By Shane “The People’s Chemist” Ellison
Author, Over-The-Counter Natural Cures
I may be a perfect candidate for psychiatry.
I ask questions with period marks to shorten conversations. I avoid eye contact with strangers in fear (maybe it’s anxiety) that I might learn too much about them. I secretly think that Metallica would be making better music if they went back to bludgeoning themselves with party drugs and alcohol, instead of “therapy.” I’m trying to master the Law of Un-attraction to shield myself from a “real job,” small homes and junky cars. And, I’m constantly giving my children advice, only to give it to myself.
Psychiatry, can your drugs help me?
Perhaps these questions are what motivated me to pursue a career as a drug design chemist, winning multiple awards for my work. Nothing gets me more excited than drugs and how they affect the body (except my wife’s abs). I’ve studied their molecular anatomy, risked life and limb to mix and match explosive chemicals in a round bottom flask, and even sold my soul to Big Pharma in exchange for a lab bench and chemical hood.
During this time, I’ve made some surprising discoveries about psychiatric meds, which include antidepressants, antipsychotics, stimulants, and anti-anxiety drugs. Understanding what I’ve learned will protect you from the flood of side effects that are now being discovered at breakneck speeds, courtesy of the myriad of patients being prescribed psychiatric drugs in the name of mental health.
Your Own Personal Hell
Antidepressants strive to increase the levels of a “coping” molecule known as serotonin in the brain. It supposedly helps us find happiness when it’s covered in an avalanche of nastiness. But, it’s never been proven. Still, the drugs attempt to boost serotonin by “selectively” stopping the “reuptake” among brain cells. This is where the whole SSRI acronym came from—“selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.” It’s a slick name, but a stupid idea. Nothing is selective in the body.
While trying to block the reuptake of serotonin, antidepressants can also prevent its release and that of another brain compound known as dopamine. The areas of the brain responsible for release and reuptake of these neurotransmitters are so damn similar (after all, they work on the same molecule) that an antidepressant drug isn’t smart enough to understand which one it is supposed to work on. So it does what any dumb drug would do, it blocks both. That’s why users usually carry a glassy stare in their eye. Fully under the psychiatric spell, they’ve tuned out.
Deep sadness, fear, anger and aggression can set in over time. By removing serotonin and dopamine from the brain, long-term antidepressant users can’t find or feel happiness. Instead, they may become buried in the avalanche of nastiness. And if you can’t find or feel happiness in life, what’s the point? What’s going to stop you from snapping your own neck or spraying bullets on your classmates? Not much when you live in your own personal antidepressant hell.
Think this is all opinion?
According to the FDA, antidepressants can cause suicidal thoughts and behavior, worsening depression, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, aggression, psychotic episodes and violence. Some even cause homicidal ideation according to the manufacturers. Many long-term antidepressant users will tell you they no longer feel normal emotions—they’re numb, like zombies.
But the side effects of these drugs aren’t limited to hijacking your feelings and emotional state, causing violent and psychotic states. Physical side effects occur too and include abnormal bleeding, birth defects, heart attack, seizures and sudden death. Over one hundred and seventy drug regulatory warnings and studies have been issued on antidepressants, to sound the alarm on these side effects.
For Elephant Use Only
Psychiatrists prescribe antipsychotic meds such as Zyprexa and Seroquel, for anything from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, delusional disorder, psychotic depression, autism or anything else they can think of, even “pervasive developmental disorder,” which is perfect for boosting sales because it targets children who suffer from irritability, aggression, and agitation. It’s a shame ‘cause these drugs are good for nothing but sedating irate elephants, not curing psychiatric disease.
According to a study published in Psychological Medicine, antipsychotic drugs cause brains to shrink – they lessen brain matter and volume. Originally designed for those deemed “schizophrenic,” the drug companies came up with a brilliant marketing campaign to sell these drugs to a much wider market—unsatisfied antidepressant users. You’ve probably seen the ads—if your “depression medication” isn’t working, then don’t blame the drug; you may just have bipolar disorder!
Once swallowed, antipsychotics sail through the blood stream where they’re carried to the brain. Like a giant oil spill, antipsychotics cover the brain in a medicinal slick, where brain wave transmission is blocked. Users become devoid of normal brain activity. Motivation, drive and feelings of reward are shunted. If psychiatry considers this a “treatment,” they’re the crazy ones.
If you’ve ever seen someone who has suffered from the “spill” courtesy of following doctors orders, you can’t mistake one of the most common side effects, it’s called Akathisia. Involuntary movements, tics, jerks in the face and the entire body can become permanent side effects for antipsychotic users.
