Pharmakeia: America’s Seniors Are Being Overmedicated Into Oblivion | The Economic Collapse

So many seniors that were once so full of life are now just shadows of their former selves.  It can be really easy to assume that they are “just getting old” and that nothing unusual is happening to them.  But the truth is that in so many cases the reason why America’s seniors are shutting down is because they are simply being overmedicated.  Our entire medical system has been designed to push pills, and so when our seniors seek medical help that is usually the solution that they are offered.  As you will see below, the proportion of our seniors that are on at least 8 pharmaceutical drugs is truly alarming.  Of course those that consume pharmaceutical drug cocktails on a daily basis for an extended period of time are quite likely to experience very serious consequences.

Most people don’t realize that modern terms such as “pharmacy” and “pharmaceutical” originally come from the Greek word “pharmakeia”…

The word “pharmacy” has a fascinating origin story that’s as complex as the practice itself.

It comes from the Greek word “pharmakeia”, which referred to “the practice of the druggist”. But here is the twist: “phármakon”, the root of the term, was a double-edged sword – it meant a plant or herb that could be used for either healing or harmful purposes, blurring the line between medicine and poison.

No society in the entire history of the planet has taken “pharmakeia” to the extremes that we have.

We are the most drugged nation that the world has ever seen, and this is particularly true for our seniors.

The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed an 83-year-old woman named Barbara Schmidt that has “filled prescriptions for more than a dozen different drugs in the past year”…

For years, Barbara Schmidt’s family feared an illness was behind a pattern of terrifying falls that repeatedly landed the 83-year-old great-grandmother in surgery with broken bones. Instead, Schmidt’s frequent tumbles might have been tied to something else: medications intended to make her better.

Schmidt, who lives with her husband of 65 years in Lewes, Del., filled prescriptions for more than a dozen different drugs in the past year, according to pharmacy and medical records.

After taking so many medications in such a short period of time, it really is a miracle that she is still alive today.

But she is far from alone.

The Wall Street Journal discovered that one out of every six seniors that is enrolled in Medicare’s drug benefit has been prescribed at least 8 different pharmaceutical drugs…

That isn’t unusual for America’s seniors, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Medicare data. One in six of the 46 million seniors enrolled in Medicare’s drug benefit, which pays for most drugs taken by older Americans, were prescribed eight or more medications.

Millions upon millions of our seniors are literally being drugged into oblivion.

One of the problems is that seniors often visit multiple physicians, and that can result in a lot of confusion…

Pharmacists who work with seniors say doctors might not be aware of their patients’ full medication list. Patients don’t always mention what their other doctors have prescribed when a history is taken, and specialists might not have access to a shared medical record.

The Journal analysis found that, among seniors taking eight or more drugs, it was common for the prescriptions to come from a large number of doctors.

Of course it isn’t just seniors that are being overmedicated.

One recent survey found that 70 percent of U.S. adults are currently taking at least one pharmaceutical drug, and nearly a quarter of U.S. adults are currently taking at least four pharmaceutical drugs…

Recent CivicScience poll results reveal the picture of maintenance prescription drug use in the U.S. has shifted dramatically. The number of U.S. adults who report taking at least one prescription medication per day is now 70%, a 14 percentage-point increase from 2019 data.

Additionally, the percentage of people taking four or more prescription medications daily in the US has increased by six percentage points, from 18% to 24%. An increasing number of prescriptions equals less and less wiggle room in budgets already tightened due to inflationary prices.

It is an insanely profitable industry, and that is why we constantly see ads for pharmaceutical drugs on television.

They desperately want more “customers”, and seniors are the easiest target.

According to the official CDC website, 89 percent of Americans that are 65 years or older are currently taking at least one pharmaceutical drug…

Among adults aged ≥65 years, men (89.0%) and women (89.3%) were equally likely to take prescription medication. Prescription medication use increased with age, from 48.4% for those aged 18–44 years to 89.2% for those aged ≥65 years, and this pattern of increasing use with age was observed for both men and women.

We take more pharmaceutical drugs than anyone else in the world.

So why is our life expectancy below average compared to other industrialized nations?

I think that is a really important question.

When our seniors go to see their doctors, they are often not properly informed about the potential side effects of the drugs that they are being prescribed.

Let me give you an example.

Zoloft is the number one antidepressant in the United States, but most of those that are taking it do not realize that it has an extremely long list of side effects.

But don’t just take my word for it.  The following comes from the official Zoloft website…

ZOLOFT may cause serious side effects. Call your healthcare provider right away if you have any of the following symptoms, or call 911 if there is an emergency.

1. Suicidal thoughts or actions:

ZOLOFT and other antidepressant medicines may increase suicidal thoughts or actions in some people 24 years of age and younger, especially within the first few months of treatment or when the dose is changed.

Depression or other serious mental illnesses are the most important causes of suicidal thoughts or actions.

Watch for these changes and call your healthcare provider right away if you notice new or sudden changes in mood, behavior, actions, thoughts, or feelings, especially if severe.

Pay particular attention to such changes when ZOLOFT is started or when the dose is changed.

Keep all follow-up visits with your healthcare provider and call between visits if you are worried about symptoms.

2. Call a doctor right away if you or a person you know who is taking ZOLOFT has any of the following symptoms, especially if they are new, worse, or worry you:

-thoughts about suicide or dying
-attempts to commit suicide
-new or worse depression
-new or worse anxiety
-feeling very agitated or restless
-panic attacks
-trouble sleeping (insomnia)
-new or worse irritability
-acting aggressive, being angry, or violent
-acting on dangerous impulses
-an extreme increase in activity and talking (mania)
-other unusual changes in behavior or mood

3. Serotonin Syndrome. This condition can be life-threatening and symptoms may include:

-agitation, hallucinations, coma, or other changes in mental status
-racing heartbeat, high or low blood pressure
-coordination problems or muscle twitching (overactive reflexes)
-nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea
-sweating or fever
-muscle rigidity

4. Increased chance of bleeding: ZOLOFT and other antidepressant medicines may increase your risk of bleeding or bruising, especially if you take the blood thinner warfarin (COUMADIN®, JANTOVEN®), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAIDs, like ibuprofen or naproxen), or aspirin.

5. Manic episodes. Symptoms may include:

-greatly increased energy
-racing thoughts
-unusually grand ideas
-severe trouble sleeping
-reckless behavior
-excessive happiness or irritability
-talking more or faster than usual

6. Seizures or convulsions.

7. Glaucoma (angle-closure glaucoma). ZOLOFT may cause a certain type of eye problem called angle-closure glaucoma. Call your healthcare provider if you have eye pain, changes in your vision, or swelling or redness in or around the eye. Only some people are at risk for these problems. You may want to undergo an eye examination to see if you are at risk and receive preventative treatment if you are.

8. Changes in appetite or weight.

9. Low salt (sodium) levels in the blood. Elderly people may be at greater risk for this. Symptoms may include headache, weakness or feeling unsteady, confusion, problems concentrating or thinking, or memory problems.

10. Sexual problems (dysfunction). Taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), including ZOLOFT, may cause sexual problems.

There are many other drugs that literally list “death” as one of the potential side effects.

And earlier this year it was being reported that adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs have now become the third leading cause of death in the United States…

In 2021, the American Society of Pharmacovigilance (ASP) launched the Fourth Cause Campaign to raise awareness that adverse drug events (ADEs) were the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Today, new data confirm a troubling and unacceptable reality—ADEs have now surged to become the third leading cause of death. An internal analysis conducted by ASP projects that adverse drug events now account for over 250,000 deaths annually, surpassing stroke and respiratory disease, making it the third leading cause of death in the United States.

What we are witnessing is truly a national tragedy.

But the big news networks aren’t going to talk much about it, because the pharmaceutical companies are their biggest advertisers.

And our politicians are unlikely to push for major reform, because the pharmaceutical companies pour vast amounts of money into their campaigns.

Money is power, and the pharmaceutical industry is absolutely swimming in cash.

If you are waiting for major change to happen, you may find yourself waiting for quite a while.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Pharmakeia: America’s Seniors Are Being Overmedicated Into Oblivion appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

America’s Rapidly Growing Happiness Deficit | The Economic Collapse

We possess technology that would have been unimaginable to people living 100 years ago, we have access to more entertainment than any other generation in human history, and we have been enjoying an artificially-inflated standard of living that has been fueled by an unprecedented debt binge for decades.  So why are so many of us so miserable?  One out of every eight Americans is taking an antidepressant, more than 48 million Americans have a substance use disorder, the suicide rate has been trending in the wrong direction for years, and according to Gallup the percentage of U.S. adults that are currently dealing with depression has nearly doubled since 2015…

The percentage of U.S. adults who report currently having or being treated for depression has exceeded 18% in both 2024 and 2025, up about eight percentage points since the initial measurement in 2015. The current rate of 18.3% measured so far in 2025 projects to an estimated 47.8 million Americans suffering from depression.

We like to think that we are smarter than all of the generations that have come before us.

If that is true, then why can’t we figure out how to be happy?

What we are doing now is clearly not working, and this is particularly true for our young people.

One study found that approximately 42 percent of Americans that belong to Generation Z have been diagnosed with “anxiety, depression, ADHD, PTSD” or some other mental health condition…

In fact, an estimated 42% of Gen Zers have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, ADHD, PTSD or other mental health condition, with a staggering 60% reportedly taking medication to manage their mental health, according to a study on the respected Psychiatrist.com website.

Nobody can deny that we have failed our young people, and now we have a colossal mess on our hands.

We have never seen a group of young adults that is as unhappy as Generation Z is, and without a doubt they are feeling an enormous amount of pressure from many different directions…

Analysts point to a host of difficult, anxiety-producing issues facing Gen Z, including widespread financial worries – with college costs in the stratosphere, food more expensive than ever, home ownership out of reach for most, and two jobs often needed just to pay the rent.

Then there’s the disconcerting reality that many Gen Zers are not dating or getting married and having families – partly due to economic pressures, high anxiety and insecurity about the future, disillusionment with marriage due to the high level of divorce in their parents’ generation, and widespread reliance on dating apps. But also because they are spending so much time living in a virtual world where they can plug into and commune with every imaginable – and unimaginable – type of individual, cause, “influencer” and community on earth, all recruiting 24/7.

I think that all of the reasons mentioned in the quote above are valid.

But I think that there is another that is more important than any of them.

Over the years, Gallup has found that there is a very close link between loneliness and depression…

Gallup research has shown a strong link between depression and loneliness, as one-third of those who had experienced loneliness the day before were also currently suffering from depression, compared with 13% among those who had not.

After declining from pandemic-era highs of 25% to a range of 17% to 18% through much of 2022 and 2023, reports of individuals experiencing significant loneliness “a lot of the day yesterday” have inched upward again since the latter half of 2024 to 21%.

Even though we are more “connected” to one another through the Internet in this day and age, the truth is that we are more isolated than ever.

As a result, much of the population is desperately lonely.

We were designed to love others and to be loved by others, and if we want to turn our mental health crisis around we need to rediscover the importance of making real human connections.

But instead, many Americans are turning to drugs and alcohol to ease the emotional pain that they are feeling.

A report that was put out two years ago by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration revealed that 48.5 million Americans have a substance abuse disorder…

According to a 2023 report by the federal agency Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 48.5 million Americans aged 12 and above have a substance use disorder.

This is a national epidemic that is getting worse every single year.

It has been estimated that substance use disorders are now costing the U.S. economy more than 90 billion dollars annually…

A new study has found that substance use disorders (SUD) cost the U.S. economy just under $93 billion in 2023 from a combination of missed work, reduced work productivity and lost household productivity.

The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on December 8, was conducted by a team at the Division of Injury Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Needless to say, drugs and alcohol are not the answer.

So a lot of people that go down that road end up giving up completely.

For decades, the suicide rate in this country has been steadily moving higher…

Since the 1950s, the suicide rate in the United States has been significantly higher among men than women. In 2022, the suicide rate among men was almost four times higher than that of women. However, the rate of suicide for both men and women has increased gradually over the past couple of decades.

This breaks my heart.

So many people are needlessly ending their own lives.

According to the CDC, an American now dies by suicide every 11 minutes…

The level of suicides among our young adults is particularly alarming.

It is being reported that the suicide rate for young adults in the 18 to 27-year-old age bracket jumped by almost 20 percent from 2014 to 2024…

The suicide rate for U.S. adults aged 18-27 increased nearly 20% between 2014 and 2024, rising from 13.8 per 100,000 people to 16.4, per a new analysis of CDC data from Stateline, a nonprofit newsroom.

We have failed our young people.

Here we are at what many believe to be “the happiest time of the year”, and yet much of the population is soul-crushingly miserable.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Previous generations of Americans were much happier, and today there are lots of people that are living lives that are absolutely teeming with joy.

So if you are feeling depressed right now, I want you to know that there is hope.

You may not realize it yet, but you are greatly loved.

Once you learn how to respond to God’s love and the love that others have for you, everything will start to change.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post America’s Rapidly Growing Happiness Deficit appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Psychotherapist Confirms TDS is REAL and Exploding — Patients Can’t Sleep, Travel, or Function Normally Because They’re “Triggered” by Trump | The Gateway Pundit

Psychotherapist Confirms TDS is REAL and Exploding — Patients Can’t Sleep, Travel, or Function Normally Because They’re “Triggered” by Trump

Credit: itvx

A Manhattan psychotherapist is confirming what conservatives have warned about for years: Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, it’s spreading, and it’s shredding the mental health of millions of Americans who can’t emotionally cope with the existence of Donald Trump.

