As we are all aware, the typical and expected reaction to a mass shooting from many politicians and anti-freedom activists is to call for a ban on “assault weapons.” It’s also quite typical for these shills to exhibit a profound lack of understanding of firearms and particularly semi-automatic rifles, which they continue to incorrectly refer to as “assault weapons.” In just one jaw-dropping example of this widespread ignorance, Joy Behar, one of the hosts on television program The View recently claimed that shooting a deer with an AR-15 would render it unfit to eat because it would “demolish the animal.”
Poor Joy obviously hasn’t the slightest glimmer of a clue with regard to firearms. In fact, the type of ammunition used in an typical AR-15 is considered to be a bit on the light side for deer. Calibers like the .30-30, .308 or .30-06 are used by deer hunters more than the .223 (5.56mm) round used in the AR-15 and they feature larger, heavier projectiles with more energy than the .223.
But that will not stop all the usual suspects from using the term “assault weapon” or convince them that their efforts to ban semi-automatic rifles are misguided and simplistic. Everyone with any sense at all knows that, just like illegal drugs, criminals who want semi-automatic rifles or any other type of firearm will be able to get them. The law-abiding will be the only ones disarmed and will therefore be even more vulnerable to armed criminals.
However, since I did not intend to make this article entirely about firearms, I will leave it at that and move in to something that appears to be just as dangerous or perhaps even more dangerous than any gun could be: A wildly popular family of pharmaceutical drugs known as SSRIs or selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors.
Quoting the longer, technical-sounding full name for SSRIs will be about as far as this article goes into the details of how these drugs work. Since I am not a doctor or scientist, I will leave that in the capable hands of one of my all-time favorite Substack authors: “A Midwestern Doctor” (AMD). He recently published an updated version of his excellent treatise on this very subject. It’s a long read but well worth it.
I would not dream of trying to compete with him when it comes to writing about a subject like this so my take will be decidedly more from the layman’s perspective and feature my own personal experiences regarding the use of SSRIs. By the way, I do not recall AMD ever revealing whether he was male or female, I believe Dr. Mercola may have inadvertently “outed” him a while back by using “he” or “him” in one of his articles. I presume Dr. Mercola, having featured AMD’s articles on his own site, knows AMD’s gender.
Although I am not a doctor and have no medical training, I do feel qualified to discuss SSRIs due to the abundance of experience I have with them. My own experiences confirm what so many others are saying about the dangers of SSRIs. The same danger that the pharmaceutical industry twists themselves in knots to deny, downplay and dismiss in order to maintain the enormous profits they enjoy from the sale and use of these concoctions.
For me it started around 1990, give or take a year or two. I received a phone call at home one day from a family member to let me know that a neighbor had committed suicide. That neighbor was someone I grew up with and was still living beside my parents in the house he grew up in. He had gone out to the garage, secured a rope to the rafters and proceeded to hang himself. He was in his late twenties at the time.
Learning about a suicide like that is likely to be shocking under almost any circumstance but this one was particularly shocking for me. The reason for that was that this was a guy who was always one of the most happy-go-lucky people I had ever known. For the purposes of this article I will call him “Vincent.” Vincent was one of those people who you encounter that never failed to break out in a broad smile every time you saw him. He was just that kind of person. I don’t think I ever saw him appear to be down or depressed about anything.
Vincent was a hard worker. I can recall many occasions when we would be hanging around out in the street (as we did quite a lot in our teens and early twenties) and Vincent would not be there. “Where’s Vincent?” someone would invariably ask. “He’s working,” was the usual and expected answer because he missed a lot of “quality” time hanging out in the street with us due to his work schedule. But did Vincent complain? Not once that I can recall. He would sometimes roll up late to the party after getting out of work work and that silly grin would be the first thing you saw when he walked out to join us. He was sort of an unflappable character and always seemed to just roll with the punches. If I were in his position I know I would have complained frequently and at length about having to work when I “should” be hanging out with my friends.
Vincent sure does not sound like the kind of guy that would hang himself, does he? In order to understand how that happened we need to realize that Vincent was probably not really Vincent at the time. I later learned that he had been having a bit of a hard time with his girlfriend and was convinced to go talk to a doctor or therapist about it not long before his fateful trip to the garage. The mental health “professional” wrote him a prescription for Prozac, which was a fairly new drug at the time. Even so, I would bet a fortune (if I had one) that the manufacturer of Prozac, Eli Lily, was very well aware of the suicide risks associated with their new wonder drug but decided to keep those details to themselves.
Despite the obvious hazards associated with a drug like that, it is still included on the World Health Organization’s list of “essential medicines.” I guess that tells us all we need to know about the thoroughly corrupt WHO and their agenda.
Is having some relationship trouble a good reason to kill yourself? Surely there have been people that did even without the influence of mind-altering pharmaceuticals but Vincent surely didn’t seem to be the type. I spent time hanging out with him so I think I have a pretty good idea about the kind of person he was. For some reason, happy-go-lucky and suicide do not seem to blend well in a sentence.
