does everyone really think this?

OMG. Many psych drugs are known to increase suicidal and homicidal impulses, especially in adolescents and young adults. The black box warnings are there for a reason. And that is only the beginning of the potential hazards.

I get that drugs or any intervention should be considered short-term in order to get through a crisis, but even then someone should not forced or coerced or pressured against their will, should they? Seems Eden is strongly opposed.

Yes I do not think those drugs are safe for more reasons than the others in my head I just don't agree with drugs in general I don't think you can ever really know how they work in the body and what they may cause into the future. People used to think the medical treatment in the 1800's was safe and effective and accurate but only because they didn't have anything better to reference and some way down the future people will look back and say how terrible the medical treatment was for this time period. I don't think you can ever say a medical treatment is safe because anytime you alter the body there is a risk.

Oh I agree if one can avoid drugs that's the best. Sometimes one can't if one wants to live. My mother had unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy. But the alternative would be death. She lives happy productive life as she is cancer free and she adjusts her life to accommodate side effects that might never go away. But that's nothing compared to the alternative: let cancer kill her. She is 70 but wasn't ready to die. Sometimes side effects are worth it

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Both my parents had cancer. I believe chemo was a significant factor in my father's relatively early demise. My mother's breast cancer was treated with the savagery that is mastectomy, which destroyed her emotionally. The alternatives are many, but they are suppressed.

Seems it is controversial to say that cancer or mental illness or many other diseases can be cured by purely natural means that do not involve poisoning the body with synthetic drugs, or mutilating the body through surgery or other invasive methods.

How did we get to the point where someone who is struggling as badly as Eden is told that her main option or even ONLY option is to attempt to beat down symptoms with little plastic pills that cure nothing and endanger both body and mind?

I just don't feel comfortable putting random chemical into my body's when no one can really explain how they work because they don't know and if no one knows how can they expect someone to do something when they are not informed about the possible implications of taking these things.

That is true as often no one knows of severity of side effects of any Meds. Huge risk, no doubt

Sorry to hear about your parents. My father passed from cancer, too, and it's very hard for me to see how chemo did anything but make him sicker and more miserable. (not that it's anything I've looked into scientifically, just layman's observation)

That said, I would like to represent the flip side for anybody reading--It's worth getting informed about pharmaceuticals, sure, and there's nothing wrong with a little healthy skepticism--but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, here. Synthetic drugs don't always poison the body, they aren't necessarily dangerous just by virtue of being medically-sanctioned chemicals, and plenty of people experience massive benefit with little or no unpleasant side-effect.

I love my little plastic pills. Hell, I've never met a drug I didn't like (Except maybe computer duster, if that counts). My only regret is that I didn't start taking them years ago. I think we got to the point where we recommend (and, yes, sometimes aggressively push) pharmaceuticals to people in significant discomfort because it appears other things are not working. And sometimes, for some people, in some circumstances, going from abject misery to stability really IS as simple as taking a pill. It really IS like magic. It really IS possible that a drug can make a massive difference for the better with little downside. I'm not saying this is always or even often the case, obviously. But if there is even a chance for a positive outcome, well, why not at least try it?

This is just my view. I acknowledge I would probably feel a lot differently if my little plastic pills hadn't worked so well for me, or if I weren't "A Gramme Is Better Than A Damn!" kind of person.

Anyway, just the flip-side. Everyone's got the right to make these decisions for themselves.

But even my psychiatrist and psychologist have told me that taking them would not make it all go away but it MIGHT just take the edge off so really it would just be me still feeling terrible but not terrible enough to do anything about it. In other words constant suffering with no end in sight.

Like I said, everyone's got the right to make the decision to try meds or not. Just saying they work very well for some people. I hope you find something that works for you.

True...but they don't know the extent of your pain/demons, do they?

Sometimes just taking edge off would be enough to feel better. My fiancée always says that it ( what he has) can never go away completely but edge taken off makes it very manageable and there isn't suffering. Some things just need to be toned down in order for life to get better. Sometimes that might be enough. Without Meds his life would be suffering but thankfully it is not because he made a good decision ( for him) to try it.

Sometimes the edge needs to be taken off whether the person likes it or not so that innocent people don't get injured or killed because the person at issue thinks that the innocent people in question are not real.

Well this is phrased in kind of a rude way don't bother replying I am putting you on my ignore list so I won't see it but I mean I guess you can if you really want to but.

