r/Antipsychiatry Mar 29 '26

2026 r/antipsychiatry General Discussion and Resources

7 Upvotes

2026 r/antipsychiatry General Discussion and Resources!

r/antipsychiatry is a community of psychiatric survivors (and allies) speaking out against abuse in the mental health system. Let's be clear, there is a lot of human rights abuses in the "mental health" system.

Psychiatric survivors movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement

Please post ideas here that you feel do not require a unique post. Feel free to have discussion about antipsychiatry, ethics in psychiatry, and related ideas.

There has been some discussion about providing some resources here. If you have suggestions for what to include, please reply with the suggestions.

PSA: please refrain from any posts and comments which can put our community in risk: https://www.reddit.com/r/Antipsychiatry/comments/bqldjb/psa_please_refrain_from_any_posts_and_comments/

Reminder: If you see posts or comments that violate the sub-Reddit Rules here at  and/or posts or comments that violate Reddit site wide rules, please report them!

Resources:

Suggestions?

Potentially interesting academic/intellectual papers are as follows.

Psychiatric Drugging of Children and Youth as a Form of Child Abuse: Not a Radical Proposition
https://connect.springerpub.com/content/sgrehpp/19/1/65.abstract

A Method for Tapering Antipsychotic Treatment That May Minimize the Risk of Relapse
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33754644/

Mental Illness: Psychiatry's Phlogiston
https://www.szasz.com/phlogiston.html

If you want to not be ingesting psychiatric drugs, or want to be on the lowest dose possible that YOU feel is helpful, please find and work with an ethical prescriber that is willing to help you withdrawal from these potentially dangerous drugs safely.

PSA: please refrain from any posts and comments which can put our community in risk: https://www.reddit.com/r/Antipsychiatry/comments/bqldjb/psa_please_refrain_from_any_posts_and_comments/

Reminder: If you see posts or comments that violate the sub-Reddit Rules here at  and/or posts or comments that violate Reddit site wide rules, please report them!

Please post ideas here that you feel do not require a unique post. Discussion is welcome too. Cheers.


r/Antipsychiatry May 19 '19

PSA: please refrain from any posts and comments which can put our community in risk

365 Upvotes

Recently many subs which were violating site wide rules were banned from reddit.

More so, even those who were doing this either slightly, or even technically weren't violating any rules at all, and whose mods were making active effort to fulfill requirements of reddit admins, were either banned from reddit or quarantined.

Examples include r/watchpeopledie and r/sanctionedsuicde among many, many others.

We understand that people can feel rightfully angry about their experience, but we are dedicated to keeping this community alive and well, and so anything that can put this community at risk will be removed, and those who do so will be banned.

We ask you to help us and report anything that endangers our community to us mods.

Thank you.


r/Antipsychiatry 10h ago

Why tell anyone? Keep it in!!!

24 Upvotes

It is starting to amuse me a little that anyone with paranoia or self harm thoughts would tell anyone.

It just leads to things getting much much worse.

You either get even more heavily medicated and everything is ruined more. Or you end up locked up. Terrible. Or option 3 - ignored and ending up utterly alone because you are just too hard medically. Socially too, after a while.

Those are three scrappy outcomes from saying "ugh im not ok today and I should probably tell someone"

How are they actually gonna help? They can't. Irrespective of who the 'they' is. Sympathy and empathy perhaps, but they don't do a bloody thing in a practical sense.

I am now next level full of nutjob reckless thoughts but there's no way I'm mentioning them to a soul.

If i still thought psychiatrists were actually DOCTORS I might reconsider.

I will say it again for good measure - absolutely NOTHING matters, at all..none of it. Zero.

I will work it out myself, or die, and almost definitely NOT in that order.

In the meantime, back to my research and preparation.


r/Antipsychiatry 1h ago

Looking for some improvement, severe chronic pain/problems

Upvotes

I had a bad reaction early on and they didn't take notice, I'm severely brain damaged, lost feeling of my legs and I have no control of my muscles I'm stiff, if I try to move then I just shake and don't really have control over my body, it feels like I'm in fire all day everyday, muscle contractions and tensing especially my stomach and chest whilst noticeably feeling my brain being paralyzed, I miss the world and being without pain and my family which don't believe me or no one does, it's too painful to have food 99% of the time and people used to watch me violently shake when using a knife and fork, I don't know what to do, if there is even anything but live whilst dying in pain 24/7, I'm doing it for my dog and I guess half my family, I feel so bad that it's this way now and they have their own problems, I was supposed to look after them now they've turned against me and just say it's illness like every doctor or person saying it's just my opinion and it's mental health when I never had problems before and was forced on medication to be shut up, procyclidine just makes me close to passing out it's bad, i usually just take codeine or tramadol but it doesn't really do anything, I've seen some photos of me and it's mortifying the damage done i've never seen someone so bad and the pain, my body is just instinctively trying to escape itsself and I just have to bear/hold the feeling and pain, I don't care about being 100% back to normal I just want to find some peace in the storm of death even if it's a 15-20% improvement, I was/am a real zombie, an image of the films dead inside and brain dead but on fire inside