My next experience with SSRIs hits a little bit closer to home. It cannot have been too long after Vincent’s suicide when my mother was prescribed an SSRI. I do not recall now which one it was but I do know that over the 25 years or so she was on them she had been prescribed Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin and Effexor. It is likely that there were others that I just do not remember now. My understanding was that she was bounced around a bit from SSRI to SSRI when one did not work for her as expected.
My mother always had off-and-on problems with depression and she was on SSRIs until the day she died. Although she was never suicidal that I know of and definitely did not commit any acts of violence, she did make a statement one day that shocked me. In this particular instance I cannot place the blame entirely on SSRIs but it seems possible that her use of them may have been a contributing factor.
My mother also struggled with insomnia for most of her adult life and as a result, she had tried a number of additional pharmaceuticals to help her sleep. During this time she had recently begun using Ambien, also known as zolpidem. I was at my parents’ home visiting one day when my mother revealed something that was quite shocking.
It is important to note at this point that my parents had a neighbor that they never got along with. We’ll call him “Arthur.” Arthur was a busybody and was always looking to start trouble in the neighborhood. He had even tried to get my father fired from his job working for the city because he regularly took his city-owned vehicle home at the end of the work day. That behavior was sanctioned by the city so Arthur’s efforts were in vain but that was the kind of guy he was. “Love thy neighbor” surely wasn’t advice he ever took to heart.
Out of the blue my mother told me that she had noticed Arthur out working in his yard one day recently and she seriously considered fetching a rifle my father kept in the house and shooting him! That was quite uncharacteristic of my mother who everyone in the neighborhood knew as a caring and kindly woman. Thankfully she did not act on that impulse!
We strongly suspected that her violent notions could have been prompted by the Ambien she had recently started taking. We agreed that it was probably a good idea that she stop taking it and she did just that. I never heard her talk about shooting up the neighborhood again. It appears that Ambien also has its own checkered history where violence is concerned. Perhaps that is a topic for another day.
Once again, SSRIs made their way a little closer to me when my brother started taking them some time after my mother did. My brother was well-known for his violent temper before he ever took SSRIs so it is not possible to blame any of that on them. He also never committed any act of violence against anyone that I am aware of. When it came to himself, however, that was another matter.
My brother suffered from depression that was more severe than my mother’s and as he got older it only seemed to get worse. I would say that he had been taking SSRIs for at least 20 years and that they did not seem to help him at all. I am not sure why people take drugs that do not help them but I suppose they might just be assuming that they would suffer even more without them. I know a little bit about depression and it is easy to understand how someone might cling to something that even has a remote chance of easing it, if only a little.
The SSRIs that I recall my brother taking included Wellbutrin and Effexor. As was the case with my mother, there may have been others that I just do not recall or never knew about. He was also on a seemingly never-ending prescription for a drug called Klonopin, also known as clonazepam. Both he and my mother were taking it. As I recall, he was originally prescribed it for a neck injury, which I am not sure makes much sense but that is what he told me at the time. My mother had eventually settled on it as her go-to pharmaceutical to assist with her sleep and probably took it for at least 10 years.
My brother was seeing a therapist regularly and was still taking SSRIs and Klonopin when he died in 2018. He locked himself in the garage and shot himself in the head. No further than 100 feet from where Vincent hung himself some 28 years before.
I had heard my brother speak of suicide before but I do not recall that he ever did before he was on SSRIs. He was 57 years old at the time of his death and definitely well beyond the age where people tend to be especially influenced to end their lives after starting on an SSRI. Does that mean he was ineligible to be influenced in that direction by SSRIs? I seriously doubt that and I suspect they could influence just about anyone and especially someone who is depressed already and has had no real success finding a way to relieve it.
About a year prior to his suicide his therapist reportedly “had to” have him involuntarily committed to a mental health facility after he expressed suicidal ideation during a session with her. At least that is what I was told. I basically had to rely on his word regarding the reason for his committal but it would not surprise me of he had also talked about committing violence towards others as I had heard that he had done in the past. He was only there for two or three days until he was able to convince them that he had recovered and would be OK on his own.
Naturally I was concerned about my brother’s talk of suicide. He had expressed those thoughts at least once over the phone. It was hard to know if he was serious or not since he said it in a way that almost sounded like a joke and he even chuckled a bit at the time. I was living about 1000 miles away at the time so it was not easy to jump in the car and run over to see him. He was also seeing a therapist regularly and had revealed to me that he told her everything. I suppose at the time I still believed in psychiatry enough to think that they were helping him.
It’s hard to lay out the timeline in a truly linear fashion since there are overlapping events but I’d say it was around 2005 when SSRIs took another step closer to me. My father always had trouble with anxiety. It didn’t seem like it ever had a major impact on his life and was something he just dealt with. Because of it he tended to get nervous about things he had to do, such as taking on a project at work or even at home. I can vividly recall my mother regularly advising him not to get into a “dither” because she knew how he was. When he was experiencing anxiety he tended to hurry through things, which made him more likely to make mistakes. Since his job was somewhat dangerous at times, being in a hurry was not a particularly good way to approach things.
