Thank you for the updates to your original post about SSRIs.
The FDA and drug companies have long been aware of the link between antidepressants and violence/suicide. Here's my Substack post I originally wrote for Dr. David Healy's website about the long history of antidepressants. (If you don't know his work Healy was instrumental in getting the UK warnings and has been an expert witness in many of the lawsuits against the companies on suicide/violence.)
Akathisia is often a precursor to violence/suicide. Most prescribers have no idea what akathisia is or looks like. When patients describe akathisia, many times the doctors think it’s their “disease” getting worse and layer on more pills. Pfizer intentionally kept akathisia from GPS as noted by internal company documents released in my lawsuit. I can send you the documents.
Since neither the FDA nor the companies are doing their job, my friend who lost her 58 year old husband to Paxil suicide established an organization called MISSD.org. The sole mission is to educate public and doctors about akathisia. I am proud to be on Wendy Dolin’s board.
Also, to date, there has never been a formal investigation into the meds after a mass shooting. The “fixers” get in there and quickly shut up any link to pills or their mental health records. It is high time that the public demands Congress to hold investigations like they did back in 2004/2005 on suicide link. We need to push for shooters list of medications and prescribers to be released. Privacy laws shouldn’t cover in these cases. It’s just a question that we need to ask.
Just this week Medpage reported ...
"In its Annual Report to Congress, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force picked anxiety disorders, depression, and suicide risk prevention requiring urgent research."
Remember this is the same group who recommended that EVERY person under age 64 should be screened for anxiety. We know that antidepressants or some other psych drug are often prescribed.
We will need to watch this closely to see $$$ for behavioral health/school clinics/services and psych meds/vaccines/treatments.
Feeling depressed, naturally, is painful and needs to be addressed, but even worse is "anti-depressant depression". It's like your thoughts become oily, and slither around in strange ways.
As far as the disconnection, it can be experienced in a couple of ways in addition to what others have mentioned:
a) the colors in the world are less vivid, less saturated. It's similar to seeing a digital image that has been slightly made blander, but at the same time the edges become sharper.
b) the world becomes drier. It's like there used to be a moisture between you and everyone else - a warm, joyous liquid, but on the drugs it becomes diluted, and no longer nourishes.
I know a single mom who kept her daughter sedated like a potted plant from age five until 16, when the girl was finally removed and the drugs cut back, but it was too late. A rambunctious little girl with a mind able to make verbal connections blisteringly fast is now almost mentally disabled. Her speech patterns are broken and stilted. It's really hard to see this as anything but organized abuse.
If anyone can make out what the last few words in the patient note I transcribed were, I'd very much appreciate that. The best I could do was:
[Pt. began to verbalize feelings of killing other people and then himself. Pt. ..…. much more anxious and depressed than baseline; even though this is not reflected in …..]
Doctors sadly are not known for having the most legible handwriting...
Great article....at the VERY LEAST, it's clear that the correlation requires more study, but I think we all know why there's no studies being done......
The day that the Big Pharma empire comes crashing down can't come soon enough.
I will share my own experience. I take Zoloft for PTSD. It isn't a large dose and never has been. I had a very good psychiatrist when I first did seek help. She started me at the smallest dose and told me to increase to my comfort when symptoms went away. It stopped me from remembering my nightmares and still does. Other providers have told me that it doesn't, but it really does work for that. Providers have told me a lot of things that I should and shouldn't feel. Maybe they should have joined me on the battlefield and see if their view changes. :) I personally am thankful that she knew this aspect of this drug. How those nightmares affected me, I remember well. I know I still have them sometimes, but I don't have to deal with the effects of them any longer. I think many just throw medication at people. I know someone that was diagnosed with bipolar and was on 6 meds. Moved to another state and saw someone else and diagnose her with ADD. Stopped all those meds and changed her to just one. She was a changed person after that. Like anything in life, finding those that truly understand, listen and help is a challenge. I took responsibility for my PTSD. No one else understands what is happening inside me anyway, even if I tell them.