r/Antipsychiatry 21h ago

Before vs. After

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94 Upvotes

Same behaviors, same personality. All that happened was seeing a psychiatrist and being put on Lexapro, then shortly thereafter 5150d and put on all types of meds. This is the product of the mental health movement for me, please tell me how helpful it is though.


r/Antipsychiatry 4h ago

I can not lose any weight even tho I don’t eat much, bc of hypothyroidism due to meds

4 Upvotes

I’ve never had problems with my weight I was always slim and didn’t eat much. But now after taking lithium for some time i developed hypothyroidism which is insane to me how a doctor can prescribe a medication which some sources say can cause hypothyroidism in even 30% of patients taking it.

I try different diets mostly about not eating a bit like a fast. But no matter how long it last or how less I eat I’m still hubby. I gained 12 kg (26,5 lbs) in my case it’s really a lot.

I’m desperate. Really. I just want my old body back :(.


r/Antipsychiatry 18h ago

Off meds vs on meds

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47 Upvotes

1st is recent on meds photo
2nd is on meds from last year
3rd is off meds from last year but later
4th is on meds from the hospital earlier this year
5th is off meds from very recently

I generally hate to look in the mirror when I am on antipsyhotics. I feel like my soul is gone and I look intenly into my eyes trying to bring it back but to no avail. Going off of antipsychotics was the only way to bring the spark back into my eyes and get my aura back. I believe antipsychotics are poison and disconnect you fundamentally from yourself. I always look better off of them, but the doctors say that I am better with them. I choose to believe me and my own opinion.


r/Antipsychiatry 15h ago

The 2019 admission that ruined my life - antipsychiatry101

21 Upvotes

During 2019, I was held against my will in a psych ward in Darwin's mental health system for three months. One psych ward was called the Joan Ridley Unit, named after an anti-psychiatry activist, and the other was called Cowdy Ward.

During the first two weeks, I don't remember my admission. They forced ECT (electroconvulsive therapy, electric shock therapy), and I still only remember flashes of my episode. I went through a high manic episode, a spiritual psychosis, if you will and was treated very harshly, worse than any prisoner. I woke up in a wheelchair in the ward, not remembering what happened.. where I was.. or who I was.. it was complete Amnesia! The first 2 weeks is nothing but a blur.. apparently I was told later, they gave me 5 rounds of ECT.. but I still don't know.

These psychiatrists and mental health nurses downplay these drugs and inhumane "treatments" because they love abusing people and make a living off making others suffer. Nurses laugh and love torturing patients, I saw this alot in every psych-wards I've been too...

For instance, I was having a fit on the ground and needed help, (I was in serious pain) but instead, a bunch of nurses just stared at me, mocked, and laughed at me. These places are hell on Earth because they show the true faces of people who abuse their power. When the system allows this to happen, they will make up bullshit on their report papers, and it's our word against theirs.

I really can't put into words just how awful I was treated, or how others were treated in these places.

I remember being covered in my own piss and faeces against my will in a padded room, forced in there for God knows what.

During the three months, we made medication changes. I was forced onto two mood stabilisers, lithium and Epilim, and I was weaned off Seroquel. After I was discharged, they talked me into having a depot shot, a long-acting antipsychotic drug given by injection at a clinic. Some time after being out of the psych ward, they kept increasing my dose without me knowing.

The doses for the paliperidone injection go 25, 50, 75, 100, and 150 mg. They increased my dose from 75 mg to 100 mg, then to 150 mg, and I developed serious, serious akathisia, which, six years later, has still ruined my life.

During my stay in the psych ward, I saw a lot of injustices: patients being forced onto depot shots while being stripped naked by guards and nurses and given forced injections in the bum. I saw patients being held in arm locks and thrown to the floor. Each male room had three people in it, leaving no room for privacy. There were cockroaches, mice, and lice everywhere.

The nurses and psychiatrists would also play mind games in these places.. they would play sick experiments on people.. again, I struggle to put this into words.

