So I would discuss my confusion with these psychologists. I don't remember a thing any of them had to say to me. With the exception of one. I remember her asking if she could hypnotize me. She was young and fresh out of college. I wasn't much younger than her, sixteen at the time. I refused to undergo hypnotherapy and didn't return to a psychologist again but for one session when RLB was deployed, almost twenty years later. It took about ten minutes of this very odd session to conclude no matter what I told this man, he agreed with me and would be persuading me to divorce my husband. He listened like a gossip obsessed girl friend hungry for every juicy detail: "He did that?" "Seriously, he said that?" "Wow, I'm so sorry you've had to endure that."
While I was going through this tumultuous time, I asked several different friends what medications they were on. First off, it was overwhelming to me just how many women I knew that were on various anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs. They all raved about their particular drug. One gave me several different ones to try, though I never did. It didn't sit right with me that one of these drugs was what I needed. I was going through a stressful, sad time of life. But, isn't that life? Isn't developing coping skills and discovering natural means of calming oneself better for you? Isn't God big enough?
So, I write this with the disclaimer that I've never been on these drugs. But I know the circumstances in my life would have made me a prime candidate for them. I know with certainty a doctor would have prescribed them for me. I do have experience with their effects. RLB was prescribed Effexor in conjunction with his pain medications due to his chronic pain. We had that discussion with his pain management doc. It is normal to be on edge when going through this pain. You don't have to endure that. There are drugs available to lessen the effects. Try this and see if you feel better, if you're less irritable etc.
It's been almost a year and he's sick of taking all these drugs. His sleep has been completely messed up from them, he's gained weight, and really just wants to be done with them. So he attempted to stop the Effexor cold turkey. The irritability he had before he started the drug was intensified tenfold. It was awful. Now that I've researched more about these drugs, it is clear why that happened. He'll need to ween himself off for best results.
What is irritating, is that his lab work indicated low hormone levels at the same time the Effexor was prescribed. Do doctors really not know what I have learned in the last week? That low hormone levels can have the same side effects they prescribe these drugs for? That raising his hormone level should have been the first thing suggested? Even though there are non pharmaceutical ways of doing that? Call me skeptical.
I took the three hours necessary to watch this video, The Marketing of Madness. Please do so yourself. Please invest three hours to learn what is behind the wonder drugs you or your children have been prescribed. I can't comprehend someone not taking the time to learn. If I were on these drugs and suffering obesity and sleeplessness and the myriad of other side effects, I would devour everything on the website I've linked. Matter of fact I have and I'm not even on the drugs. If you are drugging your child, you are complicit in every side effect and life altering challenge your child will endure. You have a responsibility to get all the education available and make decisions for your child's health. You disgust me if you refuse.
If you've been told you have a chemical imbalance, you need to understand there is no test that has proven this to be possible.
ReplyDelete"Yes, but the drugs work."
That's like saying if you have a head ache, you take aspirin, and the headache goes away, that the headache was caused by a deficiency of aspirin in your system.
Several years ago, before I found out I was pregnant with my 5th, I went to the doctor for insomnia. She told me flat out that she'd been hoping I'd come in with something like that, because she felt I needed to be on antidepressants. Really? Because I have 4 kids, I need to be on antidepressants? I have no other emotional issues, I don't complain about my life, but because I have 4 young kids, antidepressants will "fix" my life? Turned out, my insomnia was caused by being pregnant, something she didn't even bother checking for. I never went back to her again.
DeleteA true account that the drugs don't do anything.
ReplyDeleteMy husband suffered a traumatic brain injury a few years ago. He hit his head, hard. He was in the ICU for 4 days. MRI showed actual damage to his frontal left lobe in his brain, which if you don't know deals with reasoning and logic. He began to suffer from paranoia, anxiety, and fell down the rabbit hole. (side note he also suffers PTSD from not only an injury sustained in combat but from a troubled past.) This injury escalated to the point where he needed to be hospitalized. He was sick, no doubt about it. He wasn't the same man.
