FDA warning on SSRIs

[Anonymous]

No you are wrong.  Show me the information where its been proven that Bi-Polar is genetic.  What is directly applicable is our child-rearing.  There are writings where they say it MAY be genetic but tell me what the symptoms are.  I had severe depression with psychosis.  Was on Effexor, celexa, hospitalized.  I have been in psychottherapy 3 times a week going into my fourth year.  No meds now. My horrible symptoms were part of me from my childhood.  Repressed wanting to die feelings.  Integrated now into my psyche.  These feelings don't just come up now and throw me off, I realize why!!!  What a wonderful feeling to know I am not diseased, defective,  I almost have my Bachelors degree. I almost died on the meds.

[Anonymous]

Anecdote is not evidence.

Mental illnesses can and do go into spontaneous temporary remissions.

Which is one of the reasons so many ineffective treatments have gotten traction---there are anecdotes that get used to sell the ineffective treatment.

Long term studies show that drugs and cognitive behavioral therapy are basically the only effective long-term treatments for depression.

For the bipolar disorders, the key is not only relieving any depression, but *preventing* or *stopping* manic phases.  If you aren't manic, you don't necessarily need a mood stabilizer---or maybe just don't need one right then.  Regular sleep habits, abstinence from stimulants or alcohol or other self-prescribed street-drugs, help reduce the risk of manic episodes, but may not be enough to prevent them all on their own.

Statistical studies exist that show the heritability of the bipolar disorders.  The geneticists are working now to track down which specific genes are involved, but I'm not going to go out and track down the cites just because you're a flat earther---do your own literature search.

I'm not trying to persuade you, I'm just stating the mainstream position in the psychiatric community, so that the fringe inanities don't go totally unchallenged.

There's loads of evidence now that these disorders are biochemical, the reason that the tests that show that evidence are not used diagnostically is that they're expensive as hell and the behavioral symptoms are reliable for diagnosis and observing them is relatively cheap.

Only an idiot would argue that hearing loss wasn't generally biomedical, and we have objective tests that can look at where your brain lights up and tell whether you are hearing a tone in a hearing test or not.  That doesn't change the fact that hearing tests are virtually universally done by patient self report on audiograms---raising a hand when the patient hears a tone.

A whole hell of a lot of medical diagnosis is done by asking the patient where it hurts and what the pain feels like.  Doesn't mean there isn't an objective test, just that in the real world costs matter and sensible people try to keep medical costs down when the less expensive option is even close to being just as effective and reliable as the more expensive one.

The only reason I'm taking my time to type any of this at all is I'm afraid if I leave the misinformation unchallenged, it's going to prompt someone who reads it to go cold turkey off their psychiatric medication without consulting their doctor and maybe get them killed.

Please, please, please----if you are reading these threads and you are on psychiatric medication and for whatever reason decide you want to go off of it:  CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR!  If you're really determined to go off your medication, your doctor will help you even if he/she thinks you should stay on it.  Your doctor will help you stop that medication gradually and SAFELY!

Stopping any psychiatric medication suddenly can trigger serious and potentially life-threatening side effects.

Don't just throw your medication away based on something you read on the internet.

SEE YOUR DOCTOR.

[Antigen]

Anon Mom(right?)
Please, please, please----if you are reading these threads and you are on psychiatric medication and for whatever reason decide you want to go off of it: CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR! If you're really determined to go off your medication, your doctor will help you even if he/she thinks you should stay on it. Your doctor will help you stop that medication gradually and SAFELY!

Stopping any psychiatric medication suddenly can trigger serious and potentially life-threatening side effects.

Don't just throw your medication away based on something you read on the internet.

SEE YOUR DOCTOR.

Absolutely. Not only that, but read for yourself. Most doctors really don't know all that much about the medications they presecribe. They can't. They're very busy people who often don't have adequate time in their lives for their families and rarely find time to keep up with the latest research and litterature.

Here's an anectdote. My husband had Burgers' Disease when he was young. It's typically something you see in the elderly. So the prognosis is usually poor and, therefore, heroic intervention more acceptable than in better known, more treatable conditions.

