If you or your loved ones are taking antidepressant medications, you owe it to yourself to learn what the medical literature says about your increased chances for suicide and violence.
In this interview for the Natural Healing Show for UK Health Radio, author and affiliate professor of biology at Loyola University Patrick Hahn talks about the true dangers of antidepressants – not only for you, your loved ones but also for society at large.
Patrick Hahn is the author of three books: Obedience Pills, Prescription for Sorrow and Madness and Genetic Determinism. You can find his books on Amazon at this link.
Before I get into sharing the highlights of Patrick Hahn’s truly shocking statistics, let me share my own point of view.
As someone who has dedicated the past 29 years of my life to natural healing, I prefer to be uplifting, solution oriented, hopeful, encouraging and always pointing the way to how you can resolve health issues through natural healing methods.
Two of my 10 books are about how to heal depression without drugs.
My most recent on this subject, Banish the Blues Now – available in paperback, ebook and audiobook – is one of my eight Amazon number one bestsellers and outlines how to heal depression naturally without drugs.
So let’s get down to a few of the facts you may want to know if you or your loved ones take antidepressants:
- The rate of suicide among people taking SSRIs (serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which include Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro, Paxil, Pexeva) is SEVEN times greater than among those taking a placebo.
- 1 out of 6 American women of childbearing age are taking antidepressants, which numerous studies have proven cause birth defects.
- In 2020, suicide was among the top 9 leading causes of death for people ages 10-64. Suicide was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-14 and 25-34.
- According to Patrick Hahn, 3 percent of people taking SSRIs feel suicidal and have violent tendencies. Although that may not sound like a huge amount, the latest statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control estimates that from 2005 to 2008, 11 percent of Americans over the age of 12 take antidepressant medication.
- More than 60% of Americans taking antidepressant medication have taken it for 2 years or longer, with 14% having taken the medication for 10 years or more.
- Antidepressants were the third most common prescription drug taken by Americans of all ages in 2005–2008 and the most frequently used by persons aged 18–44 years.
- Females are more likely to take antidepressants than are males, and non-Hispanic white persons are more likely to take antidepressants than are non-Hispanic black and Mexican-American persons.
- Although in the past the psychiatric profession relied on the dogma that depression was due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, that theory has recently been called into question. A study published in Molecular Psychiatry in July 2022 threw this theory under the bus. “The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.”
- The same study in Molecular Psychiatry concluded, “Some evidence was consistent with the possibility that long-term antidepressant use reduces serotonin concentration.”
You have to ask yourself, “If my depression actually caused by low serotonin, and even if that were to be the case, do I want to take a drug that may lower my serotonin in the long run?” The study in Molecular Psychiatry is worth reading if you are pondering your mental health. “Our comprehensive review of the major strands of research on serotonin shows there is no convincing evidence that depression is associated with, or caused by, lower serotonin concentrations or activity.”
So what’s a depressed person supposed to do?
Author Patrick Hahn says you are most at risk of feeling suicidal or violent when you start antidepressants or stop taking them abruptly.
During my 29 years in natural healing, I have empowered more people to get off antidepressants (and practically every other drug you can name, including oxycontin and daily marijuana use) than I can even count.
I’m not a doctor.
I don’t play one on TV.
But I know what works to heal the mind naturally.
When I published my first book, Healing Depression: A Holistic Guide (no longer in print) in 1997, it had taken me three years. At the time, I thought, “If I help even one person avoid what I have just lived through, it will be entirely worth it.”
I had spent 18 years on lithium and antidepressants and got off all that at age 34.
I’m now 63 and have been drug free ever since.
It wasn’t until I learned natural healing methods that actually worked that I experienced peace of mind and deep levels of contentment.
The entire time I had taken lithium and antidepressants I was the perfect patient, taking my drugs, going to my therapist, only to hear at age 34 my doctors tell me quote unquote “The drugs you are taking are killing you.”
“Great!” I thought to myself. “Now what do I do?”
I spent three years researching at the Emory University medical library and beginning to learn the basics of natural healing.
My first 10 years out of 29 full time in natural healing I learned all about how to heal the brain.
You can read or listen to the audiobook version of Banish the Blues Now to take advantage of this distillation of knowledge and personal experience.
If you or your loved one is still struggling while taking antidepressants, you have to ask yourself, “Can I do this differently? Could natural healing actually work better?”
Questions addressed in this interview include:
Do antidepressants cause suicide and violence?
Did the drugmakers know?
What does the medical literature say about whether or not antidepressants are more effective than placebo?
Are antidepressants addictive?
How long can a person continue to feel the effects of psychiatric medication even after stopping the drugs?
What does a Duke University study prove about the long term effectiveness of aerobic exercise for depression over antidepressant drugs or drugs and exercise together?
Do people on antidepressants who feel anxious and depressed actually have different brain chemistry than people who don’t take these drugs?
Is the chemical imbalance theory of psychiatry – the ideal that mental illness is called by imbalance of brain chemicals – actually true?
Why do doctors not test a person’s brain chemistry before they prescribe antidepressants?
If a person who is taking antidepressants feels suicidal or violent, what should they do?
Why is the rate of suicide – the number of people who kill themselves – 7 times higher among people who take SSRIs than among placebo?
What percent of people who take antidepressants actually feel suicidal or have violent tendencies according to scientific research?
Do antidepressants cause birth defects?
Since 1 in 6 American women of childbearing age take antidepressants how does this increase our societal risk of birth defects? Did the FDA Black Box warning increase suicides?
What does the research show about James Holmes, who committed a mass shooting at the Aurora Theater in Colorado, after his doctor tripled his dose of Zoloft?
Why is the case against antidepressants so overwhelming in your opinion? Do antidepressants cause mass shootings? How did we get here?
Where do we go from here?
Since suicide is a leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 30, is it safe to give antidepressants to young people?
If 3 percent of people who take antidepressants feel violent and suicidal, how does that play out over our entire society and the 12 percent of US adults over age 12 who take them?
What is healing? Healing happens when you learn how to heal the mind naturally without drugs.
To order my books in paperback, ebook of audiobook please visit the Catherine Carrigan Author Central Page on Amazon at this link.
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To set up an appointment for a medical intuitive reading or healing work, please email catherine@catherinecarrigan or call 678-612-8816. If you are calling internationally, please call me at the same number through WhatsApp so I can return your call toll free!
