depression

Stress, Depression and The News

Stress, Depression and The News

Stop Watching the News

A friend of mine living in Los Angeles told me an interesting story.  This happened about 15 years ago.  He worked construction in the Hollywood area on higher end houses.  While on the job one day, the client expressed that she was fighting ongoing depression, talking about how horrible the world was.  After a someone lengthy conversation, my contractor friend asked how much news she listened to or watched.  “Oh, all the time!”  was the response. Morning news, newspaper, evening news, radio in the car, etc.  He asked if she was willing to take a challenge which after his explanation, she accepted.  This was the challenge: “Go two months without watching, reading or listening to the news.  And then see how you feel.”  She agreed.  The job was finished at this point and he left her to her life, not really expecting to hear.  Or at best, maybe in a couple of months.  A week later, she, the client, called and said, “I haven’t felt this good in years”.  No TV news, no radio and no newspapers.  She had a completely new outlook on life.  In just one week!  

It doesn’t surprise me at all.  Bombarding a person with bad news constantly can in no way be beneficial.  There have been countless studies on the effects of news on depression, anxiety and other disorders.  I’ve referenced a few below:

1. Article Title: The News Media and Psychological Distress

“Negative stress was directly related to anxiety and depression. News media exposure and anxiety were positively related at low levels of irrationality. News media exposure was predictive of trait anxiety at low levels of optimism.”

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10615800108248354

The ‘irrationality’ resulting from watching too much news is evident in arguments between friends that constantly occur on ‘sensitive’ subjects.  (Politics, religion, etc.) 

2. Article Title: A Systematic Review: The influence of social media on depression, anxiety and psychological distress in adolescents

“All domains correlated with depression, anxiety and psychological distress.”

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673843.2019.1590851?src=recsys

If your children are on Facebook they are going to be constantly exposed to bad news, telling them how the world is going to hell in a hand basket.  Limiting use could save the use of harmful drugs like Ritalin, Prozac, Zoloft and others that often exacerbate depression and anxiety.  Prevention is way better than most ‘cures’ out there. Maybe the right phrase should be ‘anti-social media’.

3. Article Title: How the Negative News Cycle Can Impact Mental Health

“The results indicated those respondents viewing news coverage for six or more hours were nine times more likely to report high acute stress levels than those with minimal media time.”

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/how-the-negative-news-cycle-can-impact-mental-health-1110152

Have you ever tried to have a rational conversation with a friend  after they have been watching CNN or Fox for three days straight?  Not going to happen.  How communicative is your teenager after a full rainy day sitting on Facebook?

There is a lot of good in the world.  There is an endless supply of really good people. Most are generally quite friendly and want good things for those around them. Happy to help. Too much bad news from the media can stop someone’s willingness to feel safe and communicate with others.  

If you are finding yourself being a bit too miserable, reviewing how much time you are spending paying attention to the news or seeing alarming items on Facebook or other social media, then maybe you should take a moment to reorganize your life a bit.  If you are constantly getting in fights regarding politics with friends, I’d say that it would be a very good time to, at least temporarily, withdraw from Facebook and turn the news off.  

See, then, if your outlook changes at all. Give it a couple of weeks.  You up for the challenge?

Posted by greymouser in Blog, 0 comments
The Scientific Method and Psychiatry

The Scientific Method and Psychiatry

The Scientific Method and Psychiatry

Psychiatry: Claims to be a science.

In talking to people in general, the feeling is that for the most part psychiatry is benign. The understood purpose is to help people that are dealing with anything from ADHD to Depression to Psychosis.

Automobile Seat Belts - An Analogy

Normally, when one sets out to fix something, they would measure adequately to know if the results warranted continuing.

The Problem:

For example, let’s take car fatalities. Years ago, in the 1950s and 1960s, seatbelts were not mandatory. A lot of people were severely injured or died as a result.

The Results:

In 1968 seat belts were made mandatory for all cars in the USA. From there, mandatory use followed in all states and Canada. Took a few years but….

Resulting Statistics:

Here is a reference from the Journal of The Royal Society of Medicine showing the before and after statistics of injuries and deaths with respect to seatbelts:

“The number of those who escaped injury increased by 40% and those with mild and moderate injuries decreased by 35% after seatbelt legislation. There was a significant reduction in soft tissue injuries to the head.”
February 1990"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1292501/

A 40% reduction in deaths is a significant reason to continue to enforce the use of seat belts.

