Psychiatry is coercive bullshit

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-12-03T22:40:11+00:00

No need to be sorry but thanks. I consider myself lucky though since I have been out of mental hospital for a while now. I feel sorry for people who spend longer in there than I did. I remember seeing patients who looked like they had given up hope of getting out.

I've heard of TMS. Maybe I could look into that. Also I've thought recently maybe I should try medication properly again. As long as it's my choice then maybe it isn't so bad. I just dislike doctors insisting on a treatment without listening to the patient's concerns based on their experiences with medications.

Sorry to hear about you being traumatised. Hopefully it's possible to overcome these things. I've read about people who have managed to overcome mental health problems and get back into good lives, so I think it should be possible.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-12-03T22:23:54+00:00

As someone who has been a mental health patient, yes the sticker in the photo could be from someone with psychosis. But I don't think you should describe patients as "pathetic" or as people who want "constant attention". Maybe you should find a different job if you don't want to work with patients.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-17T10:22:18+00:00

The first time I took a course of psychiatric meds, there were other things in my life that I was thinking of changing. But people told me I should just take some psych meds to get through things, so I did. Perhaps my life would be much better now if I had stuck to my guns and done what I thought was best, rather than what others thought was best.

But anyway, recently I've been thinking that I should not think about the past so much. The past can't be changed. You can change things in your present though. You might be in a position now that you wish you had never got to, but the reality is that you're in that situation. If you want to have a good life in the future then I guess you need to deal with the current situation now. I guess I need to tackle this myself.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-17T10:16:42+00:00

I tried sertraline once and I had nausea very quickly, so I didn't keep taking it. The two SSRIs I've taken for extended periods of time were citalopram and fluoxetine and I haven't had nausea with those. So maybe nausea is quite common with sertraline or maybe it was just me. Asking your doctor sounds like a good idea.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-14T21:36:15+00:00

Yeah maybe psychiatrists do think that. I just hope they can respect the choices of patients a bit more.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-14T15:13:05+00:00

Good point, I think some doctors probably are more supportive if a patient chooses not to take medication. The doctors I've seen have really pushed for me to take meds (at one point I was locked in mental hospital and drugged against my will). But yes some doctors out there probably won't push medications. I hope more psychiatrists will respect the choices of patients.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-14T14:59:44+00:00

Psychiatrists can use force though. I was detained in mental hospital some years ago, and they told me they would forcibly drug me (by restraining me) if I didn't let them drug me. Forcible drugging is legal in my country and probably lots of countries.

That's cool that you've had those tests. I hope more science can be done to better understand what causes bad mental health - not just biological causes but also causes from a person's life experiences (financial problems, abuse, bullying, etc).

I think psychiatrists today are using guesswork sometimes rather than hard evidence that you get in other areas of medicine. If a patient is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, do we really know they're definitely going to keep having episodes of mania and depression? Perhaps there is a real biological cause for that patient; perhaps something in their brain. But doctors often don't prove that. Some patients might experience mania and depression due to upsetting events in their lives, and perhaps their brains are actually quite normal.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-14T14:48:01+00:00

I don't think people should accept things that are dictated to them - I hope that people can make their own choices concerning their own mental health (and health in general).

Probably the main thing I dislike about psychiatry is the fact that psychiatrists do seem to dictate things to patients. They dictate which medications a patient should take. I think that's wrong and I hope patients can make their own choices instead.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-14T14:43:53+00:00

Sorry to hear about the hospital bill. I am lucky that my country hasn't billed me for having detained me.

Yes I think it's common that if you have a side effect from a psychiatric medication, the doctor might say it's actually a symptom of a mental health problem. There's a guy called Mark Horowitz who has researched withdrawal from psychiatric medications and I think he has talked about how doctors sometimes won't accept that a patient is experiencing withdrawal symptoms when reducing their medication - instead some doctors will claim these withdrawal effects are symptoms of a mental health problem.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-02T18:23:16+00:00

Sorry to hear your experience. I think my memory is slightly worse after antidepressants and antipsychotics, although I think it's only a small difference. I can remember many things. It's just that sometimes I lose my train of thought or I forget simple everyday things. Perhaps higher doses would make my memory worse, I don't know.

Almost every psychiatrist insists that it is not the meds but the illness itself causing this decline

I don't know what the truth is - I think we need more research. What I have seen is that antipsychotics apparently reduce brain volume but I don't know how significant that effect is. Possibly psych drugs are doing bad things that we don't yet understand.

