7 Dec

Terence Young is a Canadian MP whose 15 year old daughter, Vanessa, died from a heart attack due to the heartburn medication Cisapride, marketed as Propulsid.

A month after Vanessa’s death the FDA released a statement stating that Propulsid was being pulled off the market due to the associated risk of serious cardiac arrhythmias and death; here. An Article by ‘Thomas L. Perry’ stated that Vanessa’s father was dumbfounded to read this Los Angeles Times exposé showing that the FDA and the manufacturer had known since 1993, 7 years before Vanessa’s death, that Prepulsid caused cardiac arrhythmias.

Yesterday (6th Dec 2013), the Canadian Minister for Health Rona Ambrose announced that the Canadian government is introducing new patient safety legislation, Vanessa’s Law, providing for the protection of its citizens from unsafe drugs. Minister Ambrose stated “Today, we have introduced Vanessa’s Law, a law that would protect Canadians and help ensure that no drug that is unsafe is left on store shelves.” The proposed new legislation, if enacted, will enable the Canadian Government to sanction the pharmaceutical industry for selling unsafe products, proposing fines of up to $5 million per day and even imprisonment. It further provides that the Government can compel drug companies to do further testing, to revise their labels and recall dangerous drugs.

Terence Young stated “It is difficult to overstate the impact this bill will have for Canadians who take prescription and over the counter drugs. It represents a quantum leap forward in protecting vulnerable patients and reducing serious adverse drug reactions. It is absolutely necessary to reduce deaths and injuries caused by adverse drug reactions, seventy percent of which are preventable, and will serve Canadians extremely well.”

It remains to be seen whether this bill will be enacted. If so, the Canadian Government will be the first to put their citizens before the very powerful multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry. Either way, I foresee strong resistance to this bill, but maybe, just maybe, this is the first major bruise on Pharma’s Achilles’ heel.

In contrast to the latter, the UK Government recently debated the suicide link associated with Roche’s ‘Roaccutane’. Again, two parents had waited 10 years to get this debate to Westminster, this time on the Roaccutane-induced ‘suicide’ of their son following a few short weeks on Roche’s notorious acne drug. Roche pulled this drug off the US market in 2009, but it’s still available in the UK and Ireland. It has been stated that Roaccutane may have caused up to 20,000 deaths. The Westminster talk can be viewed here: approx 16.27 Mins. Caroline Nokes MP looked, to all intents and purposes, like she was sucking a Roaccutane-soaked lemon. I can only hope that the promise to keep talking to these parents was well-intentioned and not just Minister’s puff.

So, the Canadian and UK Government are at least discussing prescription drug induced deaths. The Irish Government are not!

This needed to be re-posted.  Here you go.

By: Jesse McLean Investigative News reporter, David Bruser News Reporter

Brennan McCartney, 18, killed himself four days after starting Cipralex, an antidepressant. His mother, Nancy McCartney, filed a side-effect report to Health Canada and heard nothing. “There was absolutely no acknowledgement that anybody has read this, let alone investigated,” she said.

A Bolton teen hanged himself from a tree four days after he started taking Cipralex, an antidepressant. His mother went online and filed a side-effect report to Health Canada.

A pediatrician, troubled by the spate of side effects he was seeing in kids taking a generic version of an ADHD medication, faxed 25 reports to Health Canada over two months.

After a 49-year-old York Region man killed himself while taking smoking-cessation drug Champix, his sister called in a side-effect report to Health Canada.

All three say their reports were ignored.

The Star has found Health Canada is not investigating individual reports of serious side effects.

While the regulator periodically reviews the often-scant information in some reports, the Star’s research shows it is not digging deeper to learn about troubling cases. We found no evidence that Health Canada, after receiving these reports, is doing any formal case investigations that would help the regulator better monitor drug safety.

The mother’s report “went into cyberspace” without a response. The sister received an impersonal form-letter thanking her for making the report about her dead brother. The doctor, who expected his faxed reports to alarm Health Canada and send its investigators digging for more information, would be disappointed.

“I thought alarm bells would have been going off given that I said somebody died,” said Nancy McCartney, whose 18-year-old son Brennan killed himself while on Cipralex. “There was absolutely no acknowledgement that anybody has read this, let alone investigated.”

