[beautiful_seclusion]

I think being anti anything without room for gray areas is a red flag. I do think some of your posts are coming through a little paranoid, but it's impossible to know over a forum. Do you have some close friends you could discuss your feelings with? Maybe someone you trust more than doctors?

All that being said, I do agree medication can cause harm beyond the listed side effects. It harmed me for over three years, making me delusional, paranoid, suicidal, and unstable in both my mood and my emotions. I was convinced I was ill in a way I actually was not. I finally quit the medication, only because I thought it was not working, only to realize all the problems that had developed over the course of being medicated went away. However, I would like to emphasize that I in no way believe this was intentional. It was due to very poor care, misdiagnosis, and the reliance of American doctors on medication.

I do believe that pharmaceutical companies influence doctors, but not in the sinister ways you describe. And I don't think it occurs in the UK, since you do not pay for medical care there. Here, pharmaceutical companies do push for doctors to use their drugs by giving them free things and so forth. This makes them more likely to choose drugs subconsciously that they have had companies push to them, rather than objectively looking at all the options. It's more that they are influenced by the presence of various drugs, not that they are trying to harm anyone. Also, it doesn't help that psychiatrists no longer do much more than meds. I think they get so used to prescribing, that they never consider that maybe the answer is no meds. I also agree that psychiatry and psychology, at least in the US, over pathologizes normal human experiences. But I think this is not intentional, but rather from adopting a mindset that every problem must have a name.

Also, some medications do work. I was misdiagnosed as bipolar, and the medications they gave me did induce serious mental illness in me that was not otherwise there. It baffles me that doctors do not appreciate this risk, even though black box warnings have become common. I think they forget how hard it is to figure out what is the person and what is from medication once the meds are started. I had a doctor say those warnings were relatively rare, even though I had a classic black box warning reaction in addition to the years of meds making me much worse. However, the problems that I had that caused me to seek help in the first place were due to ADHD and PMDD. The latter I can control with diet and exercise. The former I cannot. Taking a very small dose of Ritalin has dramatically helped my symptoms. I may not take it forever, but I most definitely can tell if I have forgotten to take it or not. And people who have classic depression, bipolar, and schizophrenia, are very helped by meds. The problem is in my opinion that many people do not have a classic form of the disorder or are being mis- or over-diagnosed. And my problem with psychiatrists is that they often diagnose very haphazardly and refuse to admit that medication can cause mental illness as much as it can help it. Meds are helpful to those who need them. But they are potentially dangerous to those who don't.

Also, while most psychiatrists know much about meds, in the US, they do not know much about neuroscience, i.e. the biology behind mental illnesses. I am in the science field, pursuing a phd in neuroscience. And most people I've met that do neuroscience research know that meds can work but that they also are not ok for everyone. And that there's still a lot of unknowns about brain chemistry, which I've seen psychiatrists seriously underplay. The research studies teally are sound and unbiased, and scientists are not allowed to be connected to pharmaceutical companies in any way. But the problem is that the studies can't apply to every human. Because mental illness diagnostics are observation based, its harder to control than as say a study on high blood pressure. There is no blood test for mental illeness, just generalities in brain chemistry. The chemistry is also so hard to study that most studies are also observation based, particularly at the clinical level. So they will show trends as far as helping people, but it's hard to study how meds affect people who don't need them from being misdiagnosed. Then you put that into the hands of psychiatrists who don't seem to understand these pitfalls, and you get meds handed out way too easily and to people that do not need them. Add on top of that, its hard to correctly diagnose people when all we have is observation to diagnose mental illness.

So it's not a conspiracy, just a very poor system. And it's worse in the US where money is more involved. Meds should be a last resort, and their dangers to mental health should be better appreciated by psychiatrists. Studies are not precise enough yet, although it is obvious they do work for some people. We need much more caution, but not an entire stop sign if that makes sense.

I do think though, that you should share your thoughts with a close friend or family member and see if they think your behavior is alarming. Ask someone who has no bias in your mind, and be open to what they say. If you do have schizophrenia, it's very hard to know when you are ill. And meds may help if your are. So try to see if you can find someone you trust and give their opinion a chance. If they are worried, you really should see a doctor, as being ill is scary and dangerous. We can't diagnose you on here, and I do agree there are serious problems with psychiatry. But your unwillingness to see that meds do help some people or to consider non malicious reasons for psychiatry's problems makes me think you may be more ill than you realize.