Editorial Note: – This continues our series of the lethal effects of akathisia running on RxISK and davidhealy.org – with special reference to Little Red SSRIding Hood and Even Docs get killed by Akathisia.
Akathisia and treatment induced suicide took a political turn over the weekend, along with the issue of whether teenagers should be informed of these risks, when Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservative party, widely regarded as one of the most formidable political operators in Britain, revealed that she had had mental health problems when she was a teenager.
She had been affected in ways that surprised her by the death of a boy of her own age living nearby. He wasn’t a boyfriend or ex-boyfriend, or someone particularly close to her. This was in the mid to late 1990s when SSRI use was escalating rapidly before Panorama raised concerns about their use in children and brought a slow down in the growth of use to teenagers.
Davidson ended up going to her doctor, who gave her antidepressants. She started having weird dreams, became suicidal, and would find herself outside her body. She went back to the doctor several times. Each time the dose was increased and her problems got worse. She took herself off the medication and improved.
From Ruth to Sven
Ruth Davidson comes over as someone who has a mind of her own, unlike the Belgian Minister for Youth Sven Gatz who has been on antidepressants for over twenty years and promotes them as necessary for him and others – every time he tries to stop he learns he needs to continue.
Even if akathisia hasn’t been present first time around, repeated stopping and starting destabilises the system so that someone who was apparently helped to begin with can run into increasing difficulties even on pills they have felt good on before.
This raises a question about whether politicians should be on antidepressants. In addition to akathisia, these drugs can cause an emotional numbing and disinhibition not unlike alcohol abuse. While the civil service – bureaucracy – deep state – compensates for politicians when they are inebriated or agitated, removing documents from their desk to ensure nothing gets done impulsively or whimsically, there is still greater scope for things to go wrong when politicians are chronically destabilised by psychotropic drugs, whether prescription or non-prescription.
The argument that surely its better have a politician with a mental disorder on treatment than not doesn’t hold water in that the number of people with a mental disorder so significant that it might jeopardise their decision-making is dwarfed by the number of people on treatment, who might have mental distress but who don’t have a disorder, whose judgement is compromised by treatment induced akathisia, disinhibition and psychosis.
This argument of course applies also to pilots, fire-fighters, the police and others whose jobs involve judgement calls.
If not Meds, then What?
For the most part, antidepressant use is not going up. The numbers are going up but this is primarily caused by the fact that the people who go on them can’t get off them so the overall numbers rise year on year.
Except that is for teenagers where more and more teens and pre-teens are being put on these drugs year on year.
Why is this? Is it because there is more distress in the world today? The people I ask split down the middle between those who figure life is more difficult now than it was 20 years ago or those who figure the world is an easier place than ever before and to think otherwise is to indulge snowflakes.
Whichever side of this divide you fall on you don’t get an antidepressant if you don’t take your distress to a doctor – so it could be things are more or less difficult but that whichever it is whatever distress we now have we are more likely to take it to a doctor. Fifty years ago distressed teenagers took their alienation to the streets and to politics, now we take it to doctors.
What’s a doctor to do faced with existential distress? Maybe it’s a case of our doctors turning into snowflakes. They throw up their hands at the first sign of distress and dish out pills in order to get people out of their consulting room – pills that 30 out of 30 trials in this age group show are unlikely to help and are very likely to cause significant problems.
Depending on doctors to save us is probably a mistake. But what about parents. Ruth Davidson had some good words for parents.
The Edinburgh University I attended seemed populated by incredibly confident, loud and forceful students, who had all gone to posh private schools, who all knew each other, had all done a gap year building orphanages in Tanzania or shelters for orang-utans in Borneo. They all seemed to have money and cars and an unshakeable belief in themselves and their place in the world.
If I’d known then that knowledge is not the same thing as intelligence and confidence is not the same thing as ability, I might not have struggled so much.
You don’t have to agree with what’s being said here to get the message that faced with a teenager in distress there is a place for an older person whether a parent or a doctor who has been through this whitewater turbulence themselves to craft a message that will keep a floundering teen afloat until they can manage it for themselves.
Johanna says
“What’s a doctor to do faced with existential distress? Maybe it’s a case of our doctors turning into snowflakes. They throw up their hands at the first sign of distress and dish out pills in order to get people out of their consulting room …”
Thanks for saying this! One of the main drivers of pill-pushing for people in emotional crisis has always been doctors’ reluctance to talk about feelings and life problems–especially with females. “Get that woman a sedative!” It was probably a major cause of America’s opioid crisis 100 years ago, in which Soothing Tonics peddled to women took center stage. In the 60’s, benzos were openly peddled to doctors as solutions to the problems of “neurotic” housewives. Many doctors found it very soothing indeed to write a script for Valium rather than be forced to discuss “female problems.”
