Alternative Phoenix

Chronically ill and harmed by SSRI's.
But trying to stay afloat and hope for the best.

[William Hardt Barbary @HardtMasonry]

Psychiatrist: "You have a lifelong diagnosis"
Patient: "What did the lab results say"

Psychiatrist: "We don't do that, we just know your neurotransmitters are imbalanced. You need medication like a diabetic needs insulin"
Patient: "How did the diabetic know he needed insulin?"

Psychiatrist: 🤬🤯
Patient: 😉🤷‍♂️

#MentalHealthAwareness
#MentalHealthMatters
#MentalHealth

[Ali Zeck @AliBeckZeck]

I had a friend of mine start taking Wellbutrin a few days ago. She went to see her doctor complaining of still feeling unhappy after losing her son a few years ago. She also has a history of migraines and is seeing a therapist. Five days into taking the Wellbutrin she called me saying she can’t sleep, her migraines are much worse and she feels “off.” I told her it was more than likely the medication, but what’s so dangerous is that most doctors would tell her to “give it time” for the medication to work, and even some would say her symptoms are part of her “chemical imbalance” and even add another drug to help “boost” the first one.

This is madness, because this is how adverse drug reactions slowly become new diagnoses.

[Ali Zeck @AliBeckZeck]

Psychiatrists love to say:

“We just have to find the right cocktail.”

“It’s trial and error.”

Here’s why that’s dangerous:

The “trial” is your brain.

The “error” is your life.

The error can be akathisia, suicidality, sexual dysfunction, metabolic syndrome, years of protracted withdrawal, disability and gaslighting from your prescribing physician that your symptoms are signs of your “mental illness” and not side effects of the drugs. The error can be losing years trying to recover from the treatment or even your own death.

Trial and error” is not informed consent.

[Mark Millich @Unstoppable218]

It really is shocking when you step back and look at the broader iatrogenic dynamic. You have normal, functioning people living ordinary lives who take commonly prescribed medications in good faith, become injured, and then find themselves not only struggling with the injury itself, but also facing disbelief, ridicule, dismissal, or hostility simply for asking for awareness, validation, and research.

What makes it especially disturbing is that many of these people did everything “right.” They trusted doctors, followed medical guidance, took approved medications, and sought help through the proper channels. Yet when things go wrong, the burden often shifts onto the injured person to prove their suffering is real, defend their credibility, fund research, and publicly expose deeply personal details just to be taken seriously.

A large part of the public reaction seems rooted in discomfort. People generally want to believe modern medicine is predictable, controlled, and safe for everyone. Acknowledging that serious, poorly understood adverse outcomes can happen challenges that sense of security. Instead of confronting that possibility, some people default to minimizing, rationalizing, or attacking the people reporting harm.

The irony is that most injured people are not asking for panic or fearmongering. They’re asking for informed consent, scientific curiosity, compassionate care, and recognition that adverse outcomes can exist, even if they’re uncommon or poorly understood. That’s a very reasonable position.

Anyone that demonizes people for speaking out about medication injury, or invents unfounded theories about why they’re doing it, should probably be taken with a grain of salt themselves.

[Alternative Phoenix @_sayeda]

@KevinRo90321458 So deeply grateful for your post. So many similarities. Hope you recover fully

[Alternative Phoenix @_sayeda]

@TVachaW Unrelated but do you think discipline is a talent? Like how some might have an innate ability to pick up arts or sports easier. Asking as someone who not only cannot stick to anything but becomes depressed if I force it and eventually crashes out

[Shoshana Weissmann, Sloth Committee Chair 🦥 @senatorshoshana]

In my free time I've been researching psychiatric medication studies just because I'm a nerd. I understand the nuance around this all, but I'm really floored how antidepressants don't perform a ton better than placebos. It's really shocking!

[Alternative Phoenix @_sayeda]

I wish there was more awareness on the cognitive impairment and chronic fatigue aspects of Post Ssri syndrome.
Also the constant shaking of legs or other parts/ body rocking driven by an internal agitation. I only got a break from it the first time i took lysine.