Antipsychotics also cause obesity, diabetes, stroke, cardiac events, respiratory problems, delusional thinking and psychosis. Drug regulators from the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa warn that they can also lead to death. I wouldn’t be surprised if psychiatrists considered this a cure…
Use This to Jump The Grand Canyon
If you’re going to attempt to jump your scooter over the Grand Canyon, or ride your snowboard off Kilimanjaro, stimulants are great. They flood the brain with dopamine and trigger an inhuman surge of adrenaline, responsible for making you believe life is grand, despite eminent death. Outside of that, you’re either a speed freak, a college student trying to learn an entire semester of Biology 101 in 4 hours, or a fifth grader “following doctor’s orders.”
Top stimulants being prescribed today are nothing more than a mix of amphetamines packaged into trade names like Adderall, Dexedrine and Ritalin. Street thugs sell it as meth, poor man’s cocaine, crystal, ice, glass and speed. It’s no wonder kids are now abusing Ritalin, Adderall and these drugs more than street drugs, they’re cheaper to get and they’re “legal,” hence the term kiddie cocaine.
Even the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) categorizes Ritalin in the Schedule ll category, meaning a high potential for abuse—just like cocaine and morphine. All of them have the same effects regardless of how they’re named: Central nervous system overload leading to heart attack and/or heart failure. And kids are dropping faster than Meth Heads at Raves…
I’m not exaggerating.
Eleven international drug regulatory agencies and our own FDA has issued warnings that stimulants like Ritalin cause addiction, depression, insomnia, drug dependence, mania, psychosis, heart problems, stroke and sudden death.
Bash Your Head in with Anti-Anxiety Drugs
If you’re not man enough for a drug that could sedate an elephant like antipsychotics, then psychiatrists will prescribe anti-anxiety meds, particularly benzodiazepines. Choosing between the two is akin to deciding whether or not you should be hit in the head with an aluminum bat or a wooden one; anti-anxiety meds being the latter.
Discovered in the stinky chemistry labs of Hoffman La Roche in 1955, anti-anxiety meds aim to trigger sleep receptors in the brain, just slightly. So, rather than being riddled with anxiety, you are put to sleep, halfway. It’s “treatment,” and psychiatrists have been “practicing it for decades.” But, it has yet to work, because drugging your problems away is more dangerous than anxiety. The use of anti-anxiety meds is coupled with a host of nasty side effects such as seizures, aggression and violence once the drug wears off. Hallucinations, delusional thinking, confusion, abnormal behavior, hostility, agitation, irritability, depression and suicidal thinking are all possible outcomes according to Big Pharma’s heavily guarded research papers.
Getting off the drugs could be harder than abandoning a heroin addiction. Some have described withdrawal from “benzos” being akin to pulling hundreds of fish hooks out of their skin, without anesthesia. If you doubt their addictive nature, go to Google search and type in a few of the leading anti-anxiety drugs like Klonopin or Xanax and here is what you’ll find:
“Klonopin withdrawal” 1,860,000 results
“Xanax withdrawal” 1,980,000 results
Exposing Psychiatry: How to Get The Truth
In total, the side effects of psychiatric meds spread far and wide. And most are hidden from patients and doctors alike. Fortunately, Citizens Commission on Human Rights has solved this problem with a state-of-the-art database that allows people to search through the adverse reaction reports sent to the FDA on psychiatric drugs. It also provides international drug regulatory agency warnings and studies published on the side effects of the drugs.
So, can psychiatry help me? No. And that’s surprising because psychiatric meds are some of the biggest selling drugs, poised to seal the hopes and dreams of millions. Regardless of what mental state I might be in (or anyone else for that matter), there is not a single drug that cures, treats or solves the perceived problems of mental health.
While people can suffer miserably from emotional or mental duress that can hinder their lifestyle, the pseudo-science of psychiatry has yet to solve any of these problems, and in fact only contributes to poor health as seen by the wide array of side effects. Marketing campaigns and ghostwritten medical journals are designed to obscure these facts. But the psychiatric drug side effect database courtesy of CCHR ensures that all patients have access to the truth, to the documented facts, which could save their life or that of a loved one.
