Thursday, December 02, 2004

Psychiatrists Love Depression

Psychiatrists love depression. Many people think this mental malady is treatable by psychiatrists and psychologists. The more people think that, the more the cash registers ring in drug companies and psych offices.

Depression is quite real. Unfortunately, psychiatrists and psychologists can't handle it; in fact they often make it worse. Their solutions are mostly limited to liberal doses of mind-altering drugs like Prozac, Paxil, and others. If you thought you were suffering from depression when you went to the psychologist, wait till you see what happens when you take the drug. The FDA has finally acknowledged this to some small degree with their new "black box" warning (meaning the warning is put in a black box on the packaging for the drugs) that the drugs cause some people to have "increased suicidal thought and behavior".

Hello-o-o-ooo... These are the drugs that are being given to people that are suffering from depression?

The warning applies to all "anti-depressants", including Anafranil, Aventyl, Celexa, Cymbalta, Desyrel, Effexor, Elavil, Lexapro, Limbitrol, Ludiomil, Luvox, Marplan, Nardil, Norpramin, Pamelor, Parnate, Paxil, Pexeva, Prozac, Remeron, Sarafem, Serzone, Sinequan, Surmontil, Symbyax,Tofranil, Tofranil-PM, Triavil, Vivactil, Wellbutrin, Zoloft and Zyban.

That's a lot of them, isn't it? How can this happen? How can an entire industry, supposedly dedicated to mental health, have as their primary tool drugs that destroy mental health? Can this be?

It certainly can be, and there is a very good precedent for it historically, in the medical profession circa 1800. In those days if you told your doctor you didn't feel well, the first thing he would do is slit your wrists and drain the "bad blood". There was a whole line of thinking that "bad blood" was the cause of disease, and the medical solution was to drain it out. Of course this was before anybody had any understanding of hygiene as well, so they were making the incisions with an unsterilized knife and probably sneezing while they did it.

The famous poet Lord Byron became ill with what is today thought to have been mononucleosis -- a relatively harmless infection that requires a lot of sleep and eventually goes away -- today often called "the kissing disease". His doctors tried to solve it by bleeding him, and bleeding him, and bleeding him. He was a wealthy man, so he could afford the very best doctors. His physician made an entry into his diary one night that said, "We have bled him till his blood runs clear. We have done all that we can do." The next day Lord Byron died.

We laugh at this primitive story today. But we now have a much worse epidemic. Psychiatric victims who "lose it" -- commiting suicide, homicide or generally going insane, or further insane, as a result of their psychiatric "help".

The factor the news people miss is that people do these crazy things AFTER they get their psychological-psychiatric "help", not BEFORE!! The news always remarks, when someone goes crazy, that they were already in the care of a psychiatrist -- which seems to support the fact that they sure-nuff were insane. But if these people were so nuts, why didn't they do it before they started taking their Prozac or Paxil? Why did they finally completely lose it after they had been in treatment for some time.

The two boys that shot and killed classmates at the now famous Columbine High School in Colorado were psychiatric victims. One was on Luvox. The other was on Ritalin. Both had been taking psych-based "anger management" counseling. You would think that with the counseling and the drugs, if those actually do any good, they would have been less likely to snuff their friends and shoot themselves, not more likely. But after all this good "therapy", they finally snapped. Let's face it: The therapy causes this kind of behavior -- it does not cure it.

It's time to put a stop to it. Write your Senators and Congressional Representatives and let them know we want to cut government funding for psychiatry and psychology. If we do that the industry will die. Virtually all economic support for "mental health" comes from government. Very few people want to pay their good money for this kind of "help". If it wasn't for government funding, psychiatry couldn't support itself.

And while we're at it, let's really just say no to drugs -- all drugs -- for kids; including Ritalin and every other kind of chemical straitjacket school psychology experts are recommending as an alternative to love, understanding and discipline. It's time to put an end to the madness.