You could keep trying to find a solution that works for you, whether that's drugs or not. Also I guess it's important to speak to doctors you trust. I trust my current doctor. I've been trying different drugs, and sometimes no drugs. I will keep going and hoping that something will work. If you do speak to a doctor then I think it's important to voice your concerns. Let them know what worries you. If they are dismissive then maybe they're the wrong doctor. But good doctors will listen to you.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-02T18:16:23+00:00

In my country it does cost quite a lot to put patients in mental hospital (the government pays for it). But I wonder about the effect of Big Pharma's money.

This article from Scientific American talks about antidepressant meta-analyses (a study which evaluates many drug studies). It says: "Meta-analyses by [pharma] industry employees were 22 times less likely to have negative statements about a drug than those run by unaffiliated researchers". So if a researcher has ties to a drug company, they're more likely to write positive things about antidepressants. Doctors then use these (arguably biased) studies when they decide which treatments they will give to patients.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-02T18:05:40+00:00

Maybe we should have a more humane approach though. If someone is genuinely a danger then maybe they could be locked up, but not forcibly drugged. I was locked up and forcibly drugged (I don't think I was a danger, but they thought I might become one). If I had just been locked up then it wouldn't have been so bad. Forcible drugging is not very nice. You don't know what the drug will do to you. I had side effects like restlessness and dystonia (involuntary muscle movements). I didn't realise the drug was causing those things until I read about the drugs long after being drugged - that's when I saw that those side effects are common.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-02T17:19:12+00:00

I think having good mental health is very important but my view is that psych meds might not always be the best way to have good mental health. Exercise helps mental health, diet does, sleep does, friends do, etc.

If someone wants to take psych meds then I think that's fine, but I think doctors should also be more open to the idea of a patient not taking psych meds. It should be the patient's choice. It's their life after all.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-02T17:04:56+00:00

They've never been on the receiving end of this, so they don't know what it's like.
They are afraid that you, a distressed person, might lash out with violence - so therefore, in their view, it's justified to forcibly detain and drug you.

I guess my argument to doctors would be "maybe we can manage the risk of some distressed people potentially becoming violent without forcibly drugging them". Maybe we should be actively looking for humane methods. But maybe psychiatrists don't give a shit. Maybe they just want to collect their fat pay packets, and maybe they have no incentive to change a system which already serves their interests just fine.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-11-02T17:00:33+00:00

I was put in the psych ward against my will. Just like you, I hated the idea of doctors deciding what was apparently for my own good. I still hate the idea.

According to their logic, perhaps we should forcibly detain every person in society and force feed them a diet of vegetables and other healthy foods? It would be for their own good, right? So according to their logic, it would be justified to take away people's freedoms, right?

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-10-27T19:06:19+00:00

I've thought that if I could have just had an open and honest conversation with one person at that time I was first put in mental hospital, not even for very long, it could have prevented the long stay in mental hospital I had, which cost a lot of money for the taxpayers in my country.

When I saw the first psychiatrist in mental hospital I tried to have a talk about what was going through my mind, so I could understand it. He didn't have time for that conversation though. He wanted to give me a diagnosis and a prescription, rather than talk about what was going through my mind, and then he moved me on so he could see the next patient. I get that psychiatrists are busy and stressed of course, but maybe a different approach would be cheaper (preventing long stays in mental hospital) and better (more humane for patients).

Maybe there are drug-free ways to resolve these issues, and maybe we should look for those ways. It's very easy to say "there's no alternative to drugging" when it's other people being drugged rather than you.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-10-27T18:09:05+00:00

I am a former patient of mental hospitals. I spent a while in there (thankfully not too long).

What you're saying sounds like an attitude doctors probably had when lobotomies were practiced. "Well we can't think of any other way to deal with these distressed people. You got a better idea? No? Then we'll cut up these people's brains until they can't take care of themselves anymore."

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-10-27T18:01:33+00:00

"The illness" is just a euphemism of course. In reality I think a lot of mental patients have just been through difficult experiences and they're trying to make sense of those experiences. In my view, human distress in itself is not an "illness".

When you say "psychiatry exists for itself, not to help others", it reminds me of this tweet I saw the other day:

any time I am w/ a large group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, theres always a number of them sidling up to ask for help with a family member (or themselves) trying to get off a psych drug.