A serious report involves patients who either went to hospital, suffered a disability or life-threatening condition, or died.

McCartney wrote in her report to Health Canada: “(Brennan) was provided with a sample package (of) Cipralex … He did not have a diagnosis of depression. He took one tablet a day on Nov. 5, 6, 7 and 8. He completed suicide on November 8, 2010, and was found 24 hours later. He had no history of mental health issues … went to the doctor for a chest cold and came home with an SSRI (antidepressant).”

McCartney told the Star: “Why aren’t people alarmed by this? I haven’t heard from anyone at Health Canada.”

As part of the Star’s ongoing investigation  into drug side-effects, recent articles have also revealed:

• Nearly 600 cases of Canadian kids suffering serious, sometimes fatal side effects suspected to have been caused by ADHD medications since 2001.

The Star had found patients and health-care professionals were not told of this disturbing trend because Health Canada, which collects these adverse reaction reports, had not analyzed the data.

• 24 Canadians taking Champix  to quit smoking have killed themselves since it hit the market here in 2007, putting it among the leading suspected causes of reported suicides linked to prescription drugs.

Health Canada and the drug companies said the side-effect reports show only a suspected connection between a drug and side effect but no medical proof that one caused the other. (A report is the opinion of the doctor, pharmacist, patient or parent that a drug is suspected to have caused a side effect.)

Then, after the Star’s ADHD drug story was published Sept. 26, Health Canada posted a general statement on its website that said: “(Side effect) reports are analyzed to confirm or rule out a cause-and-effect relationship and to discover potential safety concerns.”

The side-effect database contains about 100,000 serious side-effect reports made since 2001. They have been pouring into the database from across the country, with nearly 20,000 last year, about double the amount filed in 2008.

The Star has repeatedly asked Health Canada if it has investigated individual reports of suspected side effects. Has Health Canada followed up with those who make the reports — whether a doctor, pharmacist or mother — to learn more about the case? Has the regulator tried to access medical records or conducted interviews with doctors and patients or their family members?

Health Canada will not answer.

The Star also asked about the specific cases detailed in this article. Again, Health Canada did not answer.

“We have reported adverse events and there hasn’t been feedback or anything,” said Dr. Sohail Khattak, a behavioural pediatrician and ADHD specialist. “No letters. No calls.”

Another ADHD doctor, Kenny Handelman of Oakville, said he has on occasion filed adverse reaction reports that were met with silence.

“I just want to know that if red flags are being raised that Health Canada is going to do something to protect us,” Handelman said.

In a Sept. 26 letter to the Star, Health Canada’s Dr. Chris Turner, director of the regulator’s marketed health products directorate said:

“Health Canada has highly trained specialists who use Canadian adverse reaction data as well as other sources of information to systematically monitor, analyze and act on safety issues. Sources of data include post-market studies, company data, published data, international safety data and collaboration with international counterparts.”

Doctors Khattak, Handelman and other ADHD specialists are concerned that a generic version of ADHD drug Concerta is not releasing the medication into a patient’s bloodstream at the same rate as the brand-name version. They believe this difference in the pill’s time-release mechanism is leading to side effects.

The drug, Teva-Methylphenidate ER-C, came on the market in early 2010. Almost immediately, side-effect reports started piling up in Health Canada’s database.

The Star found 229 Teva-Methylphenidate ER-C reports — 32 of them serious — were made by the end of that summer.

Dr. Khattak filed five reports on Aug. 6, 2010.

He did the paperwork because he thought Health Canada would pay attention and the reports would make a difference. One of the reports said a 7-year-old boy on Teva-Methylphenidate ER-C thought about killing himself.

“If there is a cluster of symptoms that are being reported, some action should have been taken, right?” Dr. Khattak said. “At least someone should do a follow-up . . . assign a couple of investigators who can go to get more information. We have not heard anything.”

Since the spring of 2010, there have been 318 Teva-Methylphenidate ER-C side-effect reports, 66 of them serious.

A Teva spokesperson said that when patients or doctors report first to the company instead of Health Canada, and the information is incomplete, “we contact the original filer of the report to obtain as much information as possible. Once sufficient information is in hand to allow for a proper medical assessment, one of Teva’s medically qualified reviewers performs a full medical assessment.”