About the Author
Shane Ellison holds a masters degree in organic chemistry and is the author of Over-The-Counter Natural Cures. An award winning chemist, he has been quoted by USA Today, Shape, Woman’s World, as well as Women’s Health and appeared on Fox and NBC as a natural medicine advocate. Sample his book free at www.thepeopleschemist.com
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Tags: Adderall, anti anxiety, antidepressants, antipsychotics, Ativan, CCHR Int, chemical imbalance, Citizens Commission on human rights, common side effects, Concerta, depression, Paxil, prozac, Psych meds 101, psychiatric drug side effects, psychiatric drugs, psychiatric meds, psychotic episodes, Risperdal, Ritalin, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, Seroquel, Shane Ellison, side effects, ssri, stimulants, The People's Chemist, violence, Xanax, Zoloft
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The Psycho Pharmaceutical Industry with former Pharma Scientist
Good article Shane, but one thing you didn’t mention was sexual dysfunction. There are currently over 2300 people in a Yahoo group complaining of persistant sexual dysfunction after taking SSRI’s. Many have been off them for years and still suffer from genital anesthesia. Many are suicidal as a result of this. So emotional deadness isn’t the only numbness people are experiencing from antidepressants, and I have reason to believe that many experience the same thing from antipsychotics as well.
http://www.youtube.com/user/LindaKay1948
Thank you Shane,
You are so right.Another thing I have noticed is users of these drugs that I have met often have disasterous lives but everything is just fine. It is astounding how unreal they become.
I concur with all comments made by Shane Ellison and that of Linda Kay. I spent three months in a hospital in 1996. Admittedly, I was depressed when I entered, but sadness was a normal reaction to my situation at the time. I have no memory what so ever of my first month in hospital and only a blurred memory of the following seven weeks. When I came out I was told I wouldn’t ever recover and would have to remain on the drugs for the rest of my life. I left more depressed than I entered, but now I smoked and took suffcient drugs to kill an elephant. I nearly killed my kids when I had a seizure and crashed my car into a tree. I spent ten days in hospital when I cracked my skull falling on tiles after another seizure. It took me two years to finally kick the legal drug habit. It is ironic that to get well, all I had to do was get off the drugs.
Most of the anti-psychotics(neuroleptic tranquilizers) do cause persistent impotence, and it’s seldom listed as a side-effect in the literature. I’ve only been able to find one anti-psychotic that doesn’t cause persistent impotence. I get called queer by people who know nothing about psychiatric drugs because I was forced to take psychiatric drugs that made me impotent and obese for most of my adult life.
There is a variety of racketeering/extortion evidenced in pharmaceuticals/medicine/practitioners/bureaucratic governing authorities. There is a place for medicines when used with care and compassion. We live in a fix it quick world. Danger! Warning!
There is a pill for everything. It’s big business.
My observation while working in a psychiatric setting: 1.Trust vs Mistrust. 2.Autonomy vs Shame/Doubt. 3.Identity vs Role confusion. Outrageous dosages of antipsychotics & antidepressants were used with little to no effect or sedation. There is a mental blindness of the world and lack of knowledge.
We as people do not have the right to judge people and decide their fate. Degrees, certificates, high offices don’t give us a right to do what society has made acceptable by studies, statisitics or theories. We are not God.
The world system will continue to spiral downward into destruction because the anti-Christ spirit dominates most minds. Turning back to God and not religion is the answer. We keep ourselves in oppression and affliction because our consciences are defiled. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” The seperation of church and state is because man cannot control God. God controls man. Pride is our number one enemy.
You are a voice of light in a dark world.
I will be starting to withdraw from benzos’ in a few weeks and I dread it.. I am bipolar 2 often in a mixed state when ill but have been stable for the most part for years.. I went to a treatment centre the last time but will be at home this time.. any advise you have I would welcome.. I am also on seroquel and will be going off that after getting off of temazepam 15mg and lorazepam 1mg daily.. not looking forward to the withdrawal but am hoping to get me back smile
Hello, Janet, there is some advice on this website, on the Alternatives link. http://www.cchrint.org/alternatives/ Check that out, and see who you can contact for help.
Good luck with your endeavors!
Water is incredibly bad for you. It kills thousands of people every year, and often has contaminants in it which can kill many more thousands. It has unpleasant side effects like excessive urination. You can overdose on water and die. An excess of water can cause you to stop breathing. In fact, most of these side effects apply to anything that you drink, not just pure water.
Therefore we should all stop drinking.
It is possible to demonise anything because everything has bad side effects if you look hard enough. Shane Ellison has a point in that such drugs are wrongly prescribed or in some cases over-prescribed – but this is true of all drugs and is a function of slack practitioners and drug company over-hyping (for example, over-prescription of antibiotics is much more dangerous to global health and has the potential to destroy more lives that over-prescription of psychiatric drugs).
