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People often ask a version of this question: If mental health awareness is better now, why does it feel like there is so much more mental illness than there used to be? Were people in the 1970s somehow mentally healthier? Did modern life break us? Or is something else going on? The answer is more complicated than most people realize. Because the truth is: It is not that mental illness suddenly exploded. It is that our culture dramatically changed how we define distress, how q

There are books that challenge your assumptions. And then there are books that make you question the foundation the entire system was built on. The Myth of Mental Illness by Thomas Szasz is one of those books. When it was first published in 1961, it was considered radical. More than sixty years later, it remains one of the most uncomfortable and necessary challenges ever directed at modern psychiatry. And the reason it still matters is simple: The questions Szasz raised were

For something prescribed to millions of people, the experience of trying to come off psychiatric medications can feel strangely confusing and isolating. Not because information does not exist. But because the reality of what withdrawal can actually feel like is often far more intense, disorienting, and frightening than many people expect beforehand. I say this as someone who is not anti-medication. I’ve worked in mental health systems for decades. I understand that medication

Most people have never heard of the DSM. But if you’ve ever been diagnosed with a mental health condition, it has shaped how that diagnosis was made. DSM stands for: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It’s the book used across the United States—and much of the world—to define what counts as a mental disorder. The first version was published in 1952. The current version—DSM-5-TR (Text Revision)—was released in 2022. And over that time, something important h

Most people don’t walk into a community mental health clinic feeling confident. They walk in feeling nervous. Exposed.Unsure if they even belong there. Part of them thinks, “Maybe I need help.” Another part thinks, “I shouldn’t be here. I should be able to handle this. What’s wrong with me that I can’t?” There’s often shame.Guilt.A quiet sense of weakness. And underneath all of it is hope. Hope that someone will finally understand what’s going on. It Feels Like You’re Finally

Most therapists are not lying to you. But there are things they can’t say out loud. Not because they don’t care—but because of the system they work inside. And once you understand those limits, the entire experience of “treatment” starts to look very different. 1. They Can’t Question the System Too Much If you walk into therapy, one thing is almost guaranteed: You will be understood through a diagnosis. Not because your therapist personally believes you are “disordered” in a

If you live in New York—especially in places like Buffalo—you’ve probably been told the mental health system exists to help people recover. That’s the story. But the reality is more complicated. Because behind every service, every diagnosis, every appointment… there’s a funding structure. And that structure quietly shapes everything. The System Doesn’t Run on Recovery — It Runs on Billing In New York, most mental health services are funded through: Medicaid (the biggest playe

For decades, I’ve lived inside the mental health system. Not just as a professional. Not just as an observer. But as someone who has had to navigate it from the inside - where the policies, labels, and decisions become personal. Over the past nine years, I worked toward a Doctor of Education in Health Services Administration. On paper, that’s the milestone. But what it really represents is something else: Time spent studying the system from both sides - living it, working in

And Why That Should Worry You Somewhere along the way, quietly and without public discussion, we stopped talking about mental health and started talking about behavioral health. Most people assume it’s just upd ated language. It isn’t. Language reflects values. And this shift reveals exactly what the system now prioritizes. “Mental health” points inward: Thoughts Feelings Meaning Suffering Human experience “Behavioral health” points outward: Compliance Functioning Productivi

Here’s a truth the U.S. mental health system does not want you to sit with for more than five seconds: People diagnosed with schizophrenia do better in countries that don’t over-drug them. Not “a little better. ”Not “in some cases. ” Substantially better. More recovery. Back to work. back into relationships. Back into actual, enjoyable lives. And this isn’t some fringe, anti-science rant. This comes from their own data — data that has been quietly minimized, buried, or expl

Enough with the polite language! The modern mental health system is not failing by accident. It is doing exactly what it was built to do : move massive amounts of psychiatric drugs into human bodies while calling it care. This isn’t about “a few bad actor s. " It ’s abo ut a business model that requires people to stay sick, dependent, and compliant . And if that sentence makes anyone uncomfortable— good. It should. This Is Not a Medical Model. It’s a Sales Model. Let’s start

Every time that headline appears — “Over one billion people worldwide live with a mental disorder” (WHO, 2025) - I feel something close to rage. Not because people aren’t hurting. They are. But because this headline turns human suffering into a neat, sellable crisis — a story that just happens to benefit all the right industries. It treats pain like a commodity. It treats fear like a funding strategy. It treats humanity like a diagnosis. And I’m exhausted by it. 1. The worl

When did we decide that being human is a disease? Seems to me about 20 years ago. Every mood, every quirk, every hard season—now stamped with a code from the DSM and billed to insurance. Sad? You have depression. Angry? That’s a mood disorder. Nervous before speaking? Social anxiety. Can’t focus on boring bullshit? ADHD. It’s the industrialization of human emotion. The factory line starts with a checklist. End point: a diagnosis, a prescription, and a monthly bill. The proble

In working in the human service field for over 25 years, I have seen this happen 100s and 100s of times to people who deserve to live full lives, NOT be stuck in a system that disempowers their clients. It usually starts innocently: You’re overwhelmed. Grieving. Anxious. You’ve been through a breakup, the death of a loved one, a job loss, some other traumatic event, or maybe just feel like something is “off.” A well-meaning friend or doctor says, “You should talk to someone.”

Let's not pretend anymore that the mental health system is one of healing. It isn't. It is one of profit. And if you ever do start feeling really well, really free — they lose a customer. The mental health community doesn't need you to be healthy enough to let you go. It requires you to be stable enough to stay — compliant, quiet, medicated, and billable. Because every "follow-up," every refill, every session, every label is a line item. You are not a person. You are a cash s

We've been told for decades a straight-up lie: depression is caused by a "chemical imbalance" in the brain—a low level of serotonin. That idea has justified the mass dispensing of antidepressants like SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) to millions. It's memorable, comforting, and has no basis in fact. The Reality: There Is No Consistent Evidence That Low Serotonin Causes Depression In 2022, a trailblazing systematic umbrella review in Molecular Psychiatry by Joa

They rarely warn people of the horrible side effects of prolonged (so-called) antipsychotic medication use. You go in for help. You’re struggling—maybe with anxiety, maybe you’ve had a "psychotic break", maybe you’re just scared and overwhelmed. A doctor in a white coat gives you a diagnosis and a prescription for an “antipsychotic.” They say it’ll help stabilize you, calm you down, maybe even “rebalance your brain chemicals.” What they don’t tell you is this: These drugs can

We're drugging children to fit into classes, not to help them thrive as human beings. We don't design schools for movement, for imagination, or for emotional adaptability. We design schools for compliance, for test scores, and for silence. A noncompliant child is a broken child — instead of addressing what's wrong with the system, we focus on what's wrong with the child. And then we medicate the child. As psychiatrist and author of Medication Madness, Dr. Peter Breggin, state

Does mental health medication work? For most people, the answer is NO! Certainly not in the way we have been told they do. Let’s get one thing straight: we’ve been sold a story — a story that says mental health issues are “chemical imbalances,” and if you just take your magical serotonin pill, everything will get better. But guess what? That story is falling apart, and the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want you to notice. 🧠 “Antidepressants Work” – Do They Really? For deca