During an interview on “The Faulkner Focus,” Jonathan Alpert, a well-known psychotherapist who practices in New York and Washington and writes for the Wall Street Journal, revealed that three-quarters of his patients are now suffering from what can only be described as a political obsession so unhinged it borders on clinical impairment.

Alpert explained that within five minutes of a session, many patients launch into rants about Trump. Not policy issues. Not debate. Pure emotional meltdown.

Harris Faulkner:
Jonathan is in focus with me now. So, first of all, identify it for us. You’re in a session, and you pick up on what?

Jonathan Alpert:
Well, Harris, it doesn’t take long for me to pick up on this. People are obsessed with Trump. They’re fixated — they’re hyper-fixated on Trump. And they talk about some of the features of this disorder: they can’t sleep, they feel traumatized by Mr. Trump, they feel restless. I had one patient who said she couldn’t enjoy a vacation because any time she saw Trump in the news or on her device, she felt triggered. So this is a profound pathology, and I would even go so far as to call it the defining pathology of our time.

Harris Faulkner:
These people come to you for the things that you described — can’t sleep, traumatized, perhaps depression. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but at first you are there to treat an illness, a disorder of some kind, and what you figure out is that’s the trigger.

Jonathan Alpert:
Well, and Trump is the trigger for many of these people. To be that fixated on a figure — on a person — it’s simply not healthy. Our country has strayed so far away from where we once were. If you look at the ’80s, when President Reagan was shot, people were united. He famously said to the surgeons, “I hope you’re all Republicans.” The response was, “Today, Mr. President, we’re all Republicans.” But our country has lost that. We’ve strayed so far from that unity.

Harris Faulkner:
What do you see? Because you told me off camera that three-quarters of your patient load right now has what you’re calling this TDS.

Jonathan Alpert:
Well, three-quarters of my patients will present with a lot of these symptoms, and within probably five minutes of seeing me, their hatred for Trump comes up. So if you’re that hyper-focused on Trump, that’s an issue — and it’s worth being treated.

WATCH:

🚨 HOLY CRAP! Psychotherapists are now seeing the effects of Trump DERANGEMENT Syndrome in their patients

"I had one patient who couldn't enjoy vacation because she saw Trump on her device or news, and felt triggered."

Omg…

"Some of the features of this 'disorder': They… pic.twitter.com/hX2GWZhajq

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 14, 2025

In his hard-hitting op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Alpert rebranded the phenomenon as “obsessive political preoccupation.”

He described it as an OCD-like disorder where Trump becomes the boogeyman for every insecurity and fear.

He describes patients who:

• suffer persistent intrusive thoughts about Trump
• compulsively monitor news about him
• endure chronic hyperarousal and vigilance
• lose the ability to function normally in daily life

He wrote:

“Is “Trump derangement syndrome” real? No serious mental-health professional would render such a partisan and derogatory diagnosis. Yet I’ve seen it in my own psychotherapy practice. Patients across the political spectrum have brought Donald Trump into therapy not to discuss policy but to process obsession, rage and dread. Their distress is symptomatic, not ideological.

Clinically, the presentation aligns with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders: persistent intrusive thoughts, emotional dysregulation and impaired functioning. Patients describe sleepless nights, compulsive news checking and physical agitation. Many confess they can’t stop thinking about Donald Trump even when they try. They interpret his every move as a threat to democracy and to their own safety and control.

Call it “obsessive political preoccupation”—an obsessive-compulsive spectrum presentation in which a political figure becomes the focal point for intrusive thoughts, heightened arousal and compulsive monitoring.
I initially viewed this as an ideological reaction, an understandable response to a polarizing figure. But over time the symptoms took on a more clinical shape. What once looked like outrage now presents as a fixation that distorts perception and consumes attention.

One patient told me she couldn’t enjoy a family vacation because “it felt wrong to relax while Trump was still out there.” Others report panic attacks or trouble sleeping after seeing him in the news. Their anxiety has outgrown politics and become a way of being.

At the group level, the pattern functions like a culture-bound syndrome, a condition shaped by shared social triggers within a specific context. From a diagnostic standpoint, it overlaps with obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and trauma-related syndromes. While not a formal diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it reflects the same symptom patterns and behavioral mechanisms used to define emerging conditions. By that measure, this presentation merits serious consideration.”

On Newsmax’s “The National Desk,” The Daily Signal’s senior editor Tyler O’Neil joined host Kelly Sadler to dissect Alpert’s op-ed, calling TDS a “neurotic” obsession that’s poisoning politics.

He notes that Trump has been hysterically compared to Hitler for years, creating a climate where people genuinely believe the country is on the precipice of dictatorship.

Even worse, O’Neil said, Democrats have turned this neurosis into a political strategy:

• shutdowns for the sake of “fighting Trump”
• legislation drafted to stop Trump, not help Americans
• party platforms built around pure opposition

In poll after poll, Democrats say their top priority isn’t the economy, schools, or the border, it’s simply “fight Trump.”

WATCH:

The post Psychotherapist Confirms TDS is REAL and Exploding — Patients Can’t Sleep, Travel, or Function Normally Because They’re “Triggered” by Trump appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Americans Spend Nearly Half Of Their Days Online, And Young People Are More Suicidal Than Ever | End Of The American Dream

Our society is more addicted to the Internet than ever.  So how has that affected us?  Are we happier than we once were, or are we less happy?  Are we more mentally healthy than we once were, or are we less mentally healthy?  I don’t have to give you the answers to those questions, because you already know.  Our society has gone completely nuts, and our suicide rate has soared.  In particular, we are seeing historically high levels of suicide and depression among our young people.  We have a major national crisis on our hands, but hardly anyone is talking about it.

We were not designed to endlessly stare at our screens.

Life is supposed to be about so much more than that.

Yes, the Internet can be used to do really good things.  Personally, I use it to share the truth with large numbers of people all over the globe.  But the Internet also brings out the very worst in humanity.

At this stage, the Internet is absolutely teeming with just about every sort of evil that you can possibly imagine, and most of us are spending an enormous amount of time wading around in that cesspool.  In fact, a recent survey discovered that Americans with a home Internet subscription “spend nearly half their day online”…

Wired Americans spend nearly half their day online — splitting that time almost evenly between watching videos or TV shows and working, browsing and shopping, according to a new survey.

“This new survey was eye-opening,” said Eric Bruno, senior vice president of product management for Optimum, whose telecommunications firm interviewed 2,000 US residents who have a home Internet subscription with any company for the poll.

Many of us would simply not be able to function if the Internet suddenly went away.

Thanks to our phones, we take it with us everywhere that we go, and when we are at home we use it in a multitude of different ways…

They spend 5.4 of those hours browsing, working, gaming, looking at social media, reading email or paying bills, the survey found.

They spend another five hours streaming video or TV content.

I am not saying that the Internet is bad.

Ultimately, it is just another tool.

The problem comes when we get addicted, and young people are particularly susceptible.

One study that was just released discovered that the younger a girl is when she gets her first smartphone, the more likely she is to have suicidal thoughts when she gets older…

Nearly half of young women who received their first smartphone at age 5 or 6 now report having suicidal thoughts, compared to just over a quarter of those who waited until 13 to get their device. A sweeping new study tracking more than 100,000 young adults across the globe reveals a troubling pattern that should alarm every parent: the younger children are when they first own a smartphone, the worse their mental health becomes by early adulthood.

Kids in the United States are committing suicide in unprecedented numbers.

According to the CDC, in 2023 suicide “was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-34”.

Reading that should absolutely horrify you.

Personally, it is my opinion that parents should delay giving smartphones to their children for as long as possible.

In addition to being more likely to have suicidal thoughts, those that get smartphones at an early age are also more likely to develop a whole host of other emotional problems…

Early smartphone ownership correlates with a troubling range of symptoms in young adulthood beyond suicidal thoughts. Those who got phones before age 13 show higher rates of aggression, feelings of detachment from reality, and hallucinations. Among specific mental health functions, early smartphone users struggle more with self-image, self-worth, emotional control, and resilience – particularly females. Males show greater difficulties with stability, calmness, and empathy.

Other studies have come up with similar results.

Here is another example…

A new study provides answers. Researchers at UC San Francisco found that as preteens used more social media, their depressive symptoms increased. Yet the reverse wasn’t true — a rise in depressive symptoms didn’t predict a later increase in social media use.

On average, kids’ social media use rose from seven to 73 minutes per day over the three years of the study and their depressive symptoms went up 35%. The study, which was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was published in JAMA Network Open.

The research team, led by Jason Nagata, MD, MSc, associate professor in UCSF’s Department of Pediatrics, examined data following nearly 12,000 kids aged 9 to 10 years and then three years later at 12 to 13. The study is among the first to use within-person longitudinal data, meaning researchers could track changes over time in each child to accurately assess the link between social media and depression.

If you endlessly put garbage into your mind, you are going to get garbage out.

Of course if everyone was using the Internet to read the Bible and to focus on things that are true, things that are honest, things that are just, and things that are pure, we wouldn’t have a problem.

But that isn’t how most Americans use the Internet.

Most Americans spend countless hours consuming content that is overtly evil.

As a result, our society has become lawless.  Let me share yet another example of this with you…

In the shocking clip, a man in a white t-shirt is can be seen being shoved to ground by two men and repeatedly beaten as other members of the crowd jeer and join in.

The gang beat the man for nearly a minute as he lay in the middle of the street, seemingly stepping on his head multiple times.

When the barrage of attacks temporarily stopped, he is seen attempting to stand – but immediately fell over in apparent disorientation. One attacker yelled out ‘my man’s drunk’.

People are talking about this case all over the Internet.

At one point a woman rushed to help the man that had been beaten, and she was viciously attacked too…

A woman in a black dress rushed to his aid, but was attacked by the crowd, suffering two blows to the face.

The impact caused her to fall, with her head slamming the pavement. She became unconscious as blood spewed from her mouth.

This is our society now.

Whether you like it or not, we have raised an entire generation that has embraced lawlessness.

If we had raised them differently, we would have gotten different results.

Sadly, we still have not learned our lesson.

Most of us continue to run after things we should not be running after, and that is a recipe for societal disaster.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Americans Spend Nearly Half Of Their Days Online, And Young People Are More Suicidal Than Ever appeared first on End Of The American Dream.

10 Examples That Show That Our Society Is Going Completely Insane | End Of The American Dream

It has been said that there is no cure for crazy. If that is actually true, we are in all sorts of trouble. When I was growing up, the crazy people were on the fringes of our society. Today, it is the normal people that have been pushed to the fringes of our society. If you think that I am exaggerating, just look around you. Much of the population is literally behaving like maniacs. We all laughed when “Idiocracy” was released in theaters in 2006 because it was so absurd, but in retrospect that film was essentially a warning about what would soon be coming. Over the past 20 years, our society has been turned totally upside down. The lunatics are running the asylum, and many of them are lashing out in wild and unpredictable ways.

If you think that I am being too harsh, please read the rest of this article.  I truly wish that I was exaggerating, but I am not.  The following are 10 examples that show that our society is going completely insane…

#1 Would you join a “scream club”?.  In Chicago, a very large group of liberals meets even Sunday evening at 7 PM to scream their heads off…

Scream Club Chicago has found an unorthodox way to let off some steam and make life a little easier.

The group meets on the North Avenue Beach pier every Sunday at 7 p.m., where they breathe deeply and collectively scream into the open air over Lake Michigan.

The group was started by Manny Hernande, a breathwork coach who was looking for an outlet to deal with stress. He invited others to join him in the screaming ritual on social media. Now the weekly therapy session are growing in popularity.

#2 In America today, the violent lunatic walking next to you could snap at any moment.  At a Walmart in Michigan, a man that was shopping in the grocery section suddenly pulled out a knife and started stabbing people…

“It was a guy with a knife — people were screaming and running in all directions,” said Tasha Nash, a Walmart employee. “I saw someone stabbed in the eye.”

Amber Paull, another shopper, described the assailant as a foreign man who “just lost it” and began randomly attacking people in the produce and grocery section. “An African American man pulled a hero move — he drew his pistol and tried to stop the attacker,” Paull said. “But then people started screaming, and the suspect managed to slip back into the crowd.”

#3 There are more than half a million victims of child abuse in the United States.  A recent case in Florida was particularly horrifying…

Four adults were arrested after being accused of abusing nine children in their Florida home by caging them with plywood under a bunk bed and spraying them in the face with vinegar as a form of punishment, authorities said Friday.

Husband and wife Brian and Jill Griffeth, along with 21-year-old Dallin and 19-year-old Liberty Griffeth, were arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse, the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Friday.

The four adults are suspected of abusing five biological and four adopted children — ages 7 to 16 — at their home in Fort White, Florida, roughly 35 miles northwest of Gainesville, the sheriff’s office said.

#4 Some school districts are now paying kids to come to school because chronic absenteeism has become so pervasive…

Educators are trying to incentivize students to come to school, with some districts even paying students for their attendance.

Others have encouraged teachers to have attendance count towards grades or limit the number of assignments that can be completed online, The Boston Globe reports.

