Category: iatrogenic illness

In honor of the woman I witnessed being tortured

moon through the trees Since I learned and posted about the UN report that explicitly called forced psych treatment torture, I've been haunted by a memory of something I witnessed during a hospitalization as a very young woman.

Since posting about the UN report that called forced psych treatment torture, I've been haunted by a memory. It was something I witnessed during a hospitalization as a very young woman. I have my own radical experiences of such torture. I wrote about it in 2007 here. It's not what I've been struggling with in the last few days, however. Instead what plagues me is knowing that this is happening everyday, all over this country and nothing is being done to stop it.

Chronic pain during psych drug withdrawal

mandala painted by Kristine Mann while she was in analysis with Jung for Chronic Pain

I use many methods for relief of the pain at once...including yoga and meditation and supplements and diet and epsom salt baths...like all aspects of health I've learned, that pain too is a deeply holistic experience. Everything matters. I don't imagine the combination of what works for me is going to be exactly applicable to anyone else. It's more important to learn to listen to ones particular body and that process will never be exactly the same. I list as many things here as possible so that one might start to piece together what might work for their situation.

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DSM‘s Somatoform Disorders: millions more might be diagnosed (those with withdrawal syndrome are high risk for such misdiagnosis)

The Somatic Symptom Disorder category is also of particular concern to those who are suffering from drug iatrogenesis and particularly psychiatric drug withdrawal syndromes. One of the common manifestations of debilitation when struck with withdrawal syndromes are numerous, often bizarre, acute, painful and disabling physical sensations. They include varieties of neuropathies and parasthesias. They are NOT in the patients head. And since the drug use caused these disabling symptoms more drugs to cure them is exactly the wrong way to go. This, of course, already happens. Many people are wrongly diagnosed when they start manifesting adverse reactions or acute withdrawal to drugs. They are often already disbelieved when they start reporting such adverse events.

Why I communicated with the MD who harmed me

rusty metal bars with circles for communicated with the MD

Update 2026: I've not communicated with the MD that this post is about for some years now. I did maintain contact for over a decade. In the end I actually publicly outed him. I think people need to be called to accountability. Everything I've said about him and the complexity of our relationship remains true. 2012: I’ve been documenting my correspondence with my longest term prescribing psychiatrist for a few years. The page where I link to all the documentation has been getting traffic since the article I wrote about my being polydrugged was published on David Healy's site and Mad in America.

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Monica’s Story: The Aftermath of Polypsychopharmacology

a close up shot of maple leaves for Aftermath of Polypsychopharmacology

Update 2026: This article was first posted at rxisk.org, Dr. David Healy's site. Since I'm routinely updating my site, I decided to bring this post to my site as I maintain and update SEO. This article didn't come up in a Google search on rxisk.org, thus it makes sense to publish it here where I can keep it as part of my collected works. I'm reposting it with the original publishing date. 2012: I recently contacted the doctor who is responsible for my iatrogenesis — the doctor who grossly over-medicated me and made me ill. I’ve been corresponding with him for several years now, but this was the first telephone conversation I’ve had with him since telling him what his drug cocktail did to me. He rarely says much in response to my emails where I link to the articles I’ve written casting large shadows on the “treatment” he gave me. So I called him and left a voicemail that I might talk to him. When he returned my call a few days later, we talked for perhaps a half hour.

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healing journey — part 1 (brief thoughts from this morning to a friend)

The truth is my journey to healing has been so isolated, by necessity and because there has been NO available professionals with the appropriate skill sets, I've had to find my own healing path. This is, I imagine much more common than is ever let on. There are NO appropriate professionals available in a large... Continue Reading →

Bad Pharma: Ben Goldacre’s new book

Medicine is broken. And I genuinely believe that if patients and the public ever fully understand what has been done to them – what doctors, academics and regulators have permitted – they will be angry. On this, only you can judge.

Yes, some of us already understand and we are angry. We are also disbelieved and thought to be exaggerating and histrionic and just downright not right in the head.

What your MD should tell you about SSRI antidepressants

Antidepressant medication is the most commonly prescribed treatment for people with depression. They are also commonly prescribed for other conditions, including bipolar depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, chronic pain syndromes, substance abuse and anxiety and eating disorders. According to a 2011 report released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one out of every ten people (11%) over the age of 12 in the US is on antidepressant medications. Between 2005 and 2008, antidepressants were the third most common type of prescription drug taken by people of all ages, and they were the most frequently used medication by people between the ages of 18 and 44. In other words, millions of people are prescribed antidepressants and are affected by them each year.

Immune disorder and inflammation and gut health….implications for many folks total well-being

This article I'm excerpting from below is talking about a topic in reference to that which gets labeled autism, but the subject has implications for anyone with auto-immune issues as well as many sorts of phenomena that get labeled mental illness. As holistic beings this is with some frequency part of the picture that must be addressed for total well-being.

I've been writing about diet and nutrition and healing the gut all with an emphasis on minimizing inflammation and how that is important for many people with psychiatric labels since the inception of this blog.

This information is not new. It's new to the mainstream. It's been largely dismissed as "WOO." But now the New York Times is finally on getting on board. It's quite interesting to see how these ideas get (tentatively) introduced at these large publications. The fact that the implications here are much larger than they touch on should be noted.

An Immune Disorder at the Root of Autism

Vulnerability and the Illusion of Control

Below I've shared a brief excerpt from a longer article on Larry Berkelhammer's blog: Mind Training to Improve Health. I saw his article right after I noticed a post on twitter saying cancer and illness in general was a lifestyle choice! They used a damning and judgmental tone too. What is wrong with people?? We... Continue Reading →

Encouraging people to make healthy life supporting choices is not the same as blaming them for illness

Yesterday I found myself on a website that claimed to offer inspiration about healing from a variety of illnesses. The post I read said that people earned their health. If you are ill you earned it and if you are healthy you earned it too said this website....

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