“Psychiatrists under contract with the Veteran Affairs—in my opinion—are legal drug dealers who almost took my life.”
- Former Marine Scout Sniper
By Shane Ellison
Award-winning scientist, Masters Degree in Organic Chemistry
Chad was a Marine Scout Sniper who served two tours in Iraq. Upon being honorably discharged as a Sgt. in 2007, he summoned the courage to ask for help in dealing with the images and emotions that gnawed on him from being dropped into combat. Like so many of his peers, the help he was given was “meds.” Although Chad was used to putting his life at risk, he never expected that his life would be more directly threatened by the “treatment” he was offered—psychiatric drugs.
After a single day of “following doctor’s orders,” Chad felt things were starting to look up. He seemed to be more cognizant, and the weight of daily struggles was lifted. But, as he describes it, things “quickly flip-flopped.”
“As time passed, I began changing into someone I wasn’t. Once a focused, motivated sniper, my reaction time became stagnant. My thought process became dry and lethargic, while my independence drifted. I became unable to make decisions on my own and reluctantly found myself relying on others in ways I had never done before. I had become a sort of medicated drone. All emotion turned into apathy and I found myself lackadaisical and eventually felt meaningless. That’s where it got really bad for me, and it’s hard to talk about now…. It was as if my brain chemistry went whack.”
This bleak scenario is becoming all too common for today’s military. The psychiatric death threat is becoming riskier than combat. In 2010, Time magazine reported that, “During the month of January, more soldiers committed suicide than were killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.” Mystified by the death toll among troops, Army Chief of Staff George Casey said that, “The fact of the matter is, we just don’t know why suicides have increased.”
A group of U.S. Senators have finally raised concern that the use of antidepressants and other prescription drugs are on the rise in the military, particularly among troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. FDA has warned these drugs can cause worsening depression, mania, psychosis, suicidal and homicidal ideation. Senator Jim Webb, D-Va., who led the recent Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearing in Washington, said the apparent increase in prescription drugs is “on its face, pretty astounding and troubling.” In fact, Department of Defense statistics show that from 2005 to 2008, there was a 400 percent increase in the prescription of antidepressants and other drugs used to treat anxiety. And a 2007 Army report showed that about 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent of those in Afghanistan were taking antidepressants or sleeping pills.
The suicide trend is not inexplicable, and must be highlighted if troops like Chad are to be saved from the psychiatric death threat. Like the loss of power to a car that results from a broken fuse, mental circuitry is shut off with each and every dose of psychiatric medication. The latest cloning techniques and laboratory methods show this to be the result of “neurotransmitter hijacking,” which scrambles brain circuitry, leaving users like Chad feeling “dry and lethargic,” in times of deep emotional turmoil.
Once neurotransmitter hijacking takes place, users become fully under the spell of psychiatry. The brain can become so scrambled that all normal reality and reason are overwritten by a new confusing and violent agenda. A new personality arises—one with homicidal and suicidal tendencies. Commenting on the biochemical fiasco, CNN publicized that, “Antidepressant drugs actually create a perilous brain imbalance.” Chad barely escaped.
“Rebounding on and off the drugs, I reached the darkest point in my life, strangely enough at home. I packed up my ghillie suit—the same thing I used to camouflage myself as a sniper in enemy territory—and hiked into the wilderness late at night, where no one would find me. I held my .45 cal pistol while attempting the unspeakable…many things raced through my mind, and at the forefront were feelings of worthlessness and my inability to relate to anyone, even myself. As a combat decorated Marine, it’s not something I’m proud of. But it’s a reality that seems to be more common among my peers, and it’s scary as hell.… To this day, I’m not sure what stopped me, probably an act of God. I walked backed vowing to reclaim my life – with everything I had. And, since my mental health declined so drastically since getting on the meds, I felt that getting off them was the first place to start.”
No doubt, combat leads to emotional stress beyond what the rest of us can concede. Listening to the combat experience of Chad paints painful images in my own mind. It’s no wonder indelible scars are left on the minds of our troops. And rather than help them cope, they are literally being drugged to death in a large-scale experiment that goes ignored. Former military psychiatrist, Dr. Grace Jackson, substantiated this stating that, “It’s really a large-scale experiment. We are experimenting with changing people’s cognition and behavior.”
Once off the drugs, Chad’s escape came from getting back to basics—really basic. He starts each day with rigorous exercise and ends it with a deep sleep, induced by L-tryptophan and valerian. His diet is fortified with whey isolate twice per day with meals that consist of unprocessed foods. Sugar and alcohol have been reduced to an absolute minimum. Sauna treatments are regular, and real therapy comes from writing and talking to others who share his experience, as well as giving back in the form of support. He knows his story is only “one of thousands” and that other veterans need help.
