Uncovering the harm caused by psychiatric drugs, exposing the abusive and oppressive nature of the psychiatric system, and exploring what this means for radical identified communities. (August 2007)
Psychiatrists like to display scientific looking brain scans of people labeled with Mental Illness, and claim that the abnormalities, such as shrinkage, found in their brains prove that Mental Illness is biological. But what the psychiatrists never tell us is that these are the brains of people who have been taking psychiatric drugs for many years. This brings up a number of questions; If these drugs are so helpful at “treating” Mental Illness, then why do the loyal patients brains look so terrible? and Why are we never shown the brain scans of a person labeled with Mental Illness, who has never taken any psychiatric drugs? The truth is, because absent the harmful effects of the drugs, all of the brains would look disappointingly normal. These brain scans are remarkably similar to the scans which claim to illustrate brain damage caused by illegal drugs such as meth, only worse, much worse. The structural abnormalities shown in these brain scans simply prove what psychiatrists themselves refuse to admit, that psychiatric drugs do indeed cause brain damage. Dramatic brain damage. Some of it may be reversible, but first the drugs must be withdrawn. Look! Kids! This is your brain on psych meds!
Better Than Well.
Fritz Flohr 2007
“I looked at the number of the so-called severely disabled mentally ill – people who aren’t working. . . I wanted to chart through history the percentage of the population who are considered the disabled mentally ill. . . By 1955, at the start of the modern era of psychiatric drugs, roughly one out of every 300 people [in the United States] was disabled by mental illness. . . the disability rate has continued to increase until it’s now one in every 50 Americans. . . From 1987 until the present, [2005] we saw an increase in the number of mentally disabled people from 3.3 million people to 5.7 million people. . . Combined spending on antipsychotic drugs and antidepressants jumped from around $500 million in 1986 to nearly $20 billion in 2004. . .” (Whitaker, “Psychiatric Drugs”)1
If psychiatric drugs are so effective at treating “mental illness”, and the use of psychiatric drugs is steadily increasing, then how can it be that rates of mental illness are also steadily increasing? Could it be that psychiatric drugs actually cause mental illness? If psychiatric drugs cause mental illness, then how could psychiatrists have not admitted this to the public by now? Is it possible that psychiatric drugs are deliberately being used to cause mental illness? Could the drugs which we are prescribed to make us get well actually be intended to make us get sick?
“Chlorpromazine has produced a decrease in brutality in mental hospitals which was not achievable by any system of supervision or control of personal,” declared Anthony Sainz of Marcy State Hospital in New York. “Many patients, for example, when they develop a central ganglionic or Parkinsonian syndrome become more ‘sick’ and thus arouse the sympathies of those taking care of them, instead of arousing their anger and hostility. The patients, in consequence, receive better care rather than worse.” (Febiger, Lea 86, quoted in Whitaker, “Mad” 146)2
In the 1950s, when Chlorpromazine, the first in a class of brain damaging drugs that was later to be termed “Antipsychotics” was invented, doctors and scientists made no claims that these chemicals restored “mentally ill” subjects to normality, or even treated any psychiatric symptoms. The purpose of these drugs was simply to control psychiatric patients, to render them passive and dependant, less troublesome for their jailers. In their praise of these new chemical control mechanisms, psychiatrists of the time lauded the new drugs by comparing their effects to that of a straightjacket, a lobotomy, or the dementia resulting from an infectious disease called encephalitis lethargica. (Whitaker, “Mad” 146) 3
Some psychiatrists noticed that patients receiving the high doses of these drugs “most effective” at controlling them were not merely sedated, but rather they were exhibiting symptoms of Parkinson’s disease that made it impossible for them to control their facial muscles, talk, walk, or move normally. It was understood that in order to produce the desired sedating effect of the drug, it was also necessary to bring about a chemically induced Parkinsonianism. (Breggin, “Toxic” 72) 4 The psychiatrists thought that this was just peachy.
Over the next decade, as economic policy shifted from the Eugenics model of psychiatry which had insisted on keeping psychiatrically labeled people segregated from society in mental institutions, to a modern model that did not wish to continue this expensive and no longer politically correct practice, a great propaganda campaign was initiated. Supposedly, a successful treatment for severe mental illnesses such as Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder had been found, and now, thanks to the advances of modern science, the mentally ill could return to the community, liberated from their psychosis by these new miracle pills, they could once again become functioning members of society. When the decision was made to promote these new psychiatric drugs as a “treatment” for mental illness that could restore troubled people to productive lives, rather than as a “chemical straightjacket” meant for subduing them, psychiatrists quickly dropped all talk of dementia and Parkinsonian syndromes. Supposedly these new drugs were nearly free of side effects, and, although the process was still unknown, they somehow restored balance to the clearly “unbalanced” brains of psychiatric patients. (Whitaker, “Mad” 147-159) 5
In 1963, it was discovered that these “antipsychotic” drugs inhibit the activity of a chemical messenger in the brain, dopamine, so psychiatrists promptly reported that they had discovered the “cause” of psychosis. They rationalized that if drugs which “effectively” treated psychosis did so by reducing dopamine activity, then psychosis must be caused by too much dopamine activity. (Whitaker, “Psychiatry”) 6
This unproven “chemical imbalance” theory is the origin of the convenient stance that “mental illness” is not a sociopolitical problem caused by widespread intolerance of variant beliefs and behavior, in addition to inadequate support for people dealing with issues such as poverty, discrimination, sexual assault, and family violence, but rather a “biological brain disorder”, caused by a “chemical imbalance” in the brain, which can be corrected by psychiatric drugs. Psychiatrists continuously fail to mention the fact that they have never been able to demonstrate any noticeable abnormalities in the neurochemical systems of a “mentally ill” person prior to “drug treatment”, and that the neurological changes induced by their drugs are pathological. (Whitaker, “Psychiatry”) 7
A brain drugged with antipsychotics is robbed of the function of 60 to 90 percent of its dopamine receptors, and thus can no longer properly operate the three domaminergenic pathways necessary for normal neurological function; the nigrostriatal system which initiates and controls motor movements, the mesolimbic system which regulates emotion, and the mesocortical system which connects portions of the brain responsible for reasoning and higher brain function. Antipsychotics cause a pathological deficiency in dopamine transmission. (Farde “Positron”, and Reynolds “Antipsychotic”, qutoted in Whitaker, “Mad” 162-164) 8
Most of the symptoms we have come to associate with “the mentally ill”, the sleepiness, the apathy, the shuffling gait, the vacant facial expression, and the twitching, jerking movements, are actually symptoms created by the antipsychotic drugs themselves. (Whitaker, “Mad” 164) 9
Meanwhile, the psychiatrically assaulted brain, in a desperate and ineffectual attempt to restore dopamine function, attempts to compensate for the drug induced dopamine deficiency by sprouting a noticeable proliferation of new, abnormally concentrated dopamine receptors. In keeping with the dopamine theory, this should cause such an affected person to become much more vulnerable to psychosis then they ever would have been if left undrugged. (Whitaker, “Mad” 184) 10
This seemingly paradoxical effect is borne out by the fact that in studies of persons hospitalized for psychotic symptoms during the 60s and 70s, there is a much greater relapse rate for those “treated” with antipsychotics than for those who were left undrugged, even when the drugged patients faithfully took their “medication.” (Whitaker, “Mad” 181-186) 11 A 1978 state hospital trial conducted by Maurice Rappoport and his San Francisco colleagues showed a 27% relapse rate for young male schizophrenics treated without drugs over a three year period, and an alarming 62% percent relapse rate for the medicated group (quoted in Whitaker, “Mad” 183). 12 Apparently, the brain changes brought about by use of these antipsychotic drugs actually predispose a person to psychosis.
