A Drug Induced Loss Of Romance

There has been quite a bit said about the use, efficacy and safety of pharmaceutical drugs. The range of denunciation has gone from writers like Alex Knepper, a former Frum Forum contributor and current freelance contrarian, to the more predictable suspects of antidepressant and psychiatry hating at the Church of Scientology. As someone who used and is still on a very, very minor dosage of antidepressants, I would like to attest to some of the truly haunting and disturbing elements of modern psycho-medicine. One of the truly horrific arenas of the over-drugging of our society is the resulting dehumanization. Much of human history is the story of religion, organized and disorganized. Especially in Christianity, romance is inherent in the character of religion. In Islam, the Prophet Mohammed seeks spiritual guidance by secluding himself within an isolated cave, while in Buddhism, the Buddha reclines himself in to poverty and dissociation from his previous riches and prosperity in order to come closer to spiritual truth. The romance reaches its height within Christianity, where separation from guarantees and expectations reaches its height with God giving up his only begotten son. This is all very romantic and appeals deeply to people lost in life, often by their own faults and transgressions. Modern psychiatry demolishes this and replaces it with nothing whatsoever. Once you are lodged fully within the realm of psychiatric medication, personal self-development falls by the wayside. Miss a pill or start taking the wrong one and you could very well end up changing your personality completely. Whatever improvements you had learned over the years are completely useless and irrelevant as you become a robot whose circuits can be wired and rewired. Unlike a computer, however, your doctor and psychiatrist isn't at all like a technician who seeks to make you as functional and operable as possible. Instead, they seek to manage whatever you suffer from or that they perceive you to suffer from and continually plant seeds by which new disorders and problems arise. There's nothing romantic about this. There's not even anything appealing about this, but it is quite literally the state by which millions of Americans and others now find themselves. There are a plethora of anecdotes about various individuals who have broken down and transformed due to psychotropic drugs. The listing for these individuals could go on for a long, long time. A key example, in my view, is Charmaine Dragun. Dragun, a native Croatian who became a famous announcer in Australia, committed suicide after taken off the medication Effexor and placed on another antidepressant. Dragun was beautiful, she had a loving family and spouse. Why would she kill herself?

However, the month before her death she began a program to wean herself off one antidepressant while taking another. Ms Dragun drove to Sydney's Gap in November 2007 and committed suicide. She had been due to get married. Glebe Coroner's Court in Sydney was told the inquest would investigate whether a change in Ms Dragun's antidepressant medication had triggered her suicide. "Objectively, Charmaine had an ideal life, she had everything to live for, but behind the perfect exterior, there was a deep and troubling issue," said David Hirsch, counsel assisting the coroner. He said that she had a lot of help and support from her partner, Simon Struthers, her family and friends. "Despite all of that, Charmaine decided to go to The Gap on that Friday afternoon and, at the cliff, she decided to take one step forward rather than one step back." "Why she took the step forward is something we cannot know . . . (but) Charmaine was not stopped, she did not change her mind and she did die." In October 2007 Ms Dragun began reducing her dose of the drug Effexor and started on a new medication, Lexapro. Friends described her behaviour at that time as "disturbing" and "out of character". Mr Hirsch said Ms Dragun had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety in 1996 but there were indications she may have been suffering from bipolar disorder. If this diagnosis had been made, then she should not have been on Effexor. Suicide is a known risk of depression and patients of Effexor should be monitored closely at the beginning of a course of treatment or a change in dose.

Responsibility One of the key aspects of the myriad tragedies and wrecked lives due to prescription drug use is a persistent lack of responsibility. This has certainly plagued me. Why would so many people be irresponsible about drug use? After all, people are usually responsible about nearly everything else in life - we regularly are aware of not being hit by cars, avoiding loss or misuse of money and various other threats in our environment. In an article by the Los Angeles Times wherein they report that pharmaceutical deaths now eclipse automobile accidents, an LA police officer summed it up pretty succinctly:

In some ways, prescription drugs are more dangerous than illicit ones because users don't have their guard up, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Opferman, head of a county task force on prescription drug-related crimes. "People feel they are safer with prescription drugs because you get them from a pharmacy and they are prescribed by a doctor," Opferman said. "Younger people believe they are safer because they see their parents taking them. It doesn't have the same stigma as using street narcotics."

Not only does it not have the same stigma, but unlike crack or heroin, you will find advertisements for your favorite pharmaceutical firmly implanted during various television breaks, right next to ads for car insurance or candy bars. It's no wonder that kids take up the behavior that they do: "They said they will have parties where the kids will throw a bunch of pills in a bowl and the kids take them without knowing what they are," Lori said. "We called all of his friends, but no one would say they were with him. But he must have been with someone. You just don't do that by yourself." Responsibility is a powerful thing but it is important to bear in mind that the children who grow chemically dependent early on did not seek out that state. However naive, it's not they who picked out the pills that were placed in that bowl. Their degree of responsibility may in fact be varied - as the medicine made available could have affects on their personality that not even their physician - let alone their parents - quite comprehend. Tweet Share