What about Big Pharma and Psychiatry

Big Pharma and the psychiatric industry market depression drugs like Zoloft, Lexapro, Prozac and Cymbalta which if you think about it, should result in far few people being depressed. The result of that would be fewer suicides. One would think.

The problem with the psychiatric industry is that the ‘solutions’ they use mask or bury the problem. An active child that the parents don’t have time for: put him on a drug that quiets him. Turns him or her (usually him) into a zombie and mom and dad who don’t really have time to deal with the noise of their child, are happy because said child is quiet and not in their hair. Thus, Mom and Dad are convinced of the success of the drug.

Here is how it should work. There is such as thing as the Scientific Method. It is the logical, agreed upon procedure for figuring ‘stuff’ out.

Some definitions:

Science:(Definition) A fact in science is when some happens the same every time in the same set of circumstances. (definition.org)

Science: (Definition): a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws.

Science(Definition): The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. Oxford Dictionary

So, we want facts and truths. Simple, right?

The Scientific Method:

The steps of the scientific method go something like this:

1. Make an observation or observations.
2. Ask questions about the observations and gather information.
3. Form a hypothesis — a tentative description of what's been observed, and make predictions based on that hypothesis.
4. Test the hypothesis and predictions in an experiment that can be reproduced.
5. Analyze the data and draw conclusions; accept or reject the hypothesis or modify the hypothesis if necessary.
6. Reproduce the experiment until there are no discrepancies between observations and theory. "Replication of methods and results is my favorite step in the scientific method," Moshe Pritsker, a former post-doctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School and CEO of JoVE, told Live Science. "The reproducibility of published experiments is the foundation of science. No reproducibility – no science.”

Taking the car/seat belt example from above, the Scientific Method applied properly saved countless lives.

Insulated Winter Boots - Another Analogy

If one were running a business; let’s say making high quality insulated winter boots. If they kept people feet warm, they would be successful. If 80% of the time, they did not keep people’s feet warm, it is very likely that people would stop buying them.

So, using this analogy, let’s say the marketing was good but as time went on more and more people were using these ‘wonder boots’. But more and more people were walking about with freezing feet and getting frostbite and worse but the boot people marketing would just tell them they need more of these boots. A second pair or change to another pair of boots that are also not properly insulated but, what the hell, we are making a bundle of money, so who cares. Then the boot manufacturers lobby the government representatives and get laws passed that enforce people to wear these boots. They get papers written on how effective these boots are.

People still have cold feet. So, now they convince the people with cold feet that it is their problem and not a problem with the boots. Tell them how they are mentally blocking their feet from getting warm.

Not very good Scientific Method. The solution would be to make a boot that worked. Use that method to actually make a boot that kept your feet warm.

So, what of the Pharmaceutical Industry and psychiatry. One would assume they have done adequate testing on their drugs and various techniques and procedures. Maybe, maybe not.

Let us take depression stats as example. Psychiatry and Big Pharma have been pushing this one hard for a number of years and pumping various anti-depression drugs into their US the rest of the world for years now.

The Results:

Per the CDC https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/suicide/index.html

“… The incidence of suicide increased 30% from 1999 to 2016.”

And concurrent with the increase in suicides:

In the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/29/nhs-prescribed-record-number-of-antidepressants-last-year

“The total number of prescriptions dispensed has risen 46.8% in the last 10 years, from 752m items in 2006 to 1.1bn last year. The average number of items prescribed for each person has gone up …”

In the USA:

“The rate of antidepressant use in the United States increased nearly 400 percent over the last two decades, according to a report released Oct. 19.”
https://psychcentral.com/news/2011/10/25/antidepressant-use-up-400-percent-in-us/30677.html

These drugs are supposed to make things better. But, if I’m to line up these two preceding facts, I should get a bit worried. The rate of suicides follows the rate of increased use of anti-depressants.

A comment on psychiatry’s use of The Scientific Method:

“…it ignores much of the genuine science there is and goes on supporting and perpetuating concepts and treatments that have little scientific support.”
By Sami Timimi, MD from madinamerica.com
https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/01/the-scientism-of-psychiatry/

And from same article, Dr Timimi shows more of the total lack of Scientific Method. Giving the example of ADHD he clearly points out that diagnosing this so called disease has absolutely nothing to do with science:



“Consider the following example: If I were to ask the question “what is ADHD?” it is not possible for me to answer that question by reference to a particular known pathological abnormality. Instead I will have to provide a description, such as ADHD is the presence of the behaviours of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and poor attention (plus a few extra qualifiers such as age of onset). Contrast this with asking the question “what is diabetes?” If I were to answer this question in the same manner by just describing symptoms such as needing to urinate excessively, thirst and fatigue, I could be in deep trouble as a medical practitioner as there are plenty of other conditions that may initially present with these symptoms and diabetes itself may not present with these symptoms in a recognizable way. In order to answer the question “what is diabetes?” I have to refer to its pathology involving abnormalities of sugar metabolism. I would get independent (to my subjective opinion) empirical data to support my hypothesis about what may be causing the patient’s described experiences (such as testing the urine and/or blood for levels of glucose). In the rest of medicine, therefore, my diagnosis explains and has some causal connection with the behaviours/symptoms that are described. Diagnosis in that context sits in a ‘technical’ explanatory framework. In psychiatry, what we are calling diagnosis (such as ADHD) will only describe but is unable to explain”.

This is only one example, where, in psychiatry there is no standard response or technique. There is no Scientific Method applied to issues like depression or ADHD. If it was applied then it would follow that there would be fewer and fewer people depressed and fewer and fewer suicides. But the opposite is happening. Make it as complicated as you want. All of the obfuscation in the world doesn’t change the fact that these drugs are making things worse.

When confronted with information like above, a Big Pharma representative will likely tell you “…it is more complicated than that…”. They will try and ‘baffle you with bullshit’. Answers are generally simple. Even for big issues. It is not really complicated.

If you are applying a solution to a problem and that problem gets worse, then stop for god’s sake! Big Pharma and the psychiatric industry are driving the suicide rate out the roof.

A real test would be to stop feeding people drugs like Prozac, Ritalin and Zoloft and watch depression and suicides plummet.

So why, then, to people consider psychiatry a science?

Posted by greymouser in Big Pharma, 1 comment
Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain Suicides

Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain Suicides

In doing some research on the recent suicides of Kate and our beloved Anthony, I came across this article.  It was pretty much what I wanted to write so I’m posting it here(with permission) in its entirety. There is a link to Scott Lazarowitz’s Blog at the end of the article.  (Thanks Scott!)

“Were the Suicidal Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain on Psychiatric Drugs? Published by scott lazarowitz on June 9, 2018

Why did Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade both commit suicide and within a week of one another? Well, I think the timing is unrelated, but from the little information I’ve seen about both of them, I am wondering if they were taking the SSRI antidepressants.

I know, I know, I go on about the SSRIs, and the anti-anxiety meds, and so forth, but with good reason.

We do know that Bourdain had a history of depression, as he acknowledged in 2016. According to TMZ,

Bourdain addressed the issue while visiting Argentina — a country that fascinated him because it embraced psychoanalysis and mental health treatment.

The episode featured several scenes of Bourdain speaking with his therapist and addressing real issues in his life. And, even though it seems like a joke at first, it becomes clear he’s not kidding around.

When asked what brought him into the office, Bourdain says … “I will find myself in an airport, for instance, and I’ll order an airport hamburger. It’s an insignificant thing, it’s a small thing, it’s a hamburger, but it’s not a good one. Suddenly I look at the hamburger and I find myself in a spiral of depression that can last for days.”

Regarding Kate Spade, according to the Guardian,

“Kate suffered from depression and anxiety for many years,” the statement said. “She was actively seeking help and working closely with her doctors to treat her disease, one that takes far too many lives

Now, I’m not saying that either of those two had been taking those pharmaceutical antidepressant drugs, or, if they were, that the drugs caused them to decide to commit suicide. However, among other things, Dr. Peter Breggin writes, “With or without mania, antidepressants often cause a worsening of the individual’s condition, with “crashing” into depression and suicide.” Read the linked article for more information. You see, those SSRI antidepressants have very serious side effects, including causing depression and suicidal thoughts.

Dr. Breggin has written several books on the subject, and has testified before Congress on this issue as well.

As I have noted many times before now (and with documentation), many of the mass killers in recent years had been taking either those antidepressant drugs, or anti-anxiety drugs or anti-psychotics. In recent years, the young people have been exhibiting a rise in depression and anxiety. And I believe this is because of the schools and the mental health industry feeding them those damn psychiatric drugs, such as Ritalin, adderall, xanax, prozac, zoloft, luvox, and the list goes on.

As Dr. Breggin notes,

Antidepressants are neurotoxic, that is, they harm the brain and disrupt its functions. As a result, they cause innumerable kinds of abnormal thinking and behaviors, including mania, suicide and violence. In the process, they cause detectable damage to the brain of the child or adult, and also to the fetus of pregnant mothers who take the drug (See Scientific Section 9).

