#ssris

[ninamodaffari]

friendly reminder for those on antidepressants that you have an increased risk of heat stroke this summer so please stay hydrated and wear a hat, invest in one of those cool pads and be careful during long walks outside!

[metrocentric]

Wandsworth Roundabout underpass (NW exit), SW18

SSRIs can't cure poverty

[gothhabiba]

hi i just saw some of ur posts on anti-psychiatry and then kept reading more on ur blog about what it is. for the most part i agree with what you've said about how capitalism uses psychiatry to designate people who are bad/abnormal and how it aligns itself w/ misogyny, racism, and so on. with that said i think i have some similar concerns/questions as another asker about what this means for those who do/would suffer even in a non-capitalist society, even if we didn't ascribe a specific label to X symptoms. if we are opposed to psychiatry, what are the options for people today who are suffering and want help? are you opposed to psychopharmaceuticals and therapy? i dont mean to ask this in a confrontational/accusatory way, i'm just new to this and genuinely curious

There are a few different parts to your question & so there are a few different angles to approach it from—

are you opposed to psychopharmaceuticals and therapy?

If this means "are anti-psych writers and activists opposed to individuals seeking treatment that they personally find helpful," then, no—a couple posts in my psychiatry tag do clarify this.

If it means "are there anti-psych critiques of psychopharmaceuticals and therapy," then, yes. Keep in mind that I'm not a neurobiologist or otherwise an expert on medications marketed as treatments for mental illnesses, but:

The evidence for the effectiveness of SSRIs in particular is sort of non-existent—even many psychiatrists who promote the biomedical model of mental illness doubt their efficacy, and refer to the "chemical imbalance" theory that enforces their usage as "an outmoded way of thinking" or "a kind of urban legend—never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists." But promoting SSRIs (and corresponding "serotonin deficiency" theory of depression, despite the fact that no solid evidence links depression to low serotonin) is very profitable for pharmaceutical companies. Despite the fact that direct-to-consumer advertisements are nominally regulated in the U.S., the FDA doesn't challenge these claims.

Other psychotropic drugs, such as "antipsychotics" or "antianxiety" medication, shouldn't really be called e.g. "antipsychotics" as if they specifically targeted the biological source of psychosis. No biological cause of any specific psychiatric diagnosis has been found (p. 851, section 5.1). In fact, rather than "act[ing] against neurochemical substrates of disorders or symptoms," these medications "produc[e] altered, drug induced states"—but despite the fact that they "produce global alterations in brain functioning," they are marketed as if they had "specific efficacy in reducing psychotic symptoms." Reactions to these medications that don't have to do with psychosis or anxiety (blunted affect, akathisia) are dismissed as "side effects," as though they don't arise from the same global alteration in brain function that produces the "desirable" antianxiety/antipsychotic effect. This doesn't mean "psychiatric medication turns you into a zombie so you shouldn't take it"—it means that these medications should be marketed honestly, as things that alter brain function as a whole, rather than marketed as if they target specific symptoms in a way that they cannot do, in accordance with a biomedical model of mental illness the accuracy of which has never been substantiated.

Psychiatrised people also point out that meds are used as a tool for furthering and maintaining psychiatrists' control: meds that patients are hesitant about or do not want are pushed on them, while patients who desire medication are "drug-seeking" or trying to take on the role of clinician or something and will routinely be denied care. Psychiatrised people who refuse medications are "noncompliant" and prone to psychiatric incarceration, re-incarceration, or continued/lengthened incarceration.

As for therapy: there are critiques of certain therapies (e.g. CBT, DBT) as unhelpful, status-quo-enforcing, forcing compliance, retraumatising &c. There are also critiques of therapy as representing a capitalist outsourcing of emotional closeness and emotional work away from community systems that people largely don't have in place; therapy as existing within a psychiatric system that constrains how therapists, however well-intentioned, are able to behave (e.g. mandatory reporting laws); psychotherapy forced on psychiatrised people as a matter of state control; therapists as being in a dangerous amount of power over psychiatrised people and being hailed as neutral despite the fact that their emotions and politics can and do get in the way of them being helpful. The wealth divide in terms of access to therapy is also commonly talked about; insurance (in the U.S.) or the NHS (in England) may only pay for pre-formulated group workbook types of therapy such as DBT, while more long-form, free-form, relationship-focused talk therapy may only be accessible to those who can pay 100-something an hour for it.

