I can't begin to tell you how upsetting it is to me to see her so bad off, but she truly believes that 'if it [natural supplements/herbs, nutrients] are strong enough to help, they're strong enough to harm.' I agree with her, but she also claims she and her daughter who also is on psych meds have never experienced a side-effect from their meds in spite a host of side-effects I can clearly see she has.

People believe that Big Pharma and their doctors truly care for them, and don't understand that it's the goal of Big Pharma to get everyone on at least one med so they have repeat business. They also refuse to believe that their doctors are being paid to prescribe meds so it's in the doctor's financial interest to keep people on meds.

Another problem that prevents people from trying alternative treatment is the belief that a blood test shows all nutritional deficiencies. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have some sort of genetic issue with not being able to hang on to magnesium in my cells and had a list of symptoms as long as your arm of magnesium deficiencies that made my life a living hell. When I told my ARNP that I was thinking of taking extra magnesium, she did a magnesium blood serum test that came back perfect and seriously cautioned me not to take extra. It was a few years later before a top naturopath realized what was going on, and I learned that your cellular magnesium level can be depleted in order to keep the blood serum level high because if it gets low, you'll have a heart attack. The naturopath put me on a series of vitamin injections called Myers Cocktail that demonstrated that all I needed was enough magnesium. Now I make sure I get enough magnesium, and my symptoms are under control. I take what would be considered very high doses, but there again, it appears that my body can't hold on to it. I wouldn't take as much if it could.