Thanks for the post. Surprising that questioning the safety and efficacy of drugs should be or should have become taboo. Surely the fist thing we need to do with any drug at any time. My father was put on anti schizophrenia drugs in a care home in the UK in 21 for dementia. He began behaving in ways he never had before. This behavior was used to up the dose. In the end the dose was 10 times the prescribed dose and he died a few weeks after the overdose was spotted and stopped by a doctor who cared enough to notice. Questioning this has been taboo and I have been cancelled and exiled because I did so. We have arrived at a dark place where the wisdom of the ages - that taking any drug might be a bad idea and that refusing all drugs all the time might be the best way to live - has been replaced by submission to experts who know best and wholesale drug addiction all over everywhere. Not a single member of my wider family is not on some drug or another. All believe that drugs are the way to be healthy. We need an explicit constitutional right to refuse drugs and not be discriminated against if we say no. If we don't get something this pretty soon I fear the drug pushers will be ruling the world.
I suspected long ago that SSRIs were a factor in homicides by young men as soon as it was confirmed that they could lead to suicide.
It isn't much of a stretch for a young man who has decided on suicide to decide he might as well take out his perceived 'enemies' as well. And so he does.
As with the rash of unexpected deaths of young, healthy and vaccinated people that did not occur before the introduction of the Covid vax, I am old enough to recall that mass shootings were almost unheard of decades ago, in fact before the age of SSRIs and, likely, some other drugs. The 1966 University of Texas Tower shooting stunned the country. It turned out the shooter, Chapman, had a brain tumor. Thede days nobody is stunned and no brain tumors show up, but SSRIs do.
Very interesting. About 18 years ago I was on Prozac. It didn’t make me violent but it did make me want to kill myself and feel deeply disconnected from reality. Same experience with both Pristiq and Effexor. And in each and every case, I quit them all cold Turkey and tossed the meds into the garbage. Over time my depression lifted, as I changed my diet to primal eating, got outside more, found camaraderie at work and got my sleeping in order. By the time I was 27 I’d say my depression was making rounds every few months for a month at a time. But by age 30- after eating pretty much only carnivore and quitting my job, depression disappeared and hasn’t been back at all, even a little bit- I’m 35. Out of all family on both sides- ALL extended family- I’m the only one (other than my son) who hasn’t taken the clot shot or isn’t on ANY medication whatsoever. I do lots of extended water fasting (and lost so much hair from it lol but it’ll grow back again, it always does) and eat mostly animal foods, lots of raw meats. Let me tell you- it’s a lonely life over here, folks, as I’m sure most of you can relate. My family all thibk I’m nuts or exhibiting “concerning” behaviour for being “counter-culture” and always having to “do everything differently from everyone else”. I call it being informed. If fasting, limiting wifi, pure water, healthy animal foods diet, staying home with my kid, not being on any meds and not having any health issues is concerning behaviour, then this world is truly, truly fucked.
Incredible reporting on such an utterly disturbing subject! From the full series of anthrax shots I was given in the Marines (1998); to my first gastroenterologist appointment in 2005, where the doc prescribed me Paxil for "IBS"; to the recent Covid criminality: I've not a morsel of respect for the pharmaceutical industry. It's also chipping away at my regard for physicians, barring the Author(s) and others like Dr. Malone, of course, who are speaking out against the pharmaceutical racketeering machine. In the case of the aforementioned gastroenterologist, during my intake, he quickly discounted any dietary-related possibilities. After the colonoscopy came back clear and he checked all his boxes, he determined that it was my anxiety causing the chronic diarrhea, and therefore prescribed Paxil. It made me feel so bizarre after two or three days of ingestion that I immediately discontinued and never returned to him again. It doesn't surprise me one bit that this poison leads people to commit these heinous acts. It's high time to proverbially "chop the head off the big pharma snake", as well as the scoundrels who lobby, politicians who accept their bribes, the PR industry for painting them all in such a favorable light, and everyone else in the chain who profits from their ill-gotten gains!
Good dissertation! I think the basic issue is that if we embrace the concept that psychotic drugs drives the shooters it negates the push to eliminate guns from the hands of American patriots and citizens! In addition, the psychotic drugs have to be cleared through the hepatic function, and when they can’t be cleared and the drug impact builds up in the brain, we have shooters acting out! The mass media is the beneficiary of 6 Billon dollars per year and you don’t bite the hand that feed you! Consequently, they won’t touch the subject and we keep killing each other needlessly
I remember being so shocked when I told a psych resident that I knew someone who had some negative effects after starting strong antidepressants, and he said something like, “that proves she needed the drugs, her going crazy would only happen if she needed them”. What a horrible thing for him to believe and be taught at Med school.