The problem is that some people really actually need these drugs to survive. If they stop taking them, more of them will die, usually by suicide. Also the article is highly coloured and has poor sources of information (the same FDA you quote with all its warning is the organisation that approves ALL the drugs you mention for prescribed use in the US, and is in any case an organisation with little remaining credibility, so that is a weird see-saw to quote as an authority).
MAO inhibitors do not do this.
Psychiatric drugs were widely used in Hitler’s drug machine to dope soldiers and make them more aggressive and violent. Nazi psychiatrists were quick to observe the violence-inducing characteristics of amphetamines and put them to use to wreak chaos and mayhem in WWII. Nazi soldiers were seen to commit massacres without any sense of remorse. They even turned against their own officers, under the influence of amphetamines. Hitler himself was a psychiatric drug users. His own generals observed that his eratic behavior was the result of the meds. (A fact that was depicted in the WWII epic movie “The longest day”, though not expicitly)
Psychiatry managed to keep this dirty little secret out public view: that nazi atrocities were directly influenced by psychiatric drugs.
Without the active participation of psychiatrists, the holocust would never have occurred.
Nazi leaders were tried and executed at Nuremberg, but the psychiatists behind the scenes were never held accountable and instead, were rewarded with new jobs in America. They were put in charge of the U.S Army program of drugging american soldiers with amphetamines for the same purposes the nazis used, a practise that continues until today.
Actor Peter Sellers did an eloquent characterization of a nazi psychiatrist-turned American adviser, in the 60′s movie “Dr. Strangelove”.
I inandvertently substituted “drug machine” for “war machine”, but it fits.
Some Psychiatrists think others make the error of dualism but is this a a tactic or projection to conceal their own error? There are other critical doctors who has proven that it is the biological psychiatrist who are usually the ones who make the error of dualism when they say imbalance in brain or other biological vulernability are the primary cause to mental symptoms as they deny new discoveries in cognitive neuroscience that prove that even psychological experiences can be the primary cause of change in biochemistry of brain and that brain is more flexible and plastic than we think. So they that accoring psychlogical theories could explain that some people appear to have mental symptoms even though they do not have any mental illness according biological psychiatrist. Some of the error of biological psychiatry is also explained in the book Pseudoscience in biological psychiatry, by prof. Ross, Dr. Pam.
Some Psychiatrists think others make the error of dualism but is this a a tactic or psychological projection to conceal their own error? There are other critical doctors who has proven that it is the biological psychiatrist who are usually the ones who make the error of dualism when they say imbalance in brain or other biological vulernability are the primary cause to mental symptoms as they deny new discoveries in cognitive neuroscience that prove that even psychological experiences can be the primary cause of change in biochemistry of brain and that brain is more flexible and plastic than we think. So they (biological psychiatrists) commit error of dualism when they sometimes deny that psychlogical theories could explain that some people appear to have mental symptoms even though they do not have any mental illness according biological psychiatrist. Some of the error of biological psychiatry is also explained in the book Pseudoscience in biological psychiatry, by prof. Ross, Dr. Pam.
I believe that in most cases involving physical deficiencies and imbalances, like my sister’s, combining natural therapies with the drugs may be the only answer. Several months ago, my sister went into another of her schizoaffective disorder-related relapses. Deciding that this would be a good opportunity to try something different, and wanting to grant her wishes to get off the drugs, I began tapering her off her anti-psych meds, that were giving her negative side-effects, and at the same time, started her on herbal therapies. After the tapering was over, I began with the detox vitamins and Omega-3. She improved every day for about 5 weeks, and then crashed. Within two days after nosediving, she was almost catatonic. She wouldn’t eat, or take her vitamins and herbs, or even get out of bed. The paramedics had to come and haul her away. The anti-psych meds had finally left her system. She was admitted to the hospital, and within only two weeks, stabilized on her old anti-psych’s, she left the hospital. (They took her off the herbs and vitamins while in the hospital). I’m pretty sure, had she not been put back on the antipsychs, that she would have lapsed into complete catatonia. Well, now she has a naturopath, and it was found that she is gluten-intolerant and dairy-sensitive. So all these years she has been eating foods she’s allergic to! She’s feeling much better, now, with the new diet, and vitamin/herb therapies. Combined with the pharmaceuticals, (the side-effects from which have subsided). This is the way I should have done it from the beginning, (actually I should have consulted a naturopath right then). So in this situation, I believe there is a place for prescription drugs. There are even pharmacies, now, that sell combination-therapy products.
yep drugs that affect the brain are ok for some but not for most