Twenty states reported that more than 30 percent of their students missed at least three weeks of school in 2022-23, according to latest figures from the DoE.

#5 Mad scientists feel like they have the right to “play God” without our permission.  For example, not too long ago a group of mad scientists on the west coast attempted to conduct an unauthorized geoengineering experiment in San Francisco Bay which was intended to dim the sun…

The details outlined in funding requests, emails, texts and other records obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News raise new questions about a secretive billionaire-backed initiative that oversaw last year’s brief solar geoengineering experiment on the San Francisco Bay.

They also offer a rare glimpse into the vast scope of research aimed at finding ways to counter the Earth’s warming, work that has often occurred outside public view. Such research is drawing increased interest at a time when efforts to address the root cause of climate change — burning fossil fuels — are facing setbacks in the U.S. and Europe. But the notion of human tinkering with the weather and climate has drawn a political backlash and generated conspiracy theories, adding to the challenges of mounting even small-scale tests.

Last year’s experiment, led by the University of Washington and intended to run for months, lasted about 20 minutes before being shut down by Alameda city officials who objected that nobody had told them about it beforehand.

#6 It is being projected that Canada will euthanize 15 million of their own citizens by 2047, and the U.S. is heading down the exact same path…

In a recent video, Kelsi Sheren, a Canadian combat veteran, host of The Kelsi Sheren Perspective, and an outspoken opponent of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) policies, shared how Canada’s government-controlled healthcare system plans to euthanize an estimated 15 million Canadians between 2027 and 2047, a staggering figure justified under the pretext of cost savings.

While doctor-assisted suicide in the U.S. has not yet reached the alarming extremes observed in Canada, the “death with dignity” movement is actively attempting to change that. Pending Governor Hochul’s signature on New York’s recently passed bill, 11 states and Washington, D.C., will permit this abhorrent and immoral practice.

#7 Often some of the worst crimes are happening in some of the wealthiest neighborhoods.  For instance, somehow a wealthy Chinese couple in Los Angeles was able to collect and abuse 21 children before authorities finally caught on to them…

A house in an upmarket Los Angeles city was raided by the FBI, leading authorities to rescue 21 small children, many of whom had allegedly been subject to abuse.

Guojun Xuan, 65, and Silvia Zhang, 38, were initially arrested in May under suspicion of felony child endangerment and neglect, after a 2-month-old baby in their care was brought to a local hospital with a traumatic brain injury.

Doctors realized the injuries had occurred around two days previously, sparking a police investigation.

#8 Major cities all over the nation are becoming rotting, decaying hellholes.  Can you guess which large American city is being described in these paragraphs?…

Speaking at a public Board of Police Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, local man Frank Sereno said he was concerned about the levels of crime.

According to KMBC, he said: ‘Property crimes, stolen vehicles, teens running through the neighborhood, armed, shooting firearms’.

‘These are not innocent petty crimes. These are very violent individuals who are out to do harm to us. And we’re tired of it happening,’ he added.

It isn’t Los Angeles.

It isn’t San Francisco.

It isn’t New York City.

It isn’t Chicago.

The city being described in those paragraphs is actually Kansas City.

I am old enough to remember when Kansas City was still a very civilized place.

#9 The experts are now admitting that more than a quarter of our population is mentally ill.  According to Johns Hopkins, approximately 26 percent of all Americans suffer from ” a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year”…

• Mental health disorders account for several of the top causes of disability in established market economies, such as the U.S., worldwide, and include: major depression (also called clinical depression), manic depression (also called bipolar disorder), schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
• An estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 and older — about 1 in 4 adults — suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.
• Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. In particular, depressive illnesses tend to co-occur with substance use and anxiety disorders.
• Approximately 9.5% of American adults ages 18 and over, will suffer from a depressive illness (major depression, bipolar disorder, or dysthymia) each year.

#10 These days, many Americans are actually “romanticizing the apocalypse” simply because they want all of the madness to finally end…https://www.youtube.com/embed/GHAzpIitZ8Y?si=Os7518r4s7NBnvhc

If you could turn back the clock and have America go back to the way that it was in the 1950s and 1960s, would you do it?

Even though we would have to give up our electronic gadgets and a lot of our modern conveniences, a lot of normal people would choose to do that in a heartbeat.

Why?

Because life was so much simpler in those days, and people actually connected with one another.

Today, most people can count their true friends on one hand.

We weren’t designed to stare at screens for 10 hours a day.

And the value of our lives was never meant to be determined by how many “likes” we get on Facebook or Instagram.

Our modern way of life is not healthy.

In fact, it is literally driving many of us insane.

Hopefully we will choose to change direction before it is too late.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post 10 Examples That Show That Our Society Is Going Completely Insane appeared first on End Of The American Dream.

ABLECHILD: Mental Health Courts – America’s $1 Billion Revolving Door of Crime and Corruption | The Gateway Pundit

ABLECHILD: Mental Health Courts – America’s $1 Billion Revolving Door of Crime and Corruption

Mental Health Courts: America’s $1 Billion Revolving Door of Crime and Corruption

Reprinted with permission from AbleChild. 

Mental health courts were introduced as a solution to the rising number of people diagnosed with and treated for mental illnesses in the criminal justice system. The promise was that these courts would reduce crime, save tax dollars, and offer humane alternatives to incarceration. In reality, mental health courts have become a revolving door, letting dangerous offenders back into communities, driven by subjective diagnosing and forced medication, while the behavioral health industry profits at public expense.

The label of “mental illness” in these courts is highly subjective and elastic. There is no objective test for any psychiatric diagnosis; definitions shift and criteria expand based on professional opinion and institutional priorities. If committing a crime is taken as proof of an unhealthy state of mind, then where is the line drawn? Couldn’t one argue all criminals are mentally ill? This logic blurs the distinction between criminality and mental illness, effectively medicalizing crime itself and undermining the justice system.

This subjectivity of the diagnosis gives psychiatry the power to label defendants, decide who is diverted, and who receives privacy protections and alternative sentencing. The result is a parallel justice system where due process is replaced by bureaucratic intervention, and legal responsibility is traded for a medical label that can be manipulated to serve institutional interests.  From its inception, psychiatry has been an experiment imposed on humanity—repeatedly carried out without true consent. Nothing is new under the sun, no matter how one dresses it up.   If something has to be explained as “evidence-based” or “science-based,” it usually isn’t. Somehow society has allowed this clearly anti-human industry that believes man is made up of chemicals that can be tweaked, to become “experts” in our schools, churches, and courts.

Despite the rhetoric, mental health courts have failed to reduce recidivism in any meaningful way. The data is clear: more than 50% of mental health court participants commit new crimes after leaving the program. One major study found that nearly 54% of all mental health court defendants were rearrested after leaving the program, with an average time to rearrest of just 15 months. Even among those who completed the court program, nearly 40% were rearrested, while those who did not complete the course the rate soared to nearly 75%. These data expose the reality: mental health courts are not a path to rehabilitation—they are a revolving door that fails to protect the public.

A central component of these programs is the forced use of mind-altering psychiatric drugs as a condition of release. These medications carry serious adverse behavioral side effects, including agitation, aggression, and increased risk of violent behavior. Instead of addressing root causes or perhaps even exploring an offenders basic reading level and/or a level of willingness to reform themselves, the system relies on a one-size-fits-all approach dictated by industry standards and court mandates, trading one danger for another.

Offenders in mental health courts are often granted greater privacy protections than other criminal offenders, shielding court records and treatment details from public scrutiny. This lack of transparency allows mistakes and abuse to go unchecked and creates a two-tiered system where justice depends on a label, not the law. Participation is frequently coerced: defendants are pressured to plead guilty and accept mental health treatment under threat of harsher prosecution, stripping them of true choice and due process.

Who benefits from this system? The behavioral health industry. Billions in taxpayer dollars are funneled to providers who have every incentive to keep the system running, regardless of outcomes. The public foots the bill, while communities see little improvement in safety or justice.

What is the price tag of the dual mental health court system? As of 2023, there are more than 300 mental health courts operating in nearly every state in the U.S., with some estimates placing the number at over 650 when including both adult and juvenile courts. According to the National Institute of Justice and other sources, the total annual cost of mental health courts and their associated treatment programs exceeds $1 billion nationwide. This staggering sum covers court operations, mandated treatment, monitoring, and administrative overhead—money that flows straight into the pockets of the behavioral health industry.

The mental health court program has not delivered on its promises. With over half of participants reoffending and a system built on subjective diagnosis, forced medication, and lack of accountability, these courts are not a solution—they are a dangerous experiment. The only consistent winners are those who profit from the system’s failures, while public safety and real justice are left behind.

And perhaps most disturbing is the role of psychiatrists and so-called “experts” who perform in front of the bench, making sweeping and often unsubstantiated claims about who is or isn’t mentally ill. The process for determining mental illness is arbitrary, lacking scientific rigor or consistency, and often based on nothing more than opinion or institutional convenience. It is a spectacle that strips the court of its integrity and turns justice into a farce. It is, quite simply, unpalatable—and judges should be outraged. More importantly it removes criminal responsibility from offenders.

AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization that has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.

What you can do.  Sign the Petition calling for federal hearings!

Donate! Every dollar you give is a powerful statement, a resounding declaration that the struggles of these families will no longer be ignored. Your generosity today will echo through generations, ensuring that the rights and well-being of children are fiercely guarded. Don’t let another family navigate this journey alone. Donate now and join us in creating a world where every child’s mind is nurtured, respected, and given the opportunity to thrive.  As a 501(c)3 organization, your donation to AbleChild is not only an investment in the well-being of vulnerable children but also a tax-deductible contribution to a cause that transcends individual lives.

The post ABLECHILD: Mental Health Courts – America’s $1 Billion Revolving Door of Crime and Corruption first appeared on Joe Hoft.

The post ABLECHILD: Mental Health Courts – America’s $1 Billion Revolving Door of Crime and Corruption appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

ABLECHILD: Britain’s ADHD Surge – Country Races to Keep Up—Should We Drug Everyone? | The Gateway Pundit

ABLECHILD: Britain’s ADHD Surge – Country Races to Keep Up—Should We Drug Everyone?

Britain’s ADHD Surge: Country Races to Keep Up—Should We Drug Everyone?

Republished with permission from AbleChild.

A recent report released by the National Health Service claims that an estimated 2.5 million people in England are living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The powers that be are calling it a “surge” in diagnoses for children and adults. A “surge?” Well, that is important.

According to the report, three and four percent of adults and five percent of children and young people have ADHD. And these data also include those who have the condition but have yet to be diagnosed. How exactly does that work? Haven’t been diagnosed but we’ll include them in the data because they may be diagnosed? Hmmm…

The deep thinkers at NHS estimated that 741,000 are children and young people between the ages of 5 and 24 suffer from ADHD symptoms, and 147,000 under the age of five may have ADHD and have been added to the data because those children will be included in future diagnostic rates. 

Apparently, the NHS is concerned that those who have ADHD both diagnosed and undiagnosed may not be getting the support they need. What this means is those diagnosed and undiagnosed may not be getting the drugs they need as “treatment.”

But the NHS data also reveals that one in 100 people in some areas are taking ADHD medications and some experts believe that there may be over-diagnosing and drugging, putting the public at risk. Professor Joanna Moncrieff, famous for her research in debunking the “chemical imbalance” theory said of the ADHD diagnosis that it is “incredibly subjective.” Truer words have never been spoken unless those words were “completely subjective.” Moncrieff argues that “we all have ADHD symptoms to some extent.” And what are some of those symptoms that Professor Moncrieff is referring to?

• Leaving their seat when expected to remain seated (e.g., during a meeting or lecture)
• Blurting out answers and completing other people’s sentences
• Interrupting other people or intruding on their activities
• Struggling to stay quiet during activities
• Fidgeting and tapping hands or feet
• Often on the go and unable to sit still
• Trouble waiting their turn
• Talking excessively
• Feeling restless

A person must meet five or more symptoms of Hyperactivity/impulsivity and last at least six months in or to be diagnosed with the alleged mental disorder. There are way too many questions that accompany this “diagnosis,” including who hasn’t had “trouble waiting their turn” or “feeling restless?” Unfortunately, it would appear that England is in a race with the United States to be the leaders in ADHD diagnosing and drugging.

In the United States, as of 2020, nine-and-a-half million Americans were being medicated for an ADHD diagnosis. While these data seem overwhelming, one must understand the fraud that accompanies all psychiatric drugging. ADHD is not based in science and there is no identifiable abnormality in the brain that is ADHD. So, what exactly is being “treated” with the prescribed psychiatric mind-altering drugs like Vyvanse or Adderall?

Vyvanse and Adderall are at the top of the list of “treatments” for ADHD. Adderall is amphetamine…a stimulant and is a Schedule II drug, a controlled substance by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and falls within the same category as cocaine, heroin, and meth. Why is this drug controlled by the DEA? Because it is highly addictive and can lead to abuse and overdose. Adderall is similar to cocaine and can have serious side effects including insomnia, nervousness, agitation, anxiety, psychotic episodes, irritability, aggression, anger, overstimulation, hallucinations, emotional liability, and possible death.

On top of that seriously depressing information, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approves the drugs, is completely clueless about how the drugs “work” in the brain as a “treatment” for ADHD. And, beyond the fact that millions around the world are being diagnosed and drugged for a mental disorder that is not based in science, one cannot help but wonder where all this diagnosing is happening?

