THE COLLEGE SAYS “NO HARM” - THE PUBLIC PROVIDES THE OUTRAGE
Reader responses to “An Open letter to Doctors” Vitality
Magazine April 2012
Julia Woodford, Editor:
We
also carry a horror story this month, submitted by a woman whose insomnia
diagnosis led her in to the dark world of prescription drug addiction. Seeking
help from her psychiatrist, the woman ended up on a mixture of benzodiazepines,
antidepressants, and Oxycontin, which ultimately left her a blithering idiot in
a psychiatric ward. The
moral of the story – prescription drugs can be dangerous enough to ruin your
health, your mind and your life. Don’t
read the story unless you have a strong stomach.
John M Grima,
I
had some trouble believing this woman could be so ignorant of one’s health. I
can understand that when we go to a doctor, we can expect a prescription. But
I cannot understand how this woman kept trusting and receiving ALL those
prescriptions from her ignorant Doctor ... Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lori Farquhar-Bryenton,
I
was saddened by this letter but it’s all too prevalent these days. People
get caught up in this and they don’t realize the harm being done to them until
it’s too late.
Crystal Hawk,
I’m
so glad this is finally seeing the light of day so others can read it and learn
hopefully not to let this happen to themselves. Thanks
for sharing this very difficult story. Hopefully
it will make a difference for many others.
Toni B. Rhodes,
I
went through something similar to your experience, with doctors piling up
psychotrophic drugs to find the ‘right med’ for me. Now,
5-1/2 years benzo free, I’m starting to feel better but still have protracted
benzo w/d syndrome. I
pray both of us will eventually heal.
Elizabeth K. Ellis Moorhead, MN:
Excellent, excellent article. So
full of reality.
Patrice Campion,
Thank you for sharing your personal story. We
are grateful for courageous people like you who step out from behind the shadow
of shame, and tell the world about your experiences, so others may avoid this
same life experience. May
you continue to remember, even if it is better to forget. God
Speed. x
Mary Maddock,
An
excellent article! It
is so heartfelt and so honest. Yes doctors can do outrageous harm. Many
people have been crucified by psychotrophic drugs in the name of ‘help.’ People
live in fear of receiving them against their will when they know they have
caused them serious harm. THANKS for writing this article!
I
Living by the Laws of Life and the Laws of Nature, historically, from ancient
times forward, have restored many to vibrant wellness without any drugs. Surgery
or radiation. I hope
that you will be able to rise to this personal challenge that you have received
to study the masters and become one of our finest teachers.
Pamela St. John,
What an amazing, well written and powerful article you have given the world….I
am so glad you are writing a book!! I
keep your story as inspiration for the work that must continue for changing
these horrendous conditions, pray for your continuing return to full health, and
give thanks for your passion to help others along the way. I
read Peter Breggin’s book, Toxic Psychiatry, when it came out and felt very
supported by that in my own growing beliefs around ‘mental health.’ Your
evidential experiences will be tremendous back up for those in the field who
have tried to speak out.
Heartbreaking, but all too common. There
are posts by patients all over the Web with similar stories. To
the enduring shame of medicine, few doctors recognized adverse effects of the
drugs they throw out like candy. Even
fewer know anything about gradual, individualized tapering off these medications
to minimize withdrawal damage. There
are maybe a dozen Web sites run by patients – NOT doctors – offering support. I
run one of them, SurvivingAntidepressants.org, but I would gladly shut it down
if medicine stepped up to its responsibility to patients to get them safely off
these drugs.
Anonymous,
I
was started on Prozac in 1992 for PTSD after an assault. I
lost the 20 years of my life that followed, to a parade of psychiatric drugs,
all prescribed for the effects of the drugs before. Now
it’s taking me another five or six years to safely get off them. I’ve
lost the best years of my life – not only lost, but I can’t describe the
suffering I experienced during those years. I
wanted to die most of the time. My
children lost their mother. I
have no savings to retire on. I
have no partner and at this point it looks like I’ll spend the rest of my life
alone. Thank you modern
medicine. I no longer
see doctors. I don’t
believe in any of your ‘interventions.’ You
have no idea how much damage you are doing, and you don’t want to listen when we
try to tell you.
Toni Rhodes,
This story is heartbreaking. I
went through a similar experience – getting hooked on a benzo that a doctor
prescribed. Fortunately,
my husband intervened; otherwise, my doctor would have given me ECT. I
went through a horrific withdrawal process and now have protracted benzo
withdrawal syndrome, which is awful but not as bad as being on the drugs. I
wrote a letter to my HMO describing all the ways I was mistreated by doctors in
the system, and I actually got a call from one of the doctors, who said he would
take my case before a board to see if changes could be made in procedures. Maybe
doctors in this country are beginning to see how wrong they have been. Too
many of us have had to suffer!