None of these critiques make it unethical or something for someone to get treatment that they find helpful. It's also worth noting that some of these critiques may be coming from "anti-psych" people who criticise the sources of psychiatric power, and some of them may come from people who think of themselves as advocating for reform of some of the most egregious effects of psychiatric power.

if we are opposed to psychiatry, what are the options for people today who are suffering and want help?

This looks like a few different things at a few different levels. At its most narrow and individual, it involves opting out of and resisting calls for psychiatrisation and involuntary institutionalisation of individuals—not calling the cops on people who are acting strange in public, breaking mandatory reporting laws and guidelines where we think them likely to cause harm. It involves sharing information—information about antipsychiatry critiques of psychiatric institutions, advice about how to manage therapists' and psychiatrists' egos, advice about which psychiatrists to avoid—so that people do not blame themselves if they find their encounters with psychiatry unhelpful or traumatising.

At the most broad, it's the same question as the question of how to build dual power and resist the power of capitalism writ large—building communal structures that present meaningful alternatives to psychiatry as an institution. I think there's much to be learned here from prison abolitionists and from popular movements that seek to protect people from deportation. You might also look into R. D. Laing's Kingsley Hall experiment.

what does this mean for those who would suffer even in a non-capitalist society, even if we didn't ascribe a specific label to X symptoms?

It means that people need access to honest, reliable information about what psychotropic medications do, and the right to chuse whether or not to take these medications without the threat of a psychiatrist pulling a lever that immediately restricts or removes their autonomy. It means that people need to be connected to each other in communities with planned, free resources that ensure that everyone, including severely disabled people whom no one particularly likes as individuals, has access to basic resources. It means that people need to be free to make their own choices regarding their minds and their health, even if other people may view those decisions as disastrous. There is simply no defensible way to revoke people's basic autonomy on the basis of "mental illness" (here I'm not talking about e.g. prison abolitionist rehabilitative justice types of things, which must restrict autonomy to be effective).

Also, I've mostly left the idea of who this would actually be untouched, since my central argument ("psychiatry as it currently exists is part of the biomedical arm of capitalism and the state, and the epistemologies it produces and employs and the power it exerts are thus in the service of capitalism and the state") doesn't really rest on delineating who would and wouldn't suffer from whatever mental differences they have regardless of what society they're in. But it's worth mentioning that the category of "people who are going to suffer (to whatever degree) no matter what" may be narrower than some would think—psychosis, for instance, is sometimes experienced very differently by people in societies that don't stigmatise it. I see people objecting to (their interpretations of) antipsych arguments with things along the lines of "well maybe depression and anxiety are caused by capitalism, but I'm schizophrenic so this doesn't apply to me"—as though hallucinations are perforce more physically "real," more "biological," more "extra-cultural" in nature than something like depression. But the point is that positing a specific neurobiological etiology for any psychiatric diagnosis is unsubstantiated, and that capitalist society affects how every "mental illness" is read and experienced (though no one is arguing that e.g. hallucinations wouldn't always exist in some form).

[hawkeyedflame]

so are we going to talk about how SSRIs, even taken for short periods of time, cause long term sexual dysfunction that can, and for many people does, persist for decades after they stop taking the medication? were we ever going to talk about that? were any of my doctors ever going to warn me that taking this medication could damage my sex life permanently? are we going to talk about this in the context of the frankly alarming number of young people who are put on these medications as teenagers? or the sudden sharp rise in people id'ing as asexual? no?

[emohorseboy]

Hey did you guys know that a lot of psych-meds (SSRIs, SNRIs, et al) can cause tooth decay? Because I didn’t until a dentist mentioned it to me; no psychiatrist or GP prescribing me those drugs over the years thought to mention it

(I’m not a dentist but I was told that because they cause dry mouth, that increases your risk of tooth problems, particularly if you’re taking them for a long time)

[precambrianpark]

SSRIs/antipsychotics: we're here to put you at gentle ease! take us daily and we'll do as you please! 🌅🌻

the side effects:

[daydreamers-sys]

My lexapro feelings, in order:

Huh. I don’t feel anything.

My STOMACH

Sleep? That’s a real thing?

SLEEP. OH GOD I LOVE SLEEP. I WILL NOW SLEEP FOR 13 HOURS.

*wakes up laughing because a dream was funny*

I must. EAT. Everything I fucking see.

Chocolate. Meat. Chocolate. Meat. Bread. BREAD!!!!!

