Healing or Numbing? Mental Health Month in the Age of Overprescription

Today marks the first day of Mental Health Awareness Month and with it comes a host of questions about what we as a nation can do better to help those among us who are struggling.

There is no denying that as a culture we are not well, particularly young people. The evidence is everywhere. Children murdering other children. Adolescent delinquency and truancy. Alarming rises in the rates of depression and suicide.

An ABC report states that many of those with self-reported depression do not seek help. Some say treatment such as therapy and pharmaceuticals, particularly anti-depressants like Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), may cause more harm than good.

Abigail Shrier’s book, Bad Therapy, makes the bold case that the problem isn’t the kids, it’s the mental health experts. She argues that a culture of coddling our youngest has led to pathologizing the normal stresses that accompany adolescence, including struggles with body image, navigating friendships, first romances, and a swath of school pressures. The same can be said for adults. The normal human emotions that arise from living in today’s chaotic world are now often declared formal disorders.

No one knows this better than Laura Delano, a writer and psychiatric consultant. Since she was 13 years old, Delano has been what she calls “psychiatrized” – stuck in the belief system that somehow her feisty disposition and mental struggles were always a condition to be categorized and thus, treated.

                                            aaron & whitney photography

In her raw, vulnerable and poignant book, Unshrunk, Delano outlines her decades-long journey within the mental health system, addicted to the drugs doctors constantly prescribed.

I asked Delano what “psychiatrized” meant for her. She told The Kennedy Beacon,  “It’s almost like a spell is cast on you and your humanity, your suffering, your spiritual, existential, social elements of who you are as a person just get …” as Delano tossed her hands in the air. She continued, “List of symptoms, diagnosis, mental health treatment. The best way to capture that whole thing that happens to you is that word.”

Delano’s story began as many young ladies’ do, particularly those from high achieving, middle to upper class families. Delano felt pressure to be successful and to live up to the expectations of her parents, teachers, and social circles. She felt those closest to her could not relate to her desire to escape those pressures and the tendency to disassociate. She lashed out with anger and rebellion and found herself in a therapist’s office at the age of 13. By 14, she was labeled bipolar and given her first dose of antidepressants and mood stabilizers. This was the on ramp to a life dominated by psychiatrists and therapists, pharmaceuticals, and institutionalization.

Through Delano’s heartbreaking tales, we witness the pitfalls of a system that is quick to write a prescription based on a set of boxes to be checked. “I grew up with a clinical gaze on me – that was my normal. Being reduced to this specimen of rabid animal,” Delano told me.

Out of dozens of therapists and a decade and a half of treatment, only one doctor suggested the possibility that Laura wasn’t the problem. Maybe it was her diagnosis. By then, she was so dependent on her doctors and meds, she wasn’t ready to rethink what every expert had told her. “My whole sense of self worth was tied into how I was perceived by doctors and therapists,” Delano said.

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Not one expert ever considered that the cocktails of drugs didn’t work, much less that they were the culprit. Instead, Delano was labeled “treatment resistant” and either prescribed an elevated dosage or another drug. Along with her story, Delano weaves in revealing scientific studies and research that outlines the dubious claims of many common prescription drugs used for mental health disorders – Prozac, Provigil, Ambien, Abilify, and lithium – as well as other treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

Delano’s struggles, which included binge drinking, eating disorders, and cutting, continued to escalate until she attempted suicide in 2008. She was institutionalized and eventually prescribed lithium, a known neurotoxin. This created more health issues for Delano, including Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune condition that attacks the thyroid gland. At the time, her doctor considered her “lucky,” telling Delano, “out of all the autoimmune conditions you could have, Hashimoto's is by far the most easily manageable. Synthroid’s been around forever, and it’s very well tolerated.”

Delano reminisces about being stuck on the merry-go round of the mental health medical system. She writes, “The more I suffered, the more medical treatments I was convinced I needed, but the more treatments I received, the more I suffered.”

In the book, she contemplates how the vicious cycle kept her dependent and disavowed her of responsibility and the power to reclaim her life. “The years I spent inside the medicalized industry of psychiatric care had taught me that I lacked the power to endure my struggles on my own, or solely with the help of friends and family,” Delano writes.

Throughout her years of treatment, seeds of doubt about the mental health system were sown. Delano learned the power that a psychiatrist has to, as she shared,  “strip someone of their rights for your own good.”  In 2010, she revealed her suicidal thoughts to her therapist. By law, the therapist was required to admit her to an inpatient facility. Delano agreed and told the therapist she would first go home to retrieve some personal belongings. The therapist rejected her request. Delano was confused. She was being compliant. She wanted to go inpatient. She simply wanted to grab some clothes and her journal first. She raised her voice in protest. Eventually security came to detain her and escort her to the psychiatric unit. “What just happened?” she thought to herself. “How does he have the right to do this to me?”

Eventually, Laura quit drinking. Once she got sober, things became clearer. She was still medicated, but lucid enough to begin to ask questions. “Who would I be without these meds? How much of me is actually me versus the meds?”

For most of her life, Delano viewed herself only through the prism of “patient.” Now she admitted she was an alcoholic. She started attending regular AA meetings and, according to Delano, “my state of mind began to shift.” She began to see change was possible. She had hope.

Eventually, Delano tapered off her medications. She started to feel alive in her body again. She said she “woke up” from the spell the industry had cast on her. She hasn’t taken a pill for her supposed mental illness since 2010.

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Now, Delano and her husband, Cooper Davis, run a nonprofit called Inner Compass to assist those who have not found resolution within the current psychological model, particularly those who would like to taper off of psychiatric medications. The couple envisions a program that, like Alcoholics Anonymous, offers community support groups with the ultimate goal of raising awareness about the dire situation many find themselves in – a life defined by pharmaceutical intervention.

Delano hasn’t been to a professional doctor or on an official treatment plan either. That’s not to say everything is rosy for her. As she describes it, she still has bouts of anxiety and struggles with emotions. “I’m a f’d up dark person, I can be paranoid,” she says. But, she continues, “the big difference is I’m not afraid of my mind anymore.”

As Delano describes it, her healing had “nothing to do with the disappearance of discomfort and everything to do with its embrace. It’s been about extricating myself from any industry or institution – be it psychiatric, mental health, holistic health, alternative health, wellness, or otherwise – that tells me I have a problem it has the solution for.”

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