The Myth of Mental Illness: Pills, Profit, and the Pain We’re Not Facing
I’ve taken the pills. Several kinds, over the years. I know what it’s like to sit in a doctor’s office, pour out your heart in a rushed appointment, and walk away with a prescription. I also know what it’s like when those pills don’t heal you — when the withdrawal hits, when your brain feels hijacked, when the “side effects” feel worse than the thing you started with.
I’ve had the brain zaps. If you’ve never felt them, they’re electric shocks in your skull, triggered by something as small as turning your head. They’re diabolical. And when I tried to come off those pills, the depression that hit me wasn’t my old depression coming back — it was something darker, chemically induced, savage. That isn’t normal. That isn’t healing. That’s withdrawal.
So let’s talk about it — not from a place of shame, but with compassion and truth. Because we are hurting as a people, and the system we’ve trusted to heal us is selling us something else.
The Myth of “Chemical Imbalance”
For decades we’ve been told depression and anxiety are caused by a “chemical imbalance” in the brain — usually a lack of serotonin. It’s a neat story. It makes antidepressants sound like insulin for diabetes: something broken in your body, something a pill can fix.
But here’s the truth: that theory was never proven. Even the American Psychiatric Association has admitted it was more metaphor than science. It was a marketing tool — and it worked. Millions of us believed we had defective brains, and the only cure was daily medication.
It made sense at the time. But it wasn’t the whole truth.
When Human Pain Gets Labeled as Illness
Today, almost every form of struggle has a diagnosis. Grief lasting more than two weeks? Major depressive disorder. A kid with energy in class? ADHD. Shyness? Social anxiety disorder. Moody before your period? PMDD.
It’s not that none of these conditions are real. Some are. But the line between genuine disorder and normal human emotion has been blurred on purpose.
I know of a teenage girl who started showing signs of depression after her family changed. She felt invisible, pushed aside by a parent’s remarriage, screens became her escape, and her sadness grew. Instead of the family addressing her pain, she was diagnosed and medicated. That’s happening everywhere: kids medicated for situational wounds instead of being given presence, connection, and protection.
What’s supposed to happen when psychology explains “why” we feel and act the way we do? We should gain compassion — for ourselves and others. Instead, what happens too often is we’re handed a label, a prescription, and an excuse.
The Business Model of Psychiatry
Follow the money. Every daily pill you take is a guaranteed revenue stream. Once you’re on them, the brutal withdrawals make you less likely to stop. That’s not healthcare. That’s a business plan.
Here’s how it works:
Expand diagnostic criteria → more patients.
Normalize lifelong use → steady customers.
Reframe withdrawal as “relapse” → keep people dependent.
Right now, about 20% of Americans are on psychiatric medications. Some studies suggest up to 65% of Americans will be diagnosed with a mental illness at some point. If even one-third of the population is medicated daily, that’s over 100 million people. That’s not a safety net — that’s a market.
What These Drugs Really Do
These aren’t harmless sugar pills. Antidepressants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, stimulants — they alter brain chemistry. For some people in acute crisis, they can stabilize enough to save a life. But they also:
Cause sexual dysfunction, emotional blunting, agitation, and weight gain.
Trigger withdrawal symptoms that can mimic or exceed the original condition.
Create physiological dependence that’s under-researched and underestimated.
Most clinical trials last only a few weeks. Nobody really knows what decades of mass-medication will do to human brains. We’re running an uncontrolled experiment on entire populations.
The Fragility of a Medicated Nation
Here’s the terrifying question: what happens if the supply chain breaks?
Imagine war, cyber-attack, or pandemic shutdowns. Pharmacies run out. What happens then?
Antidepressant withdrawal: brain zaps, suicidality, rage.
Benzodiazepine withdrawal: seizures, psychosis, even death.
Antipsychotic withdrawal: psychotic breaks, dangerous behaviors.
Stimulant withdrawal: exhaustion, depression, paranoia.
Hospitals would overflow. Workplaces would collapse. Violence and unrest would spread. A nation with 20–30% of its people chemically dependent is a nation on a fragile leash.
That’s not resilience. That’s a ticking time bomb.
Everyone Has a Disorder Now
Today, it seems like everyone’s “on the spectrum,” everyone has “a little ADHD,” everyone has “high-functioning anxiety.” It’s become trendy to adopt diagnoses as identity badges.
The problem?
Quirks become pathologies.
Labels become excuses.
Disorders become status.
And those with real, severe conditions get lost in the noise. We’ve built a culture where normal emotion and behavior are medicalized — and instead of learning resilience, people are encouraged to hide behind labels.
My Story: What Really Healed
I’ve lived this. I spiraled into dark places, got medicated, then got crushed by the withdrawal. I was told I had a brain disease.
But this year, I stopped treating it as a disorder and started dealing with it as part of being human. I learned to see my triggers and stop them before they pulled me under. I learned how to pull myself out when dark days came. And instead of being numbed, I’ve written books, created meaning, and found strength I didn’t know I had.
I didn’t need another prescription. I needed truth. I needed tools. I needed to see my pain for what it was — not a broken brain, but a call to face life head-on.
Pills or Presence?
I’m not here to shame anyone on medication. Sometimes they’re necessary. But let’s be honest: many of us don’t need a prescription. We need presence. We need faith, connection, sunlight, good food, rest, exercise, therapy, real community.
We need people who will look us in the eye and say: “I see you. You matter. You’re not broken for hurting. You’re human.”
The Bottom Line
We’ve been sold a myth: that every pain is an illness, and every illness needs a pill. Behind that myth is an industry making billions. The result is a population numbed, dependent, and fragile.
But healing isn’t found in a bottle. Healing is in truth, in growth, in compassion, in responsibility. We don’t need more labels. We don’t need more excuses. We need to reclaim what it means to be human — fully, painfully, beautifully human.