So this hot-shot nephrologist prescribed massive doses, like 6 grams (not mg, not a typo) every other day of Prednizone. We asked him about side effects, he recomended he drink half a bottle of Malox before taking his dose because the stuff is hard on your stomach, but no other serious side effects were likely. Some weeks later, my husband was having horrible homocidal dreams at night.

Then, one day, he's sitting on the couch rocking back and forth, staring hard at a neighbor who was working on a car. I asked him what was up, he said "I want to kill Pete." What???

So THEN I went down to the drug store and asked to borrow the pharmacist's PDR. Turns out, the doctor was either banefully incompetent or he lied outright. There was a page and a half of serious side effects, including induction of psychosis. And that was at NORMAL dose, somewhere around 25mg or less per day.

He did throw the stuff away cold turkey. It would have been nice if we could have just gone to the doctor and gotten help. But they guy had lied to us about this drug already and, at that point, my husband was more afraid of doctors than the disease.

You have to do your own homework. Professionals in any field can be helpful. But we can't go along blithely trusting in the pros to make all of our decisions for us. In the end, our health is our own responsibility.

The newspaper articles are what really put the nail in the coffin for the local program.


--Claude Greene, Seed spokesman, speaking of the closing of the St Pete Seed, 10/7

[Deborah]

If you are taking psych drugs and have to rely on someone on the internet to inform you that it could be dangerous or fatal to discontinue them cold turkey, consider suing your doctor for not adequately informing you about the dangers of the drugs.
For god's sake, what would you do if you were on a plane for Europe and discovered that you'd left your drugs at home?
Seems an important piece of information not to share with your patient.

[Deborah]

Excerpt from an article called "There Are No Chemical Imbalances":

"Various sorts of brain imaging techniques are currently very much in vogue: a PET scan (positron emission tomography, which visualizes
regional energy utilization in the brain) of a depressed person is different from the same scan of a "normal" person. A SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) scan is even more impressive, since it has the ability to visualize particular kinds of receptors.

But this line of argument is entirely fallacious. If the argument is: mental state x can be shown to have a physiological substrate, therefore it is pathological, the response is obvious. All mental states, without exception, have neurochemical substrates. This proves exactly nothing. No doubt there are neurochemical differences between conservatives and liberals, too.

Who, however, is to decide which state is pathological? Brain imaging techniques are currently the favorite tool used by biopsychiatrists to argue for a purported
physiological cause for the various phenomena called "mental illnesses," largely because the scans yield brightly colored pictures of the brain ? almost like coloring book drawings ? which can be shown to the public and which appear to offer highly dramatic demonstrations of something "wrong" with the brain that has fewer
bright colors in it. The public generally knows little about either scientific method or logical inference, and even less about the interpretation of brain scans, and so is likely to be mightily
impressed by this "scientific evidence."

So PET and SPECT scans of people called schizophrenic, or depressed, or obsessive-compulsive, are compared to those of people called "normal", and differences between the images are taken as evidence of a biochemical original for mental illness. Do the varieties of consciousness called mental illnesses have a biochemical substrate? Of course they do, but, as noted above, this is only because every kind of mental state has such a substrate.

Having said that, let's think in greater detail about the idea that brain scans demonstrate that various unwanted mental phenomena are biochemical in origin - as opposed to their being the result of experience. There are so many fallacies in the "argument from brain imaging studies" (if I may borrow that phraseology for our modern religion) that it is difficult to decide where to begin criticizing it.

Should one start with the experimental details, such as the near-universal irreproducibility of such studies? Or should one begin with the larger problems, such as the impossibility of distinguishing whether what is seen in the scans is the cause or the effect of the phenomenon in question ? assuming that it is related to said
phenomenon at all? Perhaps the fact that the criteria for categorizing the subjects in the first place are so nebulous as to be nearly arbitrary might be a good place to begin. Or should one discuss the fact that everything from playing music to asking the subject to think about a particular thing will radically alter PET
and SPECT images of the brain?

The idea that brain imaging studies prove that the wildly divergent phenomena that are grouped under the label "mental illness" are brain diseases doesn't need to be torn to shreds: it is essentially nonsensical in the first place.

Consider:
a woman goes to the doctor for her annual physical. The year is 2074, biopsychiatry has found a definitive brain scan for schizophrenia, and brain scans have become cheap enough that they're now considered routine lab work. The woman's scan shows that she "has" schizophrenia, even though she feels fine and shows none of
the symptoms of schizophrenia. But the doctor, armed with objective evidence, knows better, and starts her on a powerful antipsychotic drug. Does something seem absurd about this scenario?