Today, with an estimated 92% of people having received a diagnosis of Schizophrenia being drugged (Lehman, quoted in Whitaker, “Mad” 232) 13, there are very few examples left of what the “natural course” of what was once called madness would even look like. Once a person has been psychiatrically labeled and addicted to psychiatric drugs, whether antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, stimulants, benzodiazapams, or others, it can be very difficult to get off of them, for social, as well as physical reasons.
Unlike other branches of medicine, the psychiatric system clearly performs a social control function. Not only do psychiatrists have the law on their side, which permits them to employ both intimidation and physical force to achieve “treatment compliance” from people with psychiatric labels, (which would otherwise be considered stalking, harassment, home invasion, assault, poisoning, kidnapping, etc.) the psychiatric system has also been placed in change of many social services programs, which leaves poor psychiatrically labeled people who wish to go off of drugs which they know are harming them, but can’t afford to lose basic services such as public housing, caught between a rock and a hard place. Perhaps worst of all, many friends and family members of psychiatrically labeled people buy into the circular logic presented to them by psychiatrists and the media, which claims that the expected drug withdrawal symptoms experienced by an addicted person who goes off of psychiatric drugs are actually “psychiatric symptoms” and prove that the addicted person really “needs” them. (Whitaker, “Psychiatry”) 14
Sadly, in the interest of maintaining profit, social control, and professional reputations, drug studies which demonstrated addiction, or the increased likelihood of psychosis created by these drugs, were largely suppressed from the public, as was a more than 50% incidence of Akathisia, a torturous feeling of inner restlessness, and the emergence of Tardive Dyskinesia/Tardive Dystonia, a humiliating, and often painful and disabling condition of muscular spasms and tics including involuntary tongue thrusting, eye rolling, grimacing, chewing motions, neck jerking, breathing problems, vocal tics, and muscle spasms in the arms, legs and torso which can cause rigidity, and/or flailing or snakelike movements, making walking, cooking, bathing, and other basic activities challenging and treacherous, even confining some victims to wheelchairs. The TD syndrome varies in severity, but it results from neurological damage. If the offending drugs are not withdrawn immediately when symptoms first begin, in most cases, it becomes largely permanent, even if the drugs are later withdrawn. (Breggin, “Toxic” 68-80, Also Whitaker, “Mad” 190-193) 15
It is estimated that every year someone is on an antipsychotic drug they have a 5 percent chance of developing Tardive Dyskinesia (According to The APA, also NIMH physician Crane, quoted by Whitaker, “Mad” 190-191.) 16, meaning that a person who is on these drugs for 5 years would have a one in four chance of developing the syndrome, and a person who is on these drugs for 20 years or more would almost certainly develop it. (Breggin, “Toxic” 74-76) 17 With antipsychotic drugs as their big medical breakthrough and major money maker, most psychiatrists were content to downplay Tardive Dyskinesia and other obviously harmful effects of the drugs, at least, of course, until the next big money medical breakthrough.
In the 80s, a new class of drug became the darling of the psychiatric industry, SSRI Antidepressants. The psychiatric industry had been attempting to market various other categories of chemicals, such as the MAOIs, as “antidepressants” for years, but had met with limited success. This is likely because users of these Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors were required to abstain from a long list of foods, including chocolate and cheese, or risk sudden death, (Breggin, “Toxic” 160) 18 which is obviously a tough sell for the average American consumer.
The invention of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, claimed at first to be free from harmful side effects, followed by the biggest promotional propaganda campaign ever undertaken by the psychiatric industry, which claimed that SSRIs, such as Prozac, were not only safe and effective at “treating mental illness”, but also, as stated in Peter Kramer’s best-selling 1993 book “Listening to Prozac”, could also make a “normal” person “better than well”, and were thus desirable drugs for millions of Americans, who would have never previously been considered “mentally ill”, would soon, with the brain damaging, mental illness and suicide inducing effect of these “wonder drugs”, radically alter the landscape of America’s “mental health” even more profoundly than the antipsychotic drugs that came before them.
