Although this will not come as news to anyone who’s been on any one of the most common psychiatric medications prescribed — such as Celexa, Lexapro, Cymbalta, Prozac, Xanax, Paxil, Effexor, etc. — getting off of a psychiatric medication can be hard. Really hard.

Much harder than most physicians and many psychiatrists are willing to admit.

That’s because most physicians — including psychiatrists — have not had first-hand experience in withdrawing from a psychiatric drug. All they know is what the research says, and what they hear from their other patients.

While the research literature is full of studies looking at the withdrawal effects of tobacco, caffeine, stimulants, and illicit drugs, there are comparatively fewer studies that examine the withdrawal effects of psychiatric drugs. Here’s what we know…

When electricity and the brain are mentioned in the same sentence, your mind might immediately jump to disturbing images of people receiving huge shocks while covered in electrodes, strapped to tables.

But electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatment has developed considerably since the days depicted in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”  A current study at JAMA Psychiatry examines a treatment called transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS).

Could this fairly new form of electrical treatment for depression really be effective — and without the negative side effects of ECT?

What used to be thought of as normal grieving, a sensitive personality or an emotional reaction to an unanticipated situation seems to become more and more routinely viewed as a “mental disorder.”

Once diagnosed, treatment often consists of nothing more than pill prescribing.

Sometimes responses to ordinary life events can be incorrectly diagnosed as mental disorders. Let’s look at a few examples…

“My husband passed away almost a year ago and I still miss him so much. There are times I feel like there’s not much purpose to my life anymore. We were married for 42 years. It’s tough to fall asleep without him at my side. And it’s tough for me to feel like cooking when I have to eat alone.”

This is a normal bereavement reaction. The proposed new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual code, however, states that these may be signs of a major depressive episode. Why? It’s as though our standard for bereavement is now quick, like everything else in our lives. Nothing to it! A piece of cake! Okay, mourn. But return to your old life in a week, a month, three months. You need more time than that? Well, perhaps you should take anti-depressants. Good for the drug companies. Not good for the bereaved individual.

In his book, Understanding Depression: What We Know And What You Can Do About It, J. Raymond DePaulo Jr., M.D. asserts that for the 20 percent of his patients who are more difficult to treat, or “treatment-resistant,” he sets an 80 percent improvement, 80 percent of the time goal. And he usually accomplishes that.

Now, if you’re not someone who has struggled with chronic depression, those stats won’t warrant a happy dance.

But if you’re someone like myself, who assesses her mood before her eyes are open in the morning, hoping to God that the crippling anxiety isn’t there, then those numbers will have you singing Hallelujah.

One of the most difficult challenges to overcome when dealing with a mental illness is the temptation of the excuse.

With a psychiatric diagnosis comes an excuse for everything. Any bad behavior, lack of motivation, or failure can be passed off as a symptom or the result of an episode. The excuse is always available. Don’t take it.

No one’s asking you to take responsibility for having a mental illness. That’s not your fault.

But you have to take responsibility for your actions and for your recovery. Sure, unexpected things happen as a result of serious mental illness, but most of our behavior is within our control, or at least our influence. And the behavior that most influences our wellness is treatment compliance.

“ADHD medications turn kids into compliant zombies.”

“They change kids’ personalities.”

These are just some of the many myths about treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with medication. And these misconceptions no doubt leave parents confused and overwhelmed about the best ways to treat their child’s disorder.

“Medications aren’t a cure-all but they can be very helpful,” according to Mark Bertin, MD, a board-certified developmental behavioral pediatrician and author of The Family ADHD Solution.

Have you told your doctor about the other medications or drugs you regularly take? If you’re on an antidepressant, you probably should.

If you’re taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), you may be less likely to experience the beneficial effects of the most commonly prescribed classes of antidepressants, SSRIs (such as Paxil, Zoloft and Prozac).

NSAIDs include ibuprofin (such as Advil, Motrin, and Midol), naproxen sodium (such as Aleve) and good ole aspirin.