The antidepressant drugs have no specific impact on depression and instead are used off label to treat everything imaginable from physical pain to anxiety and ADHD. People often experience euphoria after starting an antidepressant, but it is short-lived, leaving the individual to try one and then another antidepressant in the hope of re-experiencing this artificial, chemically induced “happiness.” This initial “feeling great” is in reality a danger sign, often signaling the start of an antidepressant-induced manic episode that can ruin lives. Antidepressant-induced mania is largely indistinguishable from spontaneous mania, and varies in intensity from mild to psychotic. It can include bizarre destructive behaviors, impulsivity, sexual acting out, callousness, grandiosity, and very bad judgment. Antisocial behavior is common. Extreme irritability can lead otherwise loving people to become hateful and violent. Loss of judgment can cause ethical people to act like criminals (See Scientific Sections 1-7).

Again, I don’t know if Anthony Boudain or Kate Spade had been on any of those psychiatric drugs, but it would be informative to know if they had been taking them. In my view, it would be those damn drugs in which the emotional effects of personal incidents, which can affect someone deeply in the first place, are exaggerated greatly by the drugs.

As Wenzel observed, one possible incident in Bourdain’s life is that two days before his suicide he may have found out that his girlfriend was seen with another man, according to Daily Mail. But we don’t know if Bourdain had been on those psychiatric drugs. If he had been taking one of those psychiatric drugs, would he have otherwise gone on to commit suicide if he had not been on them?

And as I have included in my past posts on this subject, if someone wanted to stop taking antidepressants, to prevent dangerous withdrawal symptoms see Dr. Breggin’s book on psychiatric drug withdrawal, Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and Their Families.”

Scott’s Blog can be found at http://scottlazarowitz.org/blog/

Posted by greymouser in Depression, 0 comments
Chemical Imbalance: Truth or Lie

Chemical Imbalance: Truth or Lie

The Illogic of the Chemical Imbalance Theory

I have this friend at the gym, his name is Sonny(real name).  I’d see him fairly regularly and we got to chatting a few times and somehow or other we got onto the topic of kids and ADHD and that sort of thing.  He told me that when he was in Grade School he was diagnosed with ADHD.  His grandfather found out about this and thought it was a ridiculous.  He took Sonny and enrolled him in a martial arts class.  This allowed Sonny, according to him to burn off the natural access energy that was driving him to fidget for those horrible six-seven hour days in school.  

He told me that pretty much from that day on he had no problems and it was much easier to concentrate in class.  Someone who adamantly believes in the theory of ‘Chemical Imbalance’ in the brain, might say that Sonny didn’t really have ADHD.  

If that were the case, then the person who diagnosed him should be seriously reprimanded, fined and likely have their licence revoked.  

From a website ScienceNordic.com:

‘“In Brazil the dominant approach is psychoanalytical and Brazilians tend to disregard biological mechanisms,” says Aase.
Until recently medication of ADHD has been held in disfavour because of the country’s history of military dictatorship and links between political oppression and medication of people with behavioural problems.’


Again, if ADHD was a biologically based ‘disease’ this would not be possible; you would not be able to treat a biological mechanism by using psychological means.  Add to this that there are no real standard methods of diagnosis, which is continuously admitted throughout literature on the subject, and you have a real confusion as to causes and cures.
I’m sure some psychiatrist could ‘fake news’ his or her way through this to make it all seem confusing and invalid.  In my research, I’ve seen ‘researchers’(I use that term very loosely), doctors and such, comment on the factualness of the biochemical nature of issues like ADHD and Depression.  I have, in all of my research, and believe me I’ve done lots, found no factual studies that confirm any biochemical causes for the above so called ‘diseases’.  

So many people are diagnosed with Depression and Clinical Depression.  I see every year or two some article about some researcher is on the cusp of the discovery of exactly what chemical imbalance in the brain causes depression.  Trying to give more credibility to the concept but at the same time admitting that there is no scientific evidence validating any kind of biochemical cause.  

Again, there are so many people diagnosed with ‘depression’ that are able to overcome it without resorting to drugs.  So, they are either misdiagnosed or it is NOT biochemical.  

Where is the science?!

So far, I have not been able to locate any exact science on this.  There are numerous psychiatrists that will back be up on this: Dr. Peter Breggin; Dr. Sydney Walker Jr; Dr. Thomas Szasz to name but a few.  (I’m tempted to offer money to anyone that can find something definitive on this - I do feel quite safe that I would never have to give up a penny!)

