"Anatomy of an Epidemic" Part 1: The central premise

I received my copy of Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker today. Over the coming weeks I will post selected facts and excerpts from the book, with a focus on the statistical results of the studies.

I'm only a few pages in, and the central premise of the book is so clear and in some ways the question seems so obvious that it makes me wonder why no one bothered to ask before:

Given this great advance in care [introduction of psychotropic drugs] we should expect that the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States, on a per-capita basis, would have declined over the past fifty years. We should also expect that the number of disabled mentally ill, on a per-capita basis, would have declined since the arrival in 1988 of Prozac and the other second-generation psychiatric drugs. We should see a two-step drop in disability rates. Instead, as the psychopharmacology revolution has unfolded, the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States has skyrocketed. Moreover, this increase in the number of disabled mentally ill has accelerated further since the introduction of Prozac and other second-generation psychiatric drugs. Most disturbing of all, this modern-day plague has now spread to the nations children.

-- Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker, page 3 (bold emphasis added)

In 1987, there were 1.25 million people receiving an SSI or SSDI payment because they were disabled by mental illness, or 1 in every 184 Americans.

-- Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker, page 6

The Food and Drug Administration approved Prozac in 1987, and over the next two decades the number of disabled mentally ill on the SSI and SSDI rolls soared to 3.97 million. In 2007, the disability rate was 1 in every 76 Americans. That's more than double the rate in 1987, and six times the rate in 1955.

-- Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker, page 7

I think I'm going to like this book.

What else in our society should we blame for mental illness? I think that it is likely that it is an effect of mass media: advertising telling us that we'd be happy if only we owned a Mercedes, TV telling us how we should look and talk, magazines telling is what is too fat or too thin and showing us beautiful freaks of nature that we can compare ourselves to, and on top of it all peer pressure to do the rest. But, mass media has been around since radio was invented. I'm not sure we can simply point to that and blame it for the acceleration in mental illness that we've seen. And certainly, if the drugs worked, then we should see a decline, at least in the second derivative, of mental illness cases as new drugs are introduced and as prescription rates soar.

We're not seeing that, so maybe it is something else...

Stories of the Effuxed. Meet Jessica.

One goal of this blog is to centralize all the disparate tales of sorrow and grief that surrounds this drug and other antidepressants of it's ilk. There are far too many.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/youropinions.php?opinionid=19018&p=13#thread

Effexor RUINED My Life

posted by Jessica on 25 Jun 2010 at 1:03 pm

I will try and keep this brief, but it's a lot to explain. I have always suffered from mild depression. But have always had trouble finding the right anti-depressant. Finally my doctor put me on Effexor, I think I started on 75mg, later increased to 150mg. (This all begin in Fall 2007, so the details are a bit foggy now) A year later I got married, my husband later told me I changed the day I started taking Effexor, and that he just sat back and hoped it wouldn't last. Shortly after the wedding, I wanted off Effexor so that we could start our family. I wish some one somewhere had told me about going off Effexor. EFFEXOR SHOULD BE A PERMANENT MEDICATION, OR ELSE DOCTORS SHOULD NOT PRESCRIBE IT AT ALL!!!!!! Like everyone, I went through hell. Months of trying to get off. My husband finally realized on bad days, when I couldn't take the withdraw any more I woud just go take more. So he tried to help me regulate them by keeping them from me(I was fine with this)Except I would refill my pills and hide them. It was like crack to me. I remember laying in bed crying for more to make the symptoms of the withdraw to go away. I lost my job during all of this. Then one day I went for it and went cold turkey(JAN 2009). It was hell. As the weeks went by the symptoms gradually lessened. But NEVER, to this day went away completely. At random, I have very bad days with massive symptoms, and then I can have weeks straight with next to none. However, the biggest issue was my emotions went completely haywire. It was like they were all magnified times a million. I suddenly hated my life and wanted to run away. I started counseling and seeing a new psychiatrist. They all told me a was very bipolar. I started taking 600mg Lithium and 100mg Lamictal in August of 2009They adjust my meds up and down, different times of day everything, and still I will be better for a week or two then I crash. My husband tried so hard to care for me. But one day I loved him, the next I hated him and pushed him away. He couldn't take it anymore, he left. My son from my first marriage is hard for me to care for. My mom is talking about taking him for a while because I can barely care for him most days. I am 120% I am not bipolar. I know the effexor 'broke' me. If I were truly bipolar the meds would eventually help. My doctors all say the effexor has a way of doing that to people, bringing out the underlying bipolar. Then they told me this is how I will be FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Part of me feels like I would be better off going back on Effexor. But I am too stubborn to do that. Anyone who knows anything about this, I would love some opinions.

Casus Belli

On May, 17, 2006 I married my wife.  May 1, 2010 she begins tapering onto Effexor.  Then on May 29, less than a month later, she forces me to leave our apartment for the last time.  

In the third marriage counseling session she tells me that I couldn't be a last resort because she doesn't consider me an option anymore.  She wanted a divorce, she said.  I went to my attorney and had them file the papers the same day.

What happened in that month?  A lot.  We'll get to that in time.  It is the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with in my entire life.  Harder still because my heartbreak barely registers on her drug dampened emotions.  Almost like if someone shot me in the stomach with a twelve gage, and she, seeing me attempting to hold what's left of my intestines in, says casually, "What?  It's just a flesh wound."

It really feels as if she died in a tragic car accident, only to be resurrected by zombie aliens who implanted her with a Vulcan personality of Bill Clinton.  

The person I knew as my wife is gone, her personality and soul ripped out of her body along with the love she had for me.  It will never return as long as she is on Effexor, and so far she says she really likes it -- that she never felt more like herself, as if that statement makes any sense at all.

Thus, Effexor is the enemy.  This story has been repeated over and over.  I am not the first and I won't be the last.  Fortunately, many of those, who have suffered from taking this drug or have suffered through a loved one taking this drug, are starting to speak out.  I will join the chorus of my allies.

And even though our marriage is mortally wounded, I am not.  And while I live, Effexor delenda est.

This means war.