It's doctors' common rhetoric to say mental illness diagnoses are like diabetes, even though diabetes is a physical disease and mental diagnoses are metaphorical diseases. Many years ago I read in a magazine called "Recovery-- the Adventures of Life Beyond Addiction" an article about the disadvantages of metaphor. I thought it was interesting but didn't really see how it applied to me at the time. It stated that metaphors helped clarify issues by putting them into another context which can be helpful for expressing opinions. But, they can also remove the arguement so far from the facts that the truth about the situation can be obcured and/or confused, either deliberately or accidently. It was about the first gulf war, and how people would rationalize it by using the metaphor of America as a strong person standing up for a weaker person, Kuwait, against a bully, Iraq. This whole picture ignores the realities of war, which is innocent civilians getting killed, babies getting slaughtered, diseases festering, generations of societal problems.

Doctors will believe what they want to believe, like the rest of us, and they want to believe what they benefit most from, like the rest of us. More philosophical stuff: Reason is a slave to the Will. Another metaphor: doctors have some pretty strong slaves, which learned to be obedient through medical school. Bruce Levine wrote that the educational system primarily teaches obedience. Diabetes, my a**.

Thats absolutely disgraceful..
Poor guy, and his doctor is an Asshole..

I had the exact opposite experience with my psychiatrist; he thought I was doing well and wanted to see if I could get off Elavil. I tried and it didn't work, but I gave him kudos for trying, especially since his practice was basically medication management and not therapy-based. In my opinion the worst thing a psychiatrist can do is trade in fear.

Wendy Aron, author of Hide & Seek: How I Laughed at Depression, Conquered My Fears and Found Happiness
http://www.wendyaron.com

Here's what appalls me most about this young man's situation: I cannot believe anyone would put a teen-aged boy on an SSRI notorious for creating sexual problems. I've never been a teen-aged boy, but that's a recipe for depression right there, isn't it?

I was on Paxil for about two weeks. I scurried right back to my family doc to tell him "It feels as if something's died inside of me." I can't explain it other than that. I've never experienced anything like it before or since and never want to. Fortunately, my doc had stopped pooh-poohing my drug reactions and took me right the h*ll off that stuff.

Boy, I sure don't miss the med merry-go-round one little bit.

Sherry

This just goes to show you the ingenious way they sell these SSRIs on a "chemical imbalance" theory. Though I feel these imbalances are caused by emotions and real life situations, psychiatrists apparently believe, due to drug companies "studies" that these imbalances are a permanent defect. Though there is no evidence to support this theory, they pretend its fact. It's a great way to keep profits from slipping if their products help someone.

also, if a doctor is going to tell a patient to stay on it for their whole life, why aren't their studies to show the long term effects of these drugs on patients? I see studies on the long term effects of Marijuana, but not prozac.... I guess it's easy to find problems if you look hard enough and easy to not find any when you dont.

My GP said the same thing to me when he diagnosed me with MMD. Because I had experienced more than one unmedicated depression he stated it was likely I'd be on meds (in my case, Effexor) for the rest of my life - and he also trotted out the diabetes/insulin analogy. It took me a year to get off of Effexor and I received very little medical information or support around the debilitating discontinuation effects I experienced. To be fair, my GP didn't know a whole lot about the drug he prescribed in the first place.

When the diagnosis changed to BP, my psychiatrist said that medication (atypicals and AEDs, this time)was definitely a life-long thing. However, because I've had such adverse reactions to all of the drugs I've tried, he finally agreed with my decision to discontinue psych meds the first time I went off of them. Still, it didn't stop him from asking me at every (weekly) appointment if I was ready to go back on medication. I finally pointed this out to him and told him to stop asking, which he did.

Being informed that I'd be on medication for the rest of my life sent me into a spiral of self-doubt, fear and hopelessness. While I've always thought of my depressions and manias as being the result of a crappy life, being constantly told I had a disease that I had to treat with meds indefinitely seriously affected my ability to cope. Everything I'd learned as a psychotherapist totally went out the window when I was faced with the pressure to remain medicated, perhaps due in part to my worsening (and most times, med-induced) symptoms.

