Thursday 25 September 12:23:52 CDT 1758821032

Psychopharmaceuticals

Psychopharmaceuticals, also known as psychotropic or psychoactive drugs, are chemical substances that affect a person's mental state by altering the brain's neurochemistry. These medications are primarily used to treat mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and by targeting and modifying the activity of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine.

Psychopharmaceuticals is a big and unwieldy word so I'll refer them here as psychomeds whether or not it's a legitimate word. The short story is that they use your nervous system to do things to your mind like making you less of some kind of crazy or other. The depression and anxiety and schizophrenia and all that stuff. So if a person is behaving irrationally or abnormally to the degree that said person - avoiding sexist pronouns here - may be a danger to the person's self or the life or health or property of other people (or said person's own mortal existence) it might be deemed advisable by some to administer some chemicals to mitigate that behavior. Are you with me so far?

Some people might go to a doctor - the mental type - and relate concerns that the mental type doctor believes indicate some sort of mental illness and can be fixed with some pills. I've known two or three of such people and they took prescribed drugs and whether or not it helped I couldn't tell - they didn't seem to be having serious problems to begin with but I wasn't inside their heads. That doesn't include the numerous people I knew years ago who had prescriptions for tranquilizers - Valium was popular back in the 1980s and working in an office there were a lot of women taking them. One day one of them gave me a Valium and I don't remember the rest of the day.

One of the people I knew who voluntarily took medications prescribed for whatever the doctor believed she had didn't fare as well as the others and one who involuntarily took them barely survived - that would be me.

Alisyn is not her real name but the rest of this is factual. Alisyn was an only child of two adoring parents who were really nice people. They were wealthy and while not billionaires could have and give their daughter anything she wanted. For all that she was one of the nicest people I have ever known. Her parents owned - among other things - the majority of a small community bank and she worked at the bank. As it happens I knew a good bit about banks and the people who owned them and it was not uncommon for children of whole or majority owners to work at the bank. In some cases it was the common nepo job but some of them were exceptions and Alisyn was one. As a lowly combination of systems analyst and systems engineer - well paid to be sure - I wasn't at her level of society but she treated all people the same - whether bank employees or customers of vendor reps. I was in the bank frequently and spent some time with her on every occasion. Until later.

Later my visits were less frequent and occasionally she was absent from work - in rehab. I learned that she had been taking medications for some time and her behavior had become erratic and disruptive and she had to take time off to recover. To attenuate a lengthy narrative her absences from work became more frequent and the number of pills increased. One of the last times I saw her she had a pill case with eight different pills and she told me how many times she took each one. Eventually she was never there when I visited and a couple of years later I learned of her death at forty-six. That was fifteen years ago this past July. Her death was ruled accidental but having having a dozen or so prescription drugs in you is hardly an accident. Doctors may be prosecuted for prescribing drugs keep rich people on an even keel and they eventually OD but prescribing mind-altering drugs that can do more damage is something they are never held accountable for.

That was over thirty years ago and what we didn't realize was that the first indications of "mental illness" often occur after a person visits a therapist for some real or perceived problem and is given a prescription for psychomeds. The psychomeds alter the person's behavior to the degree that his/her associated suggest treatment is needed and whether that person voluntarily (as Alysin did the first few times) or involuntarily (that was later when her behavior became a threat to her safety or that of others) and each time she got more pills. That first pill became two and three and so on. In a recent case of a young woman killing her three children before attempting suicide she was taking twelve medications. A half dozen had me completely dissociated from reality - while appearing relatively normal to observers.

Before I tell you what happened to me let me explain in non-medical lingo what these things do. Before my career was cut short (I had forty years in so know a bit) I was a systems architect. One of those people who design and build those big data centers. What is a data center? Well it's got a lot of computers in it. Computer being a general term for the hardware - there are servers and storage devices and network gear and it's stuffed into those racks in the rows of racks. There may be thousands of pieces of equipment and they all talk to each other and other pieces all over the world and can have thousands of nodes and each is connected to one or more others.