When in treatment he was placed on 12 different medications which added up to 26 pills a day. All of these medications being psychotropic drugs. He became a zombie. He went through intense therapy and regained normalcy again. However, upon being released from the hospital he was told to continue taking all 12 medications. Forever.
After he was home for the first few weeks there was a clear and HUGE difference in my husband. Yes he was no longer paranoid, however, he was no longer there at all. He slept and walked through life like a zombie. He had no sex drive or desire to do anything at all. After a while he decided he was tired of feeling this way and stopped all medications. Cold turkey. This was probably not the best idea as he suffered from SERIOUS side effects for the following 3-5 days.
When he came out on the other side he was back. My funny, happy, life loving husband was back.
What about his injury? Every doctor we talked to said that the brain has a 2 year window to "fix itself" after a major injury. He is different now, much more observant of everything (what man who went to war isn't?). He still has anxiety and hates places like the commissary and walmart. He still suffers some short term memory loss, and migraine headaches (all of these are not uncommon to a frontal lobe injury to the brain). However, if it were up to the doctors he would still be on these medications. He did suffer an actual injury to his brain and his brain "fixed itself". The drugs did nothing but rob my husband of his spirit, sexual drive, and self worth.
I know too many people who are on those medications as well, and it doesn't fix the problem. Their life issues are still present and still need to be dealt with. The medications don't take the life problems away, they just mask our reaction to them... slightly. It's so sad to see my friends on meds that don't help them, because they refuse to face the reality of what is happening in their lives and deal with it appropriately, rather than trying to hide from it.
ReplyDeleteAttention Big Pharma Trolls - you are not welcome here and will have to earn every dime you make. You will be required to answer any and every question posed to you by me or RLB. You will be asked how you found this blog and what your purpose is here. You will back up any refutation with either anecdotes or credible sources. You will adhere to blog etiquette. You will not be rude.
ReplyDeleteYour comments will be deleted should any of these requirements not be followed, or in the event we tire of you.
(Anon above and red-headed-step-child, this doesn't pertain to either of you)
I don't work for Big Pharma, but I do take these drugs and they work for me. I had the same feeling after being on SSRI antidepressants for 5 years -- I want to live drug free, I want to stop taking them. I weaned myself off of them slowly. I did OK for 3 months, then had a HUGE mood crash. Could not stop sobbing, ended up in a hospital for two weeks. Went back on meds. The tears finally could stop again. I don't think I'd be alive today if it weren't for the SSRIs. So perhaps they are overprescribed, but some of us do need them to live relatively normal lives. Our brains are just too geared to go into horrible depressions for no reason.
ReplyDeleteAnon, please be so kind then to tell me how you found my blog and why you felt compelled to comment. Did you watch the video?
ReplyDeleteI like manosphere blogs. I found you through Dalrock. I didn't watch the video because I saw it was produced by the "Citizens Commission for Human Rights", which is a Scientology front group. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Commission_on_Human_Rights . Scientology is a BAD bad organization; demonic even. And they are well known for their biases against psychiatry, because psychiatrists dismissed L. Ron Hubbard as a quack pretty early on.
ReplyDeleteI felt compelled to comment because psychotropic drugs have helped me, I have no doubt about that. They might be prescribed too widely. I certainly think Adderall and Ritalin are. But, they DO help some people. I have known other people in my own family and outside of it who have been helped immeasurably by these drugs, especially schizoprhenics, depressives, and those with bipolar disorder. I also have a close family member through my husband who has untreated bipolar disorder (she refuses to take meds for them), and the disease has very negative effects on her and her ability to relate to others, including my husband and her parents. I also believe that the claim that no evidence has been found in terms of chemical imbalances in depression is incorrect, but I don't have exact cites on that one.
Dear Anon, I really believed I had an intelligent readership. Have you ever heard of ad hominem fallacy?
