Antidepressants, so-called, are among the most dangerous of commonly prescribed drugs. Particularly the SSRI’s which can produce all sorts of bizarre impulsivity, homicidality, sucidality, mania, psychosis. But the most disturbing “side-effect” is a kind of severe affective flattening in which people report an inability to feel or care about anything, that they have nothing inside. And the drug-induced neurological changes that precipitate this state are often permanent. Lithium produces the same type of flattening and was used to treat people with extreme mood lability, what used to be called manic/depressive disorder, now commonly referred to as bipolar disorder. Beginning in the Mid-90’s some pharma companies decided to create a new psychiatric diagnostic realm, mood stabilization, and they rebranded their seizure medications as mood stabilizers. This started with Abbot and their seizure med depakote, and then everybody got into the act and that was the beginning of the “bipolar boom”. “Mood stabilizers” are now legion and everybody is “bipolar”, especially little kids who are force-fed amphetamines because they are bored in school and often squirm in their seats (“often squirms in seat” is actually listed as a clinical expression of ADHD). When the drugs wear off they “crash” and become irritable. Imagine that. So lithium has some clinical benefit for people with really severe mood lability but from my experience such cases are quite rare. And lihium has a very narrow therapeutic index; not quite enough and it does nothing, a little too much and people have to be rushed to the ER. It’s very toxic. The overall desired salient effect of Lithium, AD’s, mood stabilizers, etc., was clearly stated by the psychiatric establishment when the first psych med, thorazine, was developed in 1954: induction of psychic indifference. So there you have it. Welcome to the zombie apocalypse