Inside the data center - since it's the brain here - most of the pieces are connected by cables. There's wireless stuff of course but that's almost all clients with little effect aside from contributing low-level input. There may be a few hundred or couple thousand in some small ones and maybe tens of thousands in the really big ones. Hundreds of thousands even. They're generally kept in order like this:



In a really sloppy one it might look like this but it would still work - I've seen some like that. Trying to troubleshoot a problem wouldn't be much fun but as long as nothing goes wrong it looks bad but doesn't do any harm.


Did I mention that your brain has eighty-something billion components that all need to work together in order for you not to have some problems? Trouble doing things like eating and drinking and walking and talking not to mention driving a car. Your brain uses a few trillion - depending on how you count nueves - to make your body work and do things like eating and drinking and walking and talking and all the other stuff your body needs to do or you want it to do.

Psych meds do things to your brain and nervous system. I suppose the general idea is that (to the doctor examining you whether or not) you asked for the examination) they aren't working right and some chemicals are needed to fix the problem. So he prescribes some chemicals and you take them (or they inject them if you are their prisoner and won't cooperate) but either way they get the adjustment chemicals into you.

I wasn't diagnosed as being in need of mental adjustment. In fact I wasn't diagnosed at all as I was effectively in an induced coma after experiencing multiple organ failure due to some goofs by medical industry types. After about a month of me not looking like I wasn't going to recover the hospital dumped me in another one. This one was supposed to specialize in recovery and rehabilitation but in my case they had a funny way of going about it.

Apparently while I was non-cognizant I did the usual non-cognizant things patients do - moving when they didn't want me to, trying to get out of the bed, pulling on the plethora of tubes and wires attached to me - so the doctor started putting stuff in me. Not sedatives of tranks (there were occasional some tranks) but psychomeds. Anti-psychotics mostly. The usual list was Clonazepam, Quetiapine, Haloperidol, Tramadol, Olanzapine, and about two dozen non-psych ones. Twenty to thirty drugs in me at once, twenty-four seven for months.

Those five drugs there were in me constantly and another two dozen or so non-psych on top of them. What does that do to a person? Well, I asked Google (I know here are better ones and maybe I'll ask Grok later) and here's the general situation:

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Grok told me almost exactly the same thing, no surprise since all AI tools use the same databases. It's just a matter of what they do with the data.

So what does that all mean? Well if you see you brain as a data center - which it is for your body - but about a million times more complex than any other. So if someone was to go into a data center for a big bank or retailer like Wal-Mart or the Department of Defense - excuse me - Department of war and just started unplugging cables here and there and plugging some back into the wrong places and leaving some disconnected and removing some so they can't be put back. Well those chemicals went into my brain and did just that.

After a couple of months of me tied to a bed and completely incognizant of reality except for a couple of incidents but appearing at least nominally normal to observers I was in fact experiencing constant hallucinations. Some contained elements of the real world and others were just like weird dreams. Occasionally the drugs (I apparently have a high tolerance/resistance to chemicals - most common over-the-counter remedies for colds will work once or twice before increasing dosages are required) and the drugs they were using to keep me in what I call a waking coma wore off for a while. Once was when I had a visitor late in the evening and she stayed for several hours. I remember becoming almost - probably 90% - back in the real world and remember clearly the conversation and the television program we were watching. The other time was when the feeding tube had to be reinstalled - apparently I pulled it out - and I was sent to a real hospital to have it put back in. I came back to the real world in the ambulance and clearly remember the entire affair until they sedated me again and sent me back.

When I came back permanently it was because my two older siblings began to figure out that the doctor was either an idiot or was deliberately keeping me drugged because the hospital was billing the insurance company about a quarter million every ten days (discounted to half that) and the rehab was a long-term care center that need an average patient stay of 25 days to maintain their financially lucrative status. I suspect it was both. They persuaded him to stop one or two of them.