In the US schools may conduct screenings for ADHD but are not allowed (yet) to make a diagnosis. Usually, the school will refer the child and parents for further screening with a medical doctor. Which is odd because there is no abnormality for a physician to diagnose.

And, because so much of the screening occurs in schools, maybe Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy would find it appropriate to investigate how many ADHD screenings are carried out in schools throughout the US on a yearly basis. There currently is no data that reveals those numbers.

The Secretary may also find it of interest that there is no reading test given to children as part of ADHD screening. Apparently, it never occurred to the deep thinkers in Mental Health either here in the US or across the pond in England that a child’s behavior may reflect the child’s inability to keep up in school, or maybe even a child’s boredom with the curriculum.

What is clear. What is certain. No child or adult is suffering from the alleged mental disorder ADHD because their bodies are short on stimulants.

AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization and has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.

What you can do.  Sign the Petition calling for federal hearings!

Donate! Every dollar you give is a powerful statement, a resounding declaration that the struggles of these families will no longer be ignored. Your generosity today will echo through generations, ensuring that the rights and well-being of children are fiercely guarded. Don’t let another family navigate this journey alone. Donate now and join us in creating a world where every child’s mind is nurtured, respected, and given the opportunity to thrive.  As a 501(c)3 organization, your donation to AbleChild is not only an investment in the well-being of vulnerable children but also a tax-deductible contribution to a cause that transcends individual lives.

The post ABLECHILD: Britain’s ADHD Surge – Country Races to Keep Up—Should We Drug Everyone? first appeared on Joe Hoft.

The post ABLECHILD: Britain’s ADHD Surge – Country Races to Keep Up—Should We Drug Everyone? appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

7 Scriptures and Prayers for People Who Suffer from Panic Attacks

These seven prayers and Bible verses can help calm your heart and bring peace when fear takes over.

As a girl who is prone to anxiety and battles bouts of depression, I understand and can sympathize when the stress rises and turns into a full-blown panic attack. It can be alarming and scary when you begin to feel that inner heat flood from your racing heart, producing sweaty palms, trembling limbs, and a tightness in your chest, making it hard to catch your breath.

The last time I had a panic attack, I was forced to ride an elevator in order to visit my uncle in the hospital. The stairs were locked for the staff and workers that day, so I had no other choice but to take an elevator up to the fifth floor. Yet, before I even stepped into that enclosed box, that all too familiar wave of heat washed over me, and I immediately started hyperventilating. Claustrophobia has always struck my fear hormone, kicking my panic mode into hyperdrive.

Unfortunately, that takes shape not only in the form of being physically restricted to tight spaces and feeling utterly trapped, but also when I feel bound and suffocated by my own emotional state. This happened shortly after my mom passed, and I was home alone watching one of her favorite movies. I thought by doing this, it would bring back fond memories and therefore promote peace. But, in fact, because my emotions were still so raw, it caused the grief I carried to spin out of control as I choked back tears and found it difficult to breathe.  

If you or someone you dearly love is prone to panic attacks, let me first share how sorry I am that you struggle with this too, as I know how debilitating and lonely this journey can be. However, over time, I have sought support and have learned how to recognize the situations and emotions that generally trigger that panic button, so I can try to prevent a full-blown attack. Intentional and deep breathing, getting outside to soak in some sunshine, or just calling a friend have been very helpful.

However, the most beneficial way to calm my heart, ease the worry, and restore a sense of peace has been reading Scripture and praying aloud. Next time you know you will be in a situation that could stir up worry or panic strikes without warning, lean into these Scriptures and prayers. Print them out and have them on hand. Then in times of need, read them quietly in your mind, speak them out loud, and etch them on the fabric of your heart, allowing God to cover you and reclaim a sense of peace so your mind, body, and soul can relax and rest in His care.

Photo Credit: @Unsplash/ Simran Sood

Read more: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/slideshows/7-scriptures-and-prayers-for-people-who-suffer-from-panic-attacks.html

Drugged Into Oblivion: More Than 60 Percent Of U.S. Adults Admit That They Are Taking Pharmaceutical Drugs | The Economic Collapse

Americans watch more television than anyone else in the world, and as we watch television we are constantly being bombarded by commercials from pharmaceutical companies.  As I discussed in a previous article, pharmaceutical companies spend more than 15 billion dollars on television advertising each year.  The reason they do this is because it works.  We are the most drugged nation in the history of the world, and the pharmaceutical companies are absolutely swimming in cash.

According to polling that was conducted by KFF, a whopping 61 percent of all U.S. adults admit that they are currently taking at least one pharmaceutical drug.

That is a solid majority of the population.

And once they have you on one drug, they are much more likely to be able to get you on another.

The KFF survey found that 13 percent of U.S. adults are taking one pharmaceutical drug.

The KFF survey found that 11 percent of U.S. adults are taking two pharmaceutical drugs.

The KFF survey found that 10 percent of U.S. adults are taking three pharmaceutical drugs.

And most shocking of all, the KFF survey found that 27 percent of U.S. adults are taking at least four pharmaceutical drugs.

That means that more than a quarter of the adult population is currently on at least four prescription medications.

That is insane!

But this is where we are at as a society.

Elderly Americans are the biggest victims.  One study found “that an estimated 89 percent of older adults” took at least one prescription medication within the past 12 months.

Even if you aren’t sick, the system is designed to find a reason why you should become a customer of the big pharmaceutical companies.

For example, the percentage of Americans that have been diagnosed with depression has more than tripled since 2005…

Today, new CDC data showed that nearly 18 percent of Americans had depression in 2023, an all-time high. In 2005, when Cruise’s controversial interview aired, that figure was about 5.4 percent.

At this stage, it is so easy to be diagnosed with depression.

Just act a little bit sad, and they will gladly start giving you pills.

This is particularly true for women.  According to Google AI, women in the United States are using antidepressants at a rate that is more than twice as high as men…

According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted in 2015-2018, approximately 17.7% of women aged 18 and older reported using antidepressants in the past 30 days. This is significantly higher than the rate for men, which was 8.4%.

If you have been on antidepressants, you already know how they can mess with your head.

I have seen it happen to people that I know personally.

So what is going to happen to the millions of Americans that are highly dependent on these drugs if they suddenly can’t get them anymore?

Today, we import approximately 75 percent of our essential medicines, and most of those essential medicines come from either China or India…

According to Exiger, the U.S. currently imports 75% of its essential medicines, with most of them coming from China and India. While India produces about half of the generic drugs the U.S. imports, it relies heavily on China for 80% of its active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). More than 500 generic drugs rely on one country’s APIs, including treatments for diabetes and heart conditions as well as antibiotics.

Another factor putting Americans at risk is the use of forced labor in the production of pharmaceuticals. Exiger found that multiple suppliers, including Sinopharm, Zhejiang Shindai Chemical Group and Zhejiang Chemicals Export Corp., relied on Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang. Customs and Border Patrol is supposed to block goods made with forced labor; however, some still get through.

We have got a real mess on our hands.

Many pharmaceutical drugs will soon become much more expensive, and in other cases we could witness extreme shortages.

Millions of U.S. adults are about to experience a very rude awakening.

Of course it isn’t just adults that are being drugged into oblivion.

Today, millions of American boys are being given drugs for ADHD…

More than 21% of 14-year-old boys in this country now supposedly suffer from this condition. The number goes up to 23% for 17-year-old boys. As a result, prescriptions for drugs like Ritalin and Adderall have skyrocketed. From 2012 to 2022, the total number of prescriptions for stimulants to treat ADHD increased dramatically by nearly 60%. Boys between the ages of 10 to 14 were the demographic that saw the highest increase in these prescriptions.

What we are witnessing is a national tragedy.

Most of the boys that are taking these drugs simply do not need them.

As Glenn Back has accurately pointed out, our “feminized education system” tends to punish normal male behavior…

“The truth is we’ve been told not that a feminized education system has increasingly punished normal male behavior it doesn’t understand; it’s not that schools have lost their capacity to educate male students; it’s not that smartphone use and electronics in general have become distractions teachers have been unable to control. Instead, we’re led to believe that boys have suddenly become afflicted with a severe psychological disorder,” Glenn reads from the Daily Wire piece.

He agrees that what’s being done to boys in education is a travesty.

“Everything is just push the girls, push the girls, push the girls — ‘you can be anything.’ ‘Shut up, sit down, have some Ritalin’ to the boys,” he condemns.

The boys who are being written off as distractible and out of control are really just being typical boys.

He is right.

We have been trained to think that typical male behavior is abnormal when it most certainly is not.

Sadly, an increasing percentage of U.S. adults now believe that children are such a “burden” that they don’t want to be parents at all…

A new study shows the number of U.S. adults who do not want to have children has doubled in 20 years.

“We found that the percentage of non-parents who don’t want any children rose from 14% in 2002 to 29% in 2023,” Jennifer Watling Neal, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Michigan State University (MSU), said.

“During the same period, the percentage of non-parents who plan to have children in the future fell from 79% to 59%,” she added.

The relentless propaganda that they have been feeding us is working.

More U.S. adults than ever before are completely rejecting parenthood.

Needless to say, this is a recipe for societal suicide.

If we do not reproduce ourselves, we can’t expect to have any sort of a positive future.

Sadly, millions of Americans simply do not care about the future at this point because they have already been drugged into oblivion.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Drugged Into Oblivion: More Than 60 Percent Of U.S. Adults Admit That They Are Taking Pharmaceutical Drugs appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Mental Health “Experts” FEAR Secretary Kennedy’s Investigation into Psychiatric Drugging | The Gateway Pundit

Mental Health “Experts” FEAR Secretary Kennedy’s Investigation into Psychiatric Drugging

Guest post by Joe Hoft at JoeHoft.com – republished with permission

Mental Health “Experts” FEAR Secretary Kennedy’s Investigation into Psychiatric Drugging

Republished with permission from AbleChild.

Within a few weeks of Donald Trump’s inauguration, the President signed an Executive Order establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission (MAHA), which, among other things, will be “assessing the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants and weight-loss drugs.” In other words, officialdom finally is looking at the out-of-control unscientific chemical experimentation used to address unwanted behaviors.

Alert the media! Get Megyn Kelly on the phone! Finally, a governmental body will be looking into the serious risks associated with prescription mind-altering drugs. It’s decades in the making. But, as they say, “better late than never.” It was no surprise then that within a month of that announcement the mental health industry was none too pleased and released a “joint statement” about the wonders of its mind-altering chemical elixirs.

According to the statement, “these drugs provide relief for many young people enabling them to participate fully in treatment, school, social activities, and family life — all key aspects of healthy development.” Utter nonsense.

“Healthy development?” There is no such thing as the decades-long touted “chemical imbalance.” That theory finally got debunked in 2022 research published by Professor Joanna Moncrieff and Dr. Mark Horowitz. So, since it’s clear that people are not “short” on certain brain chemicals as a reason for depression, then why are those chemicals being prescribed as “treatment?” And, make no mistake, lots and lots of Americans are being drugged.

According to data gathered in 2020 by IQVIA (Formerly IMS Health) and made public by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) in January of 2021, nearly 77 million Americans are taking at least one prescription psychiatric drug. The breakdown of who is drugged is jaw dropping crazy. There were more than 85 thousand 0–1-year-olds, nearly 140,000 2–3-year-olds, 215,000 4- to five-year-olds, two-and-a-half million 6–12-year-olds and more than three million 13–17-year-olds taking psychiatric mind-altering drugs every day.

Just for argument sake, let’s get out of our comfort zone and consider the drugging of 0 to 1-year-olds. Just how exactly does that happen? Given that psychiatric diagnosing is completely dependent on answers to questions, how does a three or six-month-old, for example, tell the physician they are depressed? It’s a head scratcher for sure and some would argue criminal, but as of 2020 nearly 8 thousand 0–1-year-olds were on antidepressants. Wouldn’t you have loved to have been a fly on the wall during that diagnosing session?!

Of course, it’s no different when it comes to two to three years olds. As of 2020, a little more than twelve thousand of these toddlers were diagnosed with depression and drugged with antidepressants. It’s mind-numbing to even think about how doctors believe it is helpful for “healthy development” to drug babies and toddlers. How did the doctors know which antidepressant – which chemical – to prescribe and how did the doctors deduce the drugged children were “better?” Didn’t throw their Legos anymore? Stopped crying? It’s ridiculous.

And the lunacy is greatly enhanced when one considers the fraud that first must occur before the prescribing of mind-altering drugs can take place. That’s right. Fraud. Psychiatric diagnosing is not based on science. There is no abnormality in the brain for any psychiatric diagnosis. There is no measurable test that can reveal any psychiatric disorder. No blood test, no scans, nothing. All psychiatric diagnosing is based on lists of behaviors. Are people depressed. Yep. Is it a measurable abnormality in the brain? Nope.

But the mental health industry “joint statement” continues by explaining that “efforts to discourage, stigmatize or curtail the use of evidence-based treatments for mental illness will have serious deleterious consequences.” Notice how the mental health Gurus don’t say “science-based?” It’s “evidence-based,” which means lists of unacceptable behaviors. And as far as “serious deleterious consequences” one really must understand the possible serious adverse side effects of the psychiatric drugs to really understand the possible consequences.

