ABC NEWS – DAY 1: — U.S. Government Fails to Oversee Treatment of Children With Mind-Altering Drugs
ABC NEWS – DAY 2: — Psychiatrists Put Kids at Risk With Mind-Altering Drugs
ABC NEWS – DAY 3: Mind-Altering Psych Drugs for a 7-Year-Old
Psychiatrists, Physicians & Psychologists That Debunk Psychiatry as a Science
This article has been republished in this blog with permission from
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights
“No behavior or misbehavior is a disease or can be a disease. That’s not what diseases are. Diseases are malfunctions of the human body, of the heart, the liver, the kidney, the brain. Typhoid fever is a disease. Spring fever is not a disease; it is a figure of speech, a metaphoric disease. All mental diseases are metaphoric diseases, misrepresented as real diseases and mistaken for real diseases.”
— Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus
“There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder.” “there is no definition of a mental disorder.” “It’s bull—. I mean, you just can’t define it.”
— Allen Frances, Former DSM-IV Task Force Chairman
“…modern psychiatry has yet to convincingly prove the genetic/biologic cause of any single mental illness…Patients [have] been diagnosed with ‘chemical imbalances’ despite the fact that no test exists to support such a claim, and…there is no real conception of what a correct chemical balance would look like.”
— Dr. David Kaiser, psychiatrist
“There’s no biological imbalance. When people come to me and they say, ‘I have a biochemical imbalance,’ I say, ‘Show me your lab tests.’ There are no lab tests. So what’s the biochemical imbalance?”
— Dr. Ron Leifer, psychiatrist
“DSM-IV is the fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by medicine in general. Insiders know it is more a political than scientific document… DSM-IV has become a bible and a money making bestseller—its major failings notwithstanding.”
— Loren Mosher, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
“All psychiatrists have in common that when they are caught on camera or on microphone, they cower and admit that there are no such things as chemical imbalances/diseases, or examinations or tests for them. What they do in practice, lying in every instance, abrogating [revoking] the informed consent right of every patient and poisoning them in the name of ‘treatment’ is nothing short of criminal.”
— Dr Fred Baughman Jr., Pediatric Neurologist
“Psychiatry makes unproven claims that depression, bipolar illness, anxiety, alcoholism and a host of other disorders are in fact primarily biologic and probably genetic in origin…This kind of faith in science and progress is staggering, not to mention naïve and perhaps delusional.”
— Dr. David Kaiser, psychiatrist
“In short, the whole business of creating psychiatric categories of ‘disease,’ formalizing them with consensus, and subsequently ascribing diagnostic codes to them, which in turn leads to their use for insurance billing, is nothing but an extended racket furnishing psychiatry a pseudo-scientific aura. The perpetrators are, of course, feeding at the public trough.”
— Dr. Thomas Dorman, internist and member of the
Royal College of Physicians of the UK
“I believe, until the public and psychiatry itself see that DSM labels are not only useless as medical ‘diagnoses’ but also have the potential to do great harm—particularly when they are used as means to deny individual freedoms, or as weapons by psychiatrists acting as hired guns for the legal system.”
— Dr. Sydney Walker III, psychiatrist
“The way things get into the DSM is not based on blood test or brain scan or physical findings. It’s based on descriptions of behavior. And that’s what the whole psychiatry system is.”
— Dr. Colin Ross, psychiatrist
“No biochemical, neurological, or genetic markers have been found for Attention Deficit Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Depression, Schizophrenia, anxiety, compulsive alcohol and drug abuse, overeating, gambling or any other so-called mental illness, disease, or disorder.”
— Bruce Levine, Ph.D., psychologist and
author of Commonsense Rebellion
“Unlike medical diagnoses that convey a probable cause, appropriate treatment and likely prognosis, the disorders listed in DSM-IV [and ICD-10] are terms arrived at through peer consensus.”
— Tana Dineen Ph.D., psychologist
“It’s not science. It’s politics and economics. That’s what psychiatry is: politics and economics. Behavior control, it is not science, it is not medicine.”
— Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus
Ronda is a wonderful woman that I met in the course of my work. I asked her to share her amazing story with you. We both hope this story will save lives and help others who find themselves stuck in the trap of taking antidepressants, looking for a way out. ♥
"My son was indeed very special! I gave him a name that honored BOTH families – Willie DeWayne – Willie after my father and DeWayne after my husbands father."
It started with the worlds greatest birthday gift.