At any rate I woke up. I knew immediately that I was in a a hospital but had no idea I had been in hospitals for three months. I was as clear-headed as could be expected under the circumstance - the records show that at this time the Tramadol and Olanzapine had been discontinued. I soon had my first visitors - the first ones I knew about anyway except the one I remembered watching TV with. I didn't recognize either of my two older siblings when they visited for the first time. Only one came the first day and the other came the second day - this was because the hospital only allowed one visitor at a time because Plandemic.

Anyone she apprised me of the situation: I had a suspected heart attack and had bypass surgery and the next day had one for sure and while the heart wasn't functioning I also wasn't breathing so no heart and no air while they got a trach in. Twelve minutes of no heart and no air according to the records. They told me that some people at the first hospital - the one where I had the surgery - told them I wasn't likely to be mentally functional again. So it was a while before they decided that something more than brain damage was up - after I was sitting up and talking and eating and drinking so why were they putting so many drugs in me? I didn't know I was sitting up and eating and drinking and talking but according to the records I was.

Once I was both awake and lucid I asked when I could go home. I wasn't ever told why but they came in every day a couple of times with drugs they put in me - poured something in the feeding tube and gave me some pills. I asked if I could talk to the doctor and they said he would see me the next morning when he made his rounds. So each day for the next three weeks or so I watched the clock and the day went by and no doctor. Asked again and was told he would see me the next day.

They had me tied to the bed. Not with restraints made for the purpose but strips of what looked like torn sheets or something connected to a grey two-stranded wire. It looked like the wire people used for clotheslines a long time ago before it had a plastic cover. The wire was around my wrists and ankles and was painful if I moved to much. I asked if they would take them off and was told nope, doctor's orders. I asked if I could see the doctor. Doctor would see me in the morning. Rinse and repeat.

They were taking the one off my hands so I could sit up and have stuff poured in the tube and could eat the stuff that was supposed to be food. I had hospital food before and it wasn't great but this stuff was awful. The only thing to drink was those tiny cartons of juice and one day it was apple juice which makes me sick and I got sick. Got wiped off and a new dirty gown but wouldn't get a shower for a few days.

My two siblings told me later that for the last week of the three that I remember they were trying to get another rehab facility to accept me. I remember the visitors - I didn't know who they were and don't remember if they even spoke to me. In the records it shows that they rejected me because of behavioral issues - they were told I was occasionally violent. It turned out the for the best as my two siblings told the doctor to get me out of bed and able to walk and he had a week to do it.

The wires finally stayed off after the first session with the physical therapist. He was a young man in clean scrubs (unlike the regular staff) and polite and seemed competent. He had a name tag too, something the regulars didn't have. Since most of their personnel were contracted he many have been as well. The first day - it was a Monday - he and an assistant got me out of the bed and stood up. My legs folded up and I was down on my knees and couldn't get up. They stood me up a few more times and then put me back in bed and said they would try again tomorrow.

The younger of my two siblings came to visit later and I told her I didn't believe I would ever be able to walk again. That was scary, thinking about not being able to get out of bed. The next day they got me up and I was able to stand for a few minutes at a time with them holding me and that was about it.

On the third day I took a few steps and eventually could use a walker to go outside the room for the first time. The last day I walked down the hall for a short distance. As I passed each room I looked through the door (almost always open) and saw a patient lying in the bed, looking at the ceiling if awake. The way I had been for months.

I don't know if it was a full week but one day they got me dressed and I went out - using the walker and a couple of people keeping me steady - to the elevator and out through the lobby to a waiting car. They got me into the car and away we went. I promptly fell asleep and stayed that way for quite a while.

My sister - the younger of two elder ones - took me to her house. It's a big house on a forty acre estate and has a small apartment prepared for the possible eventual use of an elderly parent. She didn't expect it to be her little brother.