Millions of people who would have never dreamed of taking an antipsychotic, with such a clearly unfashionable side effect profile, were now eagerly gobbling antidepressants, and forcing them down their children’s throats. Meanwhile, studies were showing that Prozac produced nearly identical structural damage to the serotonin network of rats as those produced by high levels of the illicit drug Ecstasy. (Klam, Quoted by Breggin, “Anti-Depressant” 27) 19
By preventing the reuptake of serotonin, the brain is temporarily flooded with excess quantities of this “feel good” neurotransmitter, but soon, in an attempt to restore its innate balance, the brain reacts to this glut of unneeded serotonin first by shutting down serotonin production, and then, in desperation, a process known as down regulation begins, which ultimately kills off up to 60 percent of the serotonin receptors in the now drug damaged brain. (Wamsley et al., quoted by Breggin, “Anti-Depressant” 34-35) 20
Like antipsychotics, which cause a pathological change in the dopamine system, and thus, supposedly prove that dopamine imbalance is the cause of psychosis, the fact that antidepressants caused a pathological change in the serotonin system was held up like a glistening turd by proud psychiatrists as “proof” that Depression, once thought to be an emotional problem which could be worked through by the vast majority of individuals, was actually another biological disease caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and requiring a drug for treatment, just like Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia. (Whitaker, “Psychiatric Drugs”) 21
Because antidepressants rarely cause the type of physically disfiguring side effects that are nearly ubiquitous with antipsychotics, such as dramatic weight gain, hair loss, drooling, or bizarre facial twitching, it was easy for people to accept them as harmless, but their much touted effect on the serotonin system had a dark side that was rarely mentioned by the media as these drugs climbed in popularity.
Soon psychiatrists began to talk of a new phenomenon they nicknamed “kindling” that is, patients with an “underlying” but “asymptomatic” case of Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia which is suddenly “brought to the surface” by the use of an SSRI antidepressant. (Breggin, “Anti-Depressant” 47-52, 112-116) 22 In a controlled clinical trial of Prozac on children ages seven to seventeen in Texas, 6% with no history of mania had to drop out of the study before completion because they had become manic. (Emslie et al. Quoted by Breggin, “Anti-Depressant” 115) 23 When doctors from the University of Pittsburgh looked back at clinic charts from young people ages eight through nineteen who had taken Prozac, it was found that a full 23% of them had developed mania, or “maniclike” symptoms. (Jain et al. Quoted by Breggin, “Anti-Depressant” 114-115) 24
In mainstream psychiatric literature intended for patients or for public consumption, it is never acknowledged that the brain disrupting effects of the SSRIs might be causing people with no “predisposition” to psychosis or mania to develop these symptoms as a drug reaction. Instead, of course, it is maintained that these persons must have been severely mentally ill all along, their true psychotic natures hidden underneath a mask of near normal depressive behavior. These people should be grateful to the SSRI that caused the true nature of their psychotic mania to emerge, because now they can get the treatment that they truly require. That’s right, we have come full circle, back to old reliable, the antipsychotic drugs.
According to an “educational” website for psychiatrists about “mental illness” by the makers of Zyprexa, who were recently revealed to have deliberately covered up the countless deaths and disabling complications caused by their popular second generation antipsychotic drug, a full 30% of people presenting with Depression actually have Bipolar Disorder. If you read between the lines, this means than nearly one out of every three people who seeks help for Depression, typically walking away with an antidepressant, will later return, manic or psychotic, and a perfect target for a disabling antipsychotic drug such as Zyprexa, which, along with the usual risk of Tardive Dyskinesia, also produces a Metabolic Syndrome typified by extreme weight gain, often resulting in Diabetes or Heart Disease. As of 2005, less than a decade since Zyprexa was first approved in 1996, Zyprexa had been prescribed to 20 million people in 84 countries. (See for yourself: http://www.insidezyprexa.com/index.jsp) 25
Initially hailed as “wonder drugs” which would make people “better than well”, over the last several years media reports of school shooters, child slaughtering mothers, and previously stable people who suddenly committed violent suicides began to add up. What did all the people in these geographically disparate locations have in common? Nearly all of them were all taking an SSRI antidepressant, or had recently stopped taking an SSRI antidepressant, and were thus experiencing the severe drug withdrawal syndromes that occur before the damaged serotonin system manages to rebuild itself. (Breggin, “Anti-Depressant” 85-92, 99-106, 116-119) 26
Grudgingly, the FDA admitted that in clinical studies submitted to win approval for these supposedly “lifesaving” drugs, the incidence of alarming side effects such as hallucinations, hostility, Akathisia, self injury, and violent or suicidal ideation had been systematically ignored. (Whitaker, “Psychiatric Drugs”) 27 It was uncovered that in the clinical study which won FDA approval for antidepressant Serozone, the suicide rate in the group “treated” with Serozone was more than 5 times greater than that of those who received a placebo. (Moore, Quoted in Breggin, “Anti-Depressant” 85) 28 Other studies revealed that Prozac caused Akathisia, a tortuous inner restlessness which was formerly thought to be a unique feature of the antipsychotic drugs, and which is known to often precipitate violence, suicide, or self harming behaviors, such as cutting and burning the arms, in 10 to 25% of people taking it. (Lipinski et al. also Rothschild and Locke. Quoted in Breggin “Anti-Depressant” 58) 29
A study showed that children on SSRIs were twice as likely to experience suicidal ideation as others. Then testimonies from parents whose children had suddenly killed themselves after starting an antidepressant drove the point home, and in 2004 the FDA put a blackbox warning on antidepressants, saying that they have been shown to increase suicidal thinking and behavior in adolescents and children. (Downs, “Depression”, also see for yourself on the official FDA webpage http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2004/NEW01124.html) 30
According to mainstream pro-psychiatry resources such as WebMD, by the end of 2005 there had been a 20% drop in prescriptions of antidepressants to children, but never fear, childhood prescriptions for antipsychotics are picking up the slack. As suicide fears cause prescriptions for antidepressants to go down, prescriptions for antipsychotics are skyrocketing. (Hitia, “Kids”) 31
The reliable pattern of escalating diagnosis, which brings so many adults and children from a relatively minor diagnosis such as ADHD or Depression, to a more severe diagnosis such as Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia, is accomplished with help from SSRI antidepressants, and stimulants such as Ritalin and Dexedrine. Ritalin (methylphenidate) is chemically similar to, and has been shown to affect the Serotonin, Norepinephrine, and Dopamine systems of the brain in much the same manner as the illegal drug crystal meth, which psychiatrists consider capable of inducing a “chronic Schizophrenia.” In clinical practice stimulants such as Ritalin have also been shown to cause depression, anxiety, mood swings, mania, hallucinations, and other psychotic symptoms. Unfortunately, according to Marshall (2000) who surveyed two Virginia school districts, 20% of fifth grade boys were being administered stimulants during school. (Breggin, “Anti-Depressant” 112-116), see also (Breggin, “Talking” 3 quoteing Marshall, also 7-8, 44-47, 63), and (Whitaker, “Psychiatric Drugs”) 32.