And one of the reasons why young rebels in that era didn’t take their troubles to a shrink was that the shrink often seemed hell-bent on shutting them up. At best, they would smugly inform the young man who was angry at LBJ and the Vietnam War that he was “really” angry at his father. At worst, private hospitals known in the trade as “buzz farms” sold frightened parents on ECT as a solution to teen marijuana smoking and rebellion. If the money or insurance was there to pay, it was a lot less scary than actually talking to the kid–for parent and doc alike. The town where I went to high school had one of these Buzz Farms, and a few “hippie” teachers and youth ministers who had helped smuggle teens out of town to escape being sent there.
Pharma profiteering is an important part of the picture — but they can’t get too far if the market isn’t there. The determination NOT to face real problems in our society has always provided them with a key business opportunity. It is one of the charms of the Brain Disease framework that now drives public discussion of depression, anxiety and the problems of troubled youth.
annie says
It’s a Conundrum..
The high achievers who have doubts about themselves.
The high achievers who have no doubts about themselves.
Whatever profession you decide on and find yourself mixing with other people in various stages of doubt and confidence you can suffer demonstrably if you are a doubter but sail through if you have superlative confidence.
All those in betweeners who are so young and put on psychotropic drugs to try and be part of the confident race to succeed by previous super-educated.
If there is no doubt in a super achiever then that super achiever will go through an entire lifetime mostly missing the point of what makes intelligent decisions.
We then have this situation of the highly-qualified now in their societal position offloading their confidence on to the doubters and this imbalance is causing a societal turbulence which is not necessarily for the good.
The young are learning and their mentors seem to have ceased their learning and it seems a situation for which there seems to be no solution.
The young are too young and the older seem no wiser and introducing drugs as a semi parental/semi bolster doesn’t seem to have the right fit about it.
Akathisia for a young person can be fatal and it is overwhelmingly awful that no one takes responsibility.
There are so many persons who could put their minds to this problem but it is treated as a political game with no winners.
If the political games stopped for a moment, and all those super-confident pro pill advocates bought some doubt and started querying the evidence base then there would be a whole new world of people that the young could have.
Tim was right on when he asked?
What on earth did they go to medical school for?
Doctors seem to be teaching the young some very bad lessons in how not to think backed up by the insurmountable numbers playing their political games …
Heather R says
Annie, this is brilliantly put. And Johanna’s piece too.
A suggestion: I have been reading Susan Calman (Scots comedian and sufferer from depression) in her, I think, excellent book ‘Cheer up Love’ in which she tells us how she copes, and lives a good life, the life she wants, being herself. She says she does not use medication. But in her book she describes all the ways she’s thought about things, how she has felt, and how she’s finally worked things out for herself. She’s gay, she’s funny, but funny with a poignant heart-touching edge. If the ‘young who have doubts about themselves’ could read this, they wouldn’t need to go cap in hand to any doctor. (Interestingly, although she does not refer to this in the book, on Wikipedia one finds that her father is a doctor). I’m just starting her new book, just published. I am not her agent, btw, but someone enormously impressed by her honesty, and her sincere will to help, which she achieves simply and self effacingly whilst raising a grin.
annie Bevan says
The ‘Row’ that engulfed ‘Baldwin and Burn’ regarding ‘that’ letter in The Times and that has ‘a lot to do with Akathisia’ is today in the times ..
Drugs adviser David Baldwin quits after being branded ‘worse than Hitler’ in online abuse row
Chris Smyth, Health Editor
September 25 2018, 12:01am, The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/drugs-adviser-david-baldwin-quits-after-being-branded-worse-than-hitler-in-online-abuse-row-srtqltmfs
A government adviser on the use of antidepressants has resigned after being called “worse than Hitler” and a “pharma-whore” in a campaign of harassment that he has accused colleagues of fomenting.
