It seems like it has been years since I touched the web site but alas…not even a year.It feels like more as new information has been available that gave me new insight and confirmed what I have felt all along.I thank God every day for the Grace given immediately to understand that David's true nature and free will were severely impaired on 1/20/06 but details as to how and why have been left unchecked and, sadly, unsupported by a majority of professionals.
I had been waiting for the Institution of Mental Healthcare to show up and save the day.How naive of me I now realize.The Institution of Mental Healthcare helped to create this problem by not advising us about the dangers of psychiatric medication and then said nothing in our defense to the Institution of Criminal Justice which took over to criminally prosecute to the fullest.The North Carolina Department of Correction tried to help by providing adequate medication but dropped the ball back into their role as punishers when we wanted to come off the deadly impairing medication.
Some of the true heroes are mental healthcare professionals who accept the truth about these psychiatric medications and are trying to deal with the monster that has been created and how to help people find their lives again after the war of inappropriate medication has broke out around them and within them.
Dr. Peter Breggin, M.D. has my vote for "Educator of the Year" with his newly published book Medication Madness. This masterpiece was published in July of 2008 by St. Martin's Press and is available on Amazon for under $20.If you find yourself even remotely considering antidepressants for yourself or any one you love, you owe yourself the favor of knowing the nightmares that come simply by trying to help yourself with these over-prescribed, under-monitored drugs and doing what the "professionals" are telling you to do to help and, in their opinion, not hurt.
Dr. Breggin's book presents the questions with some answers I have had all along.The most pressing question for me was why David, in a medicated state, would not give the medication the blame for the tragedy.It was clear to me that he was able to do this violent, tragic act after only 7 days of Prozac along with other medications as well.Why did David keep going back to try to reconcile something from his past, in his current situation or fear of his future as the reason for the tragedy? Why could he not just admit that the drug had altered his free will and propelled him to violent action when it seemed so clear to me? I do believe that mental healthcare treatment focuses a patient on those questions without overlaying the effects of the medication on the patient's physical responses.David again was trying desperately to be responsible. This was exasperating to me visiting him each week and trying to reconcile what I knew to what he was constantly trying to work out.Dr. Breggin's term "Spellbound" clarified this for me.
On the medication, David was "Spellbound."Dr. Breggin defines this on Page 27 of his book,"The brain-disabling principle states that all the physical treatments in psychiatry—medication, electroshock, and lobotomy—have their primary or 'therapeutic' effect by causing malfunctions in the brain and the mind that are then misidentified as 'improvements.' Spellbinding more specifically builds on a brain-disabling corollary, which states that patients receiving medications and other mind-altering treatments 'often display poor judgment about the positive and negative effect of the treatment on their functioning.'"
Then, knowing that on the medication, David was saying the truth as best he could conceive, it helped us to clarify our thinking and consider coming off the last of the psych drugs he was taking.He had come off the antipsychotic drug first…experienced terrible nightmares. Then he had come off the antidepressant…cried for days.With each withdrawal, a part of David's true nature returned.Now on the mood stabilizer (Lithium) alone, he was balanced but still spellbound thinking the medication was helping him but still not able to work out why he had killed.Then there were the physical aspects of being on the highly toxic drug Lithium.David's thyroid and kidneys were becoming impaired.We made the choice to try to wean off the Lithium.He was below the therapeutic level when he stopped them at the end of July, 2008.
Coming off any of the psych drugs poses a risk of mania and depression.A strong support system of family, friends and healthcare professionals is needed to try to make this change successfully.The prison environment offers certain safeguards for this time if the system is understanding and aware.Unfortunately, David's facility didn't take this as seriously as we know it to be and transferred him to a new close security prison.I feel like we are trying to manage through this time without the support of caring professionals, and the lack of understanding by many is dangerous.What we do have is an environment where David is being watched but not nurtured or in any way comforted.It is most difficult and as we have felt all along, very lonely. A helpful book for those of you considering coming off the medication is Your Drug may be your problem…How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medication by Peter R. Breggin, M.D. and David Cohen, Ph.D. This book is available on Amazon.com. I would recommend reading through this book prior to considering any change in what appears to be currently working for you or your loved one.
Medication Madness addresses the defense strategies that play into medication horror.We must ask a question about the level of responsibility we can attribute to someone who, through a legal medication, has lost their mind.How and why do we hold these people criminally responsible when they were doing everything considered responsible to help themselves and others prior to the tragic outcomes? Dr. Peter Breggin's experience as a forensic psychiatrist in the criminal justice system over the past 30 years testifying in cases just like ours has enlightened me and many others to what should have been talked about for our case but was not at the time David accepted the plea.Medication does produce unnatural behaviors in some people.The medication, in fact, can even create the appearance of severe mental disorders like bipolar.The diagnosis that could have been given is "substance induced mood disorder" and the defense that could have been pursued is "involuntary intoxication."
Page 96 of Medication Madness states, "It is very prejudicial to the patient to be labeled with bipolar disorder rather than with a substance-induced mood disorder.A diagnosis of bipolar disorder stigmatizes the victim for life as suffering from a serious and potentially recurrent "mental illness" or "psychiatric disorder."Without any scientific basis, the diagnosis is used to push lifetime medication, and in criminal cases, it becomes a justification for lengthy incarcerations in institutions for the criminally insane" or as in David's case, an expected life time being punished in prison.