In my experience, and the experience of many of my peers, other young psychiatricly labeled people who I have informally interviewed on the subject, the disabling progression from a drug like Ritalin, to a drug like Prozac, to a drug like Zyprexa has played out like clockwork. Labeled as ADHD in elementary school when the drugging commenced, by the time we reached highschool, many of us had already been re-christened as Bipolar or Schizophrenic. The disabling effect of the drugs on our minds caused many of us to drop out of school. I myself have been fortunate enough to get off of these drugs entirely over five years ago, thus facilitating my recovery from a path of drug induced mental illness, but few that I know have had the support necessary to make this break. Although I surely suffered some brain damage while on these drugs, as evidenced by a drop in IQ, I managed to get off of them before I developed a serious syndrome of neurological damage such as Tardive Dyskinesia. Many will not be this lucky. Watching how this pattern of escalating diagnosis, escalating drug induced illness, and disability has played out in my generation, I am especially horrified by what is happening to the children of today.
Increasingly child psychiatrists are cutting to the chase and immediately labeling children, even preverbal infants, with psychiatric disorders once reserved for adults, such as Bipolar and Schizophrenia, so as to legitimize prescribing them the disabling antipsychotics that are now coming back into vogue. Other child psychiatrists don’t even feel the need to diagnose a psychotic disorder to prescribe an antipsychotic drug, any diagnosis will do. A full 38% of prescriptions for antipsychotics to people under 20 are for “disruptive behavior disorders” such as ADHD. (Hitia, “Kids”) 33
Since the invention of a marketable product, psychiatric drugs, the percentage of the population labeled as “mentally ill” by the psychiatric system, and thus supposedly in need of these drugs, has been steadily climbing, and children make the ideal target. (Whitaker, “Psychiatric Drugs”) 34 In 1999, in response to the school shootings in Colorado and Georgia, the Clintons and the Gores hosted the first ever White House Conference on Mental Health, but they did not mention the fact that most of the shooters had been taking psychiatric drugs, instead Hilary Clinton introduced New York University psychiatrist Harold Koplewicz, who stated that “absent fathers, working mothers, over permissive parents” can not cause emotional disturbances in children. According to Koplewicz, even “bad childhood traumas” such as “sexual abuse”, and “traumatic experiences-abuse, divorce, the death of a loved one”, or being “abandoned or beaten” can not and will not cause emotional disturbances in children, unless of course, they already suffer from pre-existing genetic biological defects in the brain. Koplewicz stated that in his opinion “12% of the population under age 18.” had these defects of the brain which made them mentally ill. Hilary Clinton replied to Koplewicz’s speech by announcing that these youth must receive psychiatric treatment “whether or not they want it or are willing to accept it.” (Breggin, “Talking” 18-19) 35
These days, the government has partnered with the psychiatric industry to promote psychiatric drugging in a number of ways. They have developed some “sophisticated” mental health screening surveys for schools, such as Teen Screen, based on TMAP, the pharmaceutically funded Texas Medication Algorithm Project, which tends to discover that nearly one out of four high school students are potentially suicidal, and with that in mind, they will be referred to a psychiatrist, where at least 60% of them will receive a prescription for a hazardous, addictive, and potentially mental illness or suicide inducing psychiatric drug. (Watson, “Letter”) 36 Perhaps even more troublingly, the government has recently put organizations such as “Zero to Three” in charge of promoting the emerging concept of “infant mental health” through established programs such as Headstart, which targets children from low-income families. (See for yourself: http://www.zerotothree.org/site/PageServer) 37 Supposedly due to an inherited, biological, “pre-disposition”, children and youth who have experienced abuse, neglect, homelessness, or other personal crisis are most frequently targeted for psychiatric labeling and drugging. A Boston Globe story from 2004 cites a 2/3rds figure for Massachusetts foster children receiving psychiatric services. (Vascellaro, “Prevalence”) 38
A new report from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University shows that prescription drug abuse among teens tripled from 1992 to 2003. The survey indicated that one in 10 teenagers (10 percent), or 2.3 million young people, has tried prescription stimulants Ritalin and/or Adderall without a doctor's order. Over a third of youths prescribed these drugs admitted to having “misused” them, frequently by crushing and snorting the pills, or having sold and given away the drug to peers. This behavior likely extends to other highly addictive categories of psychiatric drugs, such as the benzodiazepines, which are known to be frequently diverted by adult prescription holders onto the illicit market, where they can be found for sale alongside crack and heroin. Although thus far epidemiologically unacknowledged, for many young people, the drug induced highs and lows of addictive psychiatric “medications” may act as a “gateway drug” setting the stage for a future of illegal drug use, addiction, criminalization, unemployment, homelessness, incarceration, illness, even death. Ironically, those sticking to their prescribed “medications” wont fare any better.
As this generation grows up in a haze of chemically induced mental illness, sustaining brain damage, and going on to develop iatrogenic diseases such as Tardive Dyskinesia in epidemic numbers, many becoming disabled for life, a controversy will likely emerge, but rest assured, by then the psychiatric system will have come up with yet another class of wonder drugs to fix our brains by damaging them, silencing our protests, and making us sick in novel ways that will hopefully arouse some sympathy, increasing the quality of our care. Clearly, psychiatrists have our best interest in mind, working hard to make us “become more sick”, so that we can be “better than well.”
2 Febiger, Lee. “Chlorpromazine and Mental Heath,” Proceedings of the Symposium Held Under the Auspices of Smith, Kline & French Laboratories. 6 June 1955: 86. Quoted in Whitaker, Robert. Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2002. 146.
3 Whitaker, Robert. Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2002. 146.
4 Breggin, Peter R. Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy, and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock, and Biochemical Theories of the “New Psychiatry. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1991. 72.