David Baldwin claimed that a fellow adviser helped to fan the flames of online abuse in a row over the effects of the drugs. The controversy began when he wrote to The Times in February to downplay the side-effects of coming off the drugs, saying: “In the vast majority of patients, any unpleasant symptoms experienced on discontinuing antidepressants have resolved within two weeks of stopping
Campaigners claim that such effects have for years been underestimated by doctors. Ministers ordered Public Health England to examine the subject and it set up an expert panel on which Professor Baldwin represented the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
His letter prompted a complaint to the college from ten psychiatrists and the psychologist John Read of the University of East London, who sat on the same expert panel. They argued that Professor Baldwin’s statement was untrue and that many patients suffered long-term problems after coming off antidepressants.
They also accused him of being compromised by payments and research funding he had received from pharmaceutical companies. He and the letter’s co-author, Wendy Burn, the college president, were misleading the public, putting patients at risk and bringing the profession into disrepute, they claimed.
In stepping down from his PHE role, Professor Baldwin said that he had had enough of being targeted by bloggers calling him a “pharma-whore” because of payments from drugs companies. One anonymous commenter labelled him a “pharmaceutical rapist and a lying serial murderer worse than Hitler!” He blamed Professor Read and other complainants for fuelling online anger, but they argue that this is a distraction from the important issues.
Professor Burn said that his resignation was a “significant loss” that weakened the official review. “He made it clear to me that he felt harassed into resigning. It is disappointing that any resignation should take place for these reasons and it is critical that the review and this ongoing debate more generally can be conducted in an informed, professional and respectful manner.”
She has written to PHE urging it to remind its advisers to behave properly. Professor Read said he “utterly condemned” the insults and dismissed any suggestion of an orchestrated campaign. “We are trying to raise an issue of scientific integrity.” He added: “We can’t control the anger of people by denial of what these drugs can do.”
He insisted his concern was “not about [Professor Baldwin], it’s the principle. If we are going to have people advising government they need to be free of potential contamination from receiving money from companies that minimise harms. It’s a shame that when professionals and scientists raise legitimate concerns about another’s work they try to turn it into a personal issue.”
The college said Professor Baldwin had properly declared his interests and his statement was based on guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. The critics say the college is yet to back up the claim with sufficient evidence, arguing that the role of drug companies in designing research has meant withdrawal has not been studied properly.
Sami Timimi, a psychiatrist who complained about Professor Baldwin, also condemned abuse but said: “The review will be better off if it doesn’t have anyone with the sorts of conflicts of interest that Professor Baldwin has.”
Rosanna O’Connor, director of drugs, alcohol, tobacco and justice at PHE, said it “regrets any personal distress caused to Professor Baldwin . . . The review remains on track and will be published next year.”
“In the vast majority of patients, any unpleasant symptoms experienced on discontinuing antidepressants have resolved within two weeks of stopping treatment.”
This is not how it is and no matter however critically it was reviewed, it should never have been allowed to remain as a diktat …
annie says
I am going to keep saying this …
Lucy Johnstone #FBPE
@ClinpsychLucy
9h
Minds, Madness, Medicine (link: https://iai.tv/video/minds-madness-medicine) iai.tv/video/minds-ma… Video of debate at Hay HTLGI festival with me, Dr David Nutt and
@DrDavidHealy
https://iai.tv/video/minds-madness-medicine
I am going to keep saying this. Most of the supposed Islamist terror attacks in Europe (and many of the non-Islamist massacres elsewhere) involve people who have been taking either marijuana, steroids or so-called ‘antidepressants’.
The inquest into the Westminster outrage shows clearly that the killer Khalid Masood, a violent criminal, took steroids and suffered from the terrifying ‘roid rage’, which apologists for these dangerous drugs claim is a myth.
Other mass killers who took steroids include the very non-Muslim Anders Breivik.
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
How we’ve hooked
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6181367/How-weve-hooked-generation-children-depression-pills-dont-need.html
a generation
I am going to keep saying this
Allen Frances
@AllenFrancesMD
Psych meds probably have little role in #MassShooting: 1)Meds are used widely around world, but only US has epidemic of #gunviolence 2)Convenient NRA excuse- Use #mentalillness or meds to distract attention from #GunControl 3)Tho some killers on meds, no clear causal connection
“akathisia, a treatment-induced mental state that regularly leads to suicide and homicide”
Akathisia, I Can’t Keep Still
I am going to keep saying this …
Rose Bronikowski says
The worst mass killing by an invidual occured in one of the Scandinavian countries within the past few years. China has a problem with people using knives to commit mass killings. These even occur in schools where many children are killed and injured, China just does not let that out.So get your facts straight. You can Google where the mass killings are world wide and there are plenty.
susanne says
Rather than assume the old headmistress role (this is the second time recently that individuals have been chastised for ‘bad behaviour’ by the way – Peter G was accused of ‘bad behaviour’ by Cochrane group =treating fellow professionals in such a demeaning way is not appropriate), Wendy Burns should have the maturity to admit she and her her colleagues were willfully wrong and have been caught out. Admit why they were so adamant that a person who was so compromised should remain on the panel. As ever the self serving defence of their reputation by blaming others comes before the safety of the public.
