there's actually a rational, scientific basis to be -very- skeptical of psych drugs and labels. its not just some 1970s, radical chic stuff I decided to pull out on y'all, lol.
There's a book...Anatomy of an Epidemic...basically, the idea is this: psych drugs suppress -some- symptoms, for -some- people, with -some- degree of success....at a high cost. brain changes, straight up brain damage...the "antipsychotics" can make psychosis worse over time, the "antidepressants" can make what could have been a painful, one off episode into a chronic, lifelong condition, and the "anti-anxiety" drugs, especially the benzodiazepines (Valium, klonopin, xanax and friends...) can trigger dependence, straight up addiction, and tapering now and then causes -death-, often thru seizures.
im not saying that to scare you or anyone else. its just...well...i look over my existence, before Jesus saved (is saving, I pray will save me, now and in the world to come....), and I was a "mental patient," largely -because- of psychiatric "treatment." True story. I even had tardive dyskinesia (tics...usually in the face...mostly associated with tranquilizers/antipsychotics, but can also happen with antidepressants....), dead eyes, memory loss from shock 'treatments' (involuntary, not that it really matters...brain damage is brain damage, after all...), and then...
Jesus patched me up during a Pentecostal rehab program. Then I got genuinely saved (miracle!), and He's been good to "put off the old, put on the new," because...well...that's part of His work in His children's lives. Anyway...
I guess I"m saying that I'm no longer "antipsychiatry" in the anti-capitalist, 70s, kinda sense, nor in the libertarian, hyper-capitalist sense that Szasz was (no matter how much he denied it....) "antipsychiatry," but I am...
I am a Christian, and I think much of Mental Health, Inc. is anti-Christ, especially when the pills, shock 'treatments,' and various brain operations get involved. The "talking treatments" can be toxic, too, but they often work with the shrinks to destroy people.
I'll pray for you. I think...especially in modern culture, what Szasz correctly termed The Myth of Mental Illness lives on for a number of complicated, interrelated reasons...economic factors, social factors, the growing power of the medical establishment, a postmodern, post-Christian worldview, and...honestly...CONVENIENCE. Its easier and probably cheaper to pump money into psychiatry, even if you have to give some people disability (like...me, for now....), than it is to take a look at what's going on in these United States, in the world at large, in -human nature-, to make such distrubing and disturbed people. The pseudoscientific labels and jargon give "patients" a sort of "doctor's note" for sins and flaws, families get off the hook (oh, no...your behavior towards your kid did not contribute to this...its a BRAIN DISEASE...one day, your kid's brain just broke apart, and now she's crazy...here's some Seroquel....), and, at a larger level, it gets communities, society as a whole off the hook, too.
Jesus saves! Psychiatry...labels, subtracts, sedates, often destroys...its not a question of a couple bad shrinks or angry "mental patients..." the industry is basically all about control and destruction, especially when you start looking at hospitals, involuntary "treatment," and "severe mental illness," etc.
OK. ((off soap box now)).