8 Farde, L. “Positron Emission Tomography Analysis of Central D1 and D2 Dopamine Receptor Occupancy in Patients Treated With Classical Neuroleptics and Clozapine.” Archives of General Psychiatry. 49 (1992): 538-544. Also, Reynolds, G.P. “Antipsychotic Drug Mechanisms and Neurotransmitter Systems in Schizophrenia.” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. 89 supplement 380 (1994): 36-40. Quoted in Whitaker, “Mad.” Op.Cit. 162-164.
12 Rappaport, Maurice. “Are There Schizophrenics for Whom Drugs May Be Unnecessary or Contraindicated?” International Pharmacopsychiatry. 13 (1978): 100-111. Quoted in Whitaker, “Mad.” Op.Cit. 183.
13 Lehman, Anthony. “Patterns of Usual Care for Schizophrenia. Initial Results from the Schizophrenia Patient Outcomes Research Team Client Survey." Schizophrenia Bulletin. 24 (1998): 11-20. Quoted in Whitaker, “Mad.” Op.Cit. 232.
16 Crane, George. “Clinical Psychopharmacology in It’s 20th Year.” Science 181 (1973): 124-128. Also American Psychiatric Association. Tardive Dyskinesia: A Task Force Report. (1992). Quoted in Whitaker, “Mad.” Op.Cit. 190-191.
19 Klam, New York Times Magazine. 21 January 2001. Quoted in Breggin, Peter R. The Anti-Depressant Fact Book: What Your Doctor Wont Tell You About Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Luvox. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2001. 27.
20 Wamsley et al. (1987). Quoted in Breggin, Peter R. The Anti-Depressant Fact Book: What Your Doctor Wont Tell You About Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Luvox. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2001. 34-35.
22 Breggin, Peter R. The Anti-Depressant Fact Book: What Your Doctor Wont Tell You About Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Luvox. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2001. 47-52, 112-116.
23 Emslie et al. (1997). Quoted in Breggin, “Anti-Depressant” Op.Cit. 114-115.
32 Breggin, “Anti-Depressant.” Op.Cit. 112-116, see also Breggin, Peter R. Talking Back to Ritalin: What Doctors Aren’t Telling You About Stimulants and ADHD. Cambridge, MA: DaCapo, 2001. Quoteing researcher Marshall (2000) 3, also 7-8, 44-47, 63. and Whitaker, “Psychiatric Drugs.” Op.Cit.
The following article was accepted for publication in “Nobody Passes; Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity.”, a 2006 radical queer anthology edited by Mattilda, a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore. Unfortunately, in a cowardly act of PC censorship, the publisher, Seal Press, suddenly deemed my article “libelous” and removed it from the manuscript just days before it went to the presses.
A few years ago, I attended the True Spirit Conference-a fun, social, cruisy event held troublingly at a big fancy hotel (though not without scholarships)-for folks on the female-to-male transgender spectrum. Many of the young transmen and genderqueers at the conference identified as radical, quite a few as punks, and a number of them worked in the field of social services. Quite a few, I could also mention, were really really hot. I allowed myself to be distracted from the vital task of sex and socializing, and participated in a workshop by Dylan Scholinski, author of The Last Time I Wore A Dress.
After talking to us about his traumatic experiences as a young person forcibly institutionalized in an attempt to cure him of his "Gender Identity Disorder," Dylan was criticized by several audience members for his unfavorable depiction of the psychiatric industry. One self-identified psychiatrist hijacked the question-and-answer period to loudly and authoritatively affirm the acceptable assimilationist philosophy for dealing with this sticky issue:
“Well yes, yes, it was bad for you to have been put in that mental institution, you did not belong in there, because you are not really mentally ill, you are just transgender, but mental institutions are good and necessary because 99 percent of the people in there are actually mentally ill, and that is where they belong.”
The psychiatrist was reaffirming his right to abuse those he did not consider capable of passing as normal, winning support from the trannies by simultaneously releasing them from this category. I was the only person who expressed the opinion that no one, no matter how crazy seeming, belongs in a mental institution. People insisted that I simply didn't understand how sick and dangerous and helpless these “mental patients” really were.
I responded, "How could I possibly understand, when I used to be one?" Here I was, yet another trans person who had been institutionalized and abused as a child, but unlike Dylan, the abuse inflicted upon me had not occurred specifically because I was trans. I had been labeled with what the people in this workshop considered to be "legitimate mental illnesses." Did this mean that what was done to me as a child was okay? Did it mean that these people, several of whom identified as radical, thought it was okay to institutionalize trans children, as long as they were also labeled as something "genuinely" crazy in addition?
I choose to out myself about everything if it affords me an opportunity to educate, but it makes sense to me why so many other psychiatric abuse survivors remain closeted about their experiences. Our society does its best to maintain the status quo, often attempting to silence abuse survivors both by questioning the veracity of our stories and by hinting at our supposed culpability in the violence that has been inflicted against us.
The same logic that claims, "You got raped because you were a slut," tells us, "You got drugged because you were crazy." The strategy is the same whether we are talking about psychiatric abuse, sexual abuse, or the ever-popular combination of the two. It is stressful and triggering to talk about this stuff when you know that you are liable to be attacked. I couldn't do it for years without freaking out, and only recently have I been able to write about it. Countless people have been similarly victimized, and many have suffered such severe brain damage as a result of the "treatments" that were inflicted against them that their ability to speak out has been permanently compromised.
Unfortunately, this leaves us with a situation where the story of the psychiatric experience is told solely by compliant model patients, handpicked as representatives for faithfully taking their pills and parroting back psychiatric industry propaganda. Once inside the psychiatric system, few manage to fully escape. Many see their lives destroyed. It is up to those of us who have managed to get out relatively intact to speak out.
The psychiatrist at the workshop tried to shut me up by telling me that I didn't seem "that bad," effectively letting me know that I could pass for sane; as a counterpoint he gave the example of a female patient "so disturbed" that she had bitten his hand.
The truth of the matter is that if he had encountered me a few years earlier, when I was drugged and disempowered, he would have easily bestowed the same diagnosis on me. Anyone subjected to such dehumanizing conditions will become dehumanized. The hand-biter could just as well have been me, or the psychiatrist, or anyone else at the workshop.
I believe that we all have a right to express strong emotions without the fear of losing our liberty. Isn't this obvious? Perhaps it is not fair to expect all queers and trannies and punks to be radical or anti-authoritarian, but for those folks who do identify as radical, shouldn't the authoritarian practices of the psychiatric industry be condemned?