Today, Chad has earned his bachelor’s degree—with honors—in a record 2.5 years. At the same time, he founded a Veterans center, which serves as a hub at his Alma Mater to offer support in all matters that relate to being a vet. And when he can, he helps others heed his warning about the military death threat: “Psychiatrists under contract with the Veteran Affairs—in my opinion—are legal drug dealers who almost took my life.”
Shane Ellison is the bestselling author of Over-The-Counter Natural Cures and holds a masters degree in drug design (organic chemistry). He is a two-time recipient of the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Grant for his studies in biochemistry and physiology.
For international drug regulatory warnings about psychiatric drugs causing violence and suicide go to:
http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/
For more by Shane Ellison, go to:
http://www.cchrint.org/videos/experts/shane-ellison/
For more information on the current U.S. Senate investigation into this topic see related posts below.
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Tags: Afghanistan, antidepressants, army, Iraq, medicated, medicated army, military suicides, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychiatric drugs, psychiatry, PTSD, Senate Armed Services Committee, Shane Ellison, Suicide, The People's Chemist, troops, veteran, Veteran Affairs
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 at 1:35 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Lexapro is a permanent life long cure for any depression if you can survive the treatment. I was prompted by a marriage counselor to go to my doctor and request drugs for my OCD symptoms (checking, intrusive sad thoughts, previous eating disorders as a teen and heavy drinking-probably perpetuated by my father’s suicide in 1981 while he was on imipramine and numerous other psych med’s) I went to my husband’s pcp who never met me before. He gave me a depression self-test and diagnosed me with depression and anxiety, and then prescribed me Lexapro and Rozerem since I had a terrible insomnia problem. He also decided it was a good idea to start kissing me and grabbing me in his office. The Lexapro did such a good job getting me up and doing things, lots of things, but unfortunately, I believe it also may have made me nervous because it raised my blood pressure from it’s usual 120/80 to 145/110. I was really up, up, up. I could drink twelve shots of straight liquor and still be walking around for hours. This was the busiest year of my life. I managed to get 2 DUI’s 4 drunk in publics and an involuntary commit for suicide, attend 2 rehab’s, a hypnotherapist, weekly ASAP programs, all while working full time. During the course of my medical treatment, I was seen by 3 psychiatrists, 4 doctors, and numerous counselors. Most of the follow up treatment involved numerous more drugs, anti-buse, campral, and Buspar. All of which I had to stop taking due to side effects such as full body tremors and falling down. Finally, after the second DUI which I was also charged with a felony for pinching a police officers butt, I decided maybe I should stop taking the Lexapro b/c I seemed to have developed some obsession with alcohol and I could see I was also becoming delusional. So, while in jail, I requested no more medication for 1 week and was able to fully withdraw from Lexapro, although the depression side effects of the withdrawal lasted about three months. I met numerous other women in jail for DUI’s while on Zoloft, Lexapro and Abilify and others for shoplifting on Zanax. My depression is 100% permanently cured. I no longer ever feel sad about my life. I have never killed anyone driving drunk, I didn’t kill myself, I am no longer in jail, I didn’t get my kid taken away from me, I am not in a mental institution, and I don’t have a lethal diastolic blood pressure of 110 anymore. No matter what happens in my life now, I am always hopeful and never depressed. I know things could be much worse.
Wow…so glad you survived.
The article on accusing VA psychriatrics of being legal drug pushers is a joke from the guy who submitted it. Perhaps he thought he was suffering from PTSD and mislead the Doctors. I am a Vietnam Army combat veteran (1969-70) and have just recently been diagnosed with PTSD. I carried it with me for a long time before I realized what was happening to me. That happened almost forty years after returning home. The VA Doctors in the Trama recovery area are very professional and do the best they can prossibly do to help the symptons they see in veterans. Please do not change they way they really help real combat veterans suffering from PTSD. I have the utmost respect for the Doctors.
Back up and take another look at how much you really were affected by trauma, or were you? Over 57,000 US soldiers were killed in Vietnam. Based on personal experience and also the experiences of those whom I served with (I am still in contact with some of them), do understand that PTSD does not come immediately after you return to the US. The military training normally calibrates your mind to accept what you expect to see in combat situations. The trauma sets in when the military training starts to wear off in the mind and the long ago memories start to set in. I am doing much better thanks to the VA. I am now almost 62 years old. Been there, done that.
Henry in Houston
Humans are waste. This is how the regime tells its Doctors how to treat the conditional sewage, to get rid of it. This has gone on since the invention of the psychiatric diagnosis and statics manual I during my life time until now.