Everything from the assumptions and definitions underlying such studies to the details of contemporary brain scan work are ridiculous; indeed, they are laughable. It is astonishing that anyone could know anything of life, especially modern life, of history, of the nature of human consciousness, and conclude that he or she should search for the roots of twisted experience and misery in pictures of glucose
utilization by the nervous system.

If mental illness does exist, surely belief in so bizarre an idea must qualify one for inclusion in
that category."

The complete article is here:
http://www.etfrc.com/ChemicalImbalances.htm

You may also like to read the paper "Broken Brains or Flawed Studies", which you'll find here:
http://psychrights.org/Research/Digest/ ... ofadhd.pdf

Insight Article on the flaws in Castellanos brain scan study:
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?incl ... yid=449586

[Antigen]

I think, when it gets right down to it, experience is the only really reliable instructor. All these drugs are new. All the behaviors we're calling mental illness are old as the hills.

At the bottom of it, I wouldn't consider treating anything with new drugs unless it were completely debilitating and there were no other option.

That certainly does NOT describe the way schoolpeople are diagnosing so many children as ODD or ADD/ADHD. I do know people who found, as adults, that they function better on speed. I suppose if you took away my coffee, I might find the same for myself.

Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic, and have no place in a Republic. The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.
--Abridged quote-Benjamin Rush, M.D., a signer of the Declaration of Independence

[Anonymous]

Of course all thoughts, ideas, feelings, sensations, etc. can be seen in the brain on PET etc.-- and of course normal has to be defined, but if "depression" or "bipolar" or "ADD" were just random categories with no relation to anything, why would there be consistent differences shown in these technologies?

If the categories are fake and don't correspond with anything, the differences should be all over the map, you shouldn't find anything consistent.

If we were just pathologizing normal behavior, the symptoms shouldn't clump in replicable ways and show replicable images.

Plus, whoever claimed that biochemical has to be genetic?  Biochemical changes can absolutely be caused by environmental situations and factors-- but that doesn't mean that changing the environment always fixes it.

Besides, if a drug works better, faster, cheaper and easier than a therapy, why should we have to slog through the therapy?

Therapies have "side effects" too-- in fact, this entire board is pretty well devoted to the negative side effects of one of them which can include long term brain changes (ie PTSD).

If we came up with a new drug that would eliminate  
physical therapy after stroke, no one would whine that the stroke victims are getting it easy and should learn to do it the "right" way, to grow through the emotional pain of the struggle.

So why do we think people with mental illnesses should be any different.

If I was abused as a child and that abuse caused PTSD and there was a drug that would fix it and make me feel comfortable and able to deal with people rather than paranoid and anxious, why on earth would you consider it morally superior for me to turn down that drug and spend hours with a therapist struggling through my past?  If a drug makes me available for relationships right away rather than years later and available for productive work now rather than later, why should I stick with the talk therapy?

People forget that talk therapists have every bit as much of an economic interest in pushing their product as the drug companies do.  They couch it in all these gentle, nice terms and in the rhetoric of the drug war and the evils of trying to take the "easy way" out-- but they are just trying to keep their jobs.

Further, if you think I'm wrong on Freud, you haven't read the latest on that case I cited:  even the most stringent Freudians don't back him on that any more.

The guy was a wacko-- he thought people wanted to have sex with their parents.  How on earth could a species evolve that wanted sex with its parents and had to develop cultural methods to prevent this?  By the time they'd developed the cultural techniques, the ones that had bio desires for non-relatives would have outcompeted them and outreproduced them.  THey would have died out due to harmful mutations, not
become the most successful species on the planet.

[Antigen]

It's not about being a purist and doing it the hard way. Not for me, anyway. Often enough, mental and emotional problems caused by external pressures are improved by a change of set and setting.

The way they're diagnosing disorders these days, though, is completely counterproductive to remedying those external pressures. If a kid is angry and defiant all the time, it's oppositional defiant "disorder". Only it's not a disorder. Anger and defiance are normal, healty responses to abuse and unreasonable demands. But we can't go about telling the experts they're wrong.