ReplyDeleteFor example, the University of Chicago is one of the most liberal Universities in the country, yet through their research I learned more information about my daughter's Celiac disease than any doctor had to offer. As well, in order to purchase the gluten free foods she most enjoys, I have to patron places we literally call "the goofy store" because of the fruits and liberal nuts that own the stores and frequent them. We must *gasp* walk by rows and rows of holistic medicines and books and subject ourselves to very non Christian "spiritualistic" and dare I say - demonic - elements.
So you know that much about this video and the group that produced it yet you refute nothing from it? How pathetic.
I also believe that the claim that no evidence has been found in terms of chemical imbalances in depression is incorrect, but I don't have exact cites on that one.
How trollish of you. Do move on.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteFor the rest of you, no need to concern yourself of it being a secret the group who produced the video is co-founded by Scientology it says so right on their site. http://www.cchr.org/about-us/what-is-cchr.html
ReplyDeleteThe discussion of Scientology is off topic and will not be had in this thread. By no means does that indicate I condone or support Scientology. I do support not being an idiot and researching all angles of something, especially before you put that something in your body and most importantly if it's something you give to your children.
SSRI's I'm sure can be useful in *some* situations, however if a person is bad enough to need a drug that strong, they need to be under strict supervision. There are far too many bad situations associated with those drugs.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely. The sad thing we saw was just the handing over of a prescription and no plan to come back off the drug. No further evaluation, nothing. And we've had to request the lab work to be done to make sure there's been no adverse effects (kidney, liver etc.).
ReplyDeleteI don't have time to watch the video any time soon... busy era of life for us right now. But we pretty much refuse to medicate our children for most things unless absolutely necessary. And the less we medicate them, the less often we have situations arise where they require medication. I can't even remember the last time I took one to the doc for anything other than a wound that was out of my league.
ReplyDeleteWe also don't vaccinate after years of research. Only two of my children have had any vaccines, and I regret those even now.
Hi SD, I've been reading your wonderful blog the last couple months, but felt compelled to contribute here for the first time.
ReplyDeletePeople like the second anon here, like most people in our society, are completely unaware of the link between nutrition and mental health. Yes, those drugs can sometimes put a bandaid on some of your symptoms. Maybe you will be able to function when you couldn't before. But you haven't actually dealt with the initial problem. You haven't addressed the root cause. Worse, you've started messing with your body's extremely complex machinery.
The body is built to be healthy and has extremely potent and complex systems in place to ensure that everything runs smoothly. It's very good at making and keeping itself healthy. We've lost sight of that as a society because so many of us are sick in a variety of ways. But it really doesn't take much. You pretty much just have to give your body high quality nutrition and it will take care of the rest.
I used to suffer from depression. My mom's been depressed her whole life, hers before her. When I went paleo my mood improved, but only somewhat. Then a year ago I finally nailed my diet so that my digestion was perfect. BOOM. Not only no depression, not even the slightest shadow of it, but even when negative or distressing events happen my mood is only affected for *minutes*, and then I bounce back. I'm not talking about a zombie state. My mind is just always clear and calm.
I'm hardly unique in this. Other people who have managed to really nail their digestion while eating a very nutrient-rich diet describe a similar result.
So for the people who say, 'Don't bash drugs, they make it possible for me and x y z person to function' - well, how about taking responsibility for your life and eating in a way that supports your body *functioning the way it was meant to function in the first place*?
I know most people just don't even know the effects proper nutrition can have, but even those that do often refuse to act. My mom, who as I mentioned is perpetually depressed, having seen and heard from me, her daughter, what is attainable, has not been motivated to make changes. My dad has been on anxiety meds for a decade, occasionally weans himself off, then a few months later has to go back on. I've told them this is fixable. Look, I fixed myself! I'll help you figure it out, guide you through it, help you construct menu plans... Nope. Don't wanna do it. Why? How can you not want to take responsibility for your life?
This is what really gets me, and it's one of the things I love about your blog - you seek to better yourself for yourself and for your family, and that means taking responsibility. Completely. Even when it's hard and you don't want to do what it takes. Doesn't matter. Find the fortitude and do what needs to be done.