For example, everyone should know that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires a Black Box warning for suicidality on all antidepressants. Reassuring huh? Give kids a drug that could make them commit suicide and then blame the suicide on the non-scientific mental disorder? That’s what you call a mental health ace in the hole. Couldn’t possibly be the drug! Of course there are other horrific possible side effects that can wreak havoc short of suicide, including the following examples:

Zoloft: emotional lability, aggravated depression, aggressive reaction, aggression, agitation, anxiety, depersonalization, depression, nightmares, mania, hallucination, psychosis, paranoia.

Prozac: insomnia, anxiety, abnormal dreams, agitation, hostility, hypomania, mania, personality disorder, abnormal thinking, depersonalization, paranoid reaction, psychosis, delusions, and hallucinations.

Trazadone: Confusion, mania/hypomania, aggressive reaction, agitation (sometimes exacerbating to delirium), anxiety, cognitive impairment, confusional state, delusions, discontinuation syndrome, hallucinations, hypomania, insomnia, mania, nightmares, restlessness, abnormal dreams, paranoid reaction, psychosis.

The above are possible adverse events associated with the drugs the psychiatric industry believes establishes “healthy development” in kids. Really? If one considers that the number of kids being diagnosed with a mental disorder is up every year, the number of kids being drugged is up every year and the number of suicides and suicide attempts is up every year, then where does “healthy” come in?

And it is ironic that the psychiatric industry is supporting the continued use of psychiatric drugs on kids in light of the recent release of the investigation into the Covenant School shooter, Audrey Hale. Hale had been a psychiatric patient since she was seven years old due to kindergarten anxiety and had been plied with numerous cocktails of mind-altering drugs. Twenty years of drugging and Hale never got better. That “healthy” thing never materialized for Hale.

Or how about we speak about the Massachusetts mother, Lindsay Clancy, who in 2023 was prescribed thirteen mind-altering drugs over a two-month period and killed her kids and tried to commit suicide. Clancy’s purveyors of “healthy” – the psychiatrists – oddly have not been charged in the case. And most recently there is the case of Wyoming mother Tranyelle Harshman who killed her kids and herself after years of mental health “treatment,” including cocktails of mind-altering drugs.

What is really astounding is that when these horrific murder/suicide incidents occur, the psychiatric industry is silent and appears to be protected from liability. The industry screams for the use of the drugs but obtaining the information about what drugs had been prescribed is nearly impossible unless it is offered up by family members or released as part of a court record. Why? If these “treatments” are so “healthy” let the public know what drugs were prescribed at the time of the murderous incidents. Clancy’s prescribed drugs have only been made public because her attorney is using them in her defense. Harshman’s complete drug record has not been released nor has Audrey Hale’s complete, year-by-year, drug regimen been made public. It’s time the psychiatric industry takes some responsibility for the deadly outcomes of their experimental elixirs.

The psychiatric industry can’t have it both ways. It can’t crow about the wonders of the mind-altering drugs, alleging that they are necessary for “healthy development” and then refuse to share the information about the prescribed drugs when a murder/suicide occurs. In fact, why isn’t the psychiatric industry demanding this data for its own research purposes?

If Secretary Kennedy is serious about getting to the bottom of the mental health “crisis” in America, he’ll find a way for psychiatric drug information to be made public in every crime. The psycho pharma industry has, for too long, been allowed to experiment with deadly mind-altering drugs without consideration and intervention. Just saying the drugs “work” is no longer acceptable. Kennedy is demanding to see the science that sells the vaccines and should demand no less with the “science” that determines one in four Americans are mentally ill and drugged daily just to function.

Be the Voice for the Voiceless

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The post Mental Health “Experts” FEAR Secretary Kennedy’s Investigation into Psychiatric Drugging appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Daily Battleground We Often Ignore in Therapy Culture | The Log College

The Daily Battleground We Often Ignore in Therapy Culture

February 21, 2025 Casey McCall  

Those who study war and battle tactics understand the strategic significance of choosing the right battlefield. In fact, choosing to fight in the wrong place can lead to significant loss even if your side possesses other advantages. Union General Ambrose Burnside learned this lesson the hard way in the early days of America’s Civil War. At the Battle of Fredericksburg, he led his army to engage the outnumbered Confederate side at Marye’s Heights. There was one problem. The thick Confederate front line was positioned behind a stone wall on a hilly slope fifty feet above the plain. Burnside stubbornly sent wave after wave of Union soldiers over the open field into the teeth of what can only be described as slaughter. As the cannon smoke cleared, the blood-soaked ground held the bodies of more than 12,500 dead Union soldiers.

Identifying the right theater for battle matters. The Christian life is no different.

We live in a therapeutic age that trains us to label every emotional struggle as disease. We are trained to identify illnesses for which we bear no responsibility. Our mental state is determined solely by forces outside our control. As a result, we bypass our own moral agency and engage in an external battle against invisible forces with the help of the professional medical class. Our greatest problem is never in here—in what the Bible calls the “mind” or “heart”; it’s always out there in an oppressive trauma-inducing society that wreaks havoc on emotionally-deficient persons. My only recourse is to turn to professional therapists and prescribed medications in hopes that I can cope.

To suggest that the individual may bear some responsibility for his own mental state is to do the unthinkable—it stigmatizes mental illness. In therapeutic culture, anything that makes anyone feel uncomfortable must be avoided at all costs. Therefore, we must sidestep ever suggesting personal responsibility from fear of causing the painful experiences of guilt or shame.

I’m thankful that therapy culture draws attention to the reality of mental illness. Many emotional struggles do indeed arise from forces outside our control. We should try to avoid compounding mental anguish through false guilt. However, even in such instances, individual moral agency must be preserved. We can’t always help how we feel, but we are responsible for how we respond. Our wise Creator endowed his image-bearers with resolve in the face of adversity. Our merciful Redeemer restores his redeemed people with resources to fight back the darkness.

If you believe you lack these resources—if you continue to believe that you are helplessly vulnerable and powerless against great forces beyond your control—then you will remove your own agency and succumb to those powers. The hard process of healing and change requires help from many sources, but it must not omit your own participation.

In his book on spiritual depression, the late Welsh minister, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, wrote, “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problem of yesterday. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you.” He then pointed to the example of the psalmist who speaks truth about God to his own “cast down” soul (Psalm 42).

Lloyd-Jones continued, “The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself.”

Lloyd-Jones understood that the mind is the primary battleground for the Christian. When we listen to ourselves, we surrender to forces beyond our control. We rarely feel good, and listening instead of talking puts us in a vulnerable position. It removes our moral agency to act. It orients the mind to passivity, resulting in helpless surrender to whatever the world or our own emotive state throws at us. Listening to ourselves locates the conflict in the wrong place and makes us vulnerable to attack.

The Bible, however, calls us to take an active position—to go on attack. Rather than conformity to the world, we are to be transformed by the renewal of our minds (Rom 12:2). We are to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:5) and prepare our minds for action by setting our hope fully on grace (1 Pet 1:13).

What does this look like in practice? We must tell ourselves what is true, what to think, and how to feel. We must seek to know Christ through his word—to study his nature, his ways, and his grace. We must memorize his promises and replace thoughts based on our feelings with new thoughts originating from what he has said. In short, we preach to ourselves so that our reality is shaped more by his reliable word than our unreliable emotions.

You can’t win the war if you choose the wrong battleground. Let’s make sure we’re fighting only where we’re assured of winning.

How Can I Be Depressed When I Am a Christian? | Christianity.com

If you’ve ever struggled with anxiety, depression, or the shame that comes with it, this is the story I wish someone had shared with me sooner.

For years, I believed that if I just prayed harder, had more faith, and read the right Bible verses, my depression would disappear. But no matter how much I tried to Bible-truth my way to healing, the darkness remained—until I finally realized what no one in church had ever told me. If you’ve ever struggled with anxiety, depression, or the shame that comes with it, this is the story I wish someone had shared with me sooner.

Contributing Writer

Updated Feb 06, 2025

When I read that question, I felt the desperation that comes along with the inquiry. I hear my own struggle that led to questioning my God as I personally lived under the weight of unrelenting anxiety and depression for the better part of the last decade. So many of us are not only burdened by the physical turmoil that these imbalances bring but also are weighted down with a sense of shame and uncertainty that attaches to us when our faith communities fail to choose empathy and understanding when they bring up faith and mental health.

In my experience, generally, Christ-following people who have never suffered from true clinical-level anxiety and depression have a hard time empathizing with what it is to walk this road. They have not felt the physical dread, the deafening despondence, and therefore, have not been in need of a miraculous intervention required for those diagnosed with depression for their minds and bodies to live free and healthy. For most of us, experience is the way we are forced to push past easy answers and dig deeper into how God loves us through our physical battles that impact our minds, bodies, and souls.

I’ve had to do a lot of forgiving of people who passed me books that were designed to Christian self-help me out of needing medication, who have expressed their frustration when people they love couldn’t snap out of their depressive episodes, and who have said that if I had a deeper faith, I would not be in this battle. I forgive them and remember that they just can’t know what they have never experienced.

They don’t understand how often I’ve poured over the scriptures about peace and asked God to take my burden away, how I’ve tried every home remedy, self-help tip, and strategy to manage my symptoms with no relief. They have not felt how thankful I am and so very happy for my life, yet all the while, my body would not match what my thinking brain was trying so hard to tell it to do. You can be depressed and still be so very thankful and content with God’s gifts in your life. That’s a truth I only found as I finally accepted my medical diagnosis. For so long, I felt that this couldn’t be depression because I love my life so much. I lived and still battle shame that shouts the lie that my depression meant I was not in God’s will for my life.

All of this kept me trapped for so long because rather than accepting medical interventions, I just kept striving to somehow Bible truth my way to health.   The easy answers seemed to be working for everyone else I knew, so I was determined to make them work for me. Honestly, it took seven years into this struggle to meet another Christian who shared how medication helped bring their body into health after dealing with depression. Their openness about the joy they felt after accepting this intervention opened a door in my soul. I knew they loved Jesus, and if this Jesus-loving person found freedom with the help of medical support, it was finally okay for me to accept my own needs, too.

How to Respond When Depression Becomes Part of Our Story 

Medication is not the answer for everyone, but I share my story because, at the heart of it, pride and shame kept me from exploring all the options for me to be healthy after I experienced postpartum anxiety and depression that never resolved until I took medication. This was seven years of suffering and struggling. I could have lived more fully if I had known other Christ followers who really were willing to hear me, see me, and affirm that I was not a failure. The reality was that I was a Mom whose body was not producing enough serotonin, I needed medicine to help bring my body into balance. This is just the same as if my body stopped making insulin, everyone would immediately instruct me to begin taking life saving medication. But for some reason, I was taught to believe that mental health was always a spiritual problem and not a physical one.

Depression could also be a physical response to a real loss, traumatic experience, or other difficult life event. The Bible tells us to ‘mourn with those that mourn’ (Romans 12:15-18), and in these cases, depression is someone caught up in a deep physical sort of mourning. The answer, then, is people. It’s counseling, therapy, new habits, and an infusion of hope into a life that has felt more than its fair share of loss. The Christian answer to this situation is not merely an I am praying for you, and it’s an I am going to be here with you. It’s a commitment to be present and help as someone you love pushes back the darkness that has settled over their life.

In every case in which we go from just being down to being depressed as Christ followers, it’s vital that we understand this does not separate us from God. There is no shame in deep, difficult feelings, and as we read the Bible, we see them expressed in almost every story. Jesus himself wept out tears of blood as he prepared for his own death. I think it’s safe to say he was battling some pretty dark and difficult emotions (Luke 22:44), and interestingly, the one thing he asked his disciples to do for him at that time was to be awake with him. Spoiler alert: they failed him, and all fell asleep while he wrestled all he was feeling about what was to come.

Yet, so much of our current Christian culture focuses on the peppy, super blessed, and always happy brand of Christianity. Those people aren’t real. No one only ever feels happy, and we are made to experience a wide range of emotions. Nonetheless, we’ve been trained to hide our real needs in fear we won’t be good enough for Jesus, but we can never be good enough for him. We are just supposed to be with him. That’s the only requirement to be a Christian: you must be with Jesus.

For Those Christians Struggling with Depression

So, if you are in the depths of depression, first, I want to say I am so sorry. It’s just truly the worst feeling in the world, and getting out of that dark, complex place is really challenging. God is with you in this. He made us feel deeply, and our world is chaotic. We would not be responding appropriately to this fallen world if we were only ever happy. We know in this life, there will be trouble, and we are promised never to go through it without God once we are in his family.

Next, as believers, we are called to encourage one another in love (1 Thessalonians 5:11). Find someone who loves Jesus who can be real with you and encourage you even in this dark moment. This can be a pastor, friend, mentor, counselor, therapist, and the list goes on. We are not meant to stay in the dark alone.

Finally, our minds, bodies, and souls are connected. Our minds struggle with our bodies are not well. If you find yourself stuck in a longstanding struggle with depression and more, gather all the interventions that will bring your body into proper alignment just as you would for any other ailment. I know God wanted me to trust him enough to accept my need for medication, and it truly was the first time in years that I felt free from my battle. Thankfully, I have been able to end my medication and am doing well. Through all of this I am learning to trust God to bring freedom in his way in his timing. My job is just to be humble and obedient to His Spirit’s leadership in health, even when my body fails. I pray you find the freedom to trust him even with this.

Source: How Can I Be Depressed When I Am a Christian?