Hmm. I had a very weird chocolate lab that I ultimately had to take to the university veterinary school for diagnosis. OCD. They said the drug likeliest to reduce or eliminate her symptoms was Paxil, or rather the first generation of Paxil, I forgot the name.
However, we were then warned that if we did go that route, she would have to be leashed at all times as it was more than likely she would become vicious. PASS. NOPE.
So. We lived with a really weird dog for ten years. But she was as sweet as pie.
The vets knew how bad these drugs were for animals. Pretty small leap to humans.
I think this issue is exceptionally complicated, especially as it relates to American young men. While it appears that some people do react violently while on SSRIs, many do not. I think a bigger issue for young American men—all American men, really—is the complete destruction of America, and the traditional values most American men could embrace with pride only a generation ago. If you are straight, European-American, Christian—the identity of most Americans until the last couple of decades—is there a recognizable, optimistic
future? Does it not appear that some of the enemies many of us believed wanted the destruction of America only a short while ago, have taken control, have “won?”
What I discovered after taking many SSRIs is that they merely muted my very real childhood trauma. And while I do not believe it will ever be fully resolved, I would rather feel and deal with the trauma rather than push it down, hide it. I am not sure how this relates to those who react violently to SSRIs, but I do think that my own anger and pain have real causes in my childhood—not misperceptions caused by “chemical imbalances.”
The theory of serotonin deficiency causing depression has always been suspect and for years we have known now that it is invalid. Anything that increases serotonin is very bad news. But the serotonin deficiency theory has sold a lot of drugs, to the detriment of all of us.
Years ago I took Wellbutrin specifically for weight loss. I remember very clearly I was having an argument with my boyfriend at the time and instead of feeling angry I just felt nothing. My brain was angry but I didn’t have any emotional response. It felt extremely WEIRD. I had only taken a few doses but stopped immediately. I can’t imagine having no strong emotions. It’s inhuman.
Thank you for the updates to your original post about SSRIs.
The FDA and drug companies have long been aware of the link between antidepressants and violence/suicide. Here's my Substack post I originally wrote for Dr. David Healy's website about the long history of antidepressants. (If you don't know his work Healy was instrumental in getting the UK warnings and has been an expert witness in many of the lawsuits against the companies on suicide/violence.)
https://acceptablecollateraldamage.substack.com/p/guns-mental-health-and-drugs
Akathisia is often a precursor to violence/suicide. Most prescribers have no idea what akathisia is or looks like. When patients describe akathisia, many times the doctors think it’s their “disease” getting worse and layer on more pills. Pfizer intentionally kept akathisia from GPS as noted by internal company documents released in my lawsuit. I can send you the documents.
Since neither the FDA nor the companies are doing their job, my friend who lost her 58 year old husband to Paxil suicide established an organization called MISSD.org. The sole mission is to educate public and doctors about akathisia. I am proud to be on Wendy Dolin’s board.
Also, to date, there has never been a formal investigation into the meds after a mass shooting. The “fixers” get in there and quickly shut up any link to pills or their mental health records. It is high time that the public demands Congress to hold investigations like they did back in 2004/2005 on suicide link. We need to push for shooters list of medications and prescribers to be released. Privacy laws shouldn’t cover in these cases. It’s just a question that we need to ask.
Just this week Medpage reported ...
"In its Annual Report to Congress, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force picked anxiety disorders, depression, and suicide risk prevention requiring urgent research."
Remember this is the same group who recommended that EVERY person under age 64 should be screened for anxiety. We know that antidepressants or some other psych drug are often prescribed.
We will need to watch this closely to see $$$ for behavioral health/school clinics/services and psych meds/vaccines/treatments.
Feeling depressed, naturally, is painful and needs to be addressed, but even worse is "anti-depressant depression". It's like your thoughts become oily, and slither around in strange ways.
As far as the disconnection, it can be experienced in a couple of ways in addition to what others have mentioned:
a) the colors in the world are less vivid, less saturated. It's similar to seeing a digital image that has been slightly made blander, but at the same time the edges become sharper.
b) the world becomes drier. It's like there used to be a moisture between you and everyone else - a warm, joyous liquid, but on the drugs it becomes diluted, and no longer nourishes.