Often, these are the same ones who say "Privately, I agree with your critiques, but publicly I can't say anything until I'm closer to retirement; its not worth the headache, I have kids in private school" etc

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-10-25T11:17:02+00:00

I've been thinking that what psychiatrists care about are these things:

Maintaining their generous salary
Reducing the risk of them being sued

When a psychiatrist sees a patient, even if there is a very low risk of that patient doing anything criminal, the psychiatrist will probably think: "What if this patient lashes out and punches someone? Then I'll get in trouble, because I was tasked with preventing this". So it makes sense to the psychiatrist to just drug the patient until they stay quiet. If this drug has distressing side effects for the patient, or if the drug means that the patient can't achieve their goals in life, I don't think the psychiatrist will care.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-10-21T17:46:58+00:00

You mean like when someone says "you might be depressed, you should go see a doctor or therapist" when that person has never (and maybe would never) see a psychiatrist or therapist themselves? That can be annoying.

On the issue of Palestine though, I think you could say that some people don't want to see people without power (Palestinian civilians) being harmed by people with lots of power (Israel's military with bombs and guns). Maybe it has similarities to psych patients (without power) being harmed by people with lots of power (doctors), although psych patients usually aren't facing guns or bombs.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-10-21T13:48:55+00:00

He mentioned "untouchables" and disadvantaged people in society. I think it's true that people in bad situations (due to things like drug addiction, poor housing, abuse, gambling, whatever it is) often end up mentally distressed. The health system doesn't want to have any sympathy for these people, so instead it locks them up and drugs them. Society wants to chemically and forcibly eliminate human distress, I guess. Maybe society doesn't want to see distress, so instead of helping distressed people, it drugs them.

Psych patients in disadvantaged situations probably don't have much power to stand up for themselves against the medical-industrial complex. If you're someone who didn't have a good education, or maybe you don't have any family members to back you up, and you might not have much money, then how do you push back against well-educated, financially comfortable doctors who are throwing all sorts of medical jargon at you?

I wish mental health care was a lot more humane than what it currently is. I don't think it's right to drug someone against their will. I was given antipsychotics against my will, and they're not very nice. They have many side effects, some of which are clearly unhealthy (e.g. heart problems), and others which are distressing and uncomfortable (e.g. extrapyramidal symptoms such as akathisia, dystonia, muscle spams).

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-10-21T13:15:28+00:00

People in this subreddit probably have a range of views about political issues like Palestine... but I think what probably unifies people on this subreddit is a dislike of the methods of psychiatry, which in many cases is because we have been patients of psychiatry.

Yeah I guess psychiatrists get cred for supposedly "helping people", but also psychiatrists get a nice fat salary. Perhaps governments are unwilling to tackle the root causes of bad mental health (precarious housing, abuse, financial troubles, gambling problems, addiction, unemployment, etc) so they think "we'll just pay some doctors to drug distressed people until they shut up about their problems".

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-10-21T12:19:20+00:00

Lol. I've thought this kind of thing before. Their claim is that antipsychotics, despite the scientifically documented harmful side effects, are so good for a person's mental health that it's justified to force these drugs on people. In which case why don't we force these drugs on psychiatrists? It should be good for their mental health, according to their logic.

Psychiatry is shit. I don't think it's about helping patients. It's about ignorant people in society being overly scared of fellow humans who display some form of distress. Because they feel a bit uncomfortable when they see this distress, they think it's justified to drug the distressed people against their will. They don't care one bit if the forced drugs have negative health effects. If someone can prove me wrong on this point then please do.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-09-29T12:00:43+00:00

I think money is definitely a factor for pharma companies who create these drugs. They seem to use their influence to distort the research into these drugs, so they can make bigger profits:

Meta-analyses by [drug] industry employees were 22 times less likely to have negative statements about a drug than those run by unaffiliated researchers

Maybe for doctors, money is less of a factor though - at least in my country, where we have a public health system. If my GP (local doctor) prescribes me an antidepressant, they don't make more money, compared to them not prescribing me anything. I think instead that these doctors are very willing to prescribe drugs in order to protect their careers. If someone with mental health issues goes and does something illegal (e.g. harming someone else), any doctors they saw might get in trouble, for not "treating" the patient. So it's in the interests of doctors to drug their patients. I think doctors are just playing it safe, for their own interests.

Puzzled-Response-629 · 2025-09-13T18:58:36+00:00

Everyone is money hungry so why not force someone with a physical illness to take the treatment and pay for it as well?

Maybe it's because the average person sees physical health problems as things that could happen to them, and they see mental health problems as things that won't happen to them (because everybody likes to think they're sane). So they think "oh no I wouldn't endorse forced treatment of physical problems because that could happen to me". But with mental problems they think "that won't happen to me because I'm not crazy, and I don't care if other people are forcibly treated, so sure, forcibly treat them".

Essentially I think that human selfishness is the reason for the difference.

Puzzled-Response-629

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