Wellness,
Add
me to the list of victims. Addicted
to sleeping pills in 3 weeks. I
was getting panic and anxiety attacks from the interdose w/d. They
threw the whole drug catalog at me and diagnosed me with so much stuff. I’m
16 months off my last dose of benzodiazepine and still very ill. Psychiatry
is a profession gone bad. If
I had my way they would be lining up for the unemployment line.
Harmedbydoctors,
I
have a similar story. I
am called a Psychiatric Survivor. I
have refused to ever use those drugs again (now they say SSRI’s don’t work) I
know they don’t work … 20 years ago. I
went through 6 years of nothing but drugs and baloney, no help, nothing. After
many hospital stays and crap, one day the “dr” threw me away and said I could
not be helped and would end up killing myself. This
“person” still practices but I plan on writing and posting my experiences
online. Somewhere,
someday, naming names. I
have struggled but found success in alternative therapies. I
now fully confront any “dr” who needs confronting and I don’t care what is about
or what is written down in my ‘file”. I
have a file now on doctors. Do
no harm? Everyone of us
should be able to sue for damages. I
agree, psychiatrists et al should be sent to Mars or if there is a hell,
hopefully there is a special place for doctors who harm, injure, destroy and yet
make quite a good living at our suffering.
Another victim here. I
am so sorry for this lady. I
went from relatively mild situational anxiety to psychosis on drugs. I
was polydrugged (14 drugs over a 4-month period) since doctors used drugs to
treat adverse effects from other drugs. I
am now 7 months free of all drugs and my body and brain still feel like when I
was on the rugs, meaning that the (hopefully temporary) chemical brain damage
that was caused by the drugs remains. I
have no idea when I’ll be healed and able to restore my normal life. I
was an amazing sweet mom and wife and an MIT graduate with a perfect GPA and on
the worst of my withdrawal I had slurred speech and could not even recognize a
tube of toothpaste …
Cannot feel love for my family either. This
is what these drugs do, a chemical lobotomy. That
feeling of agitation is called akathisia or “Hell on Earth”, psychiatrists dirty
little secret … and 7 months later I still have it. For
those who feel good on the drugs and are able to get on and off of them without
issue, beware, your brain will not stand the beating forever and sooner or later
will rebel. So if
you’re one of the lucky ones that has a ‘sturdy’ brain be thankful. IMHO,
these drugs should only be used in extreme cases where the risk significantly
outweighs the benefit, not because you’re depressed that your dog ate your
I
too am a victim/psychiatric survivor. I
was a teacher who became a jailbird after I was given Risperidol, Haldol, and
Seroquel. I had no
family near. There was
no empathy for me after I lost my baby, you see. I
got pills instead of empathy. All
I needed was some empathy. I
was strong. I could
have made it. Instead
of comfort, the medications and actions it caused me to lose roughly 10 years
rebuilding my life and establishing a new career. They
almost killed me. After
starting the medications – I lost my life. Now
all I have is the new one I’m building. My
integrity as a person was shattered. I
explain things one way to myself – but in another way to others. What a shadow
the ordeal cast on what was once a clean slate that was called my life.
This is just an amazing story and hard to believe, but never the less it is
TRUE. Millions of
people TRUST their doctors blindly because this is all they know to do. Some
doctors have a way to win your TRUST to the point that NO matter how your health
keeps on declining you will still TRUST their judgment like this lady did for
the many years until it is too late. Some
people really believe that thee DRUGS are a godsend, but in reality they may
help for a while until something else goes wrong and you begin to experience
hell on earth ...
Medical Journalist:
The
article is hair-raising. I’d
like her permission to use her story in my book. My
husband cried when he read her story. My
husband is a physician.
Young Intern:
This story should be required reading for all medical students. It’s
sobering.
‘Open Letter to Doctors’ posted in Dead
Man’s Vitamin
Lori Farquhar-Bryenton, Editor:
I
came across this story today and felt I had to share it with others. Although
I have spoken with many people with similar stories, I have never come across
such gross negligence.
Gross negligence: n. carelessness in reckless disregard for the safety or lives
of others, which is so great it appears to be a conscious violation of other
people’s rights to safety. It is more than simple inadvertence, but it is just
shy of being intentionally evil. If
one has borrowed or contracted to take care of another’s property, then gross
negligence is the failure to actively take the care one would of his/her own
property. If gross
negligence is found by the trier of fact (judge or jury), it can result in the
award of punitive damages on top of general and special damages. Also:
Gross negligence is a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use
reasonable care, which is likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm to
persons, property or both. It
is conduct that is extreme.