Their argument comes down to just exactly the same one Stalin used to pathologize dissent in the SU; the experts know just exactly what kids are supposed to do and think and be and they provide an ideal environment for 'normal' kids (school, cerfews, random SWAT raids, banning of any and all kid-like behavior, like hanging out skateboarding, romance, etc.) So any kid who's not happy with this students' paradise must, by definition, be crazy.

So, drug the kid or put him in a boot camp, whatever your pleause, to make him quit being defiant and angry just accept his lot in quiet desperation.

If you're convinced that you and your daughter are better off on SSRIs, go for it. Whatever works for you. But that doesn't solve the problem of adults pathologizing normal youthful behavior then crushing  all hope from our youth.

May 12-13: Sowed Hemp at Muddy  hole by Swamp. August 7: Began to separate the Male from the Female at Do - rather too late.
Anonymity Anonymous

[Anonymous]

Immediate previous post Ginger was responding to wasn't me---Julie

[Anonymous]

On 2003-11-22 09:30:00, Antigen wrote:

"

Anon Mom(right?)

Please, please, please----if you are reading these threads and you are on psychiatric medication and for whatever reason decide you want to go off of it: CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR! If you're really determined to go off your medication, your doctor will help you even if he/she thinks you should stay on it. Your doctor will help you stop that medication gradually and SAFELY!



Stopping any psychiatric medication suddenly can trigger serious and potentially life-threatening side effects.



Don't just throw your medication away based on something you read on the internet.



SEE YOUR DOCTOR.

Absolutely. Not only that, but read for yourself. Most doctors really don't know all that much about the medications they presecribe. They can't. They're very busy people who often don't have adequate time in their lives for their families and rarely find time to keep up with the latest research and litterature.



Here's an anectdote. My husband had Burgers' Disease when he was young. It's typically something you see in the elderly. So the prognosis is usually poor and, therefore, heroic intervention more acceptable than in better known, more treatable conditions.



So this hot-shot nephrologist prescribed massive doses, like 6 grams (not mg, not a typo) every other day of Prednizone. We asked him about side effects, he recomended he drink half a bottle of Malox before taking his dose because the stuff is hard on your stomach, but no other serious side effects were likely. Some weeks later, my husband was having horrible homocidal dreams at night.



Then, one day, he's sitting on the couch rocking back and forth, staring hard at a neighbor who was working on a car. I asked him what was up, he said "I want to kill Pete." What???



So THEN I went down to the drug store and asked to borrow the pharmacist's PDR. Turns out, the doctor was either banefully incompetent or he lied outright. There was a page and a half of serious side effects, including induction of psychosis. And that was at NORMAL dose, somewhere around 25mg or less per day.



He did throw the stuff away cold turkey. It would have been nice if we could have just gone to the doctor and gotten help. But they guy had lied to us about this drug already and, at that point, my husband was more afraid of doctors than the disease.



You have to do your own homework. Professionals in any field can be helpful. But we can't go along blithely trusting in the pros to make all of our decisions for us. In the end, our health is our own responsibility.

The newspaper articles are what really put the nail in the coffin for the local program.


--Claude Greene, Seed spokesman, speaking of the closing of the St Pete Seed, 10/7

"

Yeah, prednisone has some serious side effects.  There are bad doctors out there.  I've run into some.  *Most* doctors are good, but there's a reason you get second opinions for major things, and I do like to know what the majority, mainstream opinion is in the field so I know if I happen to hit a doctor who is just way out there.

[Anonymous]

Mainstream opinion is what is doing you in. Reminds me , if everyone jumped off a cliff, would you do the same.  Explain why people on antidepressants have to keep increasing the dose to ward off the symptoms. Maybe the body is saying,  no, you are going to feel these horrific emotions, fear and remember where they came from.  No its not for the faint of heart. Psychoanalysis though, if you read about it, is a fabulous way of learning to deal with your thoughts. And no, people on drugs should not immediately stop, I weaned myself off after several months with they help of my therapist.