A little over a year ago, a friend of mine attended a so-called "open discussion" on mental health at an anarchist community center presented by a group called The Icarus Project. What she found was a pro-drug, pro-psychiatry propaganda session. When she tentatively voiced her difference of opinion, they silenced her by announcing that she was “in need of drugs." As she recounted this experience to me, I was aghast. She told me that she had left the anarchist space that day feeling deeply shaken and confused. Now aware of the need to openly express a dissenting opinion, I began work on a zine called “Against Psychiatry! Why You Should Oppose the War On the Mind.”
Although I had originally intended my zine to address the anarchist/activist punk scene, I have distributed far more copies to queer/trans homeless youth, a huge percentage of whom are fellow survivors of sexual and psychiatric abuse. This population is often unwillingly caught up in the psychiatric system through reliance on social programs for survival at a time when urban gentrification has decimated historically underground economies (such as street level sex work) and placed basic needs (such as housing) out of the reach of all but a privileged few.
As a privileged kid running from psychiatric abuse, I have passed through many different worlds. Initially drawn to participate in communities with a stated anti-authoritarian political analysis, I desired an opportunity to unite with other creative folks affected by what are commonly labeled "mental health" issues to discuss the problems we experienced and work together toward mutual aid and collective solutions. When I first heard of The Icarus Project, I thought it might be something like what I was looking for. Unfortunately, however, despite doubtlessly good intentions, what the Icarus Project presents is something quite different.
The Icarus Project travels around the country distributing propaganda and holding workshops, often at anarchist or other radical spaces, which ignore the social/political causes of emotional problems such as abuse, oppression, drug toxicity, poverty and malnutrition and side with the psychiatric industry on the claim that “mental illness” is a biological disease caused by a "chemical imbalance in the brain,” and “treatable” with drugs. In this way, The Icarus Project turns its back on the anti-authoritarian harm reduction based philosophy of tolerance and instead invokes the authoritarian clout of the psychiatric industry. Instead of recognizing drugs of all sorts as a coping strategy, and realistically acknowledging potential harms, The Icarus Project promotes the idea of psychiatric drugs as a “treatment”, replicating the propaganda of the psychiatric industry while issuing contradictory and ambiguous statements simultaneously opposing and advocating forced drugs and institutionalization.
The Icarus Project, in a classic example of psychiatric doublespeak, claims to support a message of "freedom of choice" to take psychiatric drugs, but in my experience, once inside the psychiatric system, consent becomes meaningless. Radical communities, like most other communities, are often quick to condemn a person’s “freedom of choice” to use illegal drugs such as Heroin as a coping strategy, but perhaps psychiatric drugs, couched by the government and the psychiatric industry as a medical necessity, are seen as more politically correct? I believe that we should all have the right to put, or not to put, whatever we want to into our bodies, to not be penalized for these choices, and to be judged as individuals for our actions, instead of by labels which seek to divide us. I believe in freedom of choice, but this is not what the psychiatric industry seeks to provide. As the government increasingly seeks to medicalize and regulate our emotions, enforcing psychiatric drugging both in rich communities and poor ones, you might hope that radicals would see the need for an alternative.
I read the Icarus Project book, Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness, a blueprint for how to supposedly support "mentally ill" community members.1 To make psychiatric industry propaganda acceptable to the target audience (anti-authoritarians), the Icarus Project claims throughout to support a diversity of viewpoints, but in actuality they have a very specific message to get across. The social construct of "mental illness" as a biological defect is affirmed rather than challenged and thus some sort of medical "treatment" is supposed to be in order.
The text is sprinkled with feel-good claims about how “special” and “gifted” we "bipolar folks" are, while sections devoted to "alternative" (non pharmaceutical) treatments are presented in a watery and haphazard context. Alongside all the fluffy talk about the “magical” nature of “mental illness”, rambling letters about the struggle “to rely on natural healing herbs" create an appearance of multiple perspectives, but seem to have been merely selected for easy dismissal so that drugs can again be embraced as an inevitability (with standard regrets). Drugs are frequently praised as “lifesaving”, but the fact that many popular psychiatric drugs, such as SSRIs2, have been implicated as a cause of suicide is never even addressed.
It is clear rather quickly that The Icarus Project is strongly pro-drug. "Stopping medications" is described as a "severe warning sign”, and it is stated that "bipolar people" are in danger the longer they go "unmedicated.” I was alarmed to see that “early treatment”, meaning the psychiatric drugging of children, was promoted. Then I was shocked to discover an article by a self-identified "Anarchist Mom" who calls the police on her 16-year-old son when he skips a psychiatrist appointment and tries to run away from her, and has him forcibly institutionalized and drugged. This is promoted as a necessary compromise to support a person in crisis.3
By advocating forced “treatment” in the guise of support, The Icarus Project tells us it’s possible to deny individual consent while still identifying as an anarchist. The Icarus Project promotes itself as a radical, alternative voice on mental health, but what does it take to pass as "radical" or "alternative"? Is this a style of clothes or music? Does it mean stencils on patches and cut-and-paste zine-style presentation? Or does it have some sort of political connotation? Doesn't radical mean challenging the established authority?
I think that alternative can mean more than an "alternative" aesthetic. It can mean alternative networks of support that exist independently of the psychiatric industry. It can mean mutual aid, support through times of crisis, shared meals, art groups and gardens, and sanctuary on land away from the cities, but all this is meaningless if the dynamics of abuse are perpetuated. Support can mean many things, but one thing it certainly does not mean is calling the cops. Where can an emotional person striving to live drug-free find safety and not have to fear forced institutionalization at the hands of their supposed comrades? Apparently no longer in the larger anarchist/activist scene.
One particularly troubling social phenomenon enabled both by the psychiatric industry takeover of social services, and by the increasing acceptance of the psychiatric industry by folks who identify and pass as radical, is the sight of these radicals, many of whom are queer and trans punks, taking an active role in psychiatric abuse of people who they may not view as community members. At drop-ins centers, clinics, shelters, and even inside the locked gates of psychiatric institutions, radical-identified folks are actively dispensing toxic drugs to marginalized populations, promoting the eugenics-based philosophy that claims emotional pain and social deviance are caused by biological defects.