I'll be tapering off my last mood stabilizer over the next few months, hopefully. I rarely resort to the benzos and have titrated down to the lowest dose possible. I'm glad that my psychiatrist is, for the most part, on board but I'd still pursue this course even if he wasn't. I hope that he'll eventually come to realize that (maintenance) meds aren't (always) the answer for me, or anyone else.

After a horrific six week experience with Zoloft (not the first SSRI I had been on), I called my doctor and told her I was taking myself off of it. Her response was "let's try Prozac next". I told her that I was done with SSRIs and was going to pursue drug free forms of therapy. She fought with me a little but let it go.

She then had the balls to call later and leave me a message telling me that I was making a mistake because I had a severe anxiety disorder and would need to be on medication for the rest of my life.

Needless to say she's not my doctor anymore.

I was put on Paxil and it ws changed for Effexor although I have never received the "depressed" diagnoses.
For 2 years I tapered 225 mg of Effexor.
I had to take it again because I could not function; I could not live with all the emotional and physical problems I was experiencing.

"Finally however there will be a group of people who are simply unable to stop
whatever approach they take. Some others will be able to stop but will find
problems persisting for months or years afterwards. It is important to
recognise this latter possibility in order to avoid punishing yourself."

David Healy

That is why some people has to take it for the rest of their lives.

Good for you people to take a stand against your doctors. I suspect the phenomenon of self-determination is even much less in authoritarian societies like Singapore, where I am.

I have thought about this for almost 24 hours and I am still too upset to write about it.

Since my diagnosis, half a lifetime ago, I have seen 21 pdocs. Only two were good. The rest were charlatans, viennese head thumpers.

My first hospitalization, I was first put on Prozac, which didn't work. Then Zoloft, finally Paxil.

None worked. All had iccky side effects. The doc I had then pulled me off them after a month or less on each. He was a good doc.

Before this last year, my own anno horribilis, I would have just taken the pills and not checked into them. I was the perfect patient.

that was before a black box warning put me in the hospital and several months later, I flatlined due to what I recently learned was a drug given to me for pneumonia which interacted with another drug I was taking for bipolar. Neither doctor checked the list of meds to see that the two in concert would have had almost lethal results. That I am still alive is not due to the incompetency of the doctors, but my own stubborn will not to go into that good night.

This poor man has all my sympathy. I hope what he went through will help someone else so this experience will never happen to an other person again.

Unfortunately this is still the common line. It's what the "man on the street" thinks, what the mainstream media touts. Poor kid.

Withdrawal.... My son was on Paxil for two months for social anxiety. He quit cold turkey without telling anyone because the side effects were chewing on him pretty hard - and was miserably sick for a week. I shudder to think what would have happened if he'd tried to quit after years. A co-worker is currently quitting Effexor, and we all know what a bowl of joy *that* is. A relative just quit seven years of Prozac. He managed it by getting the drug in liquid form to make the taper easier.

How do ordinary citizens fight the legal pushers? When I see the expensive, heartwrenching chaos caused by bad meds for mood "problems" I get angry, but I also feel helpless. What to do?

If only I had a dollar for every time I heard the "it's just like diabetes" argument. What a load of crap. My psychiatrist said the same thing. I heard the "you will need to be on meds forever" speech (which is strange considering the meds weren't working & I was told my only hope was ECT. It's all so confusing.) Do they make this shit up as they go along?

I do wonder, though, if it's "just like diabetes" then why are patients in psych hospitals treated like inmates? Wouldn't it be nice if people with mental illness were treated just like people with diabetes? There wouldn't be so many angry former psych patients floating around.

susan,
I nearly died of psychotropic medication also. I wonder sometimes if I'll ever recover from that particular trauma. I used to be a rehab counselor. One of my clients had nearly died of medical malpractice at a local hospital. She'd just about go into orbit whenever the topic came up. I never understood why. Now I do. It's the double whammy of almost dying--and hte fact that the very people you're supposed to be able to trust, to whom you turned in time of trouble betrayed you so completely.