[Anonymous]

On 2003-11-23 05:48:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Mainstream opinion is what is doing you in. Reminds me , if everyone jumped off a cliff, would you do the same.  Explain why people on antidepressants have to keep increasing the dose to ward off the symptoms. Maybe the body is saying,  no, you are going to feel these horrific emotions, fear and remember where they came from.  No its not for the faint of heart. Psychoanalysis though, if you read about it, is a fabulous way of learning to deal with your thoughts. And no, people on drugs should not immediately stop, I weaned myself off after several months with they help of my therapist."

People on antidepressants *don't* have to keep increasing the dose to ward off the symptoms.  Mine's been the same for years---it has to go down in Spring, and back up in Fall, because of the changes in sunlight.  In my case, I react seasonally.  It also has to go down if I start working out a lot, and back up if I don't have as much time.  Anyway, it stays in the same *range*, varying up *or down* based on the other things about my system that are known to affect serotonin levels.

I don't know where you're getting your information about people on antidepressants, but it's inaccurate as hell.

Now, I suspect (strongly, but haven't met you and I'm not a doctor, so take it with a grain of salt) that for you, psychoanalysis is like someone with OCD's checking and handwashing routines---it's a routine that you go through over and over again obsessively to relieve anxiety.

It's one of the reasons people with serotonin problems become "true believers" involved in all sorts of weird shit from fringe religious beliefs to psychotherapy cults to 12-step-programs.  The obsessive behaviors don't actually treat the anxiety, they just distract you from your life and give you an excuse to avoid doing things that upset you----so instead of taking night classes at college to get your degree, well, you *would* but you've got to get your head together first and your analyst says you're making *really good* progress.

It's like the program parents.  Exactly like them.  Any "treatment" that is so time-consuming it provides you an excuse for blowing off the parts of living that scare you is working on the exact same principle---it's not the "treatment" that's helping you---it's having an excuse you find acceptable to avoid doing stuff that scares you that is reducing your anxiety.  (In program parents' case, what scares them is their *kids* living a real life---and by locking them up away from all those imagined dangers, it shuts down the *parents* over-active anxiety.)

I mean, you can live with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and no drugs----if you're willing and able to live as an invalid.  As long as you take life real easy and avoid doing things that upset you, you can limp by.  

It's not that the things that upset you are that bad and have any real reason for upsetting you---they wouldn't and don't upset people with normal systems----it's just that if you have a messed up serotonin system, you get upset over stuff that's a lot...smaller...than what upsets normal people.

Cognitive behavioral therapy works because if the only reason you're anxious all the time is because of repeating thoughts or behaviors that you can *legitimately* avoid and live a normal life---then learning to avoid them lessens your anxiety enough to put you back on track.

And CBT will help a lot of people with genetic problems (like mine) because it legitimately helps to get rid of *unnecessary* stressors in your life no matter who you are.

The proper use of anti-anxiety (antidepressants) drugs, on a maintenance basis, is to take care of whatever hypersensitivity to life stressors is left over *after* you've learned the best coping strategies for dealing with life that you can learn.

The problem with psychoanalysis (and the reason it appears to work) is that it is so *time consuming* that it gives you an excuse to avoid things you really need to deal with to live a more or less normal life but that stress you out----while giving you the acceptable excuse, that you're not sloughing off your real life and dodging responsibility, you're just dealing with unfortunate early childhood traumas that aren't your fault.

It doesn't matter if your mythos says "the devil" is causing you your problems, or "childhood traumas", or "repressed memories", or "addictive personalities", or "engrams or thetans", or "the boogie man", or "The New World Order", or "the infidels", or "The right-wing extremists"---any bugaboo that convinces you your problems are not your fault (or even that they're all your fault--some systems, like Christian fundamentalism or Straight make wallowing in guilt a critical part of the game) while giving you a convenient excuse to spend all your time and energy on so that you don't have to deal with the ordinary stressors of having a real life will do.

The difference with the right drugs is that you actually go on living a normal, functional life.  The drugs don't provide an excuse for being fucked up and *not* living your life, they let you go out and live a real life the way everybody *without* fucked up brain chemistry lives.

And that's how to tell a treatment that works from snake oil.  Ask yourself---am I going out and living a normal life, or am I living with a time-consuming *excuse* for why I can't live a normal life *now* but will, SOMEDAY, when I've "completed" the indefinitely long time-consuming process that I'm "making great progress" at.

