I hear you. We were not blessed to live in the golden age of psychopharmacology. Modern psychiatric treatment, from SSRIs to ECT, is comparable in my mind to primitive neurosurgery by inexperienced residents in low light with dull tools. Our brains' complex functions and malfunctions are still really not that well understood, nor are the drugs which profitable and powerful pharmaceutical companies compel doctors to prescribe to desperate patients. Your particular experience could lead you to suspect a conspiracy. Your illness, if you are indeed ill, could fuel those suspicions. From what I remember from my brief and long-ago trial on Tegretol, it was a tough row to hoe, and I hope that you can do better off meds. In the meantime, many of us remain ill, and we are desparate, as are those we love and depend on and those who love and depend on us, for any remedy, and our doctors and their drugs are all that are available to us (short of ECT, which I haven't tried yet due to a heightened risk of stroke). Don't be surprised that despite your conviction that your problems can be solved or avoided by meditation, diet, exercise or other constructive lifestyle choices, you may eventually be driven by the same desperation back to the same dubious conventional remedies. In contradiction to my own experience and what I have learned from others, I do hope that you regain your balance on your own terms. Don't be too disappointed or blame yourself if you end up back in line at the pharmacy with the rest of us. Best of luck.