I know a single mom who kept her daughter sedated like a potted plant from age five until 16, when the girl was finally removed and the drugs cut back, but it was too late. A rambunctious little girl with a mind able to make verbal connections blisteringly fast is now almost mentally disabled. Her speech patterns are broken and stilted. It's really hard to see this as anything but organized abuse.
If anyone can make out what the last few words in the patient note I transcribed were, I'd very much appreciate that. The best I could do was:
[Pt. began to verbalize feelings of killing other people and then himself. Pt. ..…. much more anxious and depressed than baseline; even though this is not reflected in …..]
Doctors sadly are not known for having the most legible handwriting...
Great article....at the VERY LEAST, it's clear that the correlation requires more study, but I think we all know why there's no studies being done......
The day that the Big Pharma empire comes crashing down can't come soon enough.
I will share my own experience. I take Zoloft for PTSD. It isn't a large dose and never has been. I had a very good psychiatrist when I first did seek help. She started me at the smallest dose and told me to increase to my comfort when symptoms went away. It stopped me from remembering my nightmares and still does. Other providers have told me that it doesn't, but it really does work for that. Providers have told me a lot of things that I should and shouldn't feel. Maybe they should have joined me on the battlefield and see if their view changes. :) I personally am thankful that she knew this aspect of this drug. How those nightmares affected me, I remember well. I know I still have them sometimes, but I don't have to deal with the effects of them any longer. I think many just throw medication at people. I know someone that was diagnosed with bipolar and was on 6 meds. Moved to another state and saw someone else and diagnose her with ADD. Stopped all those meds and changed her to just one. She was a changed person after that. Like anything in life, finding those that truly understand, listen and help is a challenge. I took responsibility for my PTSD. No one else understands what is happening inside me anyway, even if I tell them.
Thanks for the post. Surprising that questioning the safety and efficacy of drugs should be or should have become taboo. Surely the fist thing we need to do with any drug at any time. My father was put on anti schizophrenia drugs in a care home in the UK in 21 for dementia. He began behaving in ways he never had before. This behavior was used to up the dose. In the end the dose was 10 times the prescribed dose and he died a few weeks after the overdose was spotted and stopped by a doctor who cared enough to notice. Questioning this has been taboo and I have been cancelled and exiled because I did so. We have arrived at a dark place where the wisdom of the ages - that taking any drug might be a bad idea and that refusing all drugs all the time might be the best way to live - has been replaced by submission to experts who know best and wholesale drug addiction all over everywhere. Not a single member of my wider family is not on some drug or another. All believe that drugs are the way to be healthy. We need an explicit constitutional right to refuse drugs and not be discriminated against if we say no. If we don't get something this pretty soon I fear the drug pushers will be ruling the world.
"How Dangerous Must a Drug Be Before it is Pulled from the Market?"
It seems like that depends on its profitability.
I suspected long ago that SSRIs were a factor in homicides by young men as soon as it was confirmed that they could lead to suicide.
It isn't much of a stretch for a young man who has decided on suicide to decide he might as well take out his perceived 'enemies' as well. And so he does.
As with the rash of unexpected deaths of young, healthy and vaccinated people that did not occur before the introduction of the Covid vax, I am old enough to recall that mass shootings were almost unheard of decades ago, in fact before the age of SSRIs and, likely, some other drugs. The 1966 University of Texas Tower shooting stunned the country. It turned out the shooter, Chapman, had a brain tumor. Thede days nobody is stunned and no brain tumors show up, but SSRIs do.
Very interesting. About 18 years ago I was on Prozac. It didn’t make me violent but it did make me want to kill myself and feel deeply disconnected from reality. Same experience with both Pristiq and Effexor. And in each and every case, I quit them all cold Turkey and tossed the meds into the garbage. Over time my depression lifted, as I changed my diet to primal eating, got outside more, found camaraderie at work and got my sleeping in order. By the time I was 27 I’d say my depression was making rounds every few months for a month at a time. But by age 30- after eating pretty much only carnivore and quitting my job, depression disappeared and hasn’t been back at all, even a little bit- I’m 35. Out of all family on both sides- ALL extended family- I’m the only one (other than my son) who hasn’t taken the clot shot or isn’t on ANY medication whatsoever. I do lots of extended water fasting (and lost so much hair from it lol but it’ll grow back again, it always does) and eat mostly animal foods, lots of raw meats. Let me tell you- it’s a lonely life over here, folks, as I’m sure most of you can relate. My family all thibk I’m nuts or exhibiting “concerning” behaviour for being “counter-culture” and always having to “do everything differently from everyone else”. I call it being informed. If fasting, limiting wifi, pure water, healthy animal foods diet, staying home with my kid, not being on any meds and not having any health issues is concerning behaviour, then this world is truly, truly fucked.