Reports first made to a drug company must be forwarded to Health Canada.

Asked if Health Canada has investigated side-effect reports relating to its generic drug, Teva said it is “not aware of specific investigations Health Canada may conduct — nor are we aware of such investigations conducted by other regulators in the world such as the U.S. FDA (Food and Drug Administration) or the EMA (European Medicines Agency).”

The response Lynn O’Neil received from Health Canada after she reported her brother’s suicide made her angry.

O’Neil’s brother, Bob Toderian, who lived near Keswick and worked in Oakville, committed suicide on Dec. 29, 2010. He had been taking Champix to quit smoking for about three weeks. She called Health Canada to report his death after she learned the coroner didn’t bother to.

The drug regulator responded with a boilerplate letter thanking O’Neil for submitting a report and informed her of the nine-digit number assigned to her brother’s case.

Health Canada’s letter misspelled O’Neil’s name and her brother’s initials. The drug regulator also enclosed a blank adverse-reaction reporting form for her “future use.”

“I was pretty disgusted. They’re not even enough on the ball to have the correct initials for my brother?” said O’Neil.

She wrote the drug regulator a five-page letter. She wanted Health Canada to know what kind of person her brother was, and how he had changed in the week leading up to his suicide.

“Bob was not someone that was depressed prior to taking Champix,” she wrote. “I would think that a suicide while on such a controversial drug would be considered very serious and I am amazed that no one from the Canada Vigilance Department would contact me.”

Pfizer Canada would not comment on Toderian’s death, but a spokeswoman said the company “believes that any death is a tragic situation for families and loved ones who are personally impacted.”

“Pfizer believes that there is no reliable scientific evidence to demonstrate that Champix causes serious neuropsychiatric events. The health and safety of Canadians is a priority for Pfizer, and we work closely with Health Canada to disseminate information about our products to patients and the medical community,” Pfizer spokeswoman Christina Antoniou said.

In Health Canada’s response to O’Neil, it apologized for the typos and assured her that the regulator “does recognize the severity of your case report and that it was handled as such internally.”

“The fact that you have not been contacted does not testify of the priority assigned to your report,” a Health Canada representative wrote.

No one from Health Canada has contacted O’Neil since.

“They didn’t investigate his case. They assigned a number to it, and that was it. Nobody ever phoned me back, nobody ever phoned his doctor,” O’Neil said.

“They just made a note of it and put it in a file somewhere. That was the end of it.”

Investigating side-effect reports would at least help ensure the information in the Health Canada database is accurate, said Nancy McCartney.

After her son Brennan’s death, his doctor filed an adverse reaction report to Lundbeck Canada, the maker of Cipralex, who then forwarded it to Health Canada. This report and the one Brennan’s mother made are in the Health Canada database. There is one key difference between the two.

The report filed by the doctor via the drug company says Brennan was also on Biaxin, prescribed for a chest cold.

“The coroner came to the house and sat us down at the kitchen table and one of the things he pulled out was the prescription for Biaxin. He had taken it from Brennan’s wallet to ask us about it. (Brennan) hadn’t filled the prescription.”

Had Health Canada investigated and followed up with the McCartney family, this “inaccurate” detail would have been taken out of the database, she said.

“It shouldn’t have been listed on the report. What the drug company is saying is Cipralex is suspected but Biaxin may have contributed (to the death). That is inaccurate information. Just by putting that in there, they’re taking the focus away from Cipralex and muddying the water.

“I don’t get a sense that anybody looks at this data. I don’t get a sense that anybody cares.”

The Star made two attempts to reach Lundbeck, maker of Cipralex, and got no response.

This young lady’s story/journey is so inspiring. I recall a few years ago, waiting for her to write another chapter about her life so I could see how she was doing. She communicates extremely well with no holds barred.

I am so happy for her that she made it, some people don’t. That she has devoted a large part of her life to helping others is a testament to not only her understanding of life, but her fearless and indomitable spirit.

She gives hope.

You can read her entire journey here.