If a "treatment" can't give you a definite time of  three months or less at which point you will either be out living a normal life *or* will write the "treatment" off as not having worked for you and go try something completely different, not under the same provider(s), then it's SNAKE OIL.

My "treatment" takes me a couple of seconds each day, and an hour every three months---and otherwise I live a normal life.

Why the *hell* would I want to trade a normal life for the ERSATZ CRAP of spending hours and hours for years and years in some snake oil salesman's office on a couch?  Hours and hours for years and years when I can be *out living* instead of talking about why I can't be out living?  

Sorry, but I'm not *that* crazy! :wink:

[Deborah]

Back to the Utah issue- this may lends some answers:

Posted with permission from Bob Collier
http://ezezine.com/home/586/

To Vicki Cottrell, Executive Director, NAMI Utah
16 September 2003
cc:
James H. Scully Jr., M.D., Medical Director, American Psychiatric Association
Richard Shulman, Ph.D., Director, Volunteers in Psychotherapy, Inc.
Dr. Loren Mosher, Director, Soteria Associates

For the attention of Vicky Cottrell, Executive Director.

Dear Ms Cottrell,
I read today this quote attributed to you:
"There now is a scientific base which provides evidence that mental illnessess are biologically-based brain disorders and are similar to
any other physical illness."
If you did indeed make this statement, you are misleading the American public and you are a fool. There is no such scientific base
and no such evidence. There is no science at all in the diagnosis of 'mental illnesses'.
Best wishes,
Bob Collier
Publisher, Parental Intelligence
Canberra, Australia


>From :   "Vicki Cottrell"  
To :    
Subject :   believes  
Date :   Fri, 26 Sep 2003 16:31:46 -0700  
Dear Bob,
I have one perspective of mental health and you have another - who is the greater fool? Maybe the one who calls the other a fool for his/her beliefs.
Sincerely,
Vicki Cottrell

To Vicki Cottrell, Executive Director, NAMI Utah
29 September 2003
Copies to:
Rick C. Birkel, Ph.D., Executive Director, National Alliance for the
Mentally Ill
James H. Scully Jr., M.D., Medical Director, American Psychiatric Association
David Oaks, Director, MindFreedom Support Coalition International
Fred A. Baughman Jr., M.D., ADHD Fraud

Hi, Vicki
I was reading today at the NAMI Utah website about your "Family to Family Education Program".
I note that your program is "a 12 week course for families of individuals with brain disorders (mental illness)", also the comment of parents who had previously attended the course that it had taught them they were "dealing with a real physical illness like any other"; furthermore, according to another comment by a previous attendee, an illness that the affected person "has no control over".
I note also that 'topic number 4' of the course is "The biology of the brain/new research".
You may know that the Medical Director of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. James Scully, was recently asked by representatives
of the 'Fast for Freedom in Mental Health' in Pasedena to produce scientific evidence in support of the APA's contention that mental
illness is, as you say, "a real physical illness like any other" and he was unable to do so. In fact, the APA's inability to provide hard
evidence in support of what appears to me to be a worldwide promotion of 'mental illness' as "a real physical illness like any other" was
confirmed as recently as two days ago (26th September 2003), in a statement issued by the APA to MindFreedom, the organisers of the
Pasedena hunger strike.
http://www.mindfreedom.org/mindfreedom/ ... a2nd.shtml

I have, myself, been unable to find even the merest shred of evidence to support the idea that mental illness is "a real physical illness
like any other" in almost a year of looking, and that includes making a personal request for assistance in that matter to Professor Russell
Barkley, arguably the world's leading authority on 'ADD/ADHD', and to Tim McGeorge, Deputy Director of the organisation 'Children and
Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder' (CHADD).
Perhaps you are in a privileged position and have evidence not available to others which does indeed support the assertion that 'mental illness' is "a real physical illness like any other".
Since we share a common goal in our determination to discover and publicise the facts about 'mental illness', I wonder if you would mind sharing with me the "new research" into the biology of the brain that you have included in your course.
Best wishes,
Bob Collier
Publisher, Parental Intelligence


To Vicki Cottrell, Executive Director, NAMI Utah
8 October 2003  
Copies to:
Rick C. Birkel, Ph.D., Executive Director, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
James H. Scully Jr., M.D., Medical Director, American Psychiatric Association
David Oaks, Director, MindFreedom Support Coalition International
Fred A. Baughman Jr., M.D., ADHD Fraud