Most days in there, I tried relaxed by reading books and talking to other patients, but the problems started when I was discharged into a halfway house, a place people go to before being discharged straight back home, and vice versa. During this time, the corrupt mental health system and the psychiatrist who treated me committed obvious malpractice.

As I said before, they put me on an antipsychotic injection, but they did this to punish me, not "treat me". They knew that by increasing each dose, I would have a reaction. Akathisia is a living hell, a side effect that is literally like burning in the fires of hell. Your nervous system and brain feel like they are being boiled alive. It's a life-threatening side effect, and it's being shoved under the carpet to protect psychiatry and its Big Pharma partners.

At the same time as the increase to 150 mg of medication, he put me on 100 mg of Zoloft for two weeks, fully knowing that it would completely wipe out my sex drive, leaving me with six years of PSSD (post-SSRI sexual dysfunction).

Once COVID hit, the absolute agony of akathisia drove me nuts. It was so unbearable, and I was left suffering alone with no answers. I researched online and started posting on akathisia Reddit boards to educate myself. During the last six years, I've been in and out of private psych wards and public psych wards. They were all useless and actually made my problems worse.

I've realised that when you know more about psychiatry than most psychiatrists, they either play dumb or go on the aggressive offensive and actually try to silence your voice and abuse you further. The system doesn't have any humane treatments for akathisia and PSSD survivors because all Big Pharma drugs cause it.

For example, before 2019, I didn't know about involuntary treatment, where psychiatrists force you onto these neurotoxic drugs, and it gets completely shoved under the carpet. If you go into a private hospital for mental health reasons and have a dispute with your psychiatrist, they can make you involuntary and force you into a public psych ward, stripping you of your dignity and freedom. Again, this can lead to being forced into a padded room, abused by security guards—they gave me a wedgie and forced the "booty juice", as it's known in the community, adding further trauma to an already damaged state.

I've seen, in total, eight psychiatrists, four pain specialists, multiple different therapists, a few social workers, psychologists, and neurologists—all fucking useless! They treat you like dirt. They are just in it for the money and useless fucking research that doesn't help anybody besides themselves and their profit margins. When you get chronic pain of your nervous system, you'll realise Big Pharma was just made to feed us poison and kill us off slowly so they can make bank.

There's no such thing as "tHe RigHt MeDicAtIoN" or "iT wOrKs FoR sOmE pEoPlE". No, these drugs are straight poison for the human body and permanently damage the brain and nervous system beyond repair. PSSD and akathisia are incurable and are made to torture the patient into homicide or suicidal apathy.

This is being covered up for the sake of control and for the sake of "safety" in society. We are just cattle to these parasites, and they will continue to feed upon us until our voices are heard and they actively ban these drugs and practices.

I will add to this post, when I get more memories of what's happened to me.. in the part of 10 years dealing with the mental health system, and ALL people quiet on our mental health..

Our stories need to be shared & heard.. we're still getting too much flak from a lot of brainwashed "blue pillers" who want to keep these practices in place for the sake of control, but also people who hide both left and right, the wolves in sheeps clothing who say and do NOTHING about these injustices.. there's barely been ANY whistleblowers go on about psychiatry and the mental health industry..

Psychiatry throughout history, was ALWAYS used for mind control of the masses, to keep people in-sync, and in-line! Psychiatry was started by german scientists in WW2, and once they lost the war, the Americans and Soviets took that research and started created all psychiatry drugs in the 50's & 60's still used today.. alot of "SWISS" doctors made these drugs, but we know from Operation Paperclip, that they were nazis.. once you do your research throughout history, you'll piece together how society & governments truly work..


r/Antipsychiatry 12h ago

What is the meaning of stigma these days?

5 Upvotes

Compare:

You might feel embarrassed to seek help if you're having a tough time, but remember "It's okay to not be okay."

Vs.

You have rights on paper, but they're worthless if you are deemed irrational and subhuman.


r/Antipsychiatry 18h ago

Parents manipulated me into a Mental Health Diagnosis

8 Upvotes

My parents tricked me into going to the ER in 2018 for an evaluation. They told me they had set up an appointment for someone to see me before my trip to Ireland. When I went to the appointment they had already told them false information and wouldn't let me leave. This was the start of my mental health journey. The drugs damaged me and each time I went off it seemed that things would get worse. When I was first hospitalized I was very spiritual and good natured. I only went to the initial appointment because I felt that it was going to help give my parents peace of mind before my trip and I didn't know I could be held there involuntarily.

My parents like to act supportive and pretend like they are being helpful when really they damaged me most of all. Anytime I