Finding the Meaning in Suffering: My Experience with Coming off Psychiatric Drugs (in a Nutshell)

Laura Delano

April 23, 2013

For the last month or so, Mad in America has been hard at work building a directory of “mental health” providers across North America (and eventually, we hope, the world) who will work with people wanting to come off psychotropic drugs.  So far, we’ve connected with traditional doctors, osteopaths, naturopaths, psychologists, social workers, counselors, and alternative/holistic practitioners and healers who do this work in varying ways — some have prescribing capacities and some don’t; some do the actual tapering, while others provide psychotherapy; some offer nutritional or supplemental support; others, Reiki and acupuncture.

I’ve been honored to have been tasked with the responsibility of building this directory, and I have to say, it’s been inspiring to talk to people all over the country who do this work, and who “get it”.  Closer to the launch date, which we anticipate will be in the next few weeks, I’ll write up more about this project, and thank those who’ve played such a significant part in making it happen.  In the meantime, I’ve been itching to write a bit about my own “coming off” journey.  While it’s on my mind every day, I’ve been thinking more about it recently, given my work on the directory and the recent release of Daniel Mackler’s new film, “Coming off Psych Drugs: A Meeting of the Minds”.  I woke up this morning and my fingers were itching.  I knew it was time to write.

In September 2010, I came off the last of my “med regimen”— lithium, Lamictal, Abilify, Effexor, Ativan, and a PRN of Seroquel— and I said goodbye to a life of orange pill bottles and phone calls to CVS pharmacy, of dosage increases and new scripts to be filled, of the floral pill bag that shook like a maraca, and of the complete and total dependency on inanimate chemical capsules to define what I felt, how I thought, and who I was.  After over ten years on psychotropic drugs, it had been an agonizing five months of tapering— I realize today that my psychopharmacologist likely had no idea what he was doing— and I would continue on for the next year and a half in the midst of daily physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual pain [for more on this, see my Madness Radio interview].  In the midst of this suffering, however, I was able to put my head on the pillow at night knowing that these pills were out of me.  Gone, never to enter my bloodstream again.  A decade of daily psychotropic drugs had circulated through my veins, seeping into my organs, my brain, my hair, my skin, my nails.  A decade of daily psychotropic drugs had successfully disconnected me from a sense of self, physical health, emotional balance, and social connectedness.  A decade of daily psychotropic drugs had nearly succeeded in killing the last scraps of my human spirit, and me, along with it.

On that brisk fall day over two and a half years ago, against the wishes of my “treaters”, and in the midst of hell on earth, I reclaimed myself.  My Self.  By no means has a second of it been easy, but it’s certainly been the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.

As time’s gone on, particularly in the second and third years of my post-psychiatry life, I have slowly but surely healed from the trauma of my psychiatric “treatment”.  It’s been a long road, fraught with physical pain, unparalleled emotional upheaval, gut-wrenching anxiety, and paralyzing fear.  In the midst of my worst moments— whether it was the hours upon hours spent lying frozen in fetal position on the sofa, staring blankly at the wall, disconnected from the world; or wondering if I’d ever be able to hold down a job, a relationship, or even the daily task of showering and changing out of sweats; or looking at healthy people functioning in the world around me and feeling baffled by how the hell they could possibly be doing it; or wanting to rip my skin off from the debilitating anxiety, and shut my head down to silence the endless chatter; or crying when I didn’t want to cry, and laughing when I didn’t want to laugh; or feeling like the only alien on planet Earth— I clung on to the one and only reason why I’d started my journey off of psychiatric drugs in the first place, my life preserver, keeping me afloat: I was determined to find myself, the Self I’d lost as a fourteen-year old to a “Bipolar” label, and a life sentence of polypharmacy.  This spark of fire, however small it might have been in the beginning, outweighed all the pain, and allowed me to keep trudging forward.  I was absolutely, 100% determined to find myself, no matter what the cost.