Sorry about your father. That sounds awful.

I think with pharma medicine, a little healthy skepticism is not enough. The so called "side effects" are actually just part of the totality of the drug's effect (as one doc pointed out) and the fact that these adverse effects can manifest all over the body (some of them very serious) seems to suggest a systemic poison. Long term psych drug use seems to correlate quite strongly with declining mental and physical health.

In my experience most docs never get to other things not working. Drugs come first and last. Physicians and Psychiatrists are more properly called Clinical Pharmacologists and what they know is drugs drugs drugs. This is medicine?

I was diagnosed a few years ago with a condition (Pyroluria) that can lead to severe Zinc and B6 deficiency. Deficiency of Zinc has been linked to none other than Schizophrenia. Not to mention Depression, Bipolar, and more. I have been mocked on PC for suggesting that vitamins or minerals might be important. Such is the delusion and arrogance and tunnel vision of modern medicine that basic nutrition is often skipped in favor of magic pills that merely numb symptoms.

Not knocking drugs in emergencies and crises, but beyond that I dunno.

Hey, thanks for this response. I'm not really in a position to argue the science, but I think other perspectives are interesting and will always at least try to listen if somebody does want to explain the science to me.

I'm right there with you on some of this--the need for holism in medicine and problem of tunnel vision especially. Other parts I have a different perspective--and I fully own that it's informed by my own biases. As a (mostly) former junkie, it's still sometimes hard for me to think of pharmaceuticals in any capacity other than "These ones get you high" and "these ones don't." Now that I take drugs actually prescribed to me, that's sort of translated into "This one seems to work" and "This one sucks I'm not taking it."

Sorry you've gotten some crap responses for the very common-sense idea that nutrition might be, like, important. And sorry about your Dx. Hope you're finding something that works for you.

The medication only "takes the edge off" because it targets the symptoms, not the root cause. However, the symptoms are blocking YOU from getting to the root cause, which is why the medication can be very useful. It won't "cure" you, but it might just make you "stable" enough to put you on the road towards recovery. You can make much better use of psychotherapy once the "edge" is gone.

In other words, the medication is just the beginning, and it won't be easy, but there is a significant chance (in my opinion) that it will be a lot less painful than what you are going through right now.

Last summer I was diagnosed with B12 deficiency, and I am absolutely convinced that this contributed significantly to the severe episode of depression I was experiencing at the time. I even dissociated a bunch of times, because there are lapses in memory. Once I got the B12 injections, I got much better.

However, the B12 deficiency was caused by the fact that I don't eat much, because I have a very negative relationship to food, which gets even worse when I have a depressive episode as one might expect. So really, the deficiency only made the depression worse, it wasn't the actual cause of it initially.

And I am not under the impression that pills are magical. For me, the medications flattened me out, because that's what they do. When the symptoms are removed, there isn't actually going to be happiness underneath it all, and if it isn't a huge f***ing relief at first for the person to feel numb then I don't think that person should have been put on the medication in the first place (and yes, that does happen way too often). What happened to me as a result of taking the medication was that I stopped wishing I were dead all the time, and as a result of THAT I was able to make use of therapy because I became somewhat rational. I have medication to thank for that.

I think we can all agree that it is less than ideal to take medication because it is less than ideal to have to be on medication in order to stay alive, but at this point in time I believe that eden should try them, simply because she does seem to have exhausted all other options and she now says she wants to end her life, which is definitely worse than giving the meds a chance. Like I have already said, she doesn't have to stay on them if she doesn't like them.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but aren't the others inside your head? How can they kill you if they're inside your head?

And if the medication could alter what happens inside your head, don't you think there is a possibility that it might do something about the others, too? Maybe it will make the others be less abusive to you? Maybe it would make the others have less power over you? And maybe that's what the others don't want to happen, because they like having the power?

You deserve to be in charge of your own life. It's YOUR life, eden, not theirs.

Argo: I'm no expert on the science either, just relaying what I've discovered. It's all very confusing. I griped earlier in this thread about medicalizing mental illness, and now I'm mentioning medical factors -- though in a way that is quite different from psychiatry's vague broken brain narrative. I understand your perspective. I mostly saw it that way until recent years. Didn't know about the junkie thing, not trivial, i can relate a bit.