Hope all's well with you, susan. I always read your postings with interest.
Sherry

Philip, my doctor told me something similar. The conversation went something like:

Me: I've been having suicidal thoughts lately so I guess I should go back up to 200 (mg) on the Lamictal for the time being.
Doctor: Why did you even go down to 150?
Me: Well, I was doing better and I was hoping to come off of it just in case I got pregnant.
Doctor: (in a stern tone) If you have high cholesterol and the medication you're taking lowers it for you, WHY would you want to come off of it? So your cholesterol can skyrocket again? This medication is not a "cure." This is a maintenance medication. This is long-term. If you come off of it, of course your symptoms will reappear. There's no reason why you need to come off of this medication or lower your dosage.

My doc also pooh-poohed the pharmacy labels on the drug that CLEARLY state, "Do not take this while pregnant" and continued to tell them that the drug is a Class C according to the FDA and there aren't really any elevated risks for a baby to be born with a cleft palate (despite data that shows a slightly higher percentage), blah, blah, blah. I don't know where I'll go or who I'll have to consult to come off of this properly should I get pregnant.

Marissa I wouldn't go back to that doctor! Frankly, this is just my opinion, but off meds at least 3 months before pregnancy, including BC pills is old standard rule of thumb for safe pregnany: what happens in the first trimester is most important, I'd find a pdoc who "gets" human development and medications pronto.

Too bad my guy lost his license. He used to just LOVE for women to have babies. He told me it would really improve my situation (right!), then immediately offered to visit me in the hospital post partum because "You're at such high risk for Post-partum Depression". What a whiz kid, eh?

But he did help me get off the tricyclic after I lied and told him I wanted to have a baby. It was the only way I could figure out how to get off that crap.

Where there's a will...

Sherry,

I like your posts too.

Before i got married, I had a long talk with my pdoc on getting pregnant. I was only on Lithium at the time, a very low dose of 300 mg.

The doctor pulled out a book and told me flat out that lithium can cause a baby to be born with a severe heart defect. i needed to go off lithium totally and use birth control for 3 months to flush it out of my system. He also recommended genetic counseling to see what chances any babies born would be ok.

i was all ready to do it. Needless to say, i did, got married, and got preggers pretty quickly after.

I lost the baby, and I am convinced it was due to lithium. But I cannot prove it. Just a hunch.

I know this was posted a few weeks ago, but because of my OCD and my situation, I haven't been on the computer for a few weeks. I don't have time to say everything I want to (really, it's more fitting to a forum discussion or my personal blog, if and when I ever get it up again), but I wanted to mention a couple of things.

I've also been told I'll be on meds for life, and that's probably true, because I couldn't function without them when I tried. I feel the meds made me this way, though, because I used to be able to deal.

If I bring up (anecdotal OR scientific) evidence, articles, or research to support what I believe, I'm just wrong, and the people who make those claims are just resistant or ignorant to the facts. It's so frustrating to have not only psychiatrists and psychologists telling you you're wrong and to trust them and the drugs, but family and friends, and even strangers, too.

I am in such emotional turmoil and mental suffering right now, it isn't funny. My pdoc hasn't gotten back in touch with me, and it's been over two months. I'm going to try calling again today, but I'm supposedly on a list to be called when she knows when she'll be back. I tried the one pdoc left in my area (actually not so close, about 35-40 miles), and he's not taking new patients. So, I'm left with the local clinic, which I've been to four or five times in the 30 years I've been in treatment, and gotten no help from them, or I have to go back to my previous clinic, which wasn't helpful, either, and I don't want them to give me the "See? We told you that you couldn't handle it without meds" crap.

I'm so screwed.