As a person who’s found liberation from psychiatry, I have learned that the least fruitful path to follow— for me, at least— is one of self-victimization.  I served a long sentence that began early in my life and came with the shackles of numerous psychiatric labels and at least nineteen psychotropic drugs.  I could say that I had my life taken away from me by Psychiatry, but I simply don’t believe that anymore, for only in finding peace with that chapter of my life’s story, and acceptance of all the suffering, the isolation, the hopelessness, the desperation, the self-sabotage, the self-destruction and the nine years of daily thoughts of suicide, can I say that I’m truly free.   I decided about a year into my post-psychiatry life that continuing to think of myself as a victim would mean keeping myself dependent on Psychiatry, locking myself up behind its bars as an emotional slave.  I turned my deep-seated resentment and rage at Psychiatry into passionate and productively channeled anger, and suddenly, I took off, shooting forward into a new life that continues to unfold in truly amazing ways now that I’m no longer held back by those toxic emotions, and, of course, the toxic psychotropic drugs.

As I’ve written before, and however backwards it might sound, today, I am grateful to those doctors, even to the first psychiatrist who threw me on Depakote and Prozac as a young teenager.  I’m grateful to the locked wards and the internalized oppression and the security-blanket dependency on my “meds” and their numbing and disconnecting effects, because all of it has allowed me to become who I am today: a thirty-year old woman with a life ahead of her, who feels the full spectrum of human feelings and an authentic sense of self and purpose.  Had I never found Anatomy of an Epidemic, had I never felt that tiny spark of fire in my belly that told me to take my life back and stand up against my seven-person “treatment team” when they disagreed with my desire to come off psych drugs, and had I never been determined with every ounce of my being to move through all the pain that came along with it, not only would I not have this exciting life ahead of me, but I wouldn’t be alive at all.  I know this to be true.

I do not pretend to have expertise on the topic of coming off psychiatric drugs.  Nor do I believe there is one right way to successfully do it.  What I lay claim to is my own experience, my own lessons learned from constructive choices and destructive ones, and from the intuition I’ve only recently begun to tap into since healing from the trauma of “treatment”.  What never ceases to amaze me is how vast the experiences are when it comes to coming off psych drugs— I’ve heard stories about successful cold turkey withdrawal with no symptoms, and ones about unsuccessful slow tapers.  I’ve heard stories of those who’ve successfully come off in months, and others who did it in years.  I’ve heard of people who found tremendous benefit from supplements, and others who never took a single dose of one and succeeded anyways.  I know some people who’ve thrived from strict nutritional protocols, and others who couldn’t care less about cutting out certain foods.  Exercise, no exercise.  Yoga, no yoga.  Meditation, no meditation.  I know people who were on psych drugs for many, many years, and have successfully come off, and others who went on for a year or less, and struggle tremendously with the withdrawal.  There is simply no one way to come off psychiatric drugs, and no one withdrawal trajectory.

While I certainly agree that the thousands of anecdotal stories out there suggest that a person’s odds of success are increased greatly by slowly tapering off, that doesn’t mean it’s the only way.  It wasn’t, for me.  I came off of five psychotropic drugs in five months; many would say that this is much too fast of a taper, or even not a taper at all.  A wise woman, active in the Psychiatric Survivor movement, once shared with me that tapering off psych drugs very quickly, or stopping them cold turkey, is like Russian roulette— you just don’t know what’s next in the chamber.  Maybe I would have experienced withdrawal for a shorter amount of time, or with lesser intensity, had my doctor brought me off in a year instead of five months.  Maybe had I been ten years older, I would have struggled more.  All I can say is that my journey went the way it did, and here I am today.  I know what’s worked for me, but what’s worked for me might not work for someone else.  No one told me to do all these things; I simply tested it all out, often times accidentally, and bumbled around until I found my path.  I established my own threshold for pain; what I can bear, someone else can’t, and vice versa.  I’ve heard many say that when it comes to the world of self-help, it’s important to “take what you want, and leave the rest.”  That’s been a helpful motto for me to live by, especially as it relates to the topic of coming off psych drugs.

There are many of us out there who work incredibly hard to support people who are coming off of psychotropic drugs.  Among us are psychiatric survivors, medical doctors, psychologists, social workers, counselors, holistic/alternative practitioners, and family members.  You can find us in coffee shops, online forums, facilities, clinics, private offices, via Skype, on the phone, or holding banners at protests and yelling in the megaphone.  Each of us brings a particular nugget of wisdom, inherently subjective, and not for everyone.  There are books, articles, forums, chat rooms, websites, and presentations devoted to the topic of psychiatric drugs and how to come off of them.  Each is simply one way to do it.

