Are the modern drugs so terribly rude?

Let's imagine the situation: one, I'm speaking about myself, but I guess it is more or less general case, is tormented by memories about some troubling events, which happened in 2010. Let's say, one recalls something several times a day with a strong feelings of disgust, outrage and even anger. No doubt, this is a negative state of mind and can be easily by classed by a psychiatrist as a mental disorder. Since I'm not a professional I can only guess what diagnosis is appropriate in that case.
Probably some hypnosis strategy can be applicable in that case, which will not be discussed here, let's focus on the chemical strategies.
I'm absolutely certain which some psychiatric medicines are applicable in that case. But let's ask ourselves, how they work. Do they target the specific neural-chains, neural-networks containing the information about the events and the negative attitude towards them, or do they disable the memory as a whole?
Personally, I cannot believe, maybe someone can re-convince me, that the modern drugs can neutralise the specific neural chains in the memory of an individual. I think that the medicine weaken the memory as a whole. Therefore in that case a future patient face a hard choice: weaken his/hers memory, but live without the troubling flashbacks, or stay as it is tormented by the tragic pictures of the past.
I believe the answer is obvious. The overall memory weakening is extremely destructive to personality, which make any intellectual activity hardly possible and is the way to become the terrible phyco-vegetable so eloquently depicted in the K. Kesey's "Over the Cuckoo's Nest".
What do you think about that?

Good question!

Speaking from my personal experience, medication can not cure trauma. It can not give empathy, understanding or abreaction. It can not heal emotional wounds or take the brain out of perpetual survival mode. It can only mask it at best. Its like giving a person with a broken bone only opioid pain killers without focusing on mending that broken bone all the while reasoning that person is in pain because they have a deficiency of morphine or oxycodone in the blood stream. That is the chemical imbalance theory of psychiatry in a nut shell for the traumatized.


All psychotropics sedate or stimulate, and when they do so they do it as a whole- not one specific bad memory or event. The same goes for the side effects- they effect everything. So for one traumatic memory- or a few- has a person loosing everything. Its never sat right with me, and in all honesty I personally always felt like its empowering the abuser or bad event. Its not the abuser or bad event- its you- you have a defective brain and here is some thing to disable it with side effects. Its you whose at fault- not what happened at no fault of your own. This is exactly why I become so triggered when medication and the chemical imbalance theory is pushed as a cure all understand all.


Now, do psychotropics help some people manage their symptoms or get back up on their feet? Sure. But treating the actual cause, let alone understanding it, is where psychiatry lacks in my experience.

If a particular psychotropic drug targets memories, it would have to weaken all memories instead of targeting specific ones. There is evidence that the brain is like a hologram, so instead of memories being stored in specific areas of the brain, they are distributed throughout the whole. It is impossible to remove memories by removing or deactivating parts of the brain; all that will do is make memories fuzzier. So using them is not so much erasing specific memories but rather like cutting a hologram in pieces, making the images the pieces project fuzzy.

Honestly, the notion PTSD is a chemical balance is idiotic, especially since it is the only psychiatric diagnosis in which the root cause is part of the criteria. I have no idea how the chemical imbalance theory Big Pharma is promoting is fooling anyone in regards to that condition. While there are some people who may cope better if their traumatic memories are suppressed and are willing to deal with other memories being fuzzy, it should not be considered a cure. While again therapy is not a cure either (since there is no guarantee that someone will fully recover from a traumatic event), it still focuses on the root cause, the traumatic event, and so is what will truly help people with PTSD.

Being an

Riccola wrote:reasoning that person is in pain because they have a deficiency of morphine or oxycodone in the blood stream. That is the chemical imbalance theory of psychiatry in a nut shell for the traumatized.

In other words, the modern medicine consider humans as the sophisticated chemical machines, which can be repaired in cases of malfunctions. Words and reasoning have no importance, chemical reactions only. This is the best way to breed the ultimate dumb populace being happy staying in absolute poverty, the way to build the matrix.

Riccola wrote:Its not the abuser or bad event- its you- you have a defective brain and here is some thing to disable it with side effects. Its you whose at fault- not what happened at no fault of your own.

I believe this is strongly politically motivated theory, because the abuser is not the society, the ruling class, or such imperfect institutions like army, prison, religion etc., it is always you, who are to blame not to fit the standards.
In other words a fitter who has no any troubles to adapt to any situation, be it a prison, street gang, or military unit accomplishing a criminal order, seems to be the ideal of normality, because he or she just lives with the untroubled mind, following the orders, just going down the stream of life...

IntellectualCat wrote:If a particular psychotropic drug targets memories, it would have to weaken all memories instead of targeting specific ones. There is evidence that the brain is like a hologram, so instead of memories being stored in specific areas of the brain, they are distributed throughout the whole. It is impossible to remove memories by removing or deactivating parts of the brain; all that will do is make memories fuzzier. So using them is not so much erasing specific memories but rather like cutting a hologram in pieces, making the images the pieces project fuzzy.

Honestly, the notion PTSD is a chemical balance is idiotic, especially since it is the only psychiatric diagnosis in which the root cause is part of the criteria. I have no idea how the chemical imbalance theory Big Pharma is promoting is fooling anyone in regards to that condition. While there are some people who may cope better if their traumatic memories are suppressed and are willing to deal with other memories being fuzzy, it should not be considered a cure. While again therapy is not a cure either (since there is no guarantee that someone will fully recover from a traumatic event), it still focuses on the root cause, the traumatic event, and so is what will truly help people with PTSD.

Well said. However it does not end there. Some disorder which are also said to be trauma based (such as dissociative disorders) have so much symtological overlap with Bipolar and Schizophrenia that they are frequently misdiagnosed as that. Many experts also claim that childhood PTSD tends to present itself with ADHD/ADD/ODD like symptoms which again leads to misdiagnosis and medication. In short what ever the symptom presentation, it leads to psychotropics, especially when a doctor can pick a number of "chemical" disorders that match.

Polozker wrote:In other words, the modern medicine consider humans as the sophisticated chemical machines, which can be repaired in cases of malfunctions. Words and reasoning have no importance, chemical reactions only. This is the best way to breed the ultimate dumb populace being happy staying in absolute poverty, the way to build the matrix.

Of course. Even if we truly were sophisticated chemical machines, the current theory is so grossly over simplified, and infantile, that it can not possibly be 100% safe or effective. But in any case I truly believe that one of the reasons psychiatry has pulled off so many atrocities over the years (and still does) is because it views people as soulless machines that can be repaired, managed and warehoused like animatronic robots.

I believe this is strongly politically motivated theory, because the abuser is not the society, the ruling class, or such imperfect institutions like army, prison, religion etc., it is always you, who are to blame not to fit the standards.
In other words a fitter who has no any troubles to adapt to any situation, be it a prison, street gang, or military unit accomplishing a criminal order, seems to be the ideal of normality, because he or she just lives with the untroubled mind, following the orders, just going down the stream of life...

I agree. It deflects the blame and as such institutions/concepts/gangs ect can continue running unquestioned. If psychiatry acknowledged trauma, it would also have to acknowledge what caused it- which would lead to uncomfortable truths- and opposition to those who seek to control. Its said that trauma itself makes people suggestible, so why eliminate it when gaining control over people or an entire population? At times I truly believe modern psychiatry is just a silent garbage disposal or behavioral (thought) corrector for those outside the desired norms. After all, psychiatry in the past was obsessed with "mental hygiene", trying to label thought, behavior and perception as normal vs abnormal while trying to justify what ever treatment deemed necessary for the abnormal, even if it resulted in injury or death.