Drugs dominate the conversation and that disturbs me to no end. Pharma medicine has become the big bully, kicking sand in the face of every other approach. It's big and powerful, but also incredibly stupid and unsophisticated and dangerous. Sure, in a crisis maybe drugs are the thing. But even then people ought to be able to question it without having to face such violent opposition.

They are not just in my head they have physical bodies in the other real world but they are are in my head is like like their spirits are in my head only that isn't exactly it either but they have bodies that they can detach from but they then need another body to stay in but they are magical so yes they can do things outside my head and regularly do do things outside my head.

I'm sorry, they sound terrifying. But how are they going to kill you? You have no proof that they'll be able to do that, only their threats that they are going to do it if you "misbehave".

Like I have said, this is your life, not theirs, and I firmly believe that you can defeat them.

Stay strong, eden, and stay SAFE, too.

because i have seen them make things happen here if i do something bad even by accident exactly what they say would happen exactly when they say it will happen exactly how they say it will happen does and this has happened over 30 times. nothing can defeat them they are entities they cannot be killed or gotten rid of they do what they want when they want.

What kind of things you see them do? Do you have evidence of their power? Or are they all talk?

Even Nazis or Hitler pol pot or Stalin who terrified the world were defeated or eventually lost their power and the world could heal.

Do you think these creatures are worse? You don't think anyone or anything can even try to defeat creatures that are in your head and are not in this world? What if you ignore them for a day? What if they really can't do anything but threaten?

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Something just occurred to me, and I remembered this discussion.

Many neurological disorders have causes that are still unknown. Migraines is one example. What is said about migraines is that "there seems to be an electrical disturbance in the brains of people who experience an aura before their attack. For all migraine attacks, there appears to be a change in the blood vessels in the brain. However, the exact causes of migraine are likely to be more complicated than problems with the blood vessels." (Source: Migraine | Brain & Spine Foundation)

Based on this limited knowledge pharmaceutical companies have been able to develop triptans, which is a drug class that narrows blood vessels and relieves swelling. They are also known as "Serotonin Receptor Agonists". It is, however, not clear exactly how they work to stop a migraine, but we know that they do. I suffer from migraines a lot myself, and sumatriptan is the only thing that helps. As with every new drug, I did feel a bit concerned about taking it at first because I didn't know how it was going to affect me, but I'm so glad I did end up trying it because it has been an absolute godsend, and the amount of suffering it has alleviated makes it utterly invaluable to me.

For treating migraines, we only have so many options. If there was more funding for research they might be able to come up with a cure, but for now we have to make do with what we have, and research suggests that these medications are effective for a lot of people. Knowing that, why should I be in pain for two or three consecutive days, which for me often happens once a week (mine appears to be almost chronic), when I can take this medication and feel better? YES, it is a thing that seems to alter something chemical in your brain, but so what? It's hormonal.

I still try to find ways to avoid getting attacks (like bright lights, particularly of the flashy kind, and loud places), and I take a beta-blocker (propranolol) which supposedly helps prevent them (though I often forget to take it ). These medications don't cure me, but they help me manage the condition. And even if they don't work for some people, at least they tried, no?

Psych meds are a bit more complicated, which is why the use of them is monitored much more closely. The brain is unknown territory because of the complexity of the nervous system, but honestly, what's the alternative? Eden is suggesting suicide as the solution. It seems fairly obvious to me that medication should be tried before such action is taken.

These others in your head, despite what you seem to think, eden, cannot actually come out into the real world (which, yes, IS REAL). You see and hear things that others don't, which makes it more or less impossible for anyone else to protect you from it because it isn't tangible. What needs to happen at this point is to eliminate these negative forces that stop you from living your life. Would you not want to have a life free from the pain they cause you?

I have to ask you this: if you believed there was a way to get rid of them, would you not do it?

Medication can be temporary, and I do believe this is a crisis (and even BudFox says that meds could be useful in a crisis). What I am trying to tell you is that medication can help you become rational enough to work on the root causes of your condition (in therapy), and once you've done that you might not need the meds anymore. Also, like I have already pointed out in previous posts, if you don't like the meds you can just come off them and chances are you'll be no worse off than you are right now, because you are already actively suicidal and it even sounds like you have plans already. This is highly critical, eden. Let the medical professionals help you. Please. I find myself thinking about you all the time these days, because I'm really worried about you.

I just wanted to let you know you are in my thoughts, and I wish you bursts of energy that can get you through the tough moments.