If
this is not a case of gross negligence then what is? Why
can’t we hold psychiatrists responsible for the harm they cause? Why
is this being allowed to continue?
With no due recourse and nowhere to turn, this lady can only endure what has
been done to her by mental health “experts.”
Dbunker:
Thanks. Gross
negligence? It goes
beyond negligent and it’s way beyond gross.
MKH :
How
are we supposed to taper “under supervision”? I
can only do it on my own. When
I asked for help with it, the doctor wanted to “add a little bit of Abilify”! I
write notes to myself: You
feel bad because you are in withdrawal. It
will be over before long … because otherwise I might start to believe them
again. There is nothing
wrong with my brain. My
list of diagnoses went from schizophrenia to paranoia to chronic
undifferentiated schizophrenia to schizotypal PD to schizoaffective to bipolar
personality disorder. If
I had never seen a psychiatrist I would never have had any of these labels or
the hundreds of pills and the almost ruined life. I
am still tapering. On. My. Own.
Cynthia
Psychiatrists kill.
“Open letter to Doctors” Posted in Gaia
Health
Heidi Stevenson, Editor:
This woman’s health was taken over and devastated by creatures who call
themselves doctors. Anyone’s
life can be destroyed in this system that dares to demand it be the only
approach to health.
Robert Bonan:
Wow! I just finished
reading this amazing testimony and my heart goes out to this person who survived
the ordeal. This is the part I read that just blew me away “A psychiatrist
asked: is she still
alive?” meaning that she had taken so many pills that she should have died.
VaccineRisks:
A
shocking and tragic story. Sadly,
there are thousands of people annually who have their lives destroyed due to
psychiatric drugs prescribed by cynical psychiatrists.
Doctors may look side effect up but are rarely interested in interactions
between drugs but, yet they do occur. The
shocking cocktail which the poor woman was given is criminal. Several
of the drugs were undoubtedly taken at the same time. Many
in the list interact with each other resulting in for example increase in
effective concentration, increasing toxicity, reduction of blood pressure etc.
The
open letter, so excellently formulated, so vividly describing the disgraceful,
unethical and low level to which much of psychiatry has sunk, should be widely
spread. It is also a
perfect example for workshop discussions for medical students, in the hope that
they will not be tempted to fall into the culture of greed and corruption which
symbolizes psychiatry’s situation today.
Debby Bruck:
Shocking. Sad. Criminal.
Ruth:
I
read this with tears in my eyes. I
watched a similar thing happen to my sister after horrific vaccine damage at age
12. She died a year and
a half ago at age 40. Doctors
offered no hope for her ‘rare’ condition that they had absolutely had ‘no idea’
where it materialized from. They
treated her with such disrespect and disgust those last days … as if she were
somehow at fault … I
think they know deep down. If
they allowed themselves the thought that what they are doing is harming people,
children, to the extent that it really is, well, maybe a few would just want to
go jump off a bridge. We
could only hope…
Amita Durgaprasad:
EXCELLENT post! It’s
appalling how completely the medical community has abandoned the tenet “First do
no harm” in favor of “Protect
the MAXIMUM profits & best interests of Big Pharma AT ALL COSTS, and NO MATTER
the extent of ‘collateral’ damage from injury & death of innocent people.
Comments from Facebook groups as the story continued to spread
Anonymous:
Wow.
Jana Brown:
My
heart goes out to the author.
Jennifer Bryant Roeder:
I
am horrified of what you went through and am amazed you survived. I
am so sorry. It’s
unbelievable how psychiatry destroys so much of our minds and our lives. Thank
you for sharing your story.
Julia Deborah:
Wow. Amazing story,
beautifully written. Thanks
for sharing.
Name hidden:
“I’d like to drive a dagger through the heart of psychiatry, but I can’t find a
heart.” Irish
psychiatrist Michael Corry (1948-2010) the above quote is part of a poignant
piece at the linkhttp://vitalitymagazine.com/article/an-open-letter-to-doctors/ I
venture to say, we can’t find a brain either.
Name hidden:
I
completely agree with everything you wrote. If
I wasn’t afraid of jail and going to hell my psych doctor would be in serious
danger. Bottom line: if
there was any justice in the world my psych doctor would be in jail.
Name hidden:
I
have no doubt we will reach a tipping point soon and then the tide will turn. Word
is getting out.
Name hidden:
My
experience is similar in so many ways to that of the writer … But it is so sad
that in spite of the work of the likes of Peter Breggin and Robert Whitaker
these drugs are continuing to be prescribed and people are blithely taking them. And
I wish somebody would tell Woody Allen to stop subliminally advertising
benzodiazepines in his films.
Name hidden:
I
just read your story. Omg
I am so sorry. I hate
psychiatry with a passion.
