Anti-Depressants and Psychiatric drugs linked to violence and suicidal tendencies

Here are some links to interesting stories illustrating just how much damage anti-depressants can do:


http://www.drugawareness.org/c-span-in-memory-of-911-the-antidepressant-connections/


http://psychiatricfraud.org/2011/04/the-real-lesson-of-columbine-psychiatric-drugs-induce-violence/


http://www.cchrint.org/2012/07/20/the-aurora-colorado-tragedy-another-senseless-shooting-another-psychotropic-drug/


http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/are-the-new-generation-of-anti-depressant-medications-contributing-to-school-shootings.html


http://www.drugwatch.com/ssri/suicide/


http://www.breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=43&Itemid=66


These are just a very few.  Google it and you'll find dozens of others.

The education system sucks

This post is mainly for teenagers who are stuck in high school and absolutely hate it!

Let me be brutally honest:  The education system sucks.

I don't care if you're in public or private school. Unless you're homeschooled by very progressive and enlightened parents, the education system sucks.

I'm telling you this because you may be in a situation where you hate school and yet people are trying to convince you of the merits of "working hard and getting good grades."

You're not stupid.  It sucks and you know it.  End of story.

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Beginning of a new story....

Education DOES NOT suck!  Education is absolutely amazing, fun, engaging, enlightening, and it makes you want to keep learning and growing.

Education means learning.  It means discovering new things, figuring out how different pieces fit together to form a whole, seeing the world differently, exploring new ways of thinking and interacting and so on.

The best education is self-education and pursuing subjects you're interested in.  There are so many things to learn and do in this world that you couldn't possibly do it all in one lifetime.  In fact it would take hundreds if not thousands of life times to experience it all (bonus for those who believe in reincarnation). 

There is learning in happiness and learning in misery, in easy as well as hard times, in illness and health, in great relationships and terrible ones, and in living and dying.

What's terrible is that we've twisted education into a dry, boring, institutionalized, life-killing, soul-sucking bureaucracy.  Ugh!

So if you're stuck in school and have a few more years before you can escape, what do you do?

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You could lose yourself in video games or TV, sitting around and bemoaning your fate.  You could simply refuse to participate, not doing the work or showing up, or even dropping out entirely.

Or you could decide to start on your own self-education.  Find something that interests you and throw your time and attention into that.  If the subjects in school support your interests (for instance math is needed in lots of different areas) then learn those solely for the purpose of pursuing your own interests.  Take advantage of the things they offer that fit into what you want (high school is free - you have to pay for college so learn it free if you can). 

If they don't support your interests then get by them but don't worry about acing them.  A "D" is still passing and while D's won't get you into a top college they also won't hurt you 30 years down the road when you've built a life around what you enjoy.

If you can get a job in what you're interested in that's even better because you'll be learning far more than you can in a classroom, spending time around people who have similar interests and bonus: get paid something for doing it.  Even if you don't get paid, you can still work as a volunteer just for the experience and sheer enjoyment.  Plus volunteering can turn into paid work.  Trust me I've done lots of free work that turned into a paying job later.

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So to sum up.  The education system sucks.  Education doesn't.  What do you want to start learning about?

It's up to you

Today I have good news and bad news for you.


The good news:  You are responsible for your life.


The bad news: You are responsible for your life.


I'd love to say it's someone else's fault.  When I was at the depth of my depression and waiting moment by moment to die I looked for someone to blame it on.  And I had people.


Oh yes did I have people!


I'd been in abusive relationships, had people scam me out of tens of thousands of dollars, gone without the basic necessities of life for years, been shafted by the church, deserted by the god I believed in, and on and on.


But you know what.  Through it all I ultimately blamed myself.  "I" didn't have to stay in those relationships, fall prey to the scammers, live with nothing (I could have gotten welfare), left the church and god instead of going back time and time again, begging for forgiveness and help that never came, and so on.


When we want to die we often go back and forth between blaming others and blaming ourselves.  And of course if we're religious we blame god, then blame ourselves for not being good enough. 


Guess what.... it doesn't matter.


Why?


Because in the end it's really up to you and no one but you.

• You can blame others or blame yourself.  It doesn't change anything.
• You can say if only (this or that were different).  It doesn't change anything.
• You can insist you can't change anything.  You're right and nothing changes.
• You can blame the system and you're right... it sucks.  But it doesn't change anything.
• You can blame your education (or lack of education) but that doesn't change anything either.
• You can blame religion and you'd be at least partly right.  But it doesn't change anything.

The ONLY thing you can change is yourself.

• You can start doing your own thing, ignoring others.
• You can make a plan for your life (you can always decide to die tomorrow).
• You can stop worrying about what others are doing (you can't change them) and focus on yourself.
• You can use the system to your advantage or circumvent it all together.
• You can get education in something you're interested in, leaving the rest of the BS behind.
• You can leave a religion that doesn't work for you (and may be a huge part of the problem) and find one you like or none at all.
• You can find people who are more like you - kind of like your own tribe.
• If you hate your job, quit and get a different one.
• If you hate school change your classes, learn at home, or stop going for now.
• If your relationships suck then get out of them.  No one is worth dying for... not literally or figuratively. 
• If you are sick then you can see what can be done to get well.  Often outside conventional medicine as they don't have all the answers.

You have ULTIMATE POWER over your life.


It may not seem that way and it make take time and effort to regain the power you lost but trust me.... you DO have ultimate power over your life.


That, my friend is a very freeing thought!

5 Reasons I didn't kill myself

1. I was afraid I'd mess it up.  Yep this was probably the biggest one.  To me the idea of being a vegetable or mentally/physically challenged to the point I was stuck in a body that didn't function and fully dependent on others for my survival was even worse than not being here at all.  If I couldn't figure out a "sure thing" I wasn't going to do it.  I never had complete confidence in any method I could think of so I never did it.
2. I didn't want to leave a mess.  Weird huh?  I wasn't even concerned about the emotional impact on my family at that point because I was convinced they wouldn't miss me and the world would be better off if I wasn't here.  But I really didn't want to leave a mess for someone else to clean up.
3. I don't do drugs.  I don't even take Tylenol.  Can't stand it.  So the idea of death by drugs was abhorrent to me.  Also, I had this vision (see #1 above) of not taking enough or the right kind and ending up with half my brain cells missing, unable to do anything but drool for the rest of my life yet strangely aware I was trapped in an even bigger hell.  So that wasn't an option.
4. I felt like I wasn't allowed.  This wasn't some moral or religious thing.  I simply felt like I came here for a reason and this wasn't it so I literally wasn't "allowed" to leave yet.
5. I think I liked being a victim and martyr.  I'm not sugar coating here... my life sucked!  Even by outside standards people told me they couldn't believe all the crap I had to deal with.  But still, there was something in me that was content with wanting to die but not doing anything about it, but at the same time not doing anything to make my life better either.  It's a sucky place to be, let me tell you!  And sad thing is a lot of people are exactly there.  Even if they're not ready to get off the planet, thousands if not millions of people have given up on life and walk around like zombies waiting to die. 

Notice there was nothing about loving my family, staying for my kids, my dog or whatever.  That's because I didn't feel that way.  At the time I truly believed the world would be better off without me and no one would care anyway.  I don't know if this is true or not and really it doesn't matter.

We are born alone, we die alone, and in between we have relationships but ultimately we are still alone.  Therefore we have to do things that are right for US, not anyone else.  By the way this realization was one of the most liberating things I ever figured out.  More on that here.