How can I take an "anti-authoritarian feminist activist" seriously when their job involves telling teenage sexual abuse survivors at a homeless shelter that their pain is "the result of a genetically inherited chemical imbalance in the brain" and then forcing them to take drugs in exchange for housing? How can I sit around a table and plan a political action with a "radical queer" whose night job includes preventing people like me from escaping the psychiatric facility where they are being held against their will? Services such as showers, needle exchange and medical care are vital resources, and I don't mean to suggest that radical folks are mistaken in their effort to help provide them, but they need to be aware when the social service agencies they work for are promoting psychiatric abuse as a tool for gentrification.
“Homelessness” and “Mental Illness” are increasingly used as synonyms. In the public consciousness poverty is yet again being redefined as something genetic and biologically based. As urban centers which once possessed ample affordable housing and vibrant underground economies gentrify, marginalized queers and artists who cannot or will not work full time are left with few options to afford inflated rents. No longer able to scrape together money for communal housing in cities like San Francisco and New York, many queers and creative folks are engaged in a desperate struggle to get off or stay off of the streets. Because other public assistance programs have been slashed, people who would normally avoid the psychiatric system are increasingly pressured into accepting psychiatric diagnosis in exchange for paltry Social Security checks. Though they often secretly refuse to take the drugs prescribed to them in private, the constant psychiatric surveillance SSI recipients are subjected to makes this survival option a dangerous one. SSI recipients, particularly residents of subsidized housing, are frequently forced to take drugs or else face the possibility of their benefits being cut, custody of their children denied, or of being institutionalized or kicked out onto the streets. Psychiatrists and social workers call the increasingly popular practice of forcing entry into a victim's home to drug them against their will "assisted outpatient treatment."4
Housing and other basic resources are the carrots that the government dangles in front of socially marginalized populations in order to entice them to accept psychiatric "treatment." If the poor refuse to "bite," then the ever-helpful social service agencies will return with force. Plans to “End Homelessness” which negate free will and are based around the ambiguous concept of “Treatment” for “Substance Abuse” or “Mental Illness” deny the existence of homeless folks who don’t fall into either one of these target categories. Folks who choose to use illegal drugs are denied services, unless they learn to think about their drug use as a “genetic brain disorder”, which is out of their control, and to accept medical management of their drug intake with government approved pharmaceuticals. Homeless folks who aren’t already addicts are typically assumed to be “Mentally Ill” and then coerced into developing addictions to hazardous psychiatric drugs, to treat the “genetic brain disorders” that supposedly caused their poverty. People who do not accept being labeled with "genetic brain disorders”, or who do not accept that the “treatments” mandated by various government programs are right for them, are routinely denied access to the resources provided by these programs, such as long term housing, which is often needed to transition out of homelessness. Even basic services such as showers, meals, and shelter increasingly come wedded to some type of “treatment”, and some cities may kidnap homeless folks who refuse shelter off the streets with vans that carry them away, against their will, for psychiatric "treatment."
Urban social service agencies often recruit homeless folks for experimental studies. I have witnessed this predation play out first-hand at drop-in centers where psychiatric drugs are pushed on exhausted people who are simply overwhelmed while trying to cope with the stress of survival on the streets and a lifetime of traumatic experiences (which often includes a history of psychiatric abuse). It is hard to understand how these drugs could be promoted as universal treatments to restore a person to “normality”, when the brain damaging “side effects” of these drugs form the basis for so much of the stigma around what is commonly understood as “mental illness”. The truth, according to several studies cited by Dr. Peter Breggin, in his classic text Toxic Psychiatry, is that more than 60 percent of people who have been drugged with neuroleptics (commonly referred to as anti-psychotics) will develop Tardive Dyskinesia, a permanent condition of often severe, painful, and disabling spasms and tics.5 The stereotypical twitchy behavior of a seemingly "crazy" person, often older and homeless, is in fact not a symptom of a psychiatric disorder, but evidence of the harm inflicted by psychiatrists. Meanwhile, tests are being conducted at the University of Pennsylvania with a brain control implant. Once placed under the skin, it cannot be removed, and delivers high doses of neuroleptics continuously for up to a year.6
While sharing experiences with other abuse survivors, a common thread is seen to emerge. Children and adults who survive rape or other abuse are frequently labeled as “Mentally Ill”, particularly if they attempt to report the abuse, flee their abusers, or otherwise bring attention to the abuse through emotional reaction to the experiences they have survived. For bringing attention to the abuse, survivors may be drugged, institutionalized, or even subjected to electroshock. Time and time again I have heard of how psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have sided with abusive families (or the notoriously abusive foster care system) to silence the victims and allow the abuse to continue. Abusive families and the inherently abusive psychiatric industry form a powerful alliance that is hard for a frightened survivor to escape. As many as 80% of women inpatients in psychiatric facilities report serious physical and/or sexual abuse as children,7 but "There is still considerable confusion and resistance within psychiatry about the relevance and meaning of abuse for understanding and treating psychiatric disorders."8 Even in those situations where abuse has been acknowledged by authorities, accompanying psychiatrists will still drug and blame the brain of a survivor if they does so much as complain.
Based on my personal experience, and the experiences of many of my friends, sexual abuse within the psychiatric system is epidemic. Official publications from within the psychiatric system that acknowledge this abuse are sparse, compared to the unofficial and undocumented testimonies of socially marginalized survivors. In addition to protecting social norms by silencing abuse survivors, the reluctance on the part of the psychiatric system to honestly address issues of sexual abuse makes much more sense once you know that "women with disabilities who live in institutions are twice as likely to be victimized as women who live in the community"9 and that, although psychiatrists only comprise 6% of physicians in the country, a 1998 review of U.S. medical board actions taken for sex-related offenses revealed that psychiatrists were responsible for a whopping 28% of these sex-related offenses.10 The connections between sexual abuse and the psychiatric industry were illustrated for me quite graphically when I was 14 years old, incarcerated in a mental institution, forcibly drugged, and sexually assaulted repeatedly by my psychiatrist.