When I began the process of tapering off of psychotropic drugs, I had none of these resources.  Sure, I had that huge “treatment team” who met about me on a regular basis and worked hard to ensure I relied on them to “manage” my life, but other than one social worker, a wonderful man whom I’ll never forget and always be grateful to, I felt zero emotional support from the “mental health” system as I came off.  In fact, from looking at my medical records at that time, it appears that my psychotherapist didn’t even realize that my psychopharmacologist was managing my taper, because she reported that I was “non-compliant” and came off my “meds” against medical advice.  But I digress…  My psychopharmacologist had agreed to bring me off four of the five psychiatric drugs (not Lamictal, which he claimed had been proven effective for “Borderline personality disorder” and thus I needed to stay on it), and this was only because the “team” had decided I’d been “misdiagnosed” Bipolar and really, was just an alcoholic and a Borderline!  How interesting!  I met with that doctor once a month as he decreased the four drugs, and I came off the fifth on my own, without having read a single paragraph on how to taper off.  Never once did I connect with a provider about the pain I was going through; I used my psychopharmacologist to taper me off, and nothing more.  This was my experience: not right, not wrong, just mine.  There are certainly providers out there— many of whom will be in our directory— who practice in entirely different, humanistic ways, and who are true supports for people coming off.  I just simply never crossed paths with one during my time in the “mental health” system.

The bulk of my support came from family, and from the sober community I was very active in at the time.  Having a space in which I could express my pain every day, and listen to others do the same, even if their pain wasn’t necessarily connected to psychiatric drug withdrawal, was incredibly beneficial to me, and I believe I wouldn’t have made it through without that support.  In part, I bumbled through the first six months or so believing that the excruciating pain I felt was “early sobriety” from alcohol; I had no idea until many months in that it was less my body healing from alcohol and more my body’s desperate attempt to heal itself from all those years of damaging psychotropic drugs.  At the end of the day, though, that community worked for me because while the drug was different, the emotional pain was the same.  I was also lucky enough to be living with extended family, to have no job (other than being a professional patient, a career I became quite good at!), and to not have the worries of rent, children, or paying the bills.  In short, I was incredibly lucky, and incredibly privileged, to be so taken care of.  I look back on this today and feel gratitude from the bottom of my heart.

While I was able to withdraw in large part because of the reasons mentioned above— unconditional love, a de-stressed environment, and a space of mutual support, among many things— in truth, my success was not because of how quickly or slowly I tapered, the order in which I came off the drugs, my nutrition (or lack thereof), my exercise (or lack thereof), my sleep (or lack thereof), or the people from whom I sought support.  There was something much deeper I had to search for first, something I couldn’t find in an office or on the internet or in a textbook or in a church basement or in the words or wisdom of another person.  For me, what helped me successfully come off of over a decade of polypharmacy was the Why.  Why do I want to come off psychiatric drugs?  What did it mean to me?  What was it that I was searching for?  After I connected to this deep sense of meaning in the “coming off” process, those factors mentioned above— in other words, the How of the withdrawal—carried me through, and brought me slowly back to health.  Discovering why I wanted to come off psych drugs was like putting the key in my ignition and turning it on; the method and the means by which I did it the steering wheel, accelerator, and brake.  Had I not found that key, the process would have been mindless and empty, only about tapering, measuring, calculating, adjusting, so on and so forth.  Likely, I wouldn’t have been able to continue, had that been the case.  When I really connected to the Why of it, I could face the suffering that followed.  As I say often to others, in my experience of coming off psychotropic drugs, the only way out was through.