What a great testimony! Thanks for sharing. God bless you, darling.
Our soldiers in Iraq have the highest suicide rate ever, and they want to say its the “stress of war”??? NO! ITS DIRECTLY CAUSED BY SSSRI’S!!! WHY AREN’T THE PHARMA COMPANYS CHARGED WITH MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE??? WE HAVE PSYCHOPATHIC DEMONS RUNNING THIS COUNTRY…BUT THE PEOPLE ARE COMPLACENT AND APATHETIC..WHEN DOES IT STOP???????
All those men who died in Vietnam (58,000) plus several hundred thousand maimed, drug addicts, prison psychopaths, etc, PLUS 3 MILLION Vietnamese dead..ALL DIED ABSOLUTELY FOR NOTHING!!! WAR IS A RACKET…to feed the CORPORATERRORISTS..who are the REAL “enemy”..listen ‘KILLING IN THE NAME OF THE STATE” by RATM…
Police and military today nothing but MERCENARY CORPORATE ENFORCERS..and that’s ALL they are!!
WOW! Does this article hit close to home, too close as a matter of fact. I had (I say had) a brother who had recently come back from the military
and while on prescription drugs, committed suicide, in my back yard. He actually carried out putting a 45 in his mouth and pulling the trigger. He was 24 years old and had won some medals of honor.
It never made sense to me that one could be turned down in joining the military if they were on drugs, yet while they are in, and are experiencing trauma, they get put on drugs. These drugs should be banned as they do far more harm than good.
We understand the problem and have address the situation by opening a Behavioral Health Wellness Practice located in Westchester New York. Web. Chappaqua.vpweb.com Link First Approach/reentryusa.vpweb.com We welcome your support and comments place your information in contact box. Thanks.
Hello. Several years ago I attended a two hour talk by Dr. Ann Blake Tracy PhD, in Salt Lake City, Utah. She testified before the FDA many years ago over the severity and complexity of what SSRI’s can do to people. She wrote a book called, Prozak: Panacea or Pandora?
She has a website http://www.drugawareness.org/
Also a letter to the FDA 2004 here:
http://www.drugawareness.org/recentcases/dr-ann-blake-tracys-september-13-2004-to-the-fda
In her book she lists many documented examples of how an individual on the first time use of some SSRI’s commit murder and suicide. Education can set one free. Some people are not affected this way, but there is no predictor for anyone.
I pray for all who have suffered from this, and hope that by education and enlightenment, we can find peace. All trauma can be eased by time and healing. I know, for I suffered much as a child and learned to heal without any drugs. Thank you, and God Bless Wendy
I appreciate the work that CCHR is doing. I lost a much-loved son to suicide brought on by psychiatric drugs. He was diagnosed Bipolar after graduating college at the top of his class. Today, my husband & I teach a living foods program that has helped countless people overcome the effects of drugs, the Standard American Diet, and other formerly deemed “hopeless” conditions.
It is good that Chad has been able to reverse some of the effects of his medicinal drugging, but we are surprised that he is taking whey isolate, a VERY unhealthy supplement! We would like to point you to the work of Dr. Russell Blaylock, a most respected doctor and researcher in the field of neurology and brain function. His book Excitotoxins, and his DVD Nutrition & Behavior scientifically document the effects of “food” toxins, including protein isolates, upon the brain & nervous system, as well as drugs used in medical treatment for various disorders.
Thank you and blessings to you all, Anita
Great that Chad survived. I am a writer and a physician, certified by the American Board of Addiction Medicine and am in the business of getting people off of drugs, legal and illegal. Almost everyone I see gets a life back when they focus on emotional, spiritual and physical healing, limited or no medications, nutrition, exercise and support from those who have been there. Resolving (re-solving) old issues is possible only when we are present, not drugged. Read my articles on doctors who over-prescribe at http://www.docdawn.com.
shane’s report is gud… @rockki thanx for sharing ur experience with Lexapro(SSRI).actually we find many stories in the internet about the affected people.in the same line we also see the withdrawal symptoms of Lexapro.
one of my close relative is taking Lexapro for depression.she is taking it from last 4 months,there has been no positive changes, now she cant even withdraw the lexapro bcos of its withdrawl effects, so the survivors , i m requesting u please even include wat u did to safely withdraw the drugs.I live in india.
IT VERY BAD.THIS ALL WE KENYANS CAN SAY
The psychiatrists are drugging people everywhere. Life should be lived awarenessly, with personal participation, not with the “help” of some drugs.