AbleChild: Psychiatric Oversight of Lawmakers, Who Really Controls the Powerful? | The Gateway Pundit

AbleChild: Psychiatric Oversight of Lawmakers, Who Really Controls the Powerful?

Senator Smith Antidepressants “MAY” Cause School Shooting, RFK Confirmation Hearings. HHS

This article originally appeared on AbleChild.org and was republished with permission.

Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) hasn’t yet been added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, (DSM-V), but the apparent mental disorder appears to have taken hold of the Democrat party to such an extent that psychiatric specialists have been brought in to help those lawmakers deal with the newly elected Republican President.

Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th President of the United States, is a force all his own and, apparently, the Democrats in Congress are having a tough time coping with the hurricane of Executive Orders and Directives coming fast and furiously out of the White House and have enlisted the help of shrinks to deal with what can only be described as Post Traumatic Election Disorder (PTED).

Maryland Democrat and minority leader of the House Judiciary Committee and past impeachment manager against Trump’s second impeachment lalapalooza, Representative Jamie Raskin, explained that the mental health specialists were brought in to talk “about basically communication styles during the Trump era.”

Yes, “emotion regulation” specialists from the University of Virginia were rushed to the Capitol with Raskin explaining that shrinks are “social psychologists.”

So, it would appear that Trump’s presence in Washington and control over legislative agendas is a bit of a brain drain for the Democrats in need of intervention.

One must wonder how many elected members of the Democrat party have been diagnosed with other relatable (but still fraudulent) mental disorders like depression, bipolar, anxiety and opposition defiant disorder and provided “treatment” in the form of psychiatric mind-altering drugs?

Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) has not been lost on the Republican Party. According to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, “it’s no surprise that Jamie Raskin summoned professional psychologists to provide therapy for Democrats afflicted with the incurable disease.” According to Comer, “no amount of therapy will help Jamie Raskin and other Democrats suffering from TDS.”

That may be true, but the whole issue of bringing in mental health experts into the legislative body to deal with Member’s emotional Trump issues raises a host of other questions.

For example, how often does Congress rely on the mental health community to assist in emotional issues – individually or groups? For that matter, how many Members of Congress are already diagnosed with a mental disorder and are being “treated” with mind-altering drugs?

The public was made aware of Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman’s major depressive disorder and his lengthy stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, D.C., in 2022.

Fetterman reportedly said his physician told him that his “depression was in remission.” In remission? First, it’s great that the Pennsylvania Senator got the care he needed to survive, but to say that “depression is in remission” wrongly insinuates that there is an abnormality (objective, confirmable abnormality) in his brain that caused the depression and because of the “treatment” the depression has been reduced or eliminated.

The Senator from Pennsylvania may have come out of his deep depression, but there was no reduction or elimination of any abnormality that can be objectively treated in his brain.

Fetterman has never publicly revealed exactly what “treatment” he received at the lengthy stay at Walter Reed or whether he is on a mind-altering drug cocktail regime.

However, Minnesota Senator, Tina Smith, was happy to let the public know that she has been “treated” for depression and had taken mind-altering antidepressants known to have side effects that include suicidality, homicidality, and abnormal behavior including violence.

Certainly, there are many Members of Congress who take lots of drugs for a variety of reasons and according to a 2017 article in the Nation, drugs are delivered “by the carload to the Capitol nearly every day.”

These drugs are taken to the Office of the Attending Physician from the famous Gruub’s Capitol Hill pharmacy.

According to the Nation article, Grubb’s owner and pharmacist, Mike Kim, finds it interesting that “at first it’s cool, and then you realize, I’m filling some drugs that are for some pretty serious health problems and these people are running the country.”

He explains, “they’re making the highest laws of the land, and they might not even remember what happened yesterday.”

It doesn’t take a brain scientist to figure out which Members of Congress today might fit Kim’s assessment. Remember Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell’s numerous brain freezes on live television?

The then Senate Leader was frozen, not capable of responding to questions without staff intervention. What’s going on there? Doesn’t the public, that must live by the laws passed in Congress, have the right to know when elected Members of Congress are suffering from serious neurological and mental disorders?

And anyone familiar with adverse events associated with psychiatric drugs cannot help but wonder whether former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is suffering from Tardive Dyskinesia, a movement disorder that can develop as a side effect of taking antidepressant and antipsychotic psychiatric “treatments.”

Clearly the California Congresswoman makes unusual mouth movements that look to be uncontrollable. It’s anyone guess, but the former Speaker could provide some level of comfort to her constituents and the public at large by revealing what, if any, prescription psychiatric drug history she might have.

In fact, maybe with the mental health crisis facing the nation, it’s time to have all elected officials reveal whether they suffer from any known mental disorders, if they are being “treated,” and what that “treatment” is.

Maybe, just maybe, this alleged Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is just another mental disorder suffered by Members already suffering from mental illness or, maybe, TDS is an adverse event associated with the prescribed psychiatric drugs Members may be taking. We’ll only know for sure if Congress makes this drug information public. Finally, it sounds like some good legislation!

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The post AbleChild: Psychiatric Oversight of Lawmakers, Who Really Controls the Powerful? appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Liberalism is a Mental Health Crisis | VCY

Phyllis Schlafly Eagles · January 28 | Liberalism is a Mental Health Crisis

Photo by Raphael Renter | @raphi_rawr on Unsplash, cropped

Donald Trump’s decisive 2024 victory has revealed a disturbing trend: the manipulation of political fearmongering to cultivate mass hysteria. Social media videos of liberals screaming, crying, and spiraling into despair may seem like caricatures, but they reflect a genuine mental health crisis, particularly among young leftists. The root cause, however, is not Trump himself but the cynical narratives peddled by ideological actors who exploit fragile minds for political gain.

Therapists have observed clients abandoning personal growth to obsess over apocalyptic fears about Trump. One client relapsed into cocaine use, another isolated in bed for days, and many have threatened to sever family ties over differing political views. These regressions often stem from a pervasive external locus of control—the belief that their lives are dictated by external forces rather than their own choices. While such a mindset can foster victimhood, it is actively encouraged by media and cultural elites who frame Trump as an existential evil.

Dr. Paul Conti defines good mental health as cultivating gratitude and personal autonomy—qualities absent in those consumed by political panic. By amplifying fears of “systems” like racism, sexism, and homophobia, progressive rhetoric fosters dependency and ingratitude, robbing individuals of agency and resilience. The result? A generation crippled by anxiety, depression, and compulsion, unable to focus on personal struggles or meaningful relationships.

This phenomenon isn’t accidental—it’s deliberate. Fearmongers in the media and academia weaponize despair to maintain political loyalty. For some, this manifests in performative displays, like screaming in cars or shaving heads for “reproductive rights.” But the deeper tragedy lies with those who are truly broken, their healing interrupted by confected fears and apocalyptic visions.

America’s mental health crisis demands attention, but so does the role of cynical political narratives in perpetuating it. A culture of fear benefits only those in power while devastating those most in need of hope and healing.

Source: Liberalism is a Mental Health Crisis

World gripped by mental health ‘pandemic’ – FT | RT World News

Burnout, depression, and anxiety increasingly undermine workplace productivity, the news outlet reports, citing a study

FILE PHOTO. ©  Getty Images / PeopleImages

A mental health crisis is unfolding in workplaces worldwide, with financial services emerging among the hardest-hit sectors, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing recent research.

Burnout, depression, and anxiety are the main issues that significantly undermine productivity, economists, business leaders, and health advocates have warned.

A survey by global consultancy firm Deloitte revealed that 17% of finance and insurance workers in the UK experience exhaustion, declining performance, and mental distancing, compared to a 12% average across all sectors.

The report noted that the annual cost of poor mental health per employee in financial services amounts to £5,379, more than double that in any of the 14 other industries examined.

Startling statistics by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) show that around 12 billion work days are lost annually to depression and anxiety, costing the global economy an estimated $1 trillion each year.

Read more

Australia introduces bill to ban children from social media

“The scale of the problem is hugely worrying, particularly among young people,” Kate Pickett, professor of epidemiology at York University, told the FT.

“The increase has been so huge that there is something real going on,” she said, dismissing suggestions that the rise in reported cases is merely due to greater awareness.

Researchers from Deloitte said the wellbeing of young people is particularly alarming, with one in five UK children having a probable mental health disorder in 2023, compared to one in nine in 2017.

Among the factors contributing to the global “mental health pandemic” are the cost-of-living crisis and the pervasive use of social media, according to the researchers.

The decline in mental health was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, during which global depression cases surged by 25% between 2020 and 2021, according to the WHO.

The organization said that mental health levels have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, with some individuals continuing to experience a “massive hangover from the pandemic.”

 

 

Source: World gripped by mental health ‘pandemic’ – FT

Got Anxiety, America? | IFA

America is anxious.

More than 42 million of us suffer from some form of anxiety disorder.

That’s only those who have sought a diagnosis and treatment.

The percentage of the anxious among us could be as high as 43%, according to the American Psychiatric Association’s annual mental health poll.

That constituted a jump from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022.

Stress and sleeplessness top the list of factors compromising peace of mind.

Sleepy Americans are feeling the stress because of anxiety about the economy (77%) and the recent U.S. election (73%), among a myriad of concerns.

The afflicted can opt for any number of pharmaceutical and therapeutic treatments, but some seem to be turning to the Good Book…and that’s good news!

According to YouVersion’s report this past week (which included global statistics), Philippians 4:6 was the go-to verse for 2024.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

The Greek word for anxious here is merimnao, which also means “over-concern.” Merimnao shares a root with the word merizo. Merizo means “to divide,” “distract,” or “draw in different directions.”

The over-concern or anxiousness of which Paul is writing distracts believers.

It literally draws us away from living as the Lord would want.

This distraction — this drawing away — is the natural result of living as if God were not able to work all things to the good for we who love Him and are called according to His purposes (Romans 8:28).

Maybe we just don’t believe God is able — or more frighteningly — willing to work things out for our good.

If we don’t believe God will work things out — or at least won’t work them out the way we would like — then who do we think will?

If we don’t trust God, we probably can’t trust anybody else.

I guess that means we need to do it.

But that creates another problem, doesn’t it?

Because — I don’t know about you — but I just may have some competency issues in certain areas.

Like predicting what next week will be like.

Or fixing a flat tire.

Or just planning tonight’s meal.

If I secretly don’t trust God and I’m not capable, is it any wonder I’m anxious?

So how, I ask, am I to take the good apostle’s counsel?

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

I pray.

I give thanks.

I pour my requests into God’s ears.

Does my anxiety — my secret lack of trust in God — mean my prayers may be empty of faith?

And if empty — or at least depleted — of faith, wouldn’t my prayers fail to assure me of the Lord’s ability and willingness to work in my requests?

But God, being God, is always good, so even if I try to mess things up by interfering with His answering my requests, He will always do the best for me.

Ironically, that means my requests are often fulfilled as I had prayed or sometimes spectacularly better than I had hoped.

And that all reinforces — subconsciously — the efficacy of my worry, my anxiety, and my efforts to trust in my “God/self” combo — my own kind of idol.

Hence, my idolatry is strengthened and validated…and my anxiety remains.

Worry is prayer to the wrong god, a spiritual mentor once told me.

And that wrong god would be myself.

Worry is the idolatry of self.

To eradicate anxiety, the idol has to topple — and be utterly crushed and blown away.

That wasn’t going to be easy.

Before I knew Christ, I forged a life and career in unforgiving New York City. I learned to plow through the inevitable obstacles — alone.

I had no family in the city…no friends…no real job when I first moved to NYC.

Relying on myself became more than a habit — it became a reflex.

It rooted into my being.

Coming to Christ, I continued to live as though “God helps those who help themselves” was highlighted in my Bible.

The Bible teaches otherwise.

In fact, unlearning my self-help habit — and tackling anxiety and worry — has been a painful, years-long process.

I wanted to solve this problem, but — of course — I couldn’t rely on myself to do it.

What a frustration!

Finally in despair over my worry problem, my self-reliance, I threw myself upon the mercy of the Lord’s court.

I acknowledged my idolatry of self and asked the Lord to free me of it. We agreed together that only He could help me shed my worry, my anxiety, my reliance on myself.

I had not reckoned with the mess and pain of crucifixion of “self.”

My world turned upside down.

I was led again and again into situations where I came to the end of my resources. All I could do was pray, wail, and wait until the Lord delivered me.

It felt like the Lord was excavating every part of my life — my career, my relationships, my home.

In fact, He was excavating me from me.

He was answering my prayer.

I just didn’t like the process.

And I complained about it often, loudly, with many tears — to everyone in my church family.

Then in embarrassment about my behavior, I retreated from the Lord and everyone else.

I went around this emotional washing machine cycle after cycle.

I was intensely lonely.

I was fighting the death-to-self process. I wanted my life, my choices, my anxiety, my worries, and my solutions.

In His mercy, the Lord showed me that my fight was only natural. The body fights for breath in crucifixion.

The reflexive struggle for life was part of ridding me of my reflexive self-reliance.

Every so often, in my long “Friday” on the cross, I would catch a glimpse of Sunday’s resurrection. A picture of and a feeling of freedom waiting.

That kept — and keeps — me going.

I’m not anxiety-free. I still worry on occasion.

But on my best days, I am calm.

I feel the comfort of knowing the Lord is trustworthy and working His best solution always.