While I’m really just scratching the surface here with all I could say about my experience of coming off psychiatric drugs, I’ll leave you with what I believe, in my experience, are the key components to a successful withdrawal.  You can take what you want, and leave the rest:

1. While it’s important to be well-informed about psychiatric drug withdrawal, too much knowledge— and too much fear— can create a self-fulfilling prophecy.  I bumbled through my withdrawal with little to no knowledge of what was ahead, and I actually believe that this helped me tremendously.  I didn’t obsessively read up on withdrawal and fill myself with fear about all the horrible things that could happen to me, and thus, I didn’t set myself up for defeat.  I think there’s a fine balance here between knowing too little, and too much, and it’s a line that each person has to decide for him/herself.
2. There are no universal experts on psychiatric drug withdrawal, because each person’s journey is so different.  While it can be really informative and helpful to learn from others who’ve been through this process before you, and there are people out there doing very good and determined work to bring people off psych drugs, you are the only expert on yourself and your experience of the world.
3. The mind plays tricks on you.  On a regular basis, my mind wanted me to give up, to wave the white flag of surrender.  In those moments, I reconnected myself to my sense of purpose— to that determination to find out who I was off of psych drugs— and I did my best to coexist with my thoughts, anxiety, and fear without letting them take me over.  It was in times like these that I did my best to reach out to a friend or family member for support.
4. Take the time to understand how your body is impacted by nutrition.  I was never a believer in the power of nutrition, and this has been a profoundly beneficial discovery for me.  Cutting gluten out of my diet, however hard it initially was, has done wonders for my mind and body; cutting out processed sugars and processed foods in general, except for the occasional splurge of course, has proven just as helpful.
5. Remove whatever stressors you have control over, to create as de-stressed an environment as possible.  For me, this meant staying free from “illicit” drugs and alcohol, from unhealthy or traumatizing relationships, and from responsibilities that I wasn’t required to take on.  My body was (and often times still is) incredibly sensitive to the environment I’m in, and thus, managing whatever I did have control over was important for me.
6. Listen to your body, however hard that may be.   Psych drugs disconnected me from my body and desensitized me in so many ways, so this was certainly a difficult process for me.  I know today that my body is always communicating with me, if I just take the time to feel what it’s saying.
7. Surround yourself with unconditional support, whether that means family, friends, providers, healers, or some other type of supportive community.  I’ve learned that no matter how isolating or painful the journey may be, you never have to be alone.
8. When you’re losing hope in yourself, and feeling yourself sinking in the quicksand of withdrawal, place your faith for the time being in those who’ve walked the path before you.  There were so many times when I wondered if I could keep going, when any faith left in myself was so pushed down that I could no longer feel it.  On those days, I thought about others who’d walked the same path before me, feeling the same pain and the same fear, and who were no longer mired in the suffering anymore.  Faith in them was my way of having faith in myself.
9. More than anything, connect to the meaning behind why you are coming off psychiatric drugs.  This is the seed from which everything grew for me— both the thorns and the blossoming buds.

I could keep going, and going, and going.  For your sake, I’ll stop here, and leave you with a quote from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, a book that was instrumental to me as I came off of psychotropic drugs.  It sums up everything I’ve said here, in one beautiful sentence.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Indeed, we’re all in this together, and in the midst of the often tremendous suffering lies freedom.

Reposted from Rx Blog.

Mom I Didn’t Mean To Do It

Note from Le Clown: This blog post is written by a friend of mine, Elaine Billings. Elaine is not a blogger, but a mother who lost her son through a tragic death. Her son’s story is an important one, and I am honoured to give her family a place to share this unfortunate story. Elaine will answer your comments herself. Much love, Elaine. 

SSRI Drugs; Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor.
Names for some of these drugs are; Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Lexapor, Paxil and Prozac.

Tommy’s Story:
My son, Tommy didn’t just pass away ( that sounds so peaceful) it was anything but peaceful. My son committed SUICIDE that day! Why? Because he was given an antidepressant by the name of ZOLOFT! His mental disorder proclaimed by this doctor was, “ANXIETY”! I would certainly like to know, when did ANXIETY become a death sentence????

September 8, 2011 Thursday morning, I looked out my dinning room window, and watched my son mowing his lawn. I was smiling and thinking how lucky I was. Tommy and his family had moved back to our home town and as luck would have it, a house across the street went on the market and he bought it. I was just smiling away, and I said to myself, call Tommy up later and see if they want to come over for dinner tomorrow night. By now, you realize I didn’t get a chance to make that phone call!

