u/Kitchen_Goose4379

I'm an American, so that's where my experience comes from. If you're not in America, this may apply less so because your country likely has a better method regarding treatment. Just want to say that up front.

I also want to be crystal clear on the following before I get to my questions. I am not offering medical advice nor suggesting people discontinue treatment. That is between you and your doctor. All I am asking is that my ideas be thought over - be evaluated based on their own merits. Disagree? Cool...we're still friends, fam.

I have been a schizophrenic since 1996, officially, and have seen every drug from Risperdal through today be approved for use by the FDA. The bulk of my treatment has been with, and still is, conventional antipsychotics.

1. Outcomes

In the West with all our advanced tech, we are unable to treat sz effectively at all. In fact, we have the worst outcomes. In Africa, for example, schizophrenics recover, more or less, within 5 years without medication permanently. They do not lock the patients up or inject chemicals. Instead they ingratiate the patient into the community, love them, listen to them, support them, even give them official honorary roles. Here, we just want to jam them into some quasi-jail/treatment thing and not let that be seen by the public. Many times the unhoused are jailed for being unhoused, but that's its own rabbit hole. My point is, we approach a grey zone with mental health and if it's legal to be seen "while ill." Americans are scared of everything, so the system sweeps them off the street lest Karen/Kevin feel a tiny unjustified fear of "Oh my god! A homeless person! My entire day has been ruined!"

2 Symptom content

This piggy-backs off number 1: in the West, the hallucinations and delusions are experienced at an immensely disproportionate rate of negative content. The voices insult, threaten etc, and the delusions are commonly persecutory. It is not this way in the non-West. In Africa and Asia, hallucinations are frequently pleasant, or at worst benign. The delusional architecture is more centered around the abilities of the patient to have the power to make great changes for all of mankind etc

3 Unnecessary meds

This might be a little technical, but my philosophical position is this: By and large, second-generation antipsychotics should never have been developed. Here's my argument in support of my position: Take a medication such as Prolixin that only touches the D2 receptor. Now, in that same patient, give them Prozac, which is about as pure a med we have as only affecting 5HT2A. Our patient has effective dopamine blockade and serotonin remodulation. Now, let's pretend it's 1996 and take a 2nd gen med like Risperdal. Risperdal in and of itself blocks these same neurotransmitters. So we have a patient who's having much cheaper treatment on generic meds versus a new on the block medication which covers the same neurotransmitters, but is obscenely expensive. I'm not saying all second gen meds should be abolished, but there are lots of cheaper, effective meds (and lower doses - we dose too high and always have) to turn to, and there were days when your current $4/month Risperdal prescription once cost $1K/mo. Again, bringing it back to America, we are the only nation that does this. We pay the most for everything, while the entire world practically has access to the same meds and tools/equipment for a much more reasonable price. Corporate lobbying. 'Nuff said.

4 Unknown mechanism of action

In the US, fill a prescription and you get back a bunch of paper waste. How many people here read those damn things? I tried an experiment and went to drugs.com and looked at the official package insert of 5 or 6 meds, and they ALL, without exception, said something to the effect of "The mechanism of action of this drug is unknown" or something close. That is the pharma company itself, the FDA, and medical establishments like the National Institute of Health all saying, "Yeah, we have no idea how this fucking shit works or what it fully does, but it does something, somehow." Doesn't really inspire confidence.

5 False promises

Ever since antipsychotics became a part of my life, I've been shouted at by Big Pharma that (insert stupid medication name) is going to be revolutionary. Best thing ever. Most effective, with least side effects. And year in and year out, they all amount to each being as effective as any other with Clozaril being the only medication with reproducible significant approval the other meds lack. It only has 5 black box warnings, though. I am tired of medication marketing. Friends from other countries are appalled when they come here and see advertisements for meds on television.

I think we as a country have conjured up something that is more like a black hole for money than anything else. I do not see major change on the horizon. Keep asking questions. Not just Americans and healthcare, everyone and about everything. Don't keep glossing over the things your brain knows are lies. Challenge the bullshit. For example, if this country is so flush with money, why do we pay more than anyone for everything? Why can I get a round-trip ticket to Madrid to have 2 root canals done and pay for a hotel and food, and still come out ahead financially rather than going to the dentist across town?

Question everything. I wish you all the best and hope you're doing as well as you can. We have to help each other, too. God knows nobody is going to come do it for us or save us.