Incredible reporting on such an utterly disturbing subject! From the full series of anthrax shots I was given in the Marines (1998); to my first gastroenterologist appointment in 2005, where the doc prescribed me Paxil for "IBS"; to the recent Covid criminality: I've not a morsel of respect for the pharmaceutical industry. It's also chipping away at my regard for physicians, barring the Author(s) and others like Dr. Malone, of course, who are speaking out against the pharmaceutical racketeering machine. In the case of the aforementioned gastroenterologist, during my intake, he quickly discounted any dietary-related possibilities. After the colonoscopy came back clear and he checked all his boxes, he determined that it was my anxiety causing the chronic diarrhea, and therefore prescribed Paxil. It made me feel so bizarre after two or three days of ingestion that I immediately discontinued and never returned to him again. It doesn't surprise me one bit that this poison leads people to commit these heinous acts. It's high time to proverbially "chop the head off the big pharma snake", as well as the scoundrels who lobby, politicians who accept their bribes, the PR industry for painting them all in such a favorable light, and everyone else in the chain who profits from their ill-gotten gains!
Good dissertation! I think the basic issue is that if we embrace the concept that psychotic drugs drives the shooters it negates the push to eliminate guns from the hands of American patriots and citizens! In addition, the psychotic drugs have to be cleared through the hepatic function, and when they can’t be cleared and the drug impact builds up in the brain, we have shooters acting out! The mass media is the beneficiary of 6 Billon dollars per year and you don’t bite the hand that feed you! Consequently, they won’t touch the subject and we keep killing each other needlessly
I remember being so shocked when I told a psych resident that I knew someone who had some negative effects after starting strong antidepressants, and he said something like, “that proves she needed the drugs, her going crazy would only happen if she needed them”. What a horrible thing for him to believe and be taught at Med school.
Hmm. I had a very weird chocolate lab that I ultimately had to take to the university veterinary school for diagnosis. OCD. They said the drug likeliest to reduce or eliminate her symptoms was Paxil, or rather the first generation of Paxil, I forgot the name.
However, we were then warned that if we did go that route, she would have to be leashed at all times as it was more than likely she would become vicious. PASS. NOPE.
So. We lived with a really weird dog for ten years. But she was as sweet as pie.
The vets knew how bad these drugs were for animals. Pretty small leap to humans.
I think this issue is exceptionally complicated, especially as it relates to American young men. While it appears that some people do react violently while on SSRIs, many do not. I think a bigger issue for young American men—all American men, really—is the complete destruction of America, and the traditional values most American men could embrace with pride only a generation ago. If you are straight, European-American, Christian—the identity of most Americans until the last couple of decades—is there a recognizable, optimistic
future? Does it not appear that some of the enemies many of us believed wanted the destruction of America only a short while ago, have taken control, have “won?”
What I discovered after taking many SSRIs is that they merely muted my very real childhood trauma. And while I do not believe it will ever be fully resolved, I would rather feel and deal with the trauma rather than push it down, hide it. I am not sure how this relates to those who react violently to SSRIs, but I do think that my own anger and pain have real causes in my childhood—not misperceptions caused by “chemical imbalances.”
The theory of serotonin deficiency causing depression has always been suspect and for years we have known now that it is invalid. Anything that increases serotonin is very bad news. But the serotonin deficiency theory has sold a lot of drugs, to the detriment of all of us.
Years ago I took Wellbutrin specifically for weight loss. I remember very clearly I was having an argument with my boyfriend at the time and instead of feeling angry I just felt nothing. My brain was angry but I didn’t have any emotional response. It felt extremely WEIRD. I had only taken a few doses but stopped immediately. I can’t imagine having no strong emotions. It’s inhuman.