Apologies in advance for the length. But in a way, you DID ask.

Occam’s Razor and follow the money. Who would benefit from suicide? Why, no one of course. But…what if someone was benefiting from something that contributed to suicide, and suicide was simply “collateral damage”?

Here are some fun facts: We have more psychiatric medications on the market than ever before in human history.

Mental illness diagnoses have risen exponentially in the last 2 decades, as have suicide rates, as you so wisely state here.

The DSM manuals, which contain the criteria for diagnostics and are basically the “bibles” of psychology and psychiatry, are not, in fact, medical texts. The DSMs, from the first edition to the now-disavowed fifth, were all comprised of the clinical, anecdotal, and observational theories and hypotheses of the people responsible for creating the parameters of “normal, acceptable human behavior.”

Scientific research is, by its very definition, open to peer-review and critical assessment. The people responsible for the latest edition of the DSM-V were all required to sign non-disclosure agreements, which is in direct opposition to transparency w/r/t scientific findings and research.

Funding for the DSMs come, in large part, from pharmaceutical companies.

Now, taking bipolar disorder, for example, the criteria for bipolar had remained constant for decades, based on “trademark” characteristics of “manic-depression” aka “bipolar disorder.”

Now, having read all the versions (DSM III, IV, and V), and even the actual medical texts given to medical students who were specializing in psychiatry, something odd struck me. See, I went to school and read works and research materials and findings of people “afflicted” with bipolar before it was even labeled “manic-depression” or bipolar, people, specifically artists and writers, who have been posthumously “diagnosed” bipolar. What struck me was the criteria remained steady.

However, stick with me now…in the latest version of the DSM-VI-TR, and the DSM-V, the criteria changed — radically. The criteria now includes symptoms that are across-the-board identical to extrapyramidal side-effects of the psychiatric medications they use to TREAT bipolar, depression, and even anxiety.

Let that sink in for a minute.

So, after hundreds of years, suddenly in the last 30, bipolar disorder has…evolved? Now, people in the mental health field will say that they were simply not recognized, and now they are. Ah…but.

Interestingly, as we go back to “Follow the money,” the evolution of bipolar and “treatment-resistant-agitated depression” coincides with the advent of the psychiatric medications that appeared on the market in the 1980s, early-1990s. Now, suddenly, bipolar disorder has a whole new set of criteria, a whole new symptom set, that coincides with the availability of SSRIs, SNRIs, and now, AAPs.

So why has bipolar disorder criteria suddenly incorporate symptoms of the drug-induced side-effect, akathisia — a side-effect, incidentally, that causes “suicidal thoughts and actions.” You hear it on the commercials, don’t you? But they never say AKATHISIA. Why?

Because drug companies don’t want you to know the word. And in case you did not know, people suffering with drug-induced or tardive (late appearing) akathisia are suffering in a hellscape you cannot possibly fathom. And they would rather die than feel the effects of it for ONE MORE MOMENT. A neurological movement disorder, caused by medications, that presents EMOTIONALLY and behaviorally.

And when they tell their doctors they have off-the-charts anxiety, suddenly, that they want to “peel off their own skin” or “climb the walls,” they get poly-pharmaceutical treatment, benzos added to the mix, an AAP, SSRI, so that they literally have no way OUT. They do that, instead of taking them off the offending medication.

So, why are the symptoms of akathisia not present or included in the criteria for bipolar disorder in the earlier versions of the DSMs, nor in any of the historical writings, going back not just decades, but thousands of years?

Suddenly, they’ve introduced something called “ultra-rapid cycling” with bipolar moods. Hm. See, historically, mood-disturbance cycles were fairly lengthy, with mood disturbances that could last a week, maybe two, to several weeks, to even months. Then there were latent periods, when there were no mood disturbances at all.

And now, suddenly, in the past 30 years or so, we have “rapid-cycling, and “ultra-rapid cycling.” And no one seems to go into the latency phase that has been historically documented consistently with bipolar.

Can you explain why no findings of these two presentations (“rapid-cycling, and “ultra-rapid cycling”) exist historically, before the advent of the psychiatric drugs that cause akathisia? Is it possible, then, that the reason people cycle so rapidly is the half-life of the drug that causes akathisia does not span a week, nor two weeks, nor several weeks, nor months, but in fact, the half-life is within HOURS of a day?

Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. People aren’t “ultra-rapid-cycling” through their bipolar mood disturbances. The DRUG wears off, they begin to feel akathisia (becomes insidiously, the new medications not only cause akathisia, but while ON them, they MASK it) and boom: they tell them they are in a mixed state, a “dysphoric mania,” an agitated, depressive, and RESTLESS state.

The symptoms of drug-induced akathisia.

And these “symptoms” have now been ADDED to the criteria for bipolar disorder not only in the new manuals, the ICD-10 and DSM-V, but on sites like “RXDrugs, BPHope, Patients Like Me, and even NAMI. (They used to have ads for the drug companies, notably Latuda, but the ads are no longer front and center. My husband wrote BPHope magazine, and asked how he might purchase ad space for the site akathisia.life. He wrote them repeatedly. They never returned his emails. Not one.) Sites, sources–PEOPLE you thought you could trust. Doctors and psychiatrists, too.