Let me begin by introducing myself. My name is Ronda. I am 43 years old. I have two wonderful children and three amazing grandchildren. I am married to an incredibly supportive man and we are raising his fourteen year old son. I have a wonderful career. I own a beautiful home. I drive a nice car. For a woman with my history, I am pretty healthy. Life is good… Now…
My story begins on my 21st birthday. While most people spend their 21st birthday celebrating their first legal opportunity to drink alcohol and go to a bar, I was spending my day in a hospital giving birth to my first son. It was absolutely the most wonderful, magical day of my life! Not only was he MY birthday gift, but he was the first male child of his generation to be born on my husbands side of the family AND he was the first male child to be born for the last two generations on my side of the family. MY son was indeed very special! I gave him a name that honored BOTH families – Willie DeWayne – Willie after my father and DeWayne after my husbands father. Willie was our little prince. EVERYONE rejoiced at his birth. Willie was born on September 10th. He brought so much joy to all of our lives. Christmas was so much fun, even though he was only a few months old, Dad and DeWayne had so much fun buying him “boy” things. At just over three months old he already owned his first fishing pole, a football, a basketball and a baseball mitt.
As the New Year began, Willie got sick. He had what seemed like a horrible cold. On January 1st, it was bad enough that I called our pediatrician and voiced my concerns. Upon his advice I drove him to the local emergency room to be checked out. The ER doctor examined him, gave me a sample of a decongestant, told me he simply had a nasty cold and mildly scolded me for bringing him in for a “cold”. I took Willie home and gave him the medicine as directed.
On January 3rd, we visited my parents. Willie was resting but with the other children playing in the living room where he was sleeping, I was afraid they would wake him so I took him into my parents’ bedroom where he could sleep peacefully. We visited for about an hour. My baby sister was walking by the bedroom where Willie was sleeping so I asked her to take a peek and see if he was still sleeping. She was happy to do so. The next noise I heard was a sound I will never forget as long as I live. The sound that came from that room was blood-curdling. Everyone ran. I couldn’t move at first. I knew. In my heart, I knew. Things in the entire house became surreal. I was running to the bedroom but it seemed to be taking so long. I felt like I was in a strange place. Many of my family members had made it to the bedroom before me. They were trying to keep me out of the room. I remember crying. I remember my mother praying. I turned the corner and walked through the bedroom door, my dad’s brother was standing there, and he was holding my son. I reached for my child and my Uncle begged me not to take him. “He is gone”. I insisted he give me my child. He was cold. He was blue. I carried my child to the living room and began to perform CPR. Someone had already called for an ambulance. My sister and I performed CPR until the EMS arrived and they took over. They let me ride in the ambulance to the hospital. Those people worked so hard to save him. They continued to work at the hospital. I cannot tell you how long but after awhile, the doctor told us there was nothing more they could do. My prince was gone.
I went through the next few days in a daze. My husband and father made all of the arrangements. After the service was over, I went home and sat by his bed. I held his blanket close because I could still smell him. My family was by my side, I had a wonderful support system but I could not deal with it. I went days without sleep. I couldn’t stop crying. I was lost.
"A picture of me taken about a month after Willie had passed."
At the urging of my husband, I visited our family physician to see about getting something to help me sleep. Honestly, I expected him to say no and offer the names of some support groups for grieving parents. He did indeed say no to the sleep aid but instead offered a magic pill that would help me cope with this. He handed me a slip of paper and as I looked down at it, I had no clue that this one slip of paper would take thirteen years of my life from me.
I began the prescription for Prozac and took it exactly like I was told. They told me it would take awhile to build up in my system but that when it did, I would be able to handle “this”. I trusted this doctor. He had been my doctor for many years. I trust him and I pay him to take care of my health. He would never give me something that would cause harm.
After a couple months, my “symptoms” were no better. So, he increased the dosage and we waited. Several more months went by and after increasing my dosage to the highest he could and still no relief. At this point my doctor informs me that I am “clinically depressed” and that sometime Prozac just isn’t the right drug so we need to try something different. So we did. And several months later, when that drug didn’t work, he decided to try a combination of drugs. I can’t tell you how many different drugs we tried to “fix” me. As frustrating as it was, I did exactly what he told me to do. After all, he is a doctor right? He has all this education and knowledge and experience. So we kept trying. And I kept getting worse.