Shortly after my Dad retired around 2001 he suffered what might best be described as a nervous breakdown. To this day I am not sure what brought it on but I do know that he was worried about what life would be like after retirement, so that could have been a factor. I remember visiting him at home one day during that time and it was a heartbreaking experience. He was a wreck. He was constantly shaking and fidgeting and was not able to sit still. He had a look of pure distress on his face that I had never seen before. I felt absolutely terrible about it and totally helpless to do anything about it. It is an experience that I shall never forget.
Within a day or so of my visit, my mother took my father to a local hospital to get help with his out-of-control anxiety. I still remember him telling me how amazing it was a while after he was given a Ativan (Lorazepam) tablet. His anxiety completely melted away and he was back to his old self. I know benzodiazepines come with their own set of problems that can visit absolute Hell on some unfortunate souls but in this instance it pulled my Dad out of a terrible situation. As far as I am aware he had a prescription for it for the rest of his life but used it only when he felt like he really needed it.
It was probably two or three years later when my parents began to have some problems in their relationship. Only later did I realize that those problems were most likely a result of the dementia that was slowly working towards taking over my mother’s personality. I now know that some people with early dementia exhibit it with uncharacteristically cruel or paranoid behavior. In my mother’s case it was both but at the same time it was subtle and none of us had even the slightest notion that she could have dementia. I didn’t know many details at the time but when I later learned what some of the problems were between my parents I was convinced that my mother’s dementia was the root cause.
The problems my father was having with my mother ended up making him feel depressed and that was a first! Both my brother and mother had a long history with depression but there was never even the slightest sign or signal that my Dad had ever suffered with true depression. He ended up making an appointment with a psychiatrist he actually ended up becoming quite fond of but this medical “professional” was not much different than most others and wrote my father a prescription for Zoloft (Sertraline). He continued to see that psychiatrist for a year or two until he felt like he didn’t need his help any longer. My Dad seemed to be doing much better and I believe that due to my father’s fondness for that practitioner, my mother started seeing him and was with him for a few years after that.
For my Dad Zoloft actually seemed to work. In fact, I can recall one particular phone conversation with my mother when she told me that it seemed to be working too well for him. He had started to act giddy and was doing silly little things like peeking around corners to look at my mother like a toddler might play “peek-a-boo.” He wasn’t stumbling around drooling or anything but he surely was acting a bit sillier than his usual self. I believe that he cut back on the dose shortly after that and returned to a more normal version of himself.
My father was a big fan of Dr. Joseph Mercola and he was the one I learned about Dr. Mercola from at least 20 years ago. I have been following him ever since. Dr. Mercola, being one of those rare physicians that was ahead of his time, started to have serious doubts about SSRIs at some point not too long after my Dad starting taking them and had published his thoughts about them on his website.
When my father saw that Dr. Mercola had (rightly) soured on SSRIs he became concerned about taking them. Although my Dad did seem to experience a pretty good result from taking Zoloft he did have to endure some of the well-known side effects. The one that seemed to bother him the most were the “head zaps” and that, in combination with Dr. Mercola’s opinion convinced him that he should get off of Zoloft.
I do not actually recall how my Dad stopped taking Zoloft. I do not know if he did it “cold turkey” or did so more properly by tapering off. At any rate, he got off of it with little trouble. He did not experience any more depression that I am aware of but I know my mother had her frustrations with the change in his personality. He was more like his old self and probably not as happy and agreeable as he had been on Zoloft. She tried to get him back on it and I recall that he did go back on it briefly a time or two to appease her before stopping again. Still, I believe he did the right thing and that a major contributor to my Mom’s problems was the early dementia and really wasn’t because of anything my Dad was doing. And who wants to live with “head zaps?” Sounds terrible.
My Dad stayed off Zoloft (or any other SSRI) after that. We lost him in 2011 rather unexpectedly after a very brief illness. I think that ended up being a big factor in my mother’s worsening dementia. I know that benzodiazepines have been linked to dementia and I would not be at all surprised to learn some day that SSRIs are as well. My mother was on both of those for some 20 years or more and I do wonder if they contributed to her dementia.
Late in 2017 my mother had to be institutionalized due to dementia as well as incidents of dangerous and threatening behavior towards others. I had mentioned how she had shown uncharacteristic signs of anger and paranoia from what had to have been the early stages of dementia. During the spring of 2017 she got much worse and eventually it became clear that the only safe place for her and those around her was an institution. It was extraordinarily difficult to do but both my brother and I felt like we really had not choice at the time.
My mother died in August of 2018 just hours after I had visited her. I was still living about 1000 miles away at the time but came to see her one last time when I was told she did not have much time left. It had reached the point where I could not even call her on the phone prior to this because she would get too upset and have to be sedated. Eventually she would not even come to the telephone when I called. I was actually relived when she died because I knew she had been suffering terribly with delusions, paranoia and out-of-control anxiety. Nobody should have to live like that.
In part 2, SSRIs get closer to me than I ever imagined they would.