This is not new. This is not some new, rare, “only-happens-to-a very-few” thing, Jeff. They know, and have known, about this condition for over 60 years. Read portions of the article written in 1984 by two MA doctors who describe akathisia. The article, is, unfortunately, unavailable and we found a PDF of it, only to find it’s all-but vanished from the Internet.

Now, explain, please: with all these great new medications that work so well, why is depression the #1 cause of disability in America today?

Hm. Should we now follow the money? I told you we should, so let’s. And feel free to Google. My sources are sound.

The amount of money Americans spent on psychotropic drugs in 1987 was $2.5 billion. Right about the time when mental illness diagnoses began to climb.

By 2001, that number jumped to $18 billion dollars a year spent.

In 2016? Over $200 billion dollars were spent on psychiatric medications, and the studies are now showing that one type of drug in particular, AAPs (atypical-anti-psychotics: Latuda, Abilify, Rexulti, Geodon) that have been FDA-approved not only for schizophrenia, but bipolar and “treatment-resistant depression,” WILL cause akathisia with prolonged use, meaning over 3 months, in over 1/3rd of the people taking it. Not may or might. WILL. And not just akathisia, but other neurological movement disorders as well.

And there is no treatment, no cure. As a bonus? The damage is done while on the drugs, and the drugs mask them for only so long. Then, by the time you realize it, and/or your doctor does, it’s too late. You taper off the drug, and the movements, the PAIN, begin.

Yes–the side-effects of the medications made by the drug companies to treat mental illnesses are being re-branded as part of the illness itself, which has made them multi-billion-dollar industries. And between one and three-to-six (depending on the state) Americans are taking one or more akathisia-causing medications right now.

Go ahead. Take a minute to absorb that.

Reading about akathisia on a site called RxISK, a group of psychiatrists took an AAP for two weeks, then stopped, cold turkey, because akathisia is also a withdrawal symptom of almost every, single psychiatric medication. The consensus of the psychiatrists? They said that akathisia was “close to the worst experience they’ve ever had in their lives.”

Which is why you feel worse when tapering, or stopping, psych medications. Doctors re-frame your decline as “See? The medication WORKS.” They don’t even tell you it’s withdrawal. Robin Williams was on these medications and they were found in his system after he died. Same with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, and the author, and one of my greatest inspirations, David Foster Wallace, who describes the suicidality that comes with akathisia, in chilling detail. Chris Cornell shows us in the video of their song, “The Day I Tried to Live,” a haunting visual montage of how akathisia feels, and shows many of the ways sufferers choose to take their own lives, right in the video.

SSRI and SNRI efficacy has been disproved again and again, and at best, are placebos, which is why people are on a revolving door of medications. I mean…I take a blood pressure medication, and gee, it works. Period. I’ve been on it close to 15 years. So why do antidepressants only seem to work for 3–9 months, then people need to change to the newest, most expensive brand?

Because placebo only lasts up to 3–6 months. By month 9, people are so entrenched in either akathisia, other side-effects such as loss of sexual enjoyment, weight gain, etc. they are despondent.

You asked the question, Jeff. You asked it, and you can decide now, for yourself, if I’m wearing a tin-foil hat, or if following the money gives you some idea about why suicides are on the rise, why mental illness is rampant, and why there is an “Opidemic” in America today.

(Shh, I’ll give you a hint: Opiates are the ONLY THINGS that stop the intolerable pain of drug-induced, tardive, or withdrawal akathisia.)

So let’s shake the shiny-keys of the scary opiate epidemic, and make them the devil, when your sister, wife, brother, best friends, are taking psychotropic medications…and suddenly, they need shoulder surgery or dental work. The DDS gives them some Norco, maybe. And suddenly, their pain, their agony, their “agitated depression” … is gone.

Now. Wouldn’t you do just about ANYTHING to save your own life, if the choice is a feeling so horrific, you’d rather die than feel it? Seems like a lot of Americans are doing just that: anything, i.e.: abusing opiates.

Something to chew on. Or not. I could be nuts, right?

I just wonder how many brilliant minds, how many lives will be lost, before we wake up and smell the money…or the death.

Oh, and next time you watch a commercial for these great new drugs, pay close attention to the guy listing off the side effects, like “may cause fatigue, drowsiness, constipation, nausea, dry mouth,” and then, sandwiched in between, as if they’re even on the same LEVEL as the above, “suicidal thoughts or actions.”

WELL. Take a stool softener, Son, then grab the keys to the gun cabinet. Or skip the stool softener. Kill two birds with one bullet.

(Full-disclosure: I have had drug-induced, and now tardive, akathisia, for over 14 years. When they finally diagnosed me, and 7 months after getting off the offending medication? I BEGAN TO MOVE. ) So while that might make me seem highly prejudicial, my facts, my sources, are sound.

Feel free to read my story HERE.

And Jeff? Thanks for asking the question. It’s something Americans no longer seem to know how to do.

Peace to you and yours —