Psychiatry definately is not what it makes out to be. The one thing that is known for sure is that there is no chemical imbalance in the brain and the outcome rates today are no better and in many cases worse than they were at the start of the 20th century when the treatment of the day was to wrap people in wet sheets. In the case of prozac it took them 15 years and over a billion people in trails to finally get a trail of over 500 people in which over 50% felt better on prozac as reported by psychaitrists, the patient self reports do not matter. In that trail, they also allowed the patients to be kept on other medications, particalularly benzo's and the like and that alone could have made them better. The only thing any medication has to do be approved is to prove in a study that it helps more than 50% of people according to a psychiatrist report. Many people honestly think there is much more to it than that. We also know that the so called release of all the patients from mental hospitals on antipsychotics is totlaly crap too. The drugs were in place and being used in ALL hospitals 15 years before they were released in mass. They were released on mass when federal laws in the US bought in medicare and medicaid and the like and the federal government also funded nursing home places. More than half of them were released to nursing homes, many of whom were only in their early 20's and the like. The research that says that we should stay on med's for life was based on putting people on excessively high doses for a few months and then abruptly withdrawing them and for some reason they relapsed. Later research that tapered people off the med's has shown that people who are tapered off actually relapse at a lower rate than those kept on them, but that is not told to the public or even the psychiatirsts themselves.
That does not mean that medication does not play a role. I myself take it because it helps me, but I have certainly been on many med's that did nothing to help and caused side effects beyond belief, but the psychiatrists at the time kept me on them, becuase I was so doped out I could not speak, so I therefore could not say how I was feeling and so I must have been better!! It is about looking at it for an individual person and simply considering each person as an individual and allowing them to have some say in what is going on. As for daignosis it is whatever they want it to be. Australia has suggested Psychosis Risk Syndrome to be included in the next DSM and the primary symptom of that is social isolation. They are then proposing to put every single person who has the diagnosis on antipsychotics, apparently it will prevent them from becoming psychotic!! ! All I can say to that is that half the population at least is socially isolated and it is connected with much more than psychosis. And if these drugs are truely as wonderful and helpful as they claim then why not simply put them in the water supply like we do floride to prevent dental decay??
Any research showing the benefits of medications have also only been done for short term studies, often only 4 weeks. Those that last for years often show the absolute opposite that people do gain initially but after that the effects wear off, and to me that is logical.
Everybody has ups and downs and at the moment we simply shove people on excessively high doses and then when something happens and they break down they have nothing to offer them as they are already on the max. Some people, and I would say less than half of those on med's may need low doses all the time, but if people are taught to identify their symptoms and know when they are getting worse then they can up the med's then to prevent the catastrophy from taking place.
The other simple fact is that if the only thing that anyone is ever offered is med's then they have no chance to actually learn ways of handling life difficulties. These med's are not like viagra or the like. It is not like take this and it will do this. The changes if any they make are small and they may not be related to the med's at all. It is bit like smoking and lung cancer. People want to see a cigarette actually making the lungs bad, but it is accumulative and many of these medications are also causing cumulative damage to the brain. That is not bad if the med's are helping, but living in the country with the highest levels of forced treatment anywhere in the world I guess I just hate that people are not being given choice. Disagree with a treatment decision here and it is forced onto you, and it often is as simple as that. If people can refuse blood transfusions, and kill themselves, why can people not refuse these treatments. And it is not as though we have any idea of what the drugs are doing, how they help, etc. Chemotherapy for cancer is hardly good for you, but you take it on the basis that it will bring about long term changes. The med's I take are hardly good for me, but I choose to take them because for me personally they work, but that does not mean that all of them have in the past. We are also incredibly good at blaming every single on the illness. It is amazing how much these illnesses have changed over time in ways that support what they want them to support. The other thing that is totally beyond me is how someone can make informed decisions about absolutely everything, other than to take psychiatric medications and despite all decisions being rational it is a sign of the illness that they do not like the meidation and do not want to take it. The same thing was said about water baths, near drowning experiences, insulin coma therapy, etc, etc. It is there illness that says they don't want these things, that they are painful, not good for them, etc, etc. Simply blame the illness. It also goes for suicide on antidepressants. The suicide rate on the drugs is at a minimum 3 times higher than on placebo and trails done on healthy volunteers, that have never been suicidal and became suicidal on the drugs are also dismissed, it is simply the illness becoming worse in those people. But surely if the drugs are working they would be stopping them from being suicidal. And if sleepiness which is a symptom of depression can be a side effect of the medication then why can't suicidal ideation, attempts, etc, etc. Some people are helped on antidpressants, but some are not and the fact is that the current mantra of placing people on antidepressents before anything else is tried is not helpful either. Mild depression does not need and never has needed antidpressents.
As for the diagnosis, it is all about what you ask the person. Have you ever thought that someone was talking to you when they weren't then you must be psychotic. Have you ever checked something to make sure it was locked at least twice, then you must have OCD. Have you been sad, then you must be depressed. Said you felt that life was not worth living, must have borderline personality disorder. Gone shopping found a top you really like that you properly shouldn't have bought, must have bipolar and the list goes on and on. Also worth noting how the diagnostic criteria has now changed. You never used to be able to be diagnosed with depression if you had suffered a recent loss, as it could be grief. Then it had to have lasted for 4 weeks, now it 2 weeks and tell me how many people are not still grief stricken after loosing a close family member two weeks later, and they are proposing to lessen that to one week.
Yes people are distressed and yes people need help and support, but this quick fix diagnosis of whatever the fad is at the time and then a prescription for that is hardly going to help anyone at all. It is also how much diagnosis is driven by funding.
In Australia the state governments give schools money for each child that is disabled and it is based on the diagnosis and needs of the child as to how much funding is given for the child. But different states fund things differnetly. One state gives the most funding to a diagnosis on the Autism Spectrum and as such the rates of Autism in that state are now at one in 35 children!! Another state does not fund behavioural disorders at all, and there is not one child in the whole state with a diagnosis of conduct disorder. Another state gives most funding for conduct disorder and now they have 1 in 41 children with conduct disorder?? One really has to question the accuracy of those diagnosis when you get statistics like that. Rates of autism in other states are not decreasing, they are instead remaining stable, so it is not like parents are moving states. More than likely what it means is the child is being multiple diagnosed to get whatever will give them to the best funding in their state. In New Zealand they have independent assessors that go out and visit the child in the preschool or school classroom and they then assess the child based on needs, and many do not have any diagnosis at all. The fund the needs not what a piece of paper says, sounds logical to me, and much more respectful of the child. If the child has speech problems, bring in a speech therapist, if they have sensory issues bring in an OT to help with those and to advise, etc, etc. The reality is that no one with any of these conditions needs the exact same things so until we are willing to consider them as individuals then we really cannot help them anyway.
18 Feb 2011, 4:04 pm
I had that! Apparently I'm borderline personality disorder, from a shrink who met me once, *L*.
You've just said exactly what I've been thinking for years!