As told to me by his wife Tina, Tommy woke up that morning rested, and in a happy frame of mind. He made a couple of phone calls to friends. One to meet the next day for lunch, and the other for lunch the following Monday. These conversations show intent to being alive and well. That morning Tina left, to go out with her mother, and Tommy stayed home with his 11 year old daughter and his 9 year old son. At some point that morning, Brett asked his dad if he would go pick up a friend for him to play with Tommy said yes, and went and got him. Later that day, Morgan asked the same, would he go pick up her friend and Tommy said yes. I also, learned on his way down the road, one of Tommy’s friends was driving up the road, and he told Tina, that Tommy did what he always did when passing a friend in their cars. He blinked his car’s head lights and gave a wave and smile.

After that point something sudden, and terrible happened to Tommy’s mind. Instead of getting his daughter’s friend, he drove his car to a downtown parking lot. He parked his car, retrieved his gun from his car’s trunk. He got back into the driver’s seat and putting the gun to his head, he pulled the trigger!! My first born child, my only son, was DEAD! For the life of me, I couldn’t understand how such a happy man who LOVED life, his family, job and friends could do something like this to himself.

A few nights after his death, I was sitting in my bedroom, and he came to me he said, “Mom help me!” “I didn’t mean to do this!” I called my daughter in-law the next day and asked her if Tommy was taking any medications? She said, yes, Zoloft and Wellbutrin. That is when, I started to investigate to see if these antidepressant drugs, could have been the cause of my son’s death. What I learned was staggering and frightening.

The Black Box Warnings

In Zoloft the following symptoms have been reported. 1. Anxiety 2.Agitation 3. Panic Attacks 4. Insomnia 5. Irritability 6. Hostility 7. Aggressiveness 8. Impulsivity 9. Akathisia 10. Hypomania and 11. Mania, in adults and pediatric patients. Although a casual link between the emergence of such symptoms has not been established there is concern that such symptoms maybe precursors to emerging of “SUICIDALITY” The Black Box Warning goes on to say, short-term placebo-controlled trials of antidepressant drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents, and young adults, 24/25 years old and younger. My son, was 42 years old.

When he restarted these drugs, in less than two weeks, he was DEAD. He is not the only adult who had died by SUICIDE on these and all Psychotropic drugs. The Pharmaceutical Companies and Scientific evidence suggests that depression and certain anxiety disorders may be caused by a “Chemical Imbalance” in the brain. Yet, there is no blood test, x-ray, MRI that can show this to be true. Psychiatrist can’t predict what adverse side effects you might experience because not one of them knows how their drugs work.

Another paper I have read said, Common and well-documented side effects of psychiatric drugs include; 1. Psychosis 2. Hallucinations 3. Depersonalization 4. Suicidal Ideation 5. Heart Attacks 6. Stroke and sudden death. There are many damaging effects on humans, besides what I have listed here. A very serious problem is withdrawal symptoms, this needs to be done with a doctor who is very familiar with the debilitating side effects of withdrawal. Many people are physically damaged, and will have a lifetime of pain.

If you are asking yourself, why isn’t this information getting out to the general population? May I suggest that the Pharmaceutical Company’s have deep pockets. They advertise their drugs on the major TV networks, also in magazines, newspapers and other print forms. If they get sued, they more than likely settle out of court with some sort of gag order’s in place. GP’s are writing the prescriptions, and many rely, on what the drug reps. are telling them about the SSRI Drugs and all the other Psychotropic Drugs on the market. Drug reps. get paid and bonus’s made by, the amounts of their particular Psych Drugs that are getting filled for the paying customer, us!

My advice is heed; “THE BLACK BOX WARNINGS!” Ask for full disclosure, go home and research the drug before you take it. There are plenty of Professional people out here, who absolutely know the dangers of Psych Drugs and you can friend them on the Internet. Please do, because I know what the SSRI Drugs did to my son first and foremost, and also to our entire family. And me Tommy’s mom, I am never going to be the woman I was before my son’s SUICIDE! I will have a lifetime of grief, because he shouldn’t have died, but because of Big Pharma’s greed! One more warning from me, Stop Drugging Our Children! Putting them into a system, that will do nothing but harm them in the long run!!

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Elaine Billings
Tommy’s mom….. RIP until I see you again my son