Frankly when people see that cover ups will continue unless they speak out about the trivialising of harms and deaths by antidepressants, anger is to be expected – it may not be British old chap but it is entirely righteous. The anger is ongoing and has been increasing for a very long long time – it’s not just happening as a result of the moral action of the group who challenged the panel in such an admirable way.,
David Baldwin should be apologising for his massive error in taking the position – not complaining to the headmistress, and crucially for his deceitful statement which obviously must have been discussed first with members of the college -it’s brought him no kudos just shows his judgement is as flawed as that of those who appointed him. Has his judgement been trustworthy in all his other roles… Why aren’t the rest of the panel resigning instead of just using David B as the total fall guy.
Another angry brigade , after decades of activism ,are at last seeing some action to bring to account those who ruined lives by allowing, then lying and covering up, the use of contaminated blood .
Hopefully one day all those who are trying to cover up the scandal of harms and deaths by antidepressants and other prescribed drugs will be brought to account. At least ALL the records can’t go missing these days – individuals and groups have documented them on blogs etc.
annie says
As Professionals are giving out blatantly false information to Patients, Kiwi answers back in true style …
“Drugs advisor [David Baldwin] quits after being branded worse than Hitler [on Social media]”.
Wow! Believe me this guy has done everyone a favour including himself.
The truth hurts doesnt it!
Im not as widely read on social media as some but i can think of only one person who blogged and labeled Baldwin ‘worse than Hitler’. That person being myself. And how flattered and thrilled i am to think i could have such influence to have triggerred his resignation. Brilliant.
Several points have now been proven one being that when it comes to name calling and labelling of others these people can give it but they cant take it.
Maybe Baldwin was forced to look in the mirror and reflect on the millions of people that have been harmed by him. The millions of seroxat victims who at this point in time are oblivious to the future plight that awaits (the traumatising withdrawal horror show that is relentless long lasting and brutal putting people in a position where death becomes a welcome relief and thousands by the way take this option and its not because they have a mental illness) should they try to get off the drug.
Perhaps Baldwin and anyone else who disagrees with me who condemns my comments might like to try some seroxat for themselves. For no one knows a drug like the one who is taking it or has taken it or had to get off it. A person with an experience is never at the mercy of someone with an opinion. Heres the invitation take 40mg of paroxetine for 6 months then quit it. Dont worry about tapering [as ‘Not being given a tapering schedule is a minor issue’ response of a doctor].
Let me tell you something as for ‘withdrawal symptoms only lasting two weeks’ you may in fact have no withdrawal symptoms for several months (for they are often delayed) but then 3-4 months down the track BANG the withdrawal will hit like a train trash in the brain. You will suddenly become uncharacteristically weepy and tearful for no reason and then you will wish you had never been born.
Im 8 years seroxat free and still recovering. I am still unable to work fulltime but im hoping one day i will return to fulltime employment. The withdrawal left me nonfunctioning human for over 6 years unemployed and unemployable. Never had any psych issues in my life it was all off label pill pushing. I would be the last person in the world to commit suicide but the withdrawal left me fightng for my life daily. Its a miracle im still alive. Thankfully i am and so will continue to state the truth.
Perhaps Baldwin has now caught a glimpse of the truth and seen the horror he has caused (he should be deeply ashamed) and done the right thing. Maybe his conscience wasnt totally severed afterall!
Do i stand by my W-T-H label. Yes you bet, because its the truth.
Disagree with me?
Okay ..YOU take seroxat for ten years, get off it , then come back and comment?
Till then you have no voice just an (ignorant) opinion.
It appears the population of the UK is 63,186,000. Apparently about ten percent of people are taking these drugs. Thats a lot of people currently wearing striped pyjamas.
………
Keep up the good work Truthman.
https://truthman30.wordpress.com/2018/09/26/the-infamous-hitler-commenter-makes-a-salient-point-once-again/
Seroxat has a lot to answer for …
Spruce says
It is such a grubby, cosy relationship that all these doctors, regulators, and others in power seem to have.