Recently, my husband Rich (also an IFA contributing writer) lost his laptop while traveling.

When we realized this, we prayed and filed loss reports with the airlines and the tracking service he had received as a gift.

Then we prayed and waited. For a couple of days, we had no positive news.

We thought about the implications of the loss: We’d have to try to wipe the laptop’s data remotely. We’d have to change loads of passwords. We’d have to buy a new laptop.

During this time, I was strangely peaceful. In fact, when I tried to worry, I just couldn’t!

The Lord came through as we had prayed. The tracking service found the laptop and returned it to us free of charge.

We delighted in the Lord’s spectacular resolution of our dilemma.

But I especially delighted in how the Lord had lifted the anxiety from me and in how Paul’s words to the Philippian church came alive to me.

Lord, reveal the root of our anxiety. If it is idolatry of any sort, please reveal that and remove it. We choose to swap idolatry of self with its worry and anxiety for the cross of death-to-self. Stand with us through our Fridays and Saturdays, so we can rejoice with You on our Sunday victory. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Is anxiety a concern for you? How do you pray about it?

New York City–based Joyce Swingle is an intercessor and a contributing writer for IFA. With her husband, Rich, also a contributing writer for IFA, Joyce shares the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world through theater, speaking, writing, and film. Prior to going into full-time ministry, Joyce worked for about 20 major magazines and now works in pastoral ministry and Christian counseling. http://www.Richdrama.com. Photo Credit: Joice Kelly on Unsplash.

Source: https://ifapray.org/blog/got-anxiety-america/

Depression and the Need for Community: 6 Practical Ways to Help | Blog – Beautiful Christian Life

Photo by Pete Bellis on Unsplash

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.

I don’t often remember the details of conversations with people. It would be nice if I did. Then I wouldn’t be so surprised when my husband leaves for ten days of business. (“Don’t you remember? I told you I’d be gone on an extended trip.”) Actually, no, I don’t remember, because I can’t even remember what I did yesterday.

But there is one conversation I do remember. It’s one that still haunts me. And I remember it in great detail.

I went to see my midwife for a visit following the birth of my first child. I had numerous health problems after the delivery, and I hoped she would help me resolve them. I can still picture the room where I sat with my son asleep in his carrier on the floor.

She looked at me with concern and said, “I wonder if you might be suffering from postpartum depression.”

In my mind, I thought: This is not depression. I know depression. I’ve diagnosed it and treated people for it. This is fatigue and stress.

I shook my head and said, “I’m just exhausted. And stressed. I need to get my health problems under control. That’s all it is.”

Almost ten months later, I watched a show on television where a woman described her experience with postpartum depression, and with tears streaming down my face I whispered aloud, “That’s me.” I called my doctor the next day.

Depression is insidious like that. It hides itself behind circumstances and experiences. It can mask itself as anger or stress or grief. It remains in the shadows until it’s become such a part of us, we don’t remember when we didn’t feel that way. Like the proverbial frog slipped into slowly warming water that eventually comes to a boil, depression creeps up on us until we can’t remember the last time we felt joy.

With my second pregnancy, I told my doctor right away about my history, and we prepared for its return after the birth. And it did return, with a vengeance. The second time around, however, I told people about my struggle. I reached out for community. I knew I was in the thick of it and that I needed people to walk with me in it. And they did.

Sweet sisters in Christ, the pastor of my church, and my family all ministered to me in various and important ways. (I share more about my struggles in A Heart Set Free: A Journey to Hope through the Psalms of Lament).

For those who struggle with depression, we need other people. We need those who know us well enough to spot the water boiling, who recognize that something isn’t right. We need the church to love, support, and serve us. We need the body of believers to carry us through the darkness until the sun shines again.

Here are six practical ways the church community can help those with depression:

1. They can help by knowing one another.

When we know each other beyond the simple, “Hi. How are you? How was your week?” then we’ll know when someone is struggling. We’ll notice when they’ve missed church. We’ll see the fatigue and sadness etched across their face. When we take the time to know one another well in the church, we’ll know when one part of the body is suffering, because we’ll feel it too. 

2. They can help by serving in practical ways.

When someone is depressed, there are many practical details of life that are hard to do. Fellow brothers and sisters in Christ can volunteer to babysit. They can prepare meals. They can drive their friend to the doctor or counselor. They can take over ministry duties for a while. In these ways and more, the church can serve the hurting.

3. They can be present.

The church ought not shy away from or abandon the hurting, nor should the church fear the depressed person’s emotions. Christians don’t have to know what to say or how to make the depression go away. But they can be there for their depressed brother or sister.

They can listen. They shouldn’t say pithy statements about how they’ll feel better if they pray or read the Bible more. People who are hurting don’t need advice. They don’t need a spiritual to-do list. They don’t even need a theology lesson. Rather, they need to know they are loved and cared for. 

4. They can encourage and help friends to get the care they need.

The church can encourage the hurting to get help from a wise counselor and seek a medical evaluation. They can offer to drive and/or accompany them to their appointments. And they can remind them that even the giants of faith in church history have struggled with depression (such as C.H. Spurgeon). 

5. They can remind them of the Man of Sorrows.

This is something my pastor did for me. He helped me lift my eyes to see Christ, the One who knows what life is like in this sin-stained world. Jesus took on our frail human flesh and lived a life of poverty, sorrow, and pain. He knew temptation, grief, abandonment, fear, and rejection. He cared about the suffering of my life so much so that he entered into it, living the perfect life I could not live, dying the death I deserved, and rising from the dead so that I would have life eternal. Jesus Christ, the Man of Sorrows, is my hope both now and in the future. For me, this truth brought light to dark places.

6. They can be patient.

Some people struggle with depression for long seasons. Some battle with it their entire lives. It’s important that the church sticks with them. It’s not like getting over a cold. As the church, we need to patiently walk beside the hurting as long as it takes.

Depression is lonely. It’s isolating. It’s also deceptive. Those who suffer with depression need the body of Christ to walk alongside them, lifting them up when they can’t do so for themselves. May we be believers who know when someone in the church is hurting and care enough to journey with them in the darkness. After all, it’s what Jesus did for us.

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This article was originally published under the title “Depression and the Need for Community” at christinafox.com and was originally featured at Beautiful Christian Life on August 17, 2018.

Related Articles:

• Weeping with Those Who Weep (and Letting Others Weep with You)
• No Matter How You Feel Right Now, Your Life Is Worth Living
• 3 Things to Remember When You Feel Like God Is Far Away
• 5 Ways to Respond to Mental Illness in the Church

Recommended:

A Heart Set Free: A Journey to Hope through the Psalms of Lament by Christina Fox

https://www.beautifulchristianlife.com/blog/depression-and-the-need-for-community-6-practical-ways-to-help

ABLECHILD EXCLUSIVE: No Exit Plan for Psychiatric “Treatment” Despite Billions Spent on Drugs | The Gateway Pundit

ABLECHILD EXCLUSIVE: No Exit Plan for Psychiatric “Treatment” Despite Billions Spent on Drugs

Guest post by Joe Hoft at JoeHoft.com – republished with permission

AI generated image on drug dependency – Grok

No Exit Plan for Psychiatric “Treatment,” Despite Billions Spent on Drugs

Republished with permission from AbleChild

While the psychiatric/behavioral health community cries for equal funding and “parity” with other medical conditions, unlike the medical field, psychiatry has never been required to practice under equal standards. Specifically, the mental health industry has never been required to provide an exit plan from its alleged drug “treatments.”

For example, when a person breaks a leg, an X-ray is taken of the suspected broken bone, the broken bone is set, and a cast is worn for six weeks. A follow up X-ray reveals the bone has healed and the cast is removed. A cast is not worn for months, years or life. Or, for instance, in the case of cancer, chemotherapy or radiation may be provided and the tumor is regularly checked for reduction. Chemotherapy and radiation are not provided for life.

In medicine, treatment plans are discussed with patients when the illness is first diagnosed. There are expected results within expected time frames. Healing will occur or alternative treatment will be discussed. The point is to get the patient well and provide an exit plan from medical treatment. A similar treatment exit plan should be expected of psychiatric treatment.

Currently in the United States nearly 77 million Americans are taking at least one psychiatric, mind-altering drug with millions under the age of 18 and as young as one year old. And, according to a White House paper on Mental Health, as of 2022, “people with psychiatric disabilities were the largest contributor to growth in Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) rolls…with 18 percent of SSDI beneficiaries, or 1.4 million individuals in current payment status, suffering from depression, bipolar or psychotic disorders.” The report further explains, “the mental disorder category accounted for 29 percent of beneficiaries in 2020, or 2.4 million people – a share larger than beneficiaries who cannot work due to injuries, cancer, or diseases of the circulatory and nervous systems, combined.”

Further, the federal government is the largest payer of mental health services with around $280 billion being spent through state Medicaid programs. And, despite hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds being utilized by the mental health community, nowhere does the federal government provide standards in the form of an exit plan for tapering off the commonly prescribed mental health drug “treatments.” Why?

Why is it accepted practice to write prescriptions for years or life for mental health patients? Is there no measure of wellness? Of course, the answer is no. There is no measure of wellness when it comes to mental health treatment. Short of the patient verbally explaining how they are feeling, there is no test known to man that will either reveal an abnormality that is the psychiatric diagnosis nor when the alleged psychiatric disorder has been successfully treated. Currently, there simply is no test that would reveal that the patient has recovered from the alleged psychiatric diagnosis. But could there be some standardized exit plan from the go-to psychiatric drug “treatment?” Yes.

The exit plan from psychiatric drug “treatment” would look very similar to the diagnosing symptoms tests. In other words, to obtain a psychiatric diagnosis, the patient merely talks to the doctor about their feelings. The doctor considers the patients complaint and, based on criteria provided by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) a diagnosis is provided and, more often than not, a psychiatric drug “treatment” is prescribed.

It seems logical that there would be federal mandates about the length of time psychiatric patients are permitted to be drugged. After all, in real medicine, a doctor would be laughed out of business if wearing a cast for life was even suggested.

For instance, an exit plan might look like this. With each psychiatric drug prescription written, the physician must provide a written “treatment” timeframe. A start date and an end date with specific expectations. At the end of the allotted prescription drug treatment, the patient must return to the physician for careful review. If the patient is feeling “better,” then the patient must be provided a detailed drug withdrawal plan to wean off the prescribed drug.

As it stands today, receiving a psychiatric diagnosis and drug “treatment” has become a life sentence. Yearly the number of prescriptions being written for psychiatric drug treatments increases, leaving one to wonder why no one is getting better. It seems doubtful that this type of endless unchecked prescribing of drugs would be acceptable among the other medical professions and should not be for the psychiatric/mental health industry.

Obviously, it would behoove some smart person within the federal government to consider if no one is getting better, and the mental health data seem to support that conclusion, then something in mental health treatment isn’t working. And, given that the go-to “treatment” is mind-altering drugs, maybe the length of prescribing needs to be reviewed and exit plan standards adopted.

An exit plan provided at the first doctor appointment and prescription written is not a lot to ask if the mental health industry is really interested in getting the patient “better.” Advising a patient about the length of time that is anticipated for a drug to “work” should be standard procedure and a definite schedule for review provided. Of course, one must wonder if the drug is “working” and the patient feels “better,” why wouldn’t the physician want to wean the patient from the drug? Isn’t that the definition of successful treatment? No longer needing treatment?

And, if the patient isn’t “better,” at the end of the prescription drug “treatment” there should be standards as to the length of time and number of drugs that may be utilized. At some point, one must understand that drug “treatment” isn’t working, and alternative treatment must be sought. Endlessly supplying random cocktails of mind-numbing prescription psychiatric drugs and hoping for a different outcome becomes experimentation not treatment.

At the end of the day, psychiatry can never be on par with other medical professions because there is no known abnormality in the brain that is any psychiatric disorder. But, if the mental health community demands to be treated like other medical professions, it must adhere to equal medical standards. Setting strict universal psychiatric drug exit plan standards is a good place to start.

Who knows, with solid standard exit plans in place for psychiatric drugging, people may start getting better. Why not dedicate a portion of the federal funding of Medicaid for mental health treatment exit plan information made available to the public?

Be the Voice for the Voiceless

Every dollar you give is a powerful statement, a resounding declaration that the struggles of these families will no longer be ignored. Your generosity today will echo through generations, ensuring that the rights and well-being of children are fiercely guarded. Don’t let another family navigate this journey alone. Donate now and join us in creating a world where every child’s mind is nurtured, respected, and given the opportunity to thrive. As a 501(c)3 organization, your donation to AbleChild is not only an investment in the well-being of vulnerable children but also a tax-deductible contribution to a cause that transcends individual lives.

The post ABLECHILD EXCLUSIVE: No Exit Plan for Psychiatric “Treatment” Despite Billions Spent on Drugs appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Christian in a Therapeutic Age

The therapeutic world tells us a story for us to live in. It tells us that the goal of life is to find peace, that the problem in the world is whatever causes us pain or discomfort, that the world is a dangerous place full of exploitation and trauma, that the way to find peace from those things is purely utilitarian—whatever works for you is fine, and that the best thing we can do is to minimize as much discomfort as possible. The path to the good life is through “doing the work,” and if you do all the things you’re supposed to and don’t find peace, then it’s simply because you didn’t master the right technique and should try something else.

