Mark your calendars! Wendy Dolin will speak at Amygdala Notes, a concert and conversation series that explores, confronts, and reimagines established approaches to mental health care by using music as an access point. Register for the event here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/amygdala-notes-tickets-46773871910
MISSD is excited to be participating in Operation Honor tomorrow in Blue Island where we will be educating military families about medication induced suicides and akathisia. MISSD is proud to be associated with Operation Honor and K9’s for Veterans.
Please join us this October 11, 2018 for our Annual MISSD Gala and Fundraising event. See our website for ticket purchasing.
MISSD is very excited to announce its most recent awareness campaign; signage on CTA busses and trains! MISSD signage will be advertised on 100 trains and busses in the Chicagoland area. We would like to thank YOU, as it is the attention and donations to MISSD that make this important programming possible with the ultimate goal to prevent needless deaths. We hope this signage will reach an even bigger population and create more awareness about medication-induced reactions and akathisia.
Other commonly prescribed drugs are now being linked to mental health side effects.
We wanted to share a powerful story we received all the way from Australia. Maria found MISSD’s website and reached out to us. We are so grateful our message has reached international attention and hope these stories will further our efforts of raising awareness. Thank you, Maria, for writing in to MISSD.
Hi MISSD,
We lost my brother (50yrs old) last year in 2017, in a similar circumstance to Stewart Dolin. Unfortunately the Coroner does not understand the link between the medication that was increased the day before my brother died.
My brother was a popular and successful husband and father of 2 boys who took pride in his health. He went to a Dr (general practitioner – GP) due to stress from his work who prescribed an anti-depressant and 9 days later he tragically took his life.
He had difficulty sleeping, became more agitated and restless and developed suicidal thoughts 2 days before he died. A psychologist and another GP (at the same medical practice as the original GP) did not recognise his symptoms but instead recommended the dose of his antidepressant be increased.
Despite knowing he had been researching ways to kill himself he was sent home to his wife and boys. No one told him not to go to work despite his behaviour and he tragically took his life the next morning at his workplace.
I work in health care and cannot understand that our mental health system is so inadequate and the dangers of SSRI antidepressants are not recognised. For anxiety and work-related stress to cause you to take your own life just does not make sense. Further, my brother did not have thoughts of self-harm until days after commencing the medication however no one recognised that this could be due to his medication not worsening illness.
Thank you for you great work and I was so pleased to read that someone has been able to fight a pharmaceutical company for damages with success. Glad someone is exposing this terrible side effect and you have gained some power for the vulnerable people who need advocacy.
Kind regards,
Maria Boyle
MISSD board advisor Kim Witczak is mentioned in the article below.
https://kellybroganmd.com/the-violence-inducing-effects-of-psychiatric-medication/
Medication side effects making the Chicago nightly news on NBC 5.
A very interesting article in The New York Times about medication and side effects.