Anyway, those drugs reduce the awareness of people, and those drugs themselves are the cause of worsening the conditions – negative thoughts, negative feelings, suicidal thoughts…
Drugs are killing.
If you hate yourself, take drugs. You’ll loose all qualities and the good things about you. You’ll become something else.
It looks easier to combat life’s problems with the “help” of drugs. Because they suppress your feelings, the bad ones, but also the good ones. You become cold, your emotions become incontrollable and inappropriate.
Live life freely. Don’t buy drugs. Try to solve problems with your own force. If having difficulties, try to increase your own force, there are ways to.
The fact that the effects of his ‘meds’ came on immediately, is a strong indicator here; as most of these ‘meds’ are toxins that take two weeks of taking them every day before they ‘work’ – as the Blood Brain Barrier won’t ‘let then into the brain’.
Thus, he was (probably) experiencing a psychosomatic placebo-effect like sense of wellness, derived more from his Faith in Medicine than anything ‘real’.
Being a Medical Marijuana Advocate – one who had a (the first of nine) Doctor(s) recommend ‘pot’ as a medicine, in 1986, for my Depression issues, after my own stint in the Army; as well as having found it to be the ‘ultimate’ source of NEUROPATHIC Pain Relief – as my Neuropathy (HNPP), and the PAIN it causes is TONS WORSE than ay ‘depression’ that I might experience; I, once again, all on the Madness to END – with the enactment of a Federal Medical Marijuana Act.
Marijuana stimulates Serotnin; inhibits its ‘re-uptake’; it (also) stimulates Dopamine; and, most importantly, it SHUTS OFF PAIN by activating the very same neuro-receptors that the Body Itself activates when we have a Major Injury – so that one will be sitting there looking at, say, a BONE sticking OUT OF YOUR ARM, but one will not feel any Pain from it (yet!); as the Body just ‘Got High’ in the ENDO-Cannibinoids that it MADE ITSELF.
Psychiatry is a Big Authority that you can’t get out of its circle easily when you get in. Who is more powerful than psychiatry so we can confide it and able to get out ? Noone, Nothing. It legally enslaves us and tortures without any trace!
This is such a sad story about how people on this earth feel it is ok to take toxic torture of psychiatric drugs. It is so obvious that chemical compounds are so different from our emotional states and symtoms that no cure or healing is possible. Natural remedies help because ‘like cures like’. I was in and out of hospital for 23 years and got healed in August 1997. Homeopathy, Centering Prayer and Jesus helped. We have started a charity in England called RECOVERY that finds ways to Wellbeing and campaigns against compulsion. Join us and we can win together and find the best way to recovery. Have a look at our website and learn some peace in your mind by practising Centering Therapy. The good news is Jesus is more powerful than psychiatry and you can discover the secret of being content in every moment because of Christ who strenthens us.
@roccki – i too had an almost uncontrollable urge to drink while on zoloft (i was taking it for fibromyalgia)it was actually quite frightening, thankfully i also had almost uncontrollable diarrhea while taking it and had to stop…i took welbutrin for a while, too and was extremely dizzy while taking it – the dizziness has not totally gone away some 8 years later…quite frankly, i have sworn off most of western medicine, and have used cannabis and acupuncture with far better results…though i am never totally pain free…ssris are poison!
Please visit our website, after (30) years of rocket-fuel-derivative,psyche drugs, chemotherapy, and electrocution, they, the VA org killed US, Bro!
Seroquel given IV, after hooked-up to life-support, was forced. NO court order,and they got rid of my MPOA, the plunger-pusher Dr. named himself my MPOA…
The VA euthanizers, make Dr. Kervorkian look sane.
Hi
I am a traditionally trained psychiatric nurse by profession however I have long since lost all faith and respect for western psychiatry. I have seen horrendous things done to patients under the auspices of the “Mental Health Act” people held down and injected against their will and the horrible results afterwards. One patient was placed on Clozapine a powerful antipsychotic drug which is well know for causing “malignant Bowel Syndrome” for weeks he complained of extreme constipation but was ignored until he woke one morning drenched in his own blood as he was bleeding from his bowel due to a perforated colon. He ended up with a permanent Colostomy and no apology from the psychiatrists whom saw this as an acceptable risk! The reason for my writing is that during my long search for effective alternatives to drug treatment i learnt a wonderful technique which I now use to treat people with PTSD privately and I have a 100% success rate menaing that my patients are symptom free and all their emotional trauma has been resolved. I am happy to provide anyone on this list with my services. I would also like to say that i am an Iraqi by birth but i am a human being and am here to serve humanity regardless of race, colour or creed or wehter or not they served in Iraq!!
Check out my blog site for how to contact me!
Peace and Blessings
Marwan!