[sorry for the deletes, Google accounts was confusing me]
Hi Phedra, thank you for your comment and kind words. Wasn't it you who did a guest post at Stingray's place about bone broth? If it was, could you link that again here? I've been following that advice of yours for a few weeks now.
ReplyDeletePills are just easier. It's easier to rely on medications to fix our issues, instead of facing them head on and dealing with the root cause.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we all know that just because it seems easier, doesn't mean that it really is in the long run, but most people just don't want to think that hard.
That was me. The post is here:
ReplyDeletehttp://verusconditio.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/your-optimal-health-through-nutrition/
I'm very glad to hear you've been giving it a shot. How has it been so far?
A comment on the bone broth, break the bones to get at the marrow, as that is where the real nutrients are. :)
ReplyDeleteIf you buy what's labelled as soup bones they should be sliced across the bone, so you'll be getting exposed marrow. If you have whole bones for some reason, definitely saw them in half to expose the marrow.
ReplyDeleteBone broth is about more than just the fat though. You can get good pastured fat in other ways - rendered, or just by using fatty cuts of meat. The gelatine in the cartilage and its component amino acids, and the minerals in the bones, are what make bone broth so healing and nutritious, and you can't really get at them except through broth.
I have a hard time justifying buying bones for soup... I'd rather get the meat along with it ;) I have a pretty big family though, so I just save chicken carcasses and make a huge batch of stock and can up enough for a year or so at a time. I just ran out not too long ago so I need to do that again soon.
ReplyDeletePhedra,
ReplyDeleteThe first batch of beef bone broth I made turned out fabulous. Everyone looked forward to drinking it. I really hope I'm not ruining the health benefits of it by using "Better than bouillon" to season it. Anything too bland will not get consumed in this house.
The second batch I forgot to bake the soup bones first and they had a funky smell. That batch got thrown out.
The chicken broth I've made has turned out great. But here's where I suck. I bought the Tyson young chicken. I just don't have a clue where to purchase chicken that isn't mass produced. I need to get over my laziness on this and look around. Where do you get all of these bones from?
If you have a good recipe for liver, I'd love to try it. I'll admit, I'm scared. I have horrible childhood memories of being served some nasty liver at daycare.
I'm confused about the seed thing too. What literal seeds and nuts are you talking about? I'm dumb about these things. I'm picturing buying a can of planters cashews or almonds, opening them, soaking them and then re-dehydrating them? Is that what you do? Help. I'm confused.
Have you tried adding veggies and herbs to the stock to flavor it? I don't know what affect that would have on the health aspect of it, but it might make it more palatable...
ReplyDeleteI have, I use carrot, celery, onion, parsley. Guess what's missing there....SALT! :) How does one ween a family off of their salt addiction? Is there anything wrong with salt? I mean everything else we've been told has been bunk. Please tell me salt is now good for us. :)
ReplyDeleteSalt does have health benefits, but you want to find a good sea salt. I think the ones that have kelp are supposed to be good, though harder to find. I like Fluer de sel from Penzeys personally :)
ReplyDeleteI wasn't on my computer earlier, but here is a link I found that shows the benefits of salt, along with the demonization of it ;)
ReplyDeletehttp://paleodietlifestyle.com/salt-and-a-paleo-diet/
Actually, you don't want to add salt to broth, because if you do you wont be able to reduce it at all. Make it saltless, veggies as you used, some peppercorns and bay leaf. Strain. When you're going to drink some heat it with salt to taste. But you can (and should) also use it as a base for soups, sauces, pilafs, and as the liquid in any meat or even veggie preparation that require added liquids.
ReplyDeleteI don't roast the bones at all. I don't know why it would come out funky, but extra carrots and bay leaves might take care of that, so if your raw bones smell a little weird you could try that. Better Than Bouillon is not a good idea. It has corn syrup and hydrolysed soy protein, neither of which are your friends.
My bones generally have a fair bit of meat on them and I use it sometimes, but ideally you want to cook the broth for a really long time and the meat gets pretty much flavourless by that point. It does give the broth a more interesting taste, so if your bones don't have meat on them, you could buy a bit of chuck or something to throw in there.
As for where to be get meat, you're going to have to do some research in your area. You can look here for a guide:
http://www.westonaprice.org/local-chapters/finding-nutrient-dense-foods
Or these guys deliver throughout the US:
http://www.grasslandbeef.com/StoreFront.bok
I bought a cow share to be able to get raw milk and the farmers also sell grass fed beef. There are also a bunch of farmer's markets here where people sell pastured chickens and beef. You could also take up hunting.
If you must make broth from unpastured animals, I would recommend discarding the fat, especially if it's chicken. You're better off getting your fat from coconut oil.
With respect to nuts, you can soak raw but not roasted ones. Just put them in warm water with a pinch of salt and let them sit about 12 hours. Then dehydrate. Any nuts can be processed this way - cashews, almonds, pecans, whatever.
For legumes you would soak them for a couple days, then cook them.
For grains, if you're making a pilaf, or a porridge, or something you would soak for a couple days and then cook. Otherwise you would make a sourdough starter and use it to bake bread or make pancakes, etc. Does this help? I can give a lot of detail here but it might make more sense if you told me what sorts of things specifically you want to be making.
Oh, with respect to funkiness, you are skimming the broth as it comes to the boil, right?
ReplyDeleteThank you. You have such great information!
ReplyDeleteI just was talking to RLB about wanting to get a cow when we move (we plan to raise steers so bones will be no problem then). But my goodness, what on earth would we do with 40 lbs of milk each day? Interesting that you share yours.
Okay you mention pilaf, so you must be talking about rice, correct? So you soak your rice for a couple of days?
I don't season the broth until we use it, so I am doing that right at least. How much do you reduce it? I'm going to make this next batch with more seasonings as you suggest and see if I can get it palatable without the Better than bouillon. (We're still working on eliminating foods containing corn syrups, soy protein, vegetable oil, gluten (for the non celiacs) etc. - They've all done quite well living without breads, I'm eliminating crackers this month.)
The funky smell had to be from poor handling of the bones prior to packaging. It was foul.
Thank you again, Phedra. I love learning this stuff. I've been doing quite a bit of research online as well. Do you have a blog yet? Hint hint. :)
For liver I'm afraid I'm not a great source of conversion recipes, because I love its flavour. Some people soak it in yogurt or lemon juice to make it milder. Two things I've noticed make it milder are a- buying calves' rather than beef liver, and b- dredging in flour.
ReplyDeleteThe basics are: Heat pan on medium-high, put in oil (coconut helps mask the flavour), put in liver. Usually by the time you've browned both sides nicely it will be done. This is the key: it must be pink inside. Cooked texture but pink. If it's well done it will not only be tough but the flavour will also be distinctive and unpleasant.
Most people like it with some fried bacon and caramelised onions.
If you still don't like it, you can always make a nice curry sauce to pour over it. That will cover it's flavour quite a bit.
Haha, no blog. I like to take long internet breaks every once in a while.
ReplyDeleteBy cow share I mean that we bought a share of a cow. In the case of this operation the farmers allowed an 1/8th share, most do 1/4 or 1/2 at a minimum. So I bought an 1/8 of a cow for the duration of its life, and I am therefore entitled to an 1/8th of the milk it produces. But because the farmers also make butter, kefir, cultured milk, etc, I don't have to get that full amount of milk. We typically go through about 6 L a week between the two of us.
40 L would be tough. You'd have to be making a fair bit of cheese.
Pilaf can be made with any whole grain. Rice I soak overnight, although if you use white (and you should because rice bran is very hard on the digestion) you don't really have to.
Have you heard of the Nourishing Traditions book before? It's a really good resource for all of this stuff. I don't love the recipes (just different from my cooking style) but they make good starting points and she really goes through all the basics very thoroughly.
I don't reduce the broth as a matter of course, unless I'm tight on fridge space and need it to take up less volume. But if you make anything with the broth - use it to cook grains, or as a sauce base, you will be inevitably reducing it.
