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What is the Chemical Imbalance Theory?

02.24.2017 by Molly McHugh // 7 Comments

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The Chemical Imbalance Theory – also called the “monomine” or “biogenic amine” theory – proposed low levels of one or more of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine in the central nervous system caused mental disturbance i.e. depression, anxiety, psychosis.

Believing You Have a Chemical Imbalance and Have to Take Psychotropic Medications for Life is Not True – and Causes Much Harm.

It was a great hypothesis that has been proven false.

“Not only is the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorder unsubstantiated by any empirical research, but it has also been widely and publicly refuted by a number of prominent psychiatrists…”

Source: On the Myth of the Chemical Imbalance – No, You Don’t Have a Chemical Imbalance in Your Brain.

No prescribed psychotropic medication corrects an identifiable imbalance in the brain. They affect neurotransmitters, yes, and cause a change in functioning.

Related post: How Was the Chemical Imbalance Theory Developed?

Long term these medications are disabling and cause many additional health problems such as obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, liver and kidney damage, sexual dysfunction, etc.

Chemical Imbalance Theory Still Promoted But is Unfounded

“A long overdue debate is raging about the chemical imbalance theory of depression. Having been deluged with this idea for two decades now, the general public has come to believe that it is a scientifically proven fact.”

“An LBC radio presenter recently announced that he had suffered from depression and he knew it was a chemical imbalance. ‘All the goodness is flushed out of the brain [and you have to] top it up now and again; that’s why you need medicine,’ is how he expressed it.”

“Pharmaceutical industry propaganda has led the way in advocating this view, but the medical profession continues to endorse it too.”

“On 18th March 2014, viewers of This Morning, a national UK television programme were advised by the programme’s resident General Practitioner, Dr Chris Steele, that depression consists of a chemical imbalance in the brain caused by depletion of serotonin.”

Source: The blog of British psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff

Your Brain Chemicals May Be Affecting Mood But Doctors Do Not Know Why or How

Manic Depression is not fake, phony, someone wanting attention, someone recovering from addiction or sexual abuse… it is a very real physical illness.

A physical illness that has primary symptoms identified (presently) as mental. So how else would you understand it from a medical standpoint than something going on with the functioning of the brain?

And that there are things in the brain such as levels of neurotransmitters or other pathology that effect mood i.e. contribute to the highs and lows of the illness.

That all makes sense.

What you want to find out is what has created that illness state in your body, caused your particular genetic-environmental-situational vulnerability to manifest as mental illness.

And to clearly understand that a multitude of things are most likely at play, not simply some messed up neurotransmitter levels that a medication will fix.

It’s a fantasy. We have all been duped.

The Chemical Imbalance Fairy is for Fairy Tales

Even if the mental health professional (psychiatrist, psychologist, mental health advocate) thinks it is in the patients best interest to say things they know are not true like that the Chemical Imbalance Theory is valid and scientifically proven… it is still a lie.

You can click your heels twice… it’s still a lie. Go to bed, have sweet dreams. There will still be no Chemical Imbalance Fairy when you wake up.

For health professionals to use this lie to keep folks on medications that are not medically proven to be a treatment for their symptoms but are proven to cause serious side effects is unethical at the very least.

Life is hard. Complete shit at times. Everyone suffers to some extent.

Making someone sicker is not going to help them live a better life.

There are Medical Treatments for Mental Illness – Other Than Psychotropic Medications

Feel hopeless now, like there is nothing that will help you? That if psychiatric medications (most likely the primary care you’ve been given) are snake oil, nothing can be done?

That is not true! There are many medical causes of mood disturbance and many available treatments.

Read about a child who spent six months in a psychiatric hospital with no improvement of symptoms, then healed with micronutrients: Child Healed with Micronutrients.

Learn about Kelly Brogan M.D.’s online treatment program – available to anyone and low cost – that is helping many heal from emotional-physical-mental symptoms: Vital Mind Reset.

I want Bipolar 1 Disorder – i.e. actual Manic Depression – to be better understood from a biological standpoint.

And for others to have better care by psychiatrists and doctors for mood disorders than I was given when I became ill.

Or at least more options other than just brain damaging psychotropic medications.

Peace. Molly

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Categories // Chemical Imbalance Theory

Treatment Resistance is Your Body Saying No

02.01.2017 by Molly McHugh // 4 Comments

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Treatment resistance is your body saying no. No as in “No! Stop overloading me with chemical toxins!” You clueless boob.

Related post: What is the Chemical Imbalance Theory.

Have you ever thought of it that way? Been given a medication and were a good patient only to get worse and worse? Then maybe trials of a few more meds and become even sicker.

No More Toxic Drugs. I've Had Enough.
No More Toxic Drugs. I’ve Had Enough.

Then instead of being honest with the patient and tell them the medications are simply bullshit guessing game treatments that may help someone in crisis who is at the end of their rope but long-term are brain damaging with severe side effects… the Big Pharma bought and paid for doctor says:

“You are treatment resistent.”