All scratching each others backs, lining their pockets and feathering their nests, while working hard to cover up and deny any of the damage these drugs do.
These drug companies have no doubt payed many a second or third mortgage for these doctors over the years, who can retire in comfort, while our lives are often left in pieces for many years and sometimes for decades; and at worst are completely ruined.
I lost almost everything because of Benzodiazepine withdrawal and PSSD from SSRI’s. Everyday is a struggle to keep going and not give up. I eek out this horrible existence on the fringes of society, with few friends or family. On top of that I haven’t been able to feel my penis or have an orgasm for 11 years. My youth and prime of my life is almost gone, and it was all spent suffering in misery, unable to work for most of it, or live the life I wanted to.
It’s nothing less than a state sponsored cull or social cleansing of some of the most vulnerable people in society. Let’s call it out for what it is. It’s a form of mass organised murder of vulnerable people. They know the damage these drugs cause. The drug companies and regulators know, and they choose not to do anything.
Thousands and thousands of people killed off every year. While the doctors and those in power get rich and enjoy life from our deaths and misery.
At least with people like Hitler and Stalin their crimes were acknowledged. People knew what they did was evil, and the atrocities were known about and acknowledged. Sometimes there was justice too. People knew and could sympathise with the victims.They were believed!
But not many people know about the suffering that us drug wrecks go through, or the grief people have to endure when someone close is killed by these drugs, and the downright indignity and stress of going through the complaint process only to be told that it’s nothing to do with the drug, when you know that it is.
It’s all so stealthy, so hidden, so secret, so unknown about, so obscured by false data, fudged statistics, and conflicts of interest. So sneaky, well placed, well defended, and effective.
There is no acknowledgement of your pain, no kind words, no empathy, no help. No one understands or believes you. Not your doctor, family or friends.
You are made out to be the problem. The crazy man, going on about withdrawal symptoms that have gone on for years after the drug is out of your system. After all you do have mental health problems, so why should people take you seriously? The doctors are saying withdrawal can’t go on for longer than a few weeks, maybe a month at tops, and they have got a medical degree, so are likely to be in a better position to know a thing or two about this don’t you think?
It is the stealthy , hidden way that this killing off of many thousands happens that makes it so effective and in some ways makes it worse than other genocides caused by people like Hitler. At least with Hitler you knew where you stood. Better the devil you know as they say!
Rose Bronikowski says
Well said. You are correct about the killing off the masses. Between drugs and poisons put in our food and water and sprayed in the air, we are all being slowly killed while those doing it are getting rich. Way worse than Hitler or Stalin, but they were just the trial run until they figured out how to kill off the”lesser” population and make money doing it all the while denying anything is happening.
Carla says
Spruce, you hit the nail on the head.
Spruce describes the situation very well:
It is such a grubby, cosy relationship that all these doctors, regulators, and others in power seem to have.
All scratching each other’s backs, lining their pockets and feathering their nests, while working hard to cover up and deny any of the damage these drugs do.
These drug companies have no doubt payed many a second or third mortgage for these doctors over the years, who can retire in comfort, while our lives are often left in pieces for many years and sometimes for decades; and at worst are completely ruined.
This is the kind of culture that has to change however, it takes time for people to understand what is going on before any changes come about. Sadly, people have to experience and see it with their own eyes to understand what it is all about!
Honestly, if people don’t understated what one has to live with on a daily basis, there is nothing you or I can do.
One politician in Australia has bought it to the attention of the wider community, that this problem is real and exists. Kudos, to our caring politicians!
I am starting to have faith in our leaders who recognise that our health issue is not a result of us being crazy or being malingerers.
Below is the website that will educate many people who have got a condition that sadly is misunderstood by our medical establishment and the wider community.
https://emerge.org.au/
I believe there are many outstanding doctors and politicians in this universe.
It is like finding a ‘pin in the haystack’.
Don’t give up hope, Spruce. Our voices are slowly being heard. It takes time. I have faith and trust that it will never be too late for the next generation. I have faith : )
Please, let our unfortunate journey be a lesson that many souls can learn from.
We are like the rudder of a ship. Navigating and steering our experiences and stories, in a way that will help others to understand that we have the power to educate people about something that is hidden from their eyes.
We are the ‘true seekers’ opening the portals of the unconsciousness.
See it as a gift, although many may not see it that way :’ (
We are here, for a purpose and our stories and experiences, will be a teacher.
A wealth of knowledge that will be added to everyone’s toolbox.