The government promotes drugs because addicted people-no matter what they are addicted to-are easier to control. Society prefers for its addicts to be strung out on pharmaceuticals because they are easier to regulate that way. As an added bonus, the money goes to the U.S. pharmaceutical industry (top government donors), instead of to DIY drug labs, or to impoverished rural farmers that supply poppy to “Terrorist” cartels. People who seek help to get clean off of illegal drugs will usually be prescribed psychiatric drugs. These supposed “detox” programs simply shift addicts from one substance to another, convincing them that their brains are actually defective and that they require the new drugs in order to function. These programs are steeped in the deep doublethink of psychiatry, promoting concepts such as “Dual Diagnosis”, a label affixed to people supposedly suffering from two “genetic brain disorders”, “Mental Illness” and “Substance Abuse.” “Recovery” is then defined as abstaining from illicit drug use, while simultaneously adhering to an approved program of pharmaceuticals. A person who chose to live entirely drug free would be said to have “Relapsed.” Throughout society, psychiatric drug use is applauded, while illicit drug use is punished. As psychiatric drugging soars, the “War On Drugs” rages, putting more and more people behind bars for choosing to use different drugs than the ones currently promoted by the government.
The Prison-Industrial Complex and the Psychiatric system operate as part of the same social control entity. According to a recent federal Bureau of Justice Statistics report, 45 percent of inmates in Federal Prisons, 56 percent of inmates in State Prisons, and 64 percent of inmates in county and local Jails are “mentally ill." Harmful psychiatric drugs, particularly Tardive Dyskinesia inducing neuroleptics like Seroquel, are often prescribed to prisoners “off-label” to quiet them down. Prisoners are typically misled about the drugs administered to them, potent anti-psychotics being described simply as “sleeping pills.” In the state of Vermont alone, a full 46 percent of prisoners, poor people who the government has decided are best kept in cages, are also being administered at least one psychiatric drug.11 Psychiatric labeling and drugging of inmates is typically lauded by liberals and progressive types, who choose to interpret these chemical leg irons as a rehabilitative “treatment”.
In addition to the many non-imprisoned or institutionalized people who are court ordered to submit to psychiatric drugging against their will, the psychiatric system works with the prison system and the courts to force drug prisoners, and to make submitting to psychiatric drugging an increasingly common requirement for parole or probation. For the growing population of psychiatrically labeled, socially marginalized and criminalized people cycling in and out of jail, psychiatric wards, drug rehab programs, and homeless shelters, the distinctions between one form of authoritarian institutionalized reality and another can seem to blur.
Clinics and shelters for homeless folks are vital resources. I relied on drop-in centers for basic needs, such as showers, condoms, and medical care, for much of my time on the streets. I am not suggesting that all the radical-identified folks who work at these places should give up on their effort to help provide these resources; on the contrary, more resources are desperately needed. People have a right to housing. People have a right to Harm Reduction materials such as clean needles, and also to be assisted in detoxing from meth or heroin, without being simultaneously labeled with a “genetic brain disease”, and hooked on some new (potentially quite harmful) pharmaceutical. People have a right to get care for physical injuries and diseases without being coerced into taking psychiatric drugs. Social service workers also have rights. They have the right to help people without being coerced into simultaneously abusing them.
As a queer trans person who ended up homeless after escaping psychiatric abuse as a teenager, there were no housing programs that would have respected my need to live free from psychiatric drugging and labeling. The past six years on the streets and on the road nearly killed me several times. Unlike many friends of mine, I was fortunate enough to possess racial and economic privilege, and to have a taste for adventure; but, perhaps more than anything else, it was my association with the anarchist punk scene that helped empower me to avoid getting strung-out and instead encouraged me to keep busy traveling and squatting and dumpster-diving and stenciling and riding bikes and writing zines. For this constructive influence I am eternally grateful.
Although my associates in the anarchist scene were not particularly supportive of my struggle to withdraw from psychiatric drugs (a difficult process that took nearly two years), I felt safe around anarchists because I knew that no matter how annoying I might become, their desire to pass as anti-authoritarian made it unlikely that they would ever call the cops to have me institutionalized. Now this is changing, and coercion is being made to pass for support. My association with this community was extremely helpful as I struggled to get clean, but in the wake of increasing psychiatric influence on this subculture, I often wonder if a younger version of myself simply would be pressured back on drugs.
Notes:
1 The Icarus Project, Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness: A Reader & Roadmap of Bipolar Worlds, The Icarus Project (self published), 2004.
3 The Icarus Project, Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness: A Reader & Roadmap of Bipolar Worlds, The Icarus Project (self published), 2004. p. 37
5 Peter R. Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy, and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock, and Biochemical Theories of the “New Psychiatry”, New York, NY, St. Martin's Press, there 1991.
7 Steiner Crane, Leigh, Ph.D, Henson, Claudia E., M.D., Colliver, Jerry A. Ph.D., and MacLean, Donald G., Ph.D., Prevalence of a History of Sexual Abuse Among Female Psychiatric Patients in a State Hospital System, Hospital and Community Psychiatry, Vol. 39, No.3, March, 1988.
8 Mental Disability Rights International. Women's Rights Advocacy Initiative. Violence, Women, and Mental Disability. See Sobsey, D., Violence and Abuse in the Lives of People With Disabilities: The End of Silent Acceptance?, Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., (1994)
9 Carmen, E., Victim-to Patient-to-Survivor Processes: Clinical Perspectives. Dare To Vision. Holyoke, MA; Human Resources Association (1995) p.53, see Brown, Vivian B., Ph.D., Breaking the Silence: Violence/Abuse Issues for Women Diagnosed With Serious Mental Illness., Prototypes Systems Change Center, (1997)
10 Physicians Disciplined for Sex-Related Offenses, Christine E. Dehlendorf, BSc, and Sidney M. Wolfe, M.D., Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 279, No. 23, 17 June 1998.
11 “Psych Meds Use Seen High In Vt. Prisons” David Gram, Associated Press, 30 June 2007.
I also want to mention that although most of these statistics refer specifically to women, it is important to acknowledge that survivors of sexual abuse come in all genders, including men.
I am currently accepting submissions for a new anthology about surviving psychiatric abuse.
![[Schizophrenia Brain]](images/mri%27s%20for%20fritz.jpg)