David, in a highly medicated and spellbound state, gave his life away in a plea of first-degree premeditated murder accepted due to the threat of a death penalty trial thinking he was doing what was fair for all.This plea and the sentencing placed him in the North Carolina prison system as one of the worst criminals in North Carolina without any acknowledgement of the medication or the mental health state at the time of the tragedy.
Consideration of David's mental health situation could have landed him in a mental home only if insanity, narrowly defined for legal purposes in North Carolina, could be proven.Other states have provisions for "guilty, but not criminally responsible" and other titles that put these people in other places than prison.The fear and anger of the Mecklenburg County Community seemed content to take the easy way out of the injustice wrought to this family.I am not fine with this injustice for any of us and you should not be either.To deny that this could not happen to others is short sighted and ignorant.Please have the courage to read the books for yourself and for your loved ones.Ask yourself these questions and think about what is the safest, most healing place for people who tried to help themselves and others and the very worst nightmare happened to them.We compounded the nightmare with our current systems that avoided the truth in an effort to sweep unfortunate situations under the rug of fear and hatred.Consider the light of a new day of awareness and positive action for all.
Many seem to fear that I carelessly want David home.I want David to be cared for as I have all along this mental health care journey.Prison is an inappropriate place for people who have not acted with criminal intent.Prison is not about healing…it is about punishing and removing rights for the prisoner and their family and their community.
A mental hospital is the more appropriate place for people who have suffered mental health related tragedies.Unfortunately, our mental hospitals have been sadly denied attention for funding and overall care that helps.However, why make these people criminals when they began as patients trying to help themselves and others.An inadequate system should not deny the path that appropriately places individuals into care.I feel like the Crespi family should be advocates for better mental health care versus living with the layers and layers of tragedy that labeled David a felon.
The healthcare community must step up to the truth of these situations and help to repair what has been lost.Drug Companies and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have approved drugs on the notion that they help more than they hurt.Unfortunately, no help or truth of the situation is offered when the drugs hurt.It's just the down side of the help. Well, for this family and others suffering with the down side, truth could have helped and David would not be punished as one of the worst criminals in North Carolina.
I do have a thought on David coming home…a comparison to what is happening in this country with service people returning from the war.Time magazine ran an article on June 16, 2008 that "The Military's Secret Weapon" is Prozac.The cover of the magazine states, "For the first time in history, thousands of U.S. troops are being given antidepressant drugs to deal with battlefield stress.Is this any way to fight a war?" Much press has surfaced regarding the drugging of service men and women and returning them to the ranks.We ask these people to defend us every day and do whatever it takes to help us.We ask them to do this in their right minds with full awareness of the harshness of their actions.Then we bring them home and without any means of detoxing them from the horrors of war, we bring them back into our homes.Who would deny these brave men and women their right to return to their loving families and communities?David, in an uncontrolled, out-of-mind legal intoxication, killed those he held most dear.Very different outcome we as a society demanded of him and this family.
I think we have critical events happening at this time in America.Shouldn't we consider a better treatment program for the free and the brave and then note that the war has been fought right here and many lives have been lost and forgotten?Perhaps we citizens could advocate for treatment programs that give these people a community of healthcare professionals concerned with helping them cope and acclimate back into society with tools for panic, post traumatic stress syndrome and other stressful conditions that result when lives have been impaired.Drugs are a deadly Band-Aid for the psychological issues that arise when lives have been taken with our healthy minds or with our impaired minds as well.
What can we do?
Pray and learn and take action.Start with your own family.Love and support them and try to understand the underlying issues that are producing problems on the surface.David now realizes the stress his professional career was putting on his mind.With the medication, he fell victim to an impairment to his free will and was able to do the worst.
Perhaps employers could offer better treatment programs that focus on stress management rather than drug pushing.
We need a place for healing.We need a team of people who care about the overall well being of the individual versus just trying to cover up the surface symptoms.
Dr. Breggin gives a response to this on Pages 328 through 333 of Medication Madness. He notes that principled living is an alternative to therapy which often results in the direction of drugs."Even the minister, priest, or rabbi is likely to refer them to someone who gives drugs.Increasingly, there is nowhere to turn for help that does not twist its way in the direction of drugs… although the point has been wholly missed by psychiatry, a satisfying and potentially happy life requires sound principles of living, including the courage and determination to maintain ethical, loving relationships with the people around us…Every rehabilitation—and we all need regular rehabilitation—requires renewed dedication to principled living and higher ideas."
Medication Madness includes a list of 17 points for principled living which end with the point of "Choosing your last resort wisely.When you feel most desperate and alone, where will you go—toward psychiatry with its biological explanation and mind-altering drugs or toward improved principles of living, a more responsible and loving life, the fulfillment of your ideas, and oneness with a Meaning or Power beyond yourself? Your chosen last resort defines you as a person and gives direction to your life."
We did not even know that the first response to our problem of stress and anxiety would result in the biggest nightmare of our lives.You have reasons to think differently now that you have been enlightened.I wish our path could have been enlightened as well.We cannot bring Samantha and Tessara back to this life as we had them. We can, however, help make the world better for others.
In our case, our first interaction with antidepressants came upon a priest's recommendation to get to the general practitioner to help with David's inability to relax and sleep.That was back in 1994 and the nightmares started from there.Looking back, we can overlay a negative reaction to the drugs in every episode where life went beyond our ability to cope.We could not see this until this time in our lives and after the very worst has happened..Please don't miss it for yourself or your loves ones.
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