Then get ready for the ECT.

[bctt tweet=”Treatment Resistance Is Your Body Telling You The Treatment is Making You Sick, Not Better.”]

Like our bodies are supposed to love ingesting foreign chemicals that have supposed, postulated effects (nothing proven) on neurotransmitter levels of this or that, increasing levels of some, decreasing the uptake of others, slapping that one off to the side in the rear and instructing them to get back on the right neuro path.

How dare you AChe, get any closer and I’m going to have C10H12N2O come over and kick your butt.

Here’s a more scientific way to look at it:

“The interactions between substances that are involved together in neurotransmission suggests that neurotransmission is a plurichemical process in which the substances that are released may cause acute changes in excitability, may enhance each other’s effectiveness, or may prolong or curtail events in the target cells.”

Source: Novel Neurotransmitters and the Chemical Coding of Neurones.

Take note of the words “suggests” and “may”… it’s a guessing game. They do not know the specifics as of yet.

And the research is Big Pharma controlled. When it comes to treatment of any imbalance of the body (neurotransmitters, hormones, electrolytes, altered cells that become destructive, immunity, etc.) there are many potential reasons and multiple factors to consider.

We Know Psychotropic Medications Don’t Work Long Term

Someone who ends up on disability – like me – is not a success case. But for someone who actually has Manic Depression (as far as the illness is understood and diagnosed today) I’ve had many successes in life.

1.   I’m still alive at age 52. Off psych meds for 24 years.

2.   I’ve successfully raised a child as a single Mom.

3.   I’ve had few hospitalizations. Reason: I’ve been off psych meds.

4.   Medical care costs minimal. Reason: I got off psych meds.

5.   I’ve had many successful, high-functioning working years.

I attribute most of the positive things I’ve accomplished in my life during the 32+ years since being diagnosed at age 19 as NOT related to any mental health treatments.

To the contrary. I look at most of my successes due to the fact I got off of psychotropic medications around age 24 and focused on my health issues in other ways. And the fact I was able to receive counseling for trauma experienced.

If I had stayed in psychiatric care, my guess is I’d be dead. When I received medical care for my primary complaints of daytime drowsiness and fatigue – instead of being given more psychiatric symptom-suppressing toxic drugs – I improved.

The Story You Hear Today is the Opposite

The bipolar diagnosed person gets put on drugs, convinced by an unethical – or simply incompetent and uneducated – mental health provider they have a genetic-based chemical imbalance. The drugs the doctors are prescribing are treating this.

It’s a lie.

Short-term stabilizing for mania or psychosis of course these meds treat and help to stabilize. If you were going into convulsions or having a heart attack they have medically-proven ways to treat that.

Long-term these medications don’t treat shit. There’s no scientific study proving they do.

And when the person gets worse – they get then told they are “treatment resistant.”

Another lie.

Short Term Positive Effects a Placebo Effect

I know there are most likely hundreds of thousands of folks like me who have gotten off of psychotropic medications before ending up addicted and being convinced they have to take for life, then tragically suffer severe side effects.

And they buy into the lie when they get worse that their bipolar disorder is progressing.

Complete bullshit. The only reason they were led to believe (like I did many years ago) that the medications they were given was treating something is they experienced a placebo effect.

The chemicals ingested created a temporary change of functioning. But nothing is being corrected.

Related post: Understanding the Placebo Effect of Antidepressants.

And those medical bills add up. Compared to me and my history, I’m very much a medical success story.

It’s just these folks are not highlighted. They aren’t out spilling their guts like I have – they just get on with their lives. Many never enter the mental health arena again. For fear of stigma, most never share they even consulted with a psychiatrist or therapist in the first place.

Much less share experiences of being put on psychiatric medications and having to take themselves off.

Related post: Would I Ever Take Prozac Again?

And then when someone does become ill for whatever reason, experience an episode of depression for whatever reason… the primary resources they have online and that are from mental health advocates are promoting misinformation.

Enough already. Let’s all say “No”.

No more lies. No more lack of options for care (in addition to counseling for trauma or needed emotional support during a difficult time) and education about the numerous factors and potential causes of body-mind mood states.

There is too much current medical research and avenues for alternative medical care:

1.   Healing the gut: Take Probiotics to Treat Bipolar Illness?

2.   Diet Fixes: Root Causes of Depression.

3.   Lifestyle Changes: How Your Weight Affects Bipolar Disorder.

4.   Non-traditional Remedies: Will Turmeric Help Your Depression?

What if your real problem – and the primary factor in your depression – is an underlying autoimmune condition? Did you know there are 80 different types of them?

Related post: Fatigue, Depression & Brain Fog Can Be Symptoms of an Autoimmune Reaction.

How about identifying toxic exposures to mold or chemicals and getting their body restabilized, detoxing, etc.

Outside of the ‘bipolar Big Pharma-controlled’ community there are many available resources at someones disposal – such as this blog – to help them start to heal and move forward in life.