Oh holy fUCK that was a scary dream

If everyone doesn’t shut up RIGHT NOW I am GOING to start pulling numbers for who dies next

WHY is it so QUIET. I am so UNDER STIMULATED, someone DO SOMETHING. *10 seconds later* OKAY STOP

It’s bedtime :) *two hours later* oh-KAY, it’s bedtime!! :)

[theapollosystem]

Our antidepressants have fucked with our system communication, it was bad before like we never really had that good communication but I literally can’t hear my alters, nobody can hear eachother in front anymore. it sucks ass we’re gonna change our meds soon. SSRIs can fuck with system communication, it has already fucked with ours and it’s gotten worse as we went up in dose. it kinda messed up with our healing, like communication is apart of healing.

[weirdpersonifiedpills]

Happy fluoxetine day!!

Something I drew up last year for the anniversary but never posted here. 49 years ago today, compound LY-110140 was given the name fluoxetine. After that, it would be 12 more years before it was finally FDA approved in December of 1987 and subsequently sold on US shelves in January of 1988 (that long ass time span is a whole other can of incredibly interesting worms).

I chose film imagery for this piece as a reference to Prozac’s ‘blockbuster drug’ status, of which nearly everyone was taken off guard by it achieving. No one had high expectations for fluoxetine, even those who developed it in the first place. An antidepressant that acted specifically on the serotonin system could never survive in a world where the current antidepressants, like MAOIs and TCAs, acted on multiple systems, and yet Prozac became a national sensation.

What followed massive success was an outcry that only seemed to get louder as time went on, as the potential dangers of the drug were not being properly communicated or warned about. People were dying, committing suicide. Data was covered up, falsified, never released. The court cases lasted years as people fought pharmaceutical giants in search of retribution. I could talk forever about how interesting Prozac’s history is in particular, and how every other SSRI ties so closely into its story (which, if you want to read, I highly reccomend Let Them Eat Prozac by David Healy, my absolutely favorite book ever I read it over and over).

Next year will be the 50th anniversary of fluoxetine’s official name, and I could not be more excited about that

[thurisazsalail]

DULOXETINE / CYMBALTA SSRI RECALL

Duloxetine recall due to impurity of contents. (link)

The chemical involved is pretty safe at low levels. Almost everyone has very low levels from water, vegetables, cooked meats, etc. but this is above regulation limits. Higher doses over longer periods of time it can cause cancer. Check your bottles. Return them if they're in Lot #220128 and get the properly made ones.

7000+ Bottles Voluntarily Recalled Across the USA, Started 10/10/24

According to the FDA, the recalled lot was #220128, expiring December 2024.

[ninamodaffari]

ya'll getting off of antidepressants is scary as hell. like, i've been on lexapro since I was 22. that's nearly ten years. since weaning off of it (down to 5mg from 20mg a day), i've been more fatigued, losing interest in things like drawing and games, and just feeling more depressed in general. every bone in my body is like 'well shit, I should probably take it again' or 'oh my god, is this what my actual self is like'

and its kinda like, I can imagine for some, this weird cycle of 'okay, obviously i'm not ready to get off my meds, if this is how I feel normally', but it's not normal. its withdrawl from your medication. lexapro is a BITCH. withdrawls from it is even worse. how i feel right now in the midst of getting off of lexapro isn't how i'll be forever, it just feels like it might be because MY BRAIN WAS REWIRED

this isn't to poo poo on antidepressants btw. they saved my life. it's just getting off of them can be as scary as depression was sometimes. I just hope that things balance out, you know? my brain has to remember how to function without this med

[maybe-an-aspd-angel]

[amanitaknowsbest]

[sicksadtumble]

Can we ever have a conversation about consent in psychiatry and medical care in general? Can we talk about it?

Like you guys know what informed consent is, right? Why is that ignored when it comes to treating mental health problems?

Why are psychiatrists allowed to prescribe medications without telling the patient what they do or what the side effects are?

Why can't I talk to a therapist without my physical safety being threatened?

Why are doctors and psychiatrists allowed to coerce disabled and/or ill patients to take medication by refusing to treat/diagnose their problem until they take a psychiatric medication? Like I had doctors tell me, they won't run tests on me until I take an antidepressant.

I've directly asked psychiatrists to give me a full list of possible side effects, and they just told me "Oh it can cause nausea and maybe headaches" and then I go home, Google it, and find out I can't take it because it impairs cognitive function, causes brain damage, it's unsafe to take while driving, causes hair loss, raid heart rate, and possibly seizures.

Why doesn't anyone talk about this? And when we do bring it up, we're immediately shut down.

[payneandagony]

SSRIs be like: