The Cheese Grates It: Pills Aren't The Answer to Everything

 TRIGGER WARNING: SELF-HARM REFERENCE

This is a response to a post on Alternet titled "Is Modern Psychiatry Bullshit?"

Modern psychiatry's answer to treating psychiatric illness is to throw pills at everything. They have no idea how to treat people who can't tolerate the pills. After having horrific reactions to Effexor (it made me manic and psychotic) I was put on Zoloft, which gave me the sensation that my brain had grown tiny hands and was trying to pick its way out of my head. When I told the doctor this, I was told to "stay on it." I refused.
Years before, Prozac had left me so flat emotionally that I was staring at my arm, contemplating cutting it, not because of self-harm reasons but because I wondered if I could still feel.
I do not take psych meds. Everything I take to help me manage my mental health issues is a natural supplement, including the Lithium I take. I got lectured about the fact that my Lithium levels aren't even close to therapeutic. However, therapeutic doses are right next door to toxic, and the small amount I take of Lithium Orotate, which is more bioavailable than Lithium Carbonate, do the job without threatening to put me in the hospital for Lithium toxicity.
Counseling is too expensive and never helped me much anyway. I've always thought that cognitive behavioral therapy might be useful, but that's not one of the choices you get when all you can afford (and you can't even afford that) is the county mental health system.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~