For quite a while, I’ve done the impossible – kept my mouth shut and my computer off with things pertaining to Donald Trump. But no more. I can’t tolerate his lies and the way that so many Republicans support and chuckle that what he’s doing is okay.
Everyday there is a new lie.
Everyday another person is attacked or fired for disagreeing with him.
Everyday he performs another outlandish action that hurts our country.
No mask. Get close. The virus is a Democratic disease blah, blah.
It’s sickening. I personally know a number of people who STILL support this manipulating sadist. I will not invite these people into my home. I can’t respect anyone who supports his brand of absolute utter disdain for the rules of law and accepts his abuse of power. If you support him, you condone name-calling, bullying, lying and on and on.
Will they care? Of course not. But I care!
If we don’t speak out against Trump – shame on us! His behavior and the behavior of his followers has created chaos and death.
Can you believe that he refused to allow a ship with COVID passengers to debark on our shores because IT WOULD MAKE THE NUMBERS HIGHER AND HE WOULDN’T LOOK GOOD. You can’t make this stuff up! He said it!
Even if you don’t agree with all the politics of Democrats, in all conscience please DO NOT SUPPORT Trump or his sycophants.
In the world of psychiatry not everything can be chalked up to underlying conflicts and the need to uncover unconscious motives. Spending even one second trying to reason with a psychopath is useless. I already know why Trump does what he does. Power! Greed! THE INABILITY TO EVER THINK OF SOMEONE BUT HIMSELF.
Whatever Trump says is a lie. That’s my new general rule and advice on how to deal with him. Even if his actual words are accurate, ALWAYS suspect his motivation.
If you enjoyed reading, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist, you might also enjoy Dr. Smukler’s novels, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, Skin Dance, a mystery, and The Man with a Microphone in his Ear. All are available as paperbacks and eBooks.
Art Smukler, MD - Books & Thoughts 
“The psychiatric concept of insight rests on the assumption that the psychiatrist, designated sane, knows what’s best. But if we question that assumption, then the question of which party actually possesses insight becomes less clear.” -Mad In America website. You have caused great harm to me, my mom, and hundreds if not thousands of your patients, Dr. Smuckler, with your reckless over prescribing of benzos and ADs. And your colleague Dr. Sealy likely harmed my dad with over medication. Big Pharma duped you, Art. And now, since you are retired and no longer have patients to feel superior over, so YOUR narcissism has led you to diagnose the president from afar (an ethical violation) so you feel like you have some relevance in the world after retirement. Sad in so many ways, but tragic for my whole family. I encourage you to read Robert Whitaker’s book “Anatomy of an Epidemic” if you are man enough to face the reality of the harm your profession has caused. The data and references are there. Here I am, 33 years later, finally recovering from the path of iatrogenic harm you sent me down at the tender age of 18.
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Hi John. I’m so sorry you feel the way you do. I never felt superior to my patients, friends or family and really did try my best to have an honest person to person therapy relationship. Whatever hurt you have experienced pains me and I hope you continue to feel better and have a good life. I believed and continue to believe that meds are never the first line of treatment. Best Wishes to you and your family.
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Thank you for your willingness to reply, Art. I never doubted that you felt compassion for your patients, and only wanted the best for them. But compassion does not equal medical competency. Come on, prescribing Xanax to an 80 year old woman, a class of drugs that has been known to be a fall risk for seniors for decades? You probably kept prescribing it because you were never trained how to deprescribe benzos nor antidepressants safely. You’d try to take your patients off their meds following what you had be taught, tapering over 4-6 weeks, and when they then got horribly depressed or anxious, you’d tell them their symptoms were a “return of their underlying disorder”. It was withdrawal, Art. Simply withdrawal. Pharma duped you and the rest of psychiatry. It takes YEARS to come of these drugs, tapering extremely slowly. I’ve been tapering for 6 years off my cocktail, and the lower I get the better I feel. But not in the beginning. I kept getting sicker and sicker. So sick thought I was dying. I saw 34 doctors and even went to the Mayo Clinic looking for answers to my declining health. I would always ask, “Could my 45 symptoms have something to due with my meds?” The answer was always, “No, it can’t be your meds.” I almost died by suicide because of the reckless taper my psychiatrist had me on (which, by the way, was well withing the “standard of care”). I had to Google “benzo tolerance and withdrawal” to figure out what was happening to me.