The first few days were mostly sleeping or lying in bed. My other elder sister visited almost every day and they had me take the various medications prescribed. Eventually the only one I needed was the blood pressure medication I had been taking for years. The prescriptions included the Seroquel - perhaps the most damaging of the psych meds - and they didn't give me any of it.

The first few days were mostly in bed as I had neither the physical or mental energy to do much. Meals and medications (blood pressure and diabetes and something else I eventually didn't need) were brought to the guest quarters and I mostly slept and watched TV without much interest. My mind and body hadn't been used in months and it was taking a while for the drugs to be at least mostly cleansed from my body. Eventually I began to use the walker to to into the living area and outside. It was a good two weeks before I walked more than a few steps outside.

Eventually I walked around the house on the driveway and sidewalks, a distance of probably three to four hundred yards. I did so twice a day for the next few weeks. I was still weak but didn't realize just how weak - I asked my caregiver to bring me a pair of the smallest weights available. They were two pounds and - still sitting in a chair as I normally was when not in bed - I tried to lift them. With my right arm I just was able to raise one above my head a few times, with the left arm I couldn't raise it to eye level. It would be several days before I could do that.

One of the effects of the drugs was that I experienced bowel incontinence - meaning I had to wear an adult diaper - and take shower several times a day. This continued for months - after I had learned how to drive again - and limited my ability to go anywhere. As with my inability to walk when leaving the hospital bed for the first time that worried me. Both made me consider whether I wanted to continue living.

I had several doctor visits during this time. The feeding tube had not been removed before I left the hospital and several weeks later I went to the doctor to have it removed. The area around the tube had become infected and it was recommended that I take antibiotics for a couple of weeks before having it removed as it was likely to be quite painful so it was another trip to the doctor. I couldn't drive and still had to use the walker. I found that if I fell - and I fell often particularly when getting in or out of cars - I couldn't get back on my feet without assistance.

Eventually I did attempt driving again. In the driveways and parking area at my temporary home I eventually became confident enough to venture onto the highway. I was pretty nervous the first few times but eventually was able to drive safely on short trips around town. For some reason I have difficulty turning my head to the left and am uncomfortable when changing lanes so I don't - I drive an often circuitous route off the road I am on and get back on in the desired lane. Backing out of parking spaces is another thing I won't attempt - instead of parking in the handicapped spaces I park far away in an empty area so I can drive straight out. My left arm generally is screwed up - an X-ray showed a small fracture a couple of years old and I never had an arm injury so suspect it was from being manhandled by that crazy orderly in the hospital.

I can walk reasonably well using a cane but am unable to even stand without it as I cannot maintain balance without it or something to lean on. I am physically stronger and went from two pound weights to five pounds and eventually ten. I can do fifty pushups (the first time I tried I couldn't even one for the first two or three days) and walk a couple of miles. Other effects remain - my short term memory is lousy. I use checklists for daily tasks - I keep one in each of my vehicles to remind me to check the fuel, be sure I have my driver's license and insurance card, my phones and bank cards.

My speech is erratic - occasionally I am unable to speak for sometimes minutes at a time. I frequently have pains in both feet, painful cramps that may last for a few minutes or an hour. I am unable to sleep for more than two to three hours at a time and sometimes can go to bed at midnight and still be awake when the sun comes up. I fall regularly and have twice been injured seriously enough to to to the emergency room - it is likely that I will eventually perish as a result of a fall.

Insomnia has been constant since I left the hospital. Being unwilling to take any sleep aids except the ones that only have natural ingredients - nothing I have to Google to see what it's made of. When that doesn't work well a little whiskey before bed helps. Still I'm doing well if I have three hours of sleep.

I suppose it could be worse - I could be dead like many other patients in that hospital. Or I could have lost my mind entirely. Very few of the young people who perpetrated mass killings at schools were not using one or more (usually more) psych meds. Quite few adult mass murderers were also being medicated. Those end up either dead or in prison or a mental institution and don't live to tell the tale of the horrors inflicted on them.

Quiescent Benevolence