Is medication helpful or harmful?
It depends entirely upon the purpose (or intent) of the medication.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that my 20’s were lost to psychiatry and psychopharmacology. Being unaware of my essence, having no idea why I was feeling and acting as I was, not knowing how to operate my autistic system as designed, I got pretty depressed. Psychiatry, being what it is, tried to medicate away that depression. Stronger and stronger doses were needed, they said, because my depression was resistant. They tried talk therapy as well, but my being non-verbal and alexithymic really complicated that process. It was useless and worse than unhelpful. They tried their hardest, and prescribed so many pills that it seemed as if I was sleepwalking through my life. I certainly wasn’t working on anything, or learning how to me an authentic version of myself. I kept spiraling downward, and not getting better was making me much, much worse.
What I didn’t know then, but realise now, is that depression is a meaningful and purposeful process of personal growth trying to come forth. My autistic brain was trying to tell me things. Through my dreams, my night terrors, my panic attacks, my high anxiety, and my depression … my subconscious was trying to get the attention of my conscious mind.
It wasn’t until I started to train under a different wrestling coach that things began to change for the better. He introduced me to Dr. Maltz, and the concept of the Theatre of the Mind. Dr. Maltz’ methods helped me to actively tap into my subconscious. It was an amazing breakthrough. My subconscious contained a powerful message of change that I tapped into and used to transform my entire life.
But few of us take this route. Few of us are willing to go an alternative route and trust ourselves, trust our amazing subconscious. Why?
First, we haven’t been given tools for processing our problem. Thankfully, this is changing. My generation was trained to downplay the mental sphere. We were the latchkey kids. We were raised to be hustlers, grinders, and perfect capitalists. We were to put in work, and play through the pain. We didn’t have time to bleed. Thankfully, many of us are now exploring this space and learning how to use the tools that we all have, our amazing quantum field generators.
Second, psychiatry has convinced us that we aren’t equipped to deal with our own states of mind. I know this from personal experience. Psychiatry labels my mind as broken, missing, and disabled. I’ve been told that I have low serotonin. I’ve been told that my traumatic childhood prevents me from adequately dealing with things as an adult. Magically, psychiatry has the right combination of drugs to make it all go away. I lost over 10 years to that lie.
Psychiatry claims that our distressing thoughts and feelings have nothing to do with who we are, with the self, with personhood. This was compounded in my case as they didn’t understand my autistic brain, or how it operates. They didn’t know my version of normal, or what I could do with my brain when I am properly supported.
Psychiatry convinces us that our minds, our beings, our very souls have been taken over by rogue molecules, or lack of certain chemicals, and that depression is a meaningless byproduct of brain chemistry. We’re simply “sick." They tell us this without basing any of their opinion in science. It’s all conjecture. But, we’re so desperate for relief that we follow them down the rabbit hole … and greater dependency on them. We begin to identify with the psychiatric diagnoses. We go from, “I’m struggling with this …” to “I am depressed.” Struggles imply a time when you will have figured things out. “I am” implies permanence.
Diagnosis omits all personal elements—one’s thoughts, feelings, experiences, history, hopes, dreams, beliefs, and resources. A checklist of “symptoms” is applied; one either has them or doesn’t. Context doesn’t matter. Life events are irrelevant. And one’s relationship to self and others is beside the point. YOU don’t matter anymore. A diagnosis is made and medication is prescribed.
We take the meds, feel less distressed, and conclude our “chemical imbalance” has been rectified. This is a great explanation if you're gullible but it’s a complete falsehood. Antidepressants are supposed to work by fixing a serotonin deficiency. The problem is, there’s never been a single scientific study demonstrating that depressed people have such a deficiency. Not one! In fact, scientists still trying to figure out how to measure serotonin in the brain; if we knew, diagnosis would be done by a medical test, not a questionnaire.
“Scientists don’t yet understand exactly how serotonin works, what it does, and what causes low levels in the body. They’re also not certain exactly what the right levels are and how these might vary for different people.” - Healthline
The fact is, some antidepressants increase serotonin, some decrease it, and some have no influence on it at all. Antidepressants don’t fix a chemical imbalance; they induce a generalized altered state that numbs our feelings. This is how I lost a decade. Imagine spending ten years in a numbed altered state. I feel robbed.
And what happens when we numb our feelings? We cut off our growth by by disavowing our process. We never connect with the underlying reason for being depressed—an essential act if we want to become our authentic self. Instead, we settle for a depersonalized version of who we are. To them, I was broke and intractable. I was a hopeless case. That is, until I met the people who understood the autistic system as it is designed. These were the people who helped me connect with the underlying disconnect that was happening. Once that work was started, I gained literacy, I gained employment, I went back to school, I became an expert in an emerging field, I wrote over 2000 articles & journal papers on that subject, I wrote 2 best selling books, and … most importantly, I was able to have stable relationships with others because I was finally at peace with myself.
I’m not offering you advice on how to manage your mind, your trauma, or your existence. I’m simply, and humbly, asking you to check your premise. I believe that we are all designed to fulfill a purpose. My purpose is different than your purpose. Once I connected with that purpose, everything started to click into place. Chances are, if you’re struggling, it’s because you’re out of alignment with who you are - your authentic self. Spend time trying to connect your subconscious with your conscious mind. See how powerful you really are.
— December 16, 2023 Note —
Some of the materials herein have made it into my books, No Place for Autism? and Holistic Language Instruction. No Place for Autism was released in February 2023 from Lived Places Publishing and is available at Amazon and other major book retailers worldwide. Holistic Language Instruction will be out in 2024.