Remember when I was seeing you and having all those panic attacks? It was due to Xanax tolerance and interdose withdrawal. And the depression? Long term exposure to benzos CAUSES depression. But you failed to recognized it. And you and other psychiatrists just kept adding on more drugs to treat the symptoms of the other drugs. Psychiatry is causing and fueling the mental health epidemic, not curing it. My poor mom is physically dependent on the drugs you prescribed her. She will likely go to her grave on them. But it’s not because she has a life-long, mythical “chemical imbalance”, but because you addicted her to the drugs. If don’t believe me, I’d encourage you to check out the following resources: The Ashton Mannual (benzo.org); the “Medicating Normal” YouTube channel, a documentary film coming out soon; Professor John Read’s work in the U.K., which has forced NICE to revise their prescribing guidelines to state that antidepressant withdrawal can be “severe” and last “months to years”; benzobuddies.org; survivingantidepressants.org; and the Benzodiazepine Information Coalition’s website at benzoinfo.org. And of course Robert Whitaker’s book “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” where he looks into the original Xanax trails that showed WORSE long term outcomes for panic attacks for patients put on Xanax than placebo. Here’s a short video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e829xdb4AA Even the media has clued into the overprescribing epidemic, with articles on benzo and AD overprescribing coming out constantly. Watch CNN’s “This is Life with Lisa Ling” episode on benzos on Apple iTunes or Amazon Prime. I was interviewed for it, my friend Krissy is featured in it. I’ve become in state-level activism on these issues here in Colorado. A friend of mine is the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Public Health, and we are looking to require written, informed consent prior to filling a benzo prescription. Why? Because psychiatrists and PCP’s are failing to solicit informed consent from their patients. Benzos are the next opioid epidemic, Art. Except the epidemic is already here. And psychiatrists of your generation were the tip of the spear. If you don’t think I’m credible, the University of Colorado School of Psychiatry does. I was part of recent grand rounds they held on the connection between benzos and suicide. It will be posted on YouTube soon. And here is my testimony before the Colorado Governor’s Behavioral Health Task Force:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL9xn3YHuhM. Art, being in a state of cognitive dissonance might be a comfortable place for you to be. But your perception of your reality, the “good” you did over your career, is not supported by the facts nor data. I am one of the lucky ones. I have awoken to the harm these meds did to me. Probably the majority of your patients never will. And the minority that have, you never heard from again. I would encourage you and other psychiatrists to be humble in acknowledging the harm you have done. Admit your mistakes. And get involved in activism, education, and warning the next generation of psychiatrists of the harm these meds can cause. You’re retired, you have the time. It will do far more good for society than railing on our idiotic President. Perhaps in doing so, you can lie on your death bed with a clear conscious. I realize you didn’t know better, and meant no harm.
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You’re probably right about wasting my time trying to wake people up about Trump but I’ve gotta do what I think is right, just like you’re doing reg. benzos. I always thought you were credible and I still do. We will just have to disagree on some aspects of your premise. I wish I could have helped you more so many years ago. Again, best wishes to you and your family.
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Thank you for the kind wishes. But please read my references and recent literature before dismissing what I have to say as opinion. The data is the data. Patients’ lived experience is their lived experience. It would truly be healing for me to know you did. Yes, I am an angry ex-psychiatry patient. But I’m entitled to that normal human emotion, as me and my family have been through hell. But life keeps getting better and better. I’m full of hope. I am healing, as the milligrams slowly drop away. If you ever feel moved to partner with me on my awareness efforts, I would be honored to team with you. Activism is really my career now. I can forgive. I have a lot more scientific literature I’d be happy to share with you on these topics. Much of it has been published in just the last 2 years. The Colorado Department of Public Health did a first of its kind cross referencing of their suicide database and benzo prescribing records as a result of our efforts here. Medical school training, heavily funded and influenced by Pharma, has failed to recognize the severity of psychiatric drug withdrawal and poor long-term outcomes. And the FDA has negligently approved treatments based on scarce evidence of efficacy. It is not just psychiatry’s fault. But, psychatrist’s are the people we form human to human relationships with, the people we trust to to read the literature and filter factual data from marketing propaganda. So fairly or not, that is where a lot of ex-patients feel the greatest anger. We shouldn’t have to learn this on our own after almost dying by suicide and googling. Thanks for engaging.
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Art,
I’m glad you turned the computer back on. I can’t believe how many ways the Orange Menace presents a clear and present danger every day to our country.
People need to turn out in record numbers to vote in November.
My best,
Mike
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Thanks Mike! Best Wishes.
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Excellent description
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Powerful words!
Sent from my iPhone
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Thank you for speaking up against the worst threat to democracy ever, in our history.
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