I read a quote recently that pointed out that people that have more challenges in life are happier.  My observation is that when people are doing something or producing something, they are always happier.  And the person who is doing something and at the same time helping others is the happiest of all.  

I’ve observed that those having the most difficulty with depression and such are constantly worried about things instead of getting on with it and actually challenging themselves in life.  A slightly ‘dangerous’ environment keeps you awake and doesn’t give you time to worry about being depressed.  I’m not saying you should put yourself in ‘bad’ situations but make a bigger game and start solving the problems of that game.  Stop thinking so much.  If you have time to sit around that think, then you, for sure are not going to be happy.  

The thing that really gets me on this is that so many people have accepted the idea of things like depression and ADHD being physical diseases as FACT, when there is no proof at all.  But I guess this is just more evidence of blindly accepting ‘fake news’ as is now done daily on social media.  I guess if you say an untruth enough times it becomes true. Or at least believed to be.  

Posted by greymouser in Depression, 0 comments
Who Decides?

Who Decides?

Who Decides What Becomes a Mental Disease?

  • who decides at what point an active boy becomes ADHD?
  • who decides at what point a liking for neatness and order becomes OCD?
  • who decides when sadness becomes depression?
  • who decides when an ‘emotional roller coaster’ becomes Bipolar?
  • who decides when a cheeky kid is suffering from "oppositional defiance disorder"?

ADD or ADHD Or Just An Active Little Boy?

Before ‘ADHD’ we were just active boys.  Likely too much sugar.  Either way, if we were too rambunctious we would be send outside to play and burn off some extra energy.  At school there was enough adhdphysical activity and breaks from academics to bleed off any extra energy.  An acquaintance of mine, Sonny, at the gym, was diagnosed ADHD when 7 years old. The teachers wanted to put him on Ritalin.  His grandfather stepped in and said no.  Grandfather enrolled Sonny in a martial arts class.  He says it helped him burn off energy and stay focused.

I can’t remember not being outside after school winter or summer.  On weekends we would head to the farm and in winter we would head out into the woods for hours.  Come back when time to leave stiff from the cold and wet from falling through the ice.

There are myriad solutions online for ADHD.
1. https://draxe.com/natural-remedies-adhd/
2. http://naturalsociety.com/3-powerful-natural-remedies-for-adhd/

Above are just a couple of sites.  I don’t necessarily agree that there is anything wrong with a 8 or 10 year old boy that needs to be active. BUT if you do and want to ‘solve it’, then there are dozens of ways to help your child without drugs.  Of course, I do understand if you need the quick fix of a drug to control and keep your child quiet.  Your life is more important than your child’s.  I’m not really apologetic about the sarcasm - people need to spend more time with their kids.  Not just give them everything they want.

Some schools have taken away parts of education that are not academic.  Big mistake.

OCD vs Neatness?

Is there a test, physical or otherwise for OCD?  I don’t think so.  Who makes the line in the sand? On this side you just like things orderly and clean.  On the other side you have a mental problem because you like things orderly, neat and clean.  Huh?  The headshrinkers would have you believe that 1 in 4 or 5 are in need of psychiatric help.  It is not that hard to convince someone they need some help but when that help comes in the form of a pill that is addictive and has side effects that include depression, suicide thoughts and death, well, let’s not terrify this person more than they already might be.

Oppositional Defiance Disorder(Or Just Cheeky)?

The ‘cheeky’ kid that gets into trouble because he disagrees with the teacher.  He is not convinced and won’t take things at face value.  He is light hearted about it and is seen as somewhat condescending when in reality he is way ahead of the curve but the teacher or parent finds this disrupting to the rest of the children largely because this ‘defiant’ child is just too smart.  But because he doesn’t fit in or just believe all he is told, he gets a prescription to subdue him.  There is no physical or mental test to determine at what point these kids need to be drugged.  It’s all opinion.  The psychiatrist listens to the parent or teacher and prescribes a drug.  That simple.  A caring person would have a conversation with the child, teacher and parents to see how to encourage and challenge the child.  Drugs are ‘easier’.

isis terrorists

 

I’m not sure that terrorist organizations should even bother terrorizing the West, particularly North America.  Psychiatry with its
drugs are stripping away the life of upcoming generations and pretty much destroying any willingness to fight back.  ISIS would be smart to just finance the field of psychiatry and the job of destroying America would be done for them.

Posted by greymouser in Terrorism, 0 comments