There have been numerous pieces published by secular media outlets and influencers lately warning of the rise of “therapy speak.” While hard to define, you could loosely say that it is the prescriptive use of psychological and therapeutic terms in everyday language to describe one’s experience, identity, and the various situations in life. You hear it most in the overuse of words like “trauma,” but it shows up in many other places. Shame, attachment, inner child, trigger, holding space, gaslight, anxious, depressed, narcissism, boundaries, vulnerability, PTSD, OCD, self-care. The list of these words and phrases seems nearly endless and, more importantly, suddenly ubiquitous in the lexicon of the average Millennial and Gen Z person today. 

The important thing to say immediately is that all of these mental ailments are real, which is why it’s almost impossible to write a critique of a therapeutic culture without sounding like you’re diminishing the reality of these experiences. In no way do I wish to say that these things aren’t legitimate. They are. But the fact that these things are real is almost the point. The “prevalence inflation,” as Derek Thompson at The Atlantic called it, leads to people who don’t actually suffer from clinical mental health disorders seeking help they don’t need and drains resources from those who actually do.

Take one example that was reported by The Verge—the rise of self-diagnosed Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID; previously known as multiple personality disorder) on TikTok. Doctors across the country realized that they were beginning to see patients who were seeking confirmation for a self-diagnosis regarding the disorder after they had learned about it on TikTok. Many of them didn’t have it. One doctor said, “I’ve had people cry in my office because I told them that they do not have the diagnosis that they think they have.” The patients were sad when they realized that they didn’t have dissociative identity disorder. You would think it would be the other way around.

This led the doctors to worry about the patients who had convinced themselves that they had a mental health issue that they didn’t actually have, but also to worry for those who did have it. Harvard Medical School’s largest psychiatric facility, McLean Hospital, said about this phenomenon, “We are sincerely concerned that this trend on social media will further marginalize individuals living with DID, while also doing a disservice to those who are living with another treatable but misidentified disorder.” Self-diagnosis of mental health disorders on social media is a lose-lose for both the person who has self-diagnosed and for the person who actually has the disorder.

While I imagine that most of us don’t know someone who has self-diagnosed with DID (though maybe you do), the prevalence of therapy speak as a native language has become an increasingly live issue for many folks as they talk with their children, siblings, friends, coworkers, and church members. For many, psychology culture is becoming their defining social narrative. Going to therapy is a sign that someone is “doing the work.” “Healing from trauma” means that someone is finally “getting healthy.” But is this producing the results that people are hoping it is? It doesn’t seem like it is. Not because therapy is bad or it doesn’t work, but because the ideas of what therapy is and is supposed to do have changed. It’s become more important to appear as if you are “doing the work” than to actually do it.

From Derek Thompson, quoting Darby Saxbe, a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern California, in The Atlantic again:

“That’s a big problem because this modern idea that anxiety is an identity gives people a fixed mindset, telling them this is who they are and will be in the future.’ On the contrary, she said, therapy works best when patients come into sessions believing that they can get better. That means believing that anxiety is treatable, modifiable, and malleable—all the things a fixed identity is not.”

That, in a nutshell, is the shift that our therapeutic culture has caused. The shift from mental health disorders being largely “treatable, modifiable, and malleable” to being an “identity” that “gives people a fixed mindset, telling them this is who they are and who they will be in the future.”

The Effects of a Therapeutic Culture

In light of all of this, the first question we have to ask is: Is this shift making us better? The rising consensus from mental health professionals seems to be a resounding “No.” The same article in The Atlantic cites a study of more than 8,000 students in the U.K. who participated in a mindfulness program only to find that their anxiety became worse. Because therapeutic culture constantly turns us inward, we become overly aware of every uncomfortable situation we are in and the negative emotions we feel. 

Not only that, but it trains us to believe that because we are experiencing something uncomfortable or negative, there must be something wrong—either with us or with them. Not only have we begun to diagnose ourselves, but we’ve also started diagnosing others. Armed with only what we’ve seen on a handful of TikTok videos or a graphic from a therapeutic influencer’s Instagram—without any training, experience, credentials, or professional understanding—we label other people with therapeutic labels and mental disorders because they loosely match a description of something we heard someone say one time. Either we’re anxious, or they’re a narcissist. Either we’re OCD, or they’re shaming us. Either way, it creates the perception of being a perpetual victim of either your own psyche or other people’s neuroses. 

Being a perpetual victim not only increases anxiety out of constant fear of being triggered, but it also erodes your relationships and isolates you. Because you’re constantly protecting yourself from triggers, whether from your own or from what you perceive in others, you don’t allow yourself to foster the necessary connections to develop deep relationships. Every interaction is a potential threat that could trigger discomfort, so it just seems better to stay away from as much interaction with other people as possible.

Esther Perel, Belgian American psychotherapist and host of the podcast Where Should We Begin?, said in an interview with Vanity Fair:

 “There’s a paradox. There is such an emphasis on the “self-care” aspect of it that is actually making us more isolated and more alone, because the focus is just on the self. The focus is not about the mutuality of relationships—the reciprocity, the way that you weave fabric, you know, between people who are relying on each other. On one hand, there is an importance in gaining clarity when you name certain things. On the other hand, there is a danger that you lose all nuance, that you’re basically trying to elevate your personal comments and personal experience by invoking the higher authority of psychobabble. What you call therapy-speak, we used to call psychobabble—it’s a new word for an old concept.

In the past, you could have said, “I think this, and so does the rest of the community.” So does the family, so does the church. Today you say, “I think this, and so does the DSM-5.” I don’t like what you do, so I say you’re gaslighting me. You have a different opinion, and I bring in a term that makes it impossible for you to even enter into a conversation with me. Labeling enables me to not have to deal with you.

But in the end, it creates more and more isolation and fragmentation. That is not necessarily a good thing for the community and for the social good.”

While we turn to therapy in order to heal our inner wounds, more and more people are finding themselves even more anxious and isolated than they were before. As they turn inward, they damage relationships with people who would otherwise be there to help them through difficult circumstances. This isn’t necessarily because therapy is broken but because of how we have begun to use therapy as a buffer between us and the uncomfortable realities of life when it was never meant to function that way. The more we avoid the hard knocks of life, the more we’re hurt when we’re hit by them. So, the very thing intended to help us become more resilient in a difficult world ends up making us more fragile.

Mental Health Disorders as Status Symbol

There is a second important question we have to ask about our therapeutic culture: why would self-diagnosed mental illnesses be viewed as an attractive status symbol? It almost sounds perverse to say. Obviously, those who experience mental distress don’t consciously compute it as a status symbol. And for people who sincerely have mental disorders, it isn’t. Again, this is a difficult topic to critique when you’re discussing something that is both real and distressing. Yet, that’s exactly how Dr. Saxbe characterizes it in her interview with Derek Thompson in The Atlantic. 

Darby Saxbe, a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern California and a mother to a high schooler, told me she has come to think that, for many young people, claiming an anxiety crisis or post-traumatic stress disorder has become like a status symbol. ‘I worry that for some people, it’s become an identity marker that makes people feel special and unique,’ Saxbe said.’

In a therapeutic culture, it seems like everyone has a mental health disorder. And if everyone has one but you, then you’re the weird one for being “normal.” They endow an identity to someone who otherwise doesn’t know who they are without it because they have nothing else to identify with. Even while you might feel intense mental distress, you can’t imagine your life without it. 

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3 Ways to Conquer Your Panic Attacks | Crosswalk

You gain strength, courage, and confidence with every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” You must do the thing you think you cannot do (Eleanor Roosevelt).

It was an eventful October weekend in Chicago, and my friend Angela and I scurried to our flight.

Taking my seat in the back of the plane, I slipped my AirPods in and relaxed the only way I knew how after a weekend of sensory overload — soft music and a book.

I was so immersed when we landed that it took a while before I finally looked up to realize we’d been sitting on the runway with no movement. Angela informed me we would be there for another 30 minutes before we’d arrive at the gate to deplane.

1. Tell Yourself That Panic Attacks Don’t Last Forever

This was how my first panic attack happened 12 years ago — back of the plane, fear of being trapped, unable to exit. It had been years since I’d had a panic attack on a plane, but because the brain can’t tell time, my trauma sent me right back to that initial moment of panic disorder all those years ago.

Within seconds, I felt acute triggers consume my entire body. My heart rate accelerated into the upper 160s, and I began to grip Angela’s hand. I immediately looked at the ground and began to do deep, slow breathing, whispering “Jesus” repeatedly under my breath. There was nothing else I could do but steady my breathing through the duration of the panic attack.

After what seemed like forever but was only eight minutes, my heart rate began to slow down, the trembling subsided, and my breathing regulated.

As my body relaxed, silent tears began to fall down my cheeks. I felt a physical release now that the threat was over. The crazy part? We still had to sit in that exact spot for 30 more minutes and I was perfectly fine.

Just eight minutes. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) confirms this:

“Although anxiety is often accompanied by physical symptoms, such as a racing heart or knots in your stomach, what differentiates a panic attack from other anxiety symptoms is the intensity and duration of the symptoms. Panic attacks typically reach their peak level of intensity in 10 minutes or less and then begin to subside.”

In the past, I always tried to remove myself from situations of panic, feeling a compulsion to run or escape. Yet this time I didn’t have the option to hop off the plane quickly but had to allow the panic attack to roll through my body.

To my surprise, it didn’t take me out. I learned something profound that day. The attack itself isn’t the bully; it’s the fear and shame I feel during the attack that makes me avoid circumstances that threaten it.

Ed Halliwell, mindfulness author and teacher, writes,

“When gently turning towards pain, people report that they experience less of it, and their resistance usually decreases. They may not get so caught up in the negative stories and evasive reactions that tend to accompany pain but do nothing to stop it (and, indeed, may increase the mind’s perception of it). This may be why people with chronic conditions have reported reductions in pain after training in mindfulness, even though they still suffer from the illness.”

Halliwell continues,

“Sometimes our experience is painful and difficult. And there may be little or nothing we can do about the arising of the pain or difficulty. In these cases, we may be able to work with what’s happening skillfully by exploring our relationship to it. Most of us have a habitual pattern of turning away from problems or trying to get rid of unpleasant events. Unfortunately, this often seems to increase our sense of stress, because if pain is already present, you can’t get rid of it by trying to run away from it. In mindfulness practice we gently experiment with reversing this habit by turning gently towards difficult experiences that come up in our meditation.”

There are plenty of places we can focus our attention when we’re plagued by fear, anxiety, or panic, but as Christ followers, we are urged to follow the examples in Scripture.

2. Rest in God’s Word

God tells us to meditate on his Word, and research shows how this rewires our brain. This is where science and faith collide.

I began to meditate on the truths of Scripture. I was a daughter of God, loved just as I was. There was no accomplishment, nothing I could do, that would make me any more worthy.

There’s much to learn from pressing into the pain and asking why. Through pressing in, we come to realize that our fear, pain, and anxiety have something to teach us. They drive us toward God and ask us to meditate on his truths.

In preparation for taking God’s people into the Promised Land, God told Joshua, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful” (Joshua 1:8).

The psalmists meditated on the Lord day and night, too.

My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises (Psalm 119:148).

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight,
Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer (Psalm 19:14).

My mouth will speak words of wisdom; the meditation of my heart will give you understanding (Psalm 49:3).

I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done (Psalm 143:5).

3. Ask Yourself These Questions

• In what areas of your life are fear and anxiety always present?
• What does God’s Word say about your particular struggle?
• What counselor or friend can help you develop strategies for dealing with pain?

No matter what your anxiety is, invite God into it. As you do, you will experience greater levels of freedom and build a more resilient life.

Order the Resilient Life Journal today to dive deeper.

Related Resource: How to Stop Anxiety Right Away When Worry Spins Out of Control

How do you calm your frazzled emotions, when your worries spin out of control, panic sets in as your heart rate spikes, and anxious thoughts overwhelm your mind and your body? In this episode of Breathe: The Stress Less Podcast, Bonnie invites us to join her special guest Nurse Mark to learn about three powerful ways to stop anxiety right away, calm panic attacks, and halt the overwhelming spiral of worries hijacking your thoughts. If this episode brings peace to the storm in your heart, be sure to subscribe to Breathe on Apple or Spotify so you never miss an episode!

For further reading:

3 Ways You Can Fight Your Anxiety

3 Ways to Deal with Your Shame

What Does the Bible Say about Anxiety?

How Does the Bible Teach Us to Handle Anxiety?

Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/PeopleImages

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Rebekah Lyons is a national speaker and bestselling author of Building A Resilient Life: How Adversity Awakens Strength, Hope, and Meaning, A Surrendered Yes: 52 Devotions to Let Go and Live Free, Rhythms of Renewal; Trading Stress and Anxiety for a Life of Peace and Purpose, You Are Free: Be Who You Already Are, and Freefall to Fly: A Breathtaking Journey Toward a Life of Meaning. An old soul with a contemporary, honest voice, Rebekah reveals her own battles to overcome anxiety and depression—and invites others to discover and boldly pursue their God-given purpose. Alongside her husband, Gabe, Rebekah finds joy in raising four children, two of whom have Down syndrome. Her work has been featured on TODAY, Good Morning America, CNN, FOX, PARADE, SiriusXM, Huffington Post, Hallmark Home & Family, and more.

This article originally appeared on Christianity.com. For more faith-building resources, visit Christianity.com.

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