Clearing your kitchen of harmful ingredients is definitely a process. These things are in everything, and it takes time to find replacements. Thankfully, there are a lot of online sources now so you can have access to healthy alternatives pretty much no matter where you live. But there is the general challenge of modifying diets and tastes. Thankfully, once you've done a major overhaul once it tends to be quite easy in the future. Your taste buds learn to acclimatise faster and you learn to break habits with more and more comfort and ease. A good life skill to have in general!
I am emotionally compelled to comment regarding the use of psychotropic drugs, which almost killed me. Literally.
ReplyDeleteThese are such horrendous chemical concoctions and some of those I was once taking regularly are commonly referred to as "chemical lobotomizers" - how delightfully charming!
Thank God I am free from all of them now and have been for years. Thank God I am married now to a wonderful man who thinks precisely as I do about the dangers of these medications and about the truth of what "mental illness" really is. He would never allow me to poison myself in this way again.
The last medicine I was prescribed was for "major depressive illness" - it caused a rare reaction which manifested as symptoms of a stroke (try having a code called on you in the E.R. when you arrive because of a stupid atypical antipsychotic med...fun!). My left side was incapacitated, my left eye drooping, slobber coming from the left side of my mouth. I could not walk, move my left arm or speak properly. Breastmilk was coming from my breasts when I had not been pregnant in over seventeen years!
Nothing was wrong with my brain or heart, though my blood pressure hovered around 150/115 (nothing to laugh at) for over twenty-four hours. At the end of all of this, the neurologist who saw me had "no explanation" for what occurred (though I now know it was a very rare and life-threatening side effect listed in the package insert of the medication.)
When I recovered, I sensed that the Lord wanted me to flush all of the "replacement" medication down the toilet and never, ever put another one of these medications in my body (His temple) again. I was afraid. The "new" medication was guaranteed not to cause any such life-threatening side effect (although it was not created or FDA approved for use as a treatment for depression - it was an anti-seizure medication - many of the "psychotropics" are really used off-label).
I chose to serve the Lord my God, and I flushed the meds down the toilet.
My body cleansed itself. I drank tons of pure water and ate fresh foods. I slept regularly. The breastmilk problem was gone.
Although I have not had time to watch the lengthy video you posted, I WILL watch it as this is an issue close to my heart. My family still persecutes me because I am "mentally ill" according to them and "refuse to medicate myself" (really this means I will not bow down to them and continue to take something that incapacitates me and allows them to emotionally control me/blackmail me and otherwise abuse me, but that's another post.) My ex-spouse has used this information in courts of law to affect the custody of my son, and has slandered me as "mentally ill" to anyone who will listen.
I am more sane now than I had ever been in my life after taking medications for severe depression (probably due to living around all of those totally dysfunctional people in my foster family!). I took those medications religiously at the advice of physicians for over ten years, probably closer to fifteen. Although I can never gain those years back, I can write and testify of the dangers of these meds.
Pharmakoepia. In Biblical times, it meant witchcraft. For those unfamiliar, check it out. Look it up. And then ask your Maker what He wants you to put in your body.
For those who prefer to read instead of watching videos, try this: http://breggin.com/ This is the website of a psychiatrist who can explain the dangers of these drugs. He is pretty clear that there is no such thing as an "imbalance of brain chemicals" that causes mental illness.
ReplyDeleteI second the recommendation of Nourishing Traditions for recipes and instructions on making bone broth. I also recommend Breaking the Vicious Cycle and Gut and Psychology Syndrome. There really is a "gut-brain connection" and even severe mental illness can be healed by healing the gut.
Thanks for warning people against these drugs. A lot of moms might not even think about the issue at all until some expert is recommending them for her child. It is better to be informed BEFORE it happens. Same with things like injuries resulting in chronic pain or traumatic brain injury. We don't expect these things to happen to our husbands, but if they do, and we are uninformed, the medical system can destroy our families with bad treatments.