Name hidden:
Wow. It is unbelievable
how you were treated – what happened to you is criminal and it just boggles the
mind that these doctors can be so callous, careless, cruel and (seemingly)
ignorant of the adverse effects of all these drugs and treatments and get away
with it because it is the ‘standard of care’. The
psychiatrist who pushed all these drugs on you was worse than the worst drug
pusher – except psych drugs are more dangerous. Your
statement – “one should not have to survive going to a doctor’ nails the ‘irony’
and tragedy of what is happening in mainstream medical model health care. I
will share this with family and friends.
Anne Woodlen, writer, social activist, psychiatric survivor
Dear God. Your words are triggering an adrenalin rush in me. The horror –
the horror, of what we've been through. It's hard for me to read because
it brings up memories that I've moved away from.
I
think – hope – that what you've written will be a punch in the face to
"civilians" – people who think the psychiatric system is beneficial. You
write with simple, direct clarity. Facts. No howling or whining,
just a strict report of events, which is very, very powerful.
I've had it bad in the psych system, but not as bad as you. (Jesus, there
ought to be criminal indictments against all these people who call themselves
doctors.) Your story ought to be required reading for all students
preparing to engage in mental "health" treatment. Would you consider
letting me publish your writing on my blog? It is important, it matters,
and I feel a terrible sense of urgency about it.
I
am reminded of the Book of Job where Satan destroys everything Job has.
After each crop is destroyed or each flock of animals dies, a servant comes to
Job and says, "I alone am left to tell you." You, alone, are left to tell
us. You survived with enough of your brain intact to tell us the damage
that psych meds cause. You are one of the reasons I believe in God. Bless
you.
David Healy MD/Psychiatrist/author/Pharmageddon/www.RxISK.org
This is an extraordinary list of meds. This is definitely something we need to
showcase but in the early days of getting Rxisk up and running I'm trying to get
as many general health issues into the frame as I can first. There
are some equally terrible things from mainstream medicine – so
keep an eye on the Rxisk blog when we get it going.
Robert Whitaker/author/lecturer/Mad in America/Anatomy of an Epidemic
Your story is one that tells of how this system of "care" we have can take
people down an ever-downward path. This
is much of what I wrote about in Anatomy
of an Epidemic, which is how an initial small problem gets converted into a
much bigger and more lasting problem. I
am so sorry that you have suffered in this way, and I hope that you can continue
to recover in the time ahead.
Paula Caplan/Harvard psychologist/author/They Say You’re Crazy/When
Johnny and Jane Come Marching
Home
Oh,
God, this is a nightmare! Your story is indeed terrifying and so, so sad. What
a tragedy to see how you were being fed all those awful drugs and then, when you
reported the negative effects, told they proved how sick you were! You
are a miracle for having gotten out of it and for being so brave to try to help
others.
Ginger Breggin/Peter Breggin MD/psychiatrist/Your Drug May be Your Problem
I
am so sorry for your ordeal. Stay strong and keep building your support network!
(Great idea about the ECT speakers group! Bravo!)
Sir William Osler (1849-1919)
Canadian physician known as ‘the father of modern medicine’
“The battle against polypharmacy, or the use of a large number of drugs (the
action of which we know little, yet we put them into the bodies … the action of
which we know less) has not been fought to the finish … Do not use rashly every
new product of which the peripatetic siren sings. Consider
what surprising reactions may occur in the laboratory from the careless mixing
of unknown substances. Be
as considerate of your patient and yourself as you are of the test-tube.”
“It
is only too true, as you know well, that a most successful – as the term goes –
doctor may practice with a clinical slovenliness that makes impossible for that
old friend, Dame Nature, to cover his mistakes.”
“It
is astonishing with how little outside aid a large practice may be conducted,
but it is not astonishing that in it cruel and unpardonable mistakes are made.”
“The daily round of a busy practitioner tends to develop an egoism of a most
intense kind, to which there is no antidote. The
few setbacks are forgotten. The
mistakes are often buried …”
“Listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis.”
David Healy MD/psychiatrist/author/Pharmageddon/www.RxISK.org
“No one knows a drug’s side effects like the person taking it.”
IN SUMMATION
Neither Dr. C., nor the CPSO, nor the Independent Opinion, nor the “expert
tribunal” ICRC (Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee) chose to listen to
the patient. Decisions
were based on Dr. C’s records, records which were described by the CPSO as
lacking: “Put simply -
the documentation of the treatment of this patient is impossible to follow.” Dr.
C. was reprimanded on many counts. Of
the above-mentioned people, Dr. C. is the only one who met me. A
group who never met me, never asked questions of me, decided I was mentally ill
on the basis of Dr. C.’s notes. Hopefully
the HPARB will listen to the patient. (PENDING
since November 2012)