#pssd #ssri

[Alternative Phoenix @_sayeda]

@redpavement Same

[J͎Λ͎Y͎ @TakeThiamine]

She strangled her three kids with an exercise band, one by one, and jumped out the window, paralyzing herself.

This is far from the first time this has happened. Theresa Riggi did the same thing. Andrea Yates, too. David Carmichael drugged and strangled his own 11-year-old son, then watched television in a daze before deciding it would be a good idea to call the police.

Lindsay Clancy was prescribed:

• sertraline (Zoloft)
• fluoxetine (Prozac)
• zolpidem (Ambien)
• mirtazapine (Remeron)
• clonazepam (Klonopin)
• quetiapine (Seroquel)
• diazepam (Valium)
• lamotrigine (Lamictal)
• lorazepam (Ativan)

Among other drugs. Over four months. By Dr. Jennifer A. Tufts and Rebecca H. Jollotta, CNP/PMHNP. These women are supposed to be professionals, and in their professional opinion, they thought it was prudent to put this woman on multiple cocktails of potent psychotropics at breakneck speed.

In psychiatry, most of these medications require weeks to reach a supposed "steady state" in the blood and even longer to show therapeutic effects. Further, SSRIs must be hyperbolically tapered to minimize side effects. This alone takes time. To cycle through over 10 different substances in 16 weeks means her brain was never once at a baseline. It was a 120-day neurochemistry experiment. And look at the outcome.

Imagine how much trust you must have to allow someone to put you on 10 or more mood-altering meds, most of which exert whole-body effects—effects we do not look at, for neurotransmitter deficits we do not test for!

If you looked at every notable familicide case, at school shootings, and at random acts of senseless violence, you would often find these drugs involved.

But we don’t look.

We need to start looking.

And we need to completely gut this system.

Here are some more cases you can Google for yourself:

• 1993: William Forsyth of Hawaii fatally stabbed his wife 15 times, then killed himself, two weeks after starting Prozac.

• 1996: Kurt Danysh shot and killed his father in Pennsylvania. He wrote in a blog that, while taking Prozac, he felt as if he was observing himself “from above.”

• 1998: Donald Schell, a 60-year-old with no history of violence, murdered his wife, daughter, and granddaughter before killing himself, weeks after being prescribed Paxil. His surviving relatives successfully sued GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Paxil's manufacturer, with a Wyoming jury finding GSK 80% responsible and awarding the family $6.4 million.

• 1999: David Hawkins, then 76, strangled to death his wife of 50 years. He only got three years for the murder because the judge concluded it wouldn’t have happened if not for him being on Zoloft.

• 1999: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed 13 people and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves during a mass shooting at Columbine high school. Harris, then 18, had been taking Zoloft, but had switched to Luvox before the murders.

• 2001: Christopher Pittman, then 12 years old, shot and killed his sleeping grandparents and then set fire to their house in Chester, South Carolina. He was prescribed Zoloft less than a month before.

• 2001: Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in Texas, suffered from postpartum psychosis and was being treated with Effexor and Haldol. Her husband later stated that a sudden increase in her medication dosage significantly worsened her condition.

• 2004: David Carmichael of Ontario, Canada, drugged and strangled his 11-year-old son. After the killing, he sat in a daze watching television before calling the police. He was found not criminally responsible due to Zoloft-induced psychosis; he had been prescribed the drug only weeks prior and was experiencing a "psychotic break" the judge attributed to the medication.

• 2010: Neal Jacobson, a Florida family man with no history of violence shot and killed his wife and twin sons three weeks after being prescribed Zoloft and Xanax.

• 2012: James Holmes, “The Batman Killer,” shot and killed 12 people, injuring 70 others at an Aurora, Colorado movie premiere of The Dark Knight. He was taking Zoloft. His psychiatrist upped the dosage, and then he abruptly stopped.

