Something to chew on....

I'm the first to admit that I'm on psychiatric drugs and have been for about, oh, ten years. There are times when I think they're working really well and that I can therefore put up with the side effects, and there are times when they suddenly seem to stop working, and my psychiatrist changes me to another medication. Occasionally she suggests that my diagnosis should change too. Something that annoys me as I'm not interested in labels (I have always seen them as a way to add a whole dimension of "lack-of-control" to the person being labelled).

I've always had nagging doubts about whether the cycle of depression that I suffer would be any better or worse without the medication. I've always had a fear about the long-term side-effects that these meds could cause, but I've balanced that out with the fear that without them, I could well commit suicide. The fact that I am a single mother and would so anything to give my children the best mother that they can possibly have has made me accept my own need to be on these meds.

It's an issue which came to a head when it was suggested that there is an anti-depressant that would help Toto stop his hair-pulling. My STRONG reaction of "There is no way that my child is taking a psychiatric medication" surprised even me.

Now, please understand that I am in no way condemning anyone for putting their child on psychiatric meds, or for taking or not-taking them themselves. This is purely about me and my feelings on the topic..... NOT about judging anyone else.

I was googling some contra-indications for "her" when I came across a website which led me to a website which led me to.... (you know the drill)... a website which contains a film exposing a whole other side to the pharmaceutical companies' relationships with psychiatrists and the FDA etc. There are 10 YouTube videos of 10 minutes each. I was transfixed.

When I was living in the UK, one of the contracts I had was within the new product development and marketing division of a multi-national pharmaceutical company. The corporate mentality and resulting decisions that I witnessed there shattered any belief I had in the "good intentions" of these companies. I was witness to a meeting in which it was decided to throw billions of dollars of research money at a new headache pill INSTEAD of at an AIDS drug because the profit margin to the company would be much larger (people with headaches are likely to live for a long time - and therefore will buy pills for a long time, whereas people with AIDS are likely to die and therefore stop buying the meds).

The thing that REALLY got me was that it was marketers who made the decisions, based upon public purchasing statistics, as to which area of disease the researches would focus on.

Please watch these videos if you or your family, or any of your friends are on psychiatric meds. Please DO NOT go off your meds because of watching the videos!!! I'm not sharing them (they're out there for you all to find on your own anyway) with the intention of turning anyone off the field of psychiatry or psychiatric meds, but with the intention of having a conversation with you about your thoughts on the subject.

I'm not suddenly going off my meds as a result of watching them. I'm just doing a lot of thinking which may change how I handle my medical treatment in the future. It also may not.

Click here to go to a blog which has all 10 videos posted.

And then PLEASE come back here and talk to me about it. (Obviously I still want you to talk to me even if you haven't watched the videos!)