Hi, Vicki
I didn't hear from you, so I assume you didn't find any evidence supporting the idea that mental illness is "a physical illness like any other".
Don't worry - I didn't either. Tim MacGeorge of CHADD assured me there was a "mountain" of it, but, between you and me, I think he must have been pulling my leg!
I do have some evidence to the contrary, however (getting on for 200 items at the latest count), but I don't suppose that's what you're looking for, is it?
If anything turns up, I'll be sure to let you know.
Best wishes,
Bob Collier
Publisher, Parental Intelligence


From :   "vicki cottrell"  
To :    
CC :   "vicki cottrell"  
Subject :   an illness like any other  
Date :   Wed, 8 Oct 2003 15:22:58 -0600  
Bob,
The reason you didn't hear from me is that I chose not to debate this with you. You will find what you are looking for and so will I. If
you feel you need to prove that mental illness is not an illness like any other, go for it. I will not be wasting my time with those who want to prove it not so - I know my lived expericnce and you cannot prove that wrong no matter how you try.
Sincerely,
Vicki Cottrell

To Vicki Cottrell, Executive Director, NAMI Utah
9 October 2003
Copies to:
Rick C. Birkel, Ph.D., Executive Director, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
James H. Scully Jr., M.D., Medical Director, American Psychiatric Association
David Oaks, Director, MindFreedom Support Coalition International
Fred A. Baughman Jr., M.D., ADHD Fraud

Hi, Vicki
Great to hear from you!
Are we having a debate? I thought we were sharing a mutual interest in discovering the facts behind the American Psychiatric Association's manufactured 'disorders of childhood'.
Not to worry! I can't force you to be interested in the facts if you don't want to be. I'm sure the parents of this world whose critical
thinking skills are still functioning will be able to figure it all out for themselves anyway once the whole story has inevitably become
common knowledge.
Catch you later!
Bob

[Antigen]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. How in the world can anyone prove that a thing does not exist? If I insist that my dead realatives follow me around the house giving stock tips and helping me locate lost objects, then how in the world are you going to prove me wrong.

That's the argument they're making here. They claim proof of this biological disease, in fact they claim there are mountains of it. But where is it? Nobody's seen it. It's an article of faith.

And I can still almost see and hear my friend's 10yo son throwing a fit of anger, screaming through clenched teeth "I NEED MY ADDERAAAAAAAALLLL!!" When they tried to make him go cold turkey.

No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober
--Samuel Stiles

[Anonymous]

I've seen some of it.  One of the books I've read included plenty of study information on generational studies of manic-depressive families.

Also, in a science magazine subscription I took in high school, there was a review of a study that did spinal taps on patients diagnosed with depression, and on controls, and the depressives had significantly more incidences of low serotonin in their spinal fluids.  Also, the subgroup of depressives with low serotonin in their spinal fluids were more likely to complete suicide, and more likely to choose a violent (knife, gun)--and therefore highly likely to actually be fatal---method than normal serotonin depressive patients.  Normal serotonin depressive patients were just as likely to have attempted suicide, but they chose methods (like pills) that had low rates of suicide completion (actual death).

I've read the recaps of the studies that show a low maintenance dose of antidepressant, or CBT, are the only methods of treatment of depression that are more effective than a placebo.

I've only gone over the brain scan material on television, which is unreliable enough that I wouldn't be accepting it if it weren't that the other evidence is already compelling.

So you can't say *nobody* has seen it.

*I* have seen it.

And if you want to see it, go to your local *good* university library and do a literature search through their psychology and psychiatry journals.  You can find the study on serotonin I'm talking about, and any similar studies, by searching on serotonin, depression, and spinal taps.

Any university library will have reference librarians who will be happy to help you search out the relevant journal articles, and most university libraries have Kinko's or something similar inside the library so you can go pull the relevant journal volume, go xerox the study, and take your stack of studies home to read at your leisure.

That's how we did our literature searches in college for our research projects.  If you haven't had a course in psychological statistics, psychologial testing, and the college freshman introductory series of psychology courses, it's likely to be Greek to you, so expect it to be hard going wading through it.