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I ignorantly went off 300mg Wellbutrin and 200mg Sertraline in 4 months between Oct. 2017 and February 2018. I am experiencing the worst depression of my life. I don’t know what to do. April is the point when things became bad. I feel panick every morning. I cry every day. I actually hate being alive. I dread choices. I dread living. I am not suicidal though. I keep telling myself I’ll get through this. I stopped the antidepressants after 8 years because I had lost any passion for anything. I went everywhere late. I slept constantly. I think the drugs stopped working. The psychiatrist kept increasing doses to try to help, but it made me a stranger to joy and stripped me of my curiosity and life. I have additional complications of ptsd- as a survivor of domestic abuse and a survivor of rape at gunpoint. I don’t have a career. I have no partner or children, and I’m trying to decide whether or not to move to care for my invalid father. I created bad debt while sleeping and paying for psychiatrists out-of-pocket. This is very difficult. I feel utterly estranged from life. Should I speak with a physician? Do I reinstate? I don’t know what to do.

As I'm sure everyone is aware Professor Peter Gotzsche is no longer with the Nordic Cochrane Centre but he now faces possible dismissal from his job at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark. Please sign this petition if you feel as strongly as I do that if Peter Gotzsche is driven from his job scientific rigour and integrity will be the poorer. https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/letter-to-danish-minister-of-health-against?fbcIid=IwAR0OGQLOYayFvKX1DGFiIwThpIq-jXe4It1FplBgNz8g8-_NiAR7HHoyYeY

Please move if in the wrong area... there were some thoughts about the shortfalls of Obamacare a while back? Obamacare Architect Leaves White House for Pharmaceutical Industry Job Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 December Few people embody the corporatist revolving door greasing Washington as purely as Elizabeth FowlerDecember 5, 2012 When the legislation that became known as "Obamacare" was first drafted, the key legislator was the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, whose committee took the lead in drafting the legislation. As Baucus himself repeatedly boasted , the architect of that legislation was Elizabeth Fowler, his chief health policy counsel; indeed, as Marcy Wheeler discovered, it was Fowler who actually drafted it. As Politico put it at the time : "If you drew an organizational chart of major players in the Senate health care negotiations, Fowler would be the chief operating officer." What was most amazing about all of that was that, before joining Baucus' office as the point person for the health care bill, Fowler was the Vice President for Public Policy and External Affairs (i.e. informal lobbying) at WellPoint, the nation's largest health insurance provider (before going to WellPoint, as well as after, Fowler had worked as Baucus' top health care aide). And when that health care bill was drafted, the person whom Fowler replaced as chief health counsel in Baucus' office, Michelle Easton, was lobbying for WellPoint as a principal at Tarplin, Downs, and Young. Whatever one's views on Obamacare were and are: the bill's mandate that everyone purchase the products of the private health insurance industry, unaccompanied by any public alternative, was a huge gift to that industry; as Wheeler wrote at the time: "to the extent that Liz Fowler is the author of this document, we might as well consider WellPoint its author as well." Watch the five-minute Bill Moyers report from 2009, embedded below, on the key role played in all of this by Liz Fowler and the "revolving door" between the health insurance/lobbying industry and government officials at the time this bill was written and passed. More amazingly still, when the Obama White House needed someone to oversee implementation of Obamacare after the bill passed, it chose . . . Liz Fowler . That the White House would put a former health insurance industry executive in charge of implementation of its new massive health care law was roundly condemned by good government groups as at least a violation of the "spirit" of governing ethics rules and even "gross", but those objections were, of course, brushed aside by the White House. She then became Special Assistant to the President for Healthcare and Economic Policy at the National Economic Council. Now, as Politico's "Influence" column briefly noted on Tuesday , Fowler is once again passing through the deeply corrupting revolving door as she leaves the Obama administration to return to the loving and lucrative arms of the private health care industry: "Elizabeth Fowler is leaving the White House for a senior-level position leading 'global health policy' at Johnson & Johnson's government affairs and policy group." The pharmaceutical giant that just hired Fowler actively supported the passage of Obamacare through its membership in the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) lobby. Indeed, PhRMA was one of the most aggressive supporters - and most lavish beneficiaries - of the health care bill drafted by Fowler. Mother Jones' James Ridgeway proclaimed "Big Pharma" the "big winner" in the health care bill. And now, Fowler will receive ample rewards from that same industry as she peddles her influence in government and exploits her experience with its inner workings to work on that industry's behalf, all of which has been made perfectly legal by the same insular, Versailles-like Washington culture that so lavishly benefits from all of this. It's difficult to find someone who embodies the sleazy, anti-democratic, corporatist revolving door that greases Washington as shamelessly and purely as Liz Fowler. One of the few competitors I can think of is Adm. Michael McConnell , who parlayed his military and intelligence career into a lucrative gig at Booz Allen, one of the nation's largest private intelligence contractors; then became George W Bush's Director of National Intelligence (where he spearheaded a huge gift to the telecom industry - retroactive immunity shielding it from all accountability for its participation in the illegal Bush NSA eavesdropping program - as well as continued his Booz Allen work of privatizing intelligence and surveillance functions); then returned to the loving arms of Booz Allen, where he now exploits his national security credentials on behalf of industry interests (by, for instance, spearheading the fear-mongering campaign about cyber-warfare in order to advocate for security programs that would amply enrich Booz Allen's clients). ........................................Read the rest.

I have been off of Zoloft for about 12 days now and am still having severe symptoms. The most troubling are increased heart rate, irritability, headaches, and the feeling that I have a giant maraca in my head that shakes every time I move. If I could sleep through the next few days, I'm sure I would be fine. However, I work 40+ hours a week at a dry cleaning plant. I am surrounded by fumes, fluorescent lights, and a fast-paced, high-stress job. Does anyone have ANY suggestions for how I can keep the symptoms in check? Mags -- I should add that I have a history of being VERY sensitive to interactions and withdrawal symptoms. I have also had issues with serotonin syndrome. Also, I am not in a place where I can stay off of the medication and am in the process of getting started with a medication manager at a local mental health hospital, but my appointment isn't until the end of the month.

Therr was an article recently on the Wall Street Journal online that many jobs are not being filled because the systems used to make hiring decisions are set too high. Gee, what happened to the idea that live humans and not silicon made these decisions (not that most recruiters know much more than the computer)