• 2009: Shane Clancy, a 22-year-old theology student described as “a gregarious teetotaler whose life revolved around family, study, and charity,” stabbed to death his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. Clancy also stabbed the man’s brother nine times, as well as Clancy’s ex-girlfriend, both of whom survived. He then fatally stabbed himself 19 times. He had begun taking Celexa just three weeks before.

• 2010: Theresa Riggi, an American living in Scotland, fatally stabbed her three children. She was on a cocktail of antidepressants and painkillers at the time. Similar to other cases, the defense highlighted her compromised mental state and the influence of her prescription regimen during the period leading up to the tragedy.

• 2019: Alec McKinney and Devon Erickson opened fire at the STEM School Highlands Ranch in Colorado, killing one student and injuring eight others. During court proceedings, testimony revealed that McKinney, then 16, had been prescribed the antidepressant Zoloft in the months leading up to the attack.

• 2026: Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, murdered his mother and young stepbrother at home before killing nine more and injuring 27 at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School. His alleged Reddit account revealed use of illicit and prescription psychotropic drugs, including a reported 280 mg dose of sertraline (Zoloft), exceeding the 200 mg recommended cut-off.

[Kevin Roy @KevinRo90321458]

Hi I have been finding they actively refuse too. My own case is different in which I was given a ssri off label for a pantoloc gut problem. It wasn't mental health just brain fog. (chemical imbalance)

I suffered serious adverse effects and I have tried several times to address this in a respectable manner with shrinks.

All I recieve is silence and avoidance. I got them. They can't blame a mood disorder as I didn't have one. Yet the drug made me suicidal.

They rather pretend the drugs are safe it seems and ignore discrepancies like mine.

[✰🧃 @AddictKE_]

Someone said doctors should also wear body cams and I’m starting to agree.

[Helen @anomalie_blue]

My new favorite wise old Greek guy quote:

“When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.”

—Herophilus

[Psychiatry_Survivor @Psychiatry_Anti]

If heroin ruins your life, they call it a tragedy. If Prozac ruins your life, they call it "healthcare."

#PsychiatryExposed #BigPharmaLies #PsychiatricInjuryAwareness

[Blue Whiplash @msbluewhiplash]

@DrJosefWD Ssris that I didn't need were prescribed to help with my chronic pain gave me seratonin syndrome twice, landing me in the hospital for 46 days and nearly killing me. I will never take anti depressants again.

[Han 🖤 @spoonfulofhan]

Unemployed disabled people are not having fun at home. We are miserable. Get rid of the belief that we’re comfortable and enjoying it. We’re in pain, we’re sick, we’re sad, we’re bored, we’re stressed, and we’re lonely. We’re still suffering even though we aren’t working a 9-5.

[Kyle Sherman @KyleSherman]

The issue with SSRIs was never street value or crime. It’s dependence.

- 40–60% of patients get withdrawal symptoms when stopping (Davies & Read, Addictive Behaviors 2019).

- Symptoms can last months or years. Anxiety, brain zaps, dizziness, insomnia.

- Post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD), emotional blunting, and weight gain are well-documented, sometimes permanent.

‘Safe because they’re not abused’ is outdated pharma marketing. The real problem is how hard they are to stop.

And on top of the withdrawal and long-term harms, the kicker is that they barely outperform placebo.

The largest meta-analysis (Cipriani et al., Lancet 2018) showed only a tiny effect size (0.3).

You need to treat ~9 people for 1 to get a real benefit while exposing the rest to sexual dysfunction, weight gain, and protracted withdrawal. That’s not a win.

[Cody @Designed2Think]

Remember this for every time you see a pro-SSRI post. These are the side effects, many are permanent.

[Taylor Murphy @taymurph26]

People say “SSRIs saved my life.”
That’s valid.

But so is:
“SSRIs destroyed me.”
“SSRIs took years from me.”
“I lost myself to those pills.”
Both stories exist.
But only one is allowed to speak.