According to an article appearing in the recently published The Carlat Psychiatry Report, that was the surprising conclusion of a paper published last year (Warnerschmidt Jl et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2011;108:9262–9267), and a newly released report reaches a similar conclusion.

Over the past decade, researchers have become more interested in ketamine as a treatment for clinical depression. Also known as Special K, its mood-altering effects have long been enjoyed by club-goers. Ketamine is also regularly used in dental practices for certain procedures, because it doesn’t require the heart and breathing monitoring that most anesthetics do.

Research done over the past decade — on both on mice and humans — suggest it could help depression symptoms.

But is ketamine ready for prime-time clinical use in the treatment of depression?

Let’s find out…

Conventional wisdom has been for women who are taking antidepressant medication, to stay on it even while pregnant. Try to discontinue such medications can often be a long, slow process that has its own ups and downs. (Ask anyone who’s ever been on antidepressant for a year or more — it’s not fun trying to get off of it.)

It turns out, though, that conventional wisdom is largely wrong. Most infertile women who are taking popular antidepressants — such as Prozac, Paxil or Celexa — would help their unborn child by discontinuing the medication. With one exception — those women who are suffering from a severe depression (versus mild or moderate depression).

Why? Those women taking antidepressants nearly double the risk of a miscarriage if they stay on them during their pregnancy.

A few years ago one of my favorite bloggers and authors Therese Borchard penned this powerful post about the people in her life who just couldn’t grasp the pain of her depression.

She recounts the story of sending an article about her severe depression and suicidal thoughts to a family member who said “Thanks.” She shares another story of a good friend who implied she should stop taking medication that supposedly blunted her emotions — and “tough it out like the rest of humanity.”

Borchard also writes:

…I was both enraged and saddened that friends and family were shocked to hear that two doctors sliced me open — before full anesthesia kicked in — to save little David’s life in an emergency C-section. Yet when I voiced the desperation of depression — which made the knife cut feel like a knee scratch–they often brushed it off, as if I were whining to win some undeserved sympathy votes.

When we misunderstand mental illness — and its gravity — we do damage. Rather than give individuals our understanding, compassion and support when they need it most, we intensify their struggle.

But educating ourselves can help. Below, therapists share several common myths and misunderstandings about mental illness.

In the U.S., we had a sad, embarrassing time in our recent history where a large swath of our nation treated one race as “separate but equal.” This was particularly true for African Americans in the South, where they were socially segregated — from lunch counters to riding the bus. At one time, most (white) Americans seemed perfectly okay with this form of discrimination, prejudice, and stigma.

It took a 42-year-old woman named Rosa Parks (and others like her) to change things in America. But it also took time; change didn’t occur overnight.

In some of the same ways, mental health care in America suffers from the same “separate but equal” in our healthcare system. Mental health treatment is conducted in a parallel system that is often disconnected from regular medical treatment.

Because of this, patient care suffers.

I believe it’s time to lead a revolution in mental health care in America.

In 2007, The People’s Pharmacy, a newspaper drug advice column by Joe and Terry Graedon, noted on their website that they started getting reports from people taking a generic form of Wellbutrin called Budeprion XL 300 mg. These reports discussed how patients taking the generic version of this antidepressant weren’t experiencing the same beneficial effects of the medication as when they were taking the name-brand version. And the side effects were often worse.

The Graedons became so concerned that they commissioned an independent lab analysis of the generic version of Wellbutrin manufactured by Impax Lab and Teva Pharmaceuticals in 2007. This report found that the generic version of Wellbutrin simply wasn’t equivalent to the brand-name version.

In April 2008, the FDA reviewed their existing studies, and concluded they were the same. The FDA did not review the independent analysis, or any actual data on the 300 mg version of the product (you know, the one people were actually complaining about).

Here it is more than four years later, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally agrees with the independent analysis, the Graedons, and the hundreds of people who’ve complained about the efficacy of Budeprion XL.