After about ten years of this vicious cycle, they had finally decided, I had a “chemical imbalance” in my brain. At the time, I never thought to ask, “How do you KNOW?”, “What test have you done to see this imbalance?” Trust…. I trusted him. By this time, they had settled on a combination of Paxil, Xanax, and Ambien. It was the perfect cocktail. I was dead inside. I felt nothing. EVER.
My life became almost robotic. I performed the necessary, required functions. I worked part time, I managed to take care of my two children, and I tried to “pretend” to be normal. Needless to say, this was unhealthy for my marriage. While I was medicated and refusing to be a part of this thing called life, he continued to live. He had little to no patience for my “condition”. I guess at one point he decided he had had enough and made several choices that ended our marriage. For many years, I placed the blame solely on him. Looking back, I can see that there were areas where his chosen path was a result of my lack of emotion.
I would tell you more about this time but to be honest, there isn’t much to tell. I had no life. I was numb inside. I slept as much as possible and when it became impossible to sleep, well, I just took more pills. It was easier that way. Although at one point during this dark time of my life, one good thing did happen. (Actually, I am sure MANY good things happened, I was just to numb to care) I became re-acquainted with an old friend who eventually became my husband. I’m not sure why but for some reason, he wanted to be part of my life. Maybe he thought he could rescue me — kind of like choosing to bring home the “damaged” puppy from the shelter as opposed to the “normal” puppy that has no issues.
Even with my new husband in the picture to care about me, somewhere along the line, I lost my will to live. Even the simplest, normal, every day events of life were too much for me to handle. I could not hold a job for very long at a time. I could not get out of bed. I didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t eat. I slept. At the end of thirteen years, I was sitting on the edge of my bed looking at the bottles of pills and I simply decided I didn’t want to do “this” anymore. I picked up the brand new bottle of Xanax; I took off the cap and shook a couple out into my hand. And I looked at them. I shook a few more out. And I looked at them. Finally, I emptied the entire bottle into my hand, I put them in my mouth and I swallowed. I felt – relieved. It would be over soon. I lay back down in my bed and pulled the covers up and closed my eyes and waited for the peace to come. Just as the warmth was washing over me, my husband came in to check on me and saw the lid off the brand new, now empty bottle of pills and immediately took me to the ER. There they ruined everything. They gave me some awful charcoal stuff to drink and of course informed my husband that I needed to go into the “hospital” for a mandatory 72 hour hold. And I did. There I met with therapists and psychiatrists and they “adjusted” my meds and deemed me fit for society again.
I went home and at the pleadings of my long time friend, I began to question the medication for the 1st time. I had never been “clinically depressed with a chemical imbalance” before they started shoving pills in me. I got a new doctor and I asked to be removed from the drugs. “Just to see if I am normal without them”. But the answer was a resounding NO. I pushed and pleaded but I was not going to get help from her. I went to my psychiatrist and I begged. I pleaded. But he said NO. I went home and cried. I did not want to live like this. I could not live like this. So I went back to the psychiatrist and I let him know, he could take me off the meds in a controlled environment or I would take me off them without his help. Reluctantly he agreed. I agreed that if I had ANY problems once I was off the meds, I would go back on and give up my “silly” notion that the meds were the whole problem. At this point, my psychiatrist let me know all of the horrible things that “could” happen when I was no longer taking their magic pills. HE said it was my right to know and his responsibility to inform me. It’s funny, now that I think about it; it would have been nice to have been informed about all of the things that “could” happen to me when they gave me those magic pills all those years ago. So where were my “rights to know” and their “responsibility to inform me” back then? Back when my family was whole
So, I went into a facility and began the process of weaning off of the various meds. I admit, at first, I did not feel better. I actually felt worse, but – I felt. I remember being terribly sick a lot. I was plagued by some of the worst headaches I had ever experienced in my life. I would go for days without a good nights rest. I would sweat profusely even when I was in a temperature controlled environment. Violent waves of nausea seemed like they would never end. I remember refusing to let my doctor know just how horrible I was feeling for fear that my withdrawal symptoms would give the doctor fuel for his fight to keep me medicated. Even though my withdrawal was supervised, I felt I was fighting this fight alone. And still I was determined; I wanted to know how I felt. I wanted to feel. I wanted to know when I was happy. I wanted to feel when I was sad.
