idea, that they are all part of this system. And you sound paranoid if you say it. God could we get any more '1984'.

 

[shimmerz]

Anytime I went into hospital it was simply a disaster. Staff didn't like me much almost immediately because I was what they called 'oppositional' because I wouldn't move when ordered to. Funny how that catatonic thing works....I thought it was part of the symptomology, they someone thought it was an evil part of my character.

Anyhooo.... I realized pretty darned quickly that if you pissed the hospital staff off they used drugs as a punishment. A bigger diagnosis as a punishment. They would physically abuse as well. Horrifying as I think back on it.

Another way of coercion...they would allow me to go to a day program (which I desperately needed at the time) BUT they were in charge of my drugs. I had already been set up with a benzo (which is correct for catatonia) but the day hospital wanted me on a cocktail of drugs before they would take me into the program. So did the other program, come to think of it. It seemed like every place I went to get help would try to force me to change drugs.

It was all just so terrifying. I felt like I had to protect myself (because I did) from the very people who were saying they were helping. *shudder*.

 

[Queen Boudica]

Yer, complete manipulation and coercion. We won't give you the therapy you need (the actual thing that really works) unless you dope yourself up in drugs. And then you are even more messed up than before. Great. It is terrifying. That is the hospital system. And yes, my sister was forced to take drugs, bruises down her legs. And they lied. Complete abuse. Terrifying

 

[Anarchy]

We won't give you the therapy you need (the actual thing that really works) unless you dope yourself up in drugs.

Then anyone studying the meta data correlates recoveries with people having received the drugs.

Anyhooo.... I realized pretty darned quickly that if you pissed the hospital staff off they used drugs as a punishment. A bigger diagnosis as a punishment. They would physically abuse as well. Horrifying as I think back on it.

I had a friend (he died in an accident a few years back) who failed a year at medical school in the mid to late 1970s, and in an attempt to suck up while he re sat the exam, went to do some work at a psychie hospital. There was a female patient who he got quite friendly with (I think he fancied her), who would not kow tow to the staff, she really showed some spirit and self agency, and she was punished each time by being sent for ECT, until one day she didn't return, the bastards had killed her.

There were other stories; for example the hospital had him (a failed medical student) doing the assessments on admissions!

The final straw was when he went on a date with one of the nurses, and she took his hands - he thought to gaze at them or kiss them, instead she slashed his wrists, then her own and said "now we can be together forever". She missed his arteries and got her own, so she soon passed out, and he was able to stop her bleeding and call for help.

He gave up on the idea of studying medicine, and had a very successful career as a physicist and in business.

 

[Queen Boudica]

Oh they can't do that with my sister. They killed her, with those drugs. Not one of their so called success stories. But they just blamed it on her. Makes me so ill.

 

[Anarchy]

Hugs if you'll have them Lizio.

 

[Queen Boudica]

Thanks. @Anarchy.

 

[Queen Boudica]

Which hospital was your friend working at @Anarchy

 

[Anarchy]

It is strange how this whole false "health" and "medical" crap can be so confusing.

When I was at school, there was a guy joined the year below me, who had tourettes. I never thought much of him at the time - he was as dickish as any other 15, 16 or 17 year old male. He was on all sorts of drugs to try to control his urges to shout - to save others from embarrassment, rather than for any benefit to him.

The year after I left school, he was taken ill, taken to hospital and was dead within a week. For years, I unconsciously assumed that whatever caused his tourettes, (his "illness", if you like) had got worse and killed him. It was years later that I was discussing it with my ex (cognitive psychologist among many other things, she has more masters degrees and started more PhDs than you can shake a shitty stick at), and she woke me up

There was nothing at all life threatening about tourettes, it was likely a reaction to the early 1980s psychie drugs he was being stuffed full of that killed him. 17 year old boys don't usually just go dropping dead.