Parent’s Voices

Like many mental health reform advocates, I was thrown into the fire via a deeply personal life experience.When I carefully “weaned/tapered” a child off 20mg of the powerful antidepressant Paxil, little did I know that the personal can be quite political. Families in this great country of ours, if not throughout the entire world, are much safer and happier as children live their lives again without antidepressants and psychotropic drugs.

I am a mother from the state of Pennsylvania working hard to make sure people are being warned properly about the inherent dangers from psychotropic drugs and the off-labeled prescribing that continues to be a trend in our society today.  Today’s educational system is also applying added pressure to make people believe their children are abnormal.

We raised our grandson, Noah, the first 5 years of his life — he was a happy, energetic, “normal” child who was a delight to be around. He was removed from our home by his mother (our daughter) at age 5 and was quickly entered into the world of legalized drugs by his mom through a willing doctor who was a stranger to him — his own pediatrician having refused to put a normal child on amphetamines or psychotropic drugs.

I believe there is a reason for how a child acts and behaves, perhaps it is just personality, often there is an underlying cause waiting to be discovered and so the parent/caregiver must play detective.  We found out that our son was hearing and speech delayed as a result of undetected chronic ear infections and a hard, thick build up of wax that prevented his eardrum from vibrating.  He was put in a special preschool for speech therapy and many prayers were said on his behalf.