After about six months and constant monitoring of my “mental health”, I knew I was going to be ok. I was a fully functioning person again. I felt whole. Did that mean I was always happy? No. But it did mean that when something sad happened, I cried. It meant when something funny happened, I laughed. I learned how to smile again. I learned how to be angry, and sad, and mad.
"My two oldest grandchildren and I."
Sometimes, when I am playing a game of tag with my grandson or reading a princess story to my granddaughter, I cry a little bit inside. The tears are mostly a mixture of joy and thankfulness for being whole enough to have this time with them but sometimes, they are tears of longing. Longing for what “could” have been… Longing for what “should” have been…
Thirteen years. They took thirteen years. All because some prescription drug company pays a kickback to the people I trusted with my life.
I am still angry about that. •
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ANTIDEPRESSANTS GO TO WWW.CCHR.ORG
If you are taking any prescription drugs, do not stop taking them based on what you read here. You could suffer serious withdrawal symptoms. You should seek the advice and help of a competent medical doctor or practitioner before trying to come off any psychiatric drug. This is very important
There is a world of difference between teaching someone how to think for themselves and telling them what they should be thinking about themselves. In drug rehab counseling this is a very significant difference that could make or break sobriety.
Typically a person who seeks help from a counselor for a mental pain or discomfort expects to be told why they feel or behave in a certain way; what they should be thinking or feeling; maybe they even expect to be labeled with a psychiatric label such as bipolar or ADD.
But is a counselor you? Is the therapist an expert about your life? Have they been with you since you were born and understand all your life experiences that culminated in what is happening right now?
No. No one knows you as well as you know—or can know—yourself. Ultimately, only you can solve your own problems – but you know this don’t you? If I only had a dime for every drug addict that said, “I want to solve this on my own,” no joke, I could happily retire right now and live a very comfortable life. The bottom line is and always will be that you are the author of your life and you will write the ending be it happy or sad.
So now that we are on the same page and I agree with you that you and only you can solve your problems, would you like to know how to solve a problem? Any problem? Would like to understand love and hate? Do you want to know how to tell what is a right decision verses a wrong one? It’s not always clear is it? – Yes? You really want to know? Good!
Now you understand what to look for in a drug rehab program or a counselor. Are they teaching you life skills or just telling you what you should be thinking and feeling? Are you going to be dependent on a counselor for the rest of your life or an independent thinker and doer? It’s your choice and these are the questions I would want to get answers for if it were I that was in search of a rehab program.
Ninety-nine percent of drug rehabilitation programs are “time based.” In other words their treatment is based on how much time the drug user spends in the program, e.g. 28 days, 60 days, etc.. Very few programs emphasize results or improved abilities. Most drug rehabilitation programs don’t even expect the drug user to be fully rehabilitated once they complete their “time”. And that’s just the point, the time-based rehab model expects that the drug user will relapse (several times even) and the drug addict is made fully aware of this.
The idea of continuously being “in recovery” regardless of when you last used drugs was not the original concept of AA. The AA steps were first published in 1939 in the book, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism. Notice that it says “recovered”– a much better concept since always being “in recovery”, particularly for a young addict, could give sufficient justification to use—after all he still sees himself as a “drug addict”.
If a drug user has been doing drugs for five to ten or twenty years and now his life is out of control, he has lost just about everything, including almost losing his life, then I ask: How is a 28-day program going to turn this person around in such a short amount of time? Well, come to find out, most rehab programs don’t deliver a full rehabilitation program. They may deliver three or four of the steps or phases and then expect the user to continue to attend meetings once they leave. Does that happen? Do young adults vigorously continue with meetings after 28 days? Are they motivated enough to do it? Probably not in general and in my experience, definitely not.
The amount of time spent in a program cannot determine results. Emphasizing time rather than results has resulted in, well, very little results. The only reason time would have any bearing is that not enough time could cut the process of recovery short and this leaves the user unstable — a very dangerous position to be in if you value your life.
A result-based program would be a program that required evidence of recovery, evidence of life skills gained or regained, proof of responsibility levels raised to a marked degree, self confidence restored, self appreciation and appreciation for others restored, etc. before a drug user can be considered rehabilitated. “Being clean” is just the first part of the recovery process. Staying clean and living an honest, healthy life style is the more important issue.
52% of kids in foster care are being prescribed dangerous and deadly psychiatric drugs. Many are on cocktails of prescribed drugs, including antipsychotics and antidepressants with documented side effects of diabetes, stroke, mania, psychosis, tumors, coma, suicide and death.