Well, sometimes the pressures of this world get so great that it makes it nearly impossible to see the light.There are miracles all around us and lately I've been ignoring them. I got into a pretty good conversation with this girl on the street today. She was really nice to me and we talked and it was really cool. I told her my name and she told me hers, but I don't know why I didn't give her my phone number. I guess if I'm ever gonna get married or whatever I ought to start giving out my phone number.Well, saddness can be productive, but so often it is not. So often it turns me into a lazy alcoholic: "My Grandad has just been hospitalised on account of his alcoholism. My Nana had been looking after him, but she can't really cope anymore. He'd gotten to the stage where he was too weak to stand up, because he just spent all day sitting in his chair drinking whiskey, and the muscles in his legs had completely wasted away. He was also severely malnourished." I really don't think I'm gonna do much work today. To took a Klonopin earlier in the day to get rid of my little freak-out at having believed that I had lost my credit card, my paycheck, my daughter's diaper bag and my friend's camera. Luckily all things were found and I was able to calm down for a time, but the panic did cripple me for a period. I had to not leave the house for a moment until the Klonopin kicked in and then I felt that I had the strength to deal with what I had to deal with.

I'm not necessarily totally in agreement with this, but it is interesting. I think that psychiatric drugs are helping for now so I say if it feels good do it. God knows I've already done enough damage to my nervous/endocrine system alreay, maybe a little chemical thereapy is what I need. My thing with it is that they take so long to work that you have to basically be addicted to an SSRI before you can even feel any effects from it and benzodiazepines are very risky because of thier high incidence for abuse. The Lexapro started to do really wierd things to my head at first like insomnia and strange dreams, but it seems to have gotten better now that I think I've gotten used to it. The Klonopin seems to soften some of those effects, though, especially when it seems like my anxiety gets even worse due to the Lexaprol

Why Psychiatric Drugs Are Always Bad
by Douglas C. Smith, M.D.
I no longer recommend psychiatric medications to anyone.

This seems radical in this country because we are in the midst of the "biological revolution." Everyone seems to assume medications are are specifically effective for various mental illnesses which are at least in part chemical or genetic in origin. I believe the science behind this is seriously flawed. It is based on false assumptions that lead to self-perpetuating mythology (and huge profits for drug companies).

I first gave up on tranquilizers, then antidepressants, then all psychiatric drugs. I learned that there are certain general principles that govern all psychoactive substances and biologic treatments.

General Principles:
(1) "Mental illnesses," even severe ones, are relational (I'd say spiritual as well). Psychiatry, by focusing almost exclusively on biology, is making itself increasingly irrelevant.
(2) Psychoactive substances provide at best, temporary relief, but always make things worse in the long run. They make things worse directly (chemically) and indirectly by distracting from the real issues.
(3) All psychoactive substances have rebound and withdrawal-related problems. "Relapse" rates, in general, during withdrawal from psychiatric drugs, are about 10 times higher than would be expected if the drug had never been taken.
(4) "All biopsychiatric treatments share a common mode of action -- the disruption of normal brain function" (Peter Breggin, M.D., Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Springer Pub. Co., 1997, p. 3). Drugs never correct imbalances. They never improve the brain. They "work" by impairing the brain and dampening feelings in various ways.



"Ok, so let's look at this problem from several angels. As mental illness and obesity (which is related because it is an eating disorder) are two of the most common preventable ailments in our society -

Activist perspective:
http://www.madpride.org/
http://www.mindfreedom.org/
http://www.stopshrinks.org/
http://www.prozacspotlight.org/
http://www.thomasjmoore.com/pages/depress.shtml
http://www.socialaudit.org.uk/
http://www.zmag.org/disabilityrights.htm
...

Law Enforcement and Sociology:
http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/content/full/33/1/42
http://consensusproject.org/issue-areas/law-enforcement/
http://www.karisable.com/crmh.htm
http://www.psychlaws.org/new!/mental.pdf
http://www.healthcentral.com/depression/c/18/2435/mental-law-eyes/
http://panicdisorder.about.com/cs/anxietymoreinfo/a/povertyrisk.htm
http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/001514.html
http://www.masspsy.com/leading/0506_ne_cover_study.html
http://www.apa.org/releases/lowses.html

Religious:
http://www.psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/52/5/660
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/07/religion-and-mental-illness.html
http://walloworld.com/?p=327
http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/index.htm


These articles are somewhat more enlightening than those one by the head shrinks:
http://sandra.stahlman.com/schizo.htmlamong members of some cultural groups, “visions” or “voices” of religious figures are part of normal religious experience. In many communities, “seeing” or being “visited” by a recently deceased person are not unusual among family members.
http://spiritualrecoveries.blogspot.com/2006/05/azure-its-religious-experience-not.html


http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~sawilson/">