Not get sicker and end up dead.

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Categories // Chemical Imbalance Theory, Psychiatric Medications and Withdrawal

How Was the Chemical Imbalance Theory Developed?

08.22.2016 by Molly McHugh // Leave a Comment

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How was the chemical imbalance theory developed? I didn’t answer this question directly in the previous post: What is the Chemical Imbalance Theory.

How Was the Chemical Imbalance Theory Developed?
Have They Proven That Mental Illness is an Imbalance of Chemicals in the Brain?

We understand it does not prove anything with regards to chemicals in your brain that are being problematic and causing mood symptoms (i.e. imbalanced levels) and that therefore you need to take a specific medication – or many medications as is the norm these days – to correct this imbalance.

[bctt tweet=”Psychiatrist Ronald Pies, M.D. Calls the Chemical Imbalance Theory Urban Legend.”]

That hypothesis and purported reality is false. Taking lithium for bipolar is not the same thing as being prescribed insulin to treat a diagnosed condition of diabetes, for example.

That does not mean that lithium may not help you if you are suffering from Manic Depression – now called BP-1 – it sedates a person who has become manic and spun out of control.

But Manic Depression has never been proven to be caused by a lithium deficiency, and long-term use is very harmful. The claims lithium is neuroprotective are hogwash. It is a neurotoxin that damages neurons.

Related post: Neuroprotective Properties of Lithium.

How Was the Chemical Imbalance Theory Developed?

If you are thinking, like I used to, that those smart scientist types did some heavy duty tinkering in a lab somewhere (most likely at a university, right?) and discovered about a mentally ill persons brains (using mice of course).

They discovered the difference in some (from normal brains) was attributable to chemical levels in the brain being altered i.e. too much or too little of something.

They were able to prove there was an imbalance of identifiable chemicals and that was therefore hypothesized to cause mental illness. Fixing this imbalance, would therefore treat the problem.

Unfortunately, that is not what happened or what they did. It’s more a ‘cart before the pony’ scenario, where they manipulated cause and effect and proved nothing scientifically.

A Drug Was Developed For Depression Then the Chemical Imbalance Theory Was Developed

The whole theory – or hypothesis – was developed after a medication was created (that was real science, done in a lab, patents granted and voila… something to prescribe for patients) to try and help those suffering from depression.

Here is a quote from a 2007 psychology research paper published by the American Psychological Association (APA): The “Chemical Imbalance” Explanation for Depression: Origins, Lay Endorsement, and Clinical Implications.

How Was the Chemical Imbalance Theory Developed?

You can read the full article here: APA article.

Not only is it an unproven hypothesis created to market drugs and make money, psychotropic medications have been repeatedly shown to be ineffective in addition to causing severe harm: death, disability, homicidal and suicidal acts, etc.

Isn’t that wonderful?

Psychiatrist Ronald Pies, M.D. Calls Chemical Imbalance Theory an “Urban Legend”

So now we understand that it is not a proven theory, but something that was developed to understand effects of why drugs that had been developed seemed to be helping those with serious mood disorders, psychosis or other symptomatology.

And that’s all great and good, as long as it is clearly understood it didn’t prove anything – but the researchers get 5 gold stars for trying.

Here is a quote from eminent psychiatrist Dr. Ronald Pies – former Editor in Chief of Psychiatric Times. He wrote on July 11th, 2011:

“I am not one who easily loses his temper, but I confess to experiencing markedly increased limbic activity whenever I hear someone proclaim, ‘Psychiatrists think all mental disorders are due to a chemical imbalance!”

“In the past 30 years, I don’t believe I have ever heard a knowledgeable, well-trained psychiatrist make such a preposterous claim, except perhaps to mock it.”

And he wrote this too!

“In truth, the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend- – never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists.”

Source: Psychiatry’s New Brain-Mind and the Legend of the “Chemical Imbalance”

I now get how it came to be, and also understand clearly that it has been debunked, however well-intentioned in theory it was at the start. Nothing wrong there, that’s what scientists do… try to figure things out.

But – I hope you get this clearly now – the huge problem is that this debunked theory is still being used to manipulate psychiatric patients (regular docs prescribe psychotropic meds too and say the same lie to their patients) into taking medications that they are being told are correcting an imbalance of chemicals in their brain.

Nope. Psych drugs do affect chemicals in the brain and alter levels of them… that is true. But everyone needs to understand it’s a crapshoot-style of treatment and nothing that was developed from verifiable science.

This is why the new focus on the gut and its affects on neurotransmitters i.e. “Your Second Brain” is so exciting – it has yet to be proven false!

Related post: You Have a Second Brain – Your Gut!

Your brain is messed up if suffering from bipolar disorder (BP) or have Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) – but the why of it has yet to be clearly understood.

Everyone wants to understand the brain better and why some folks brains function in ways that make them very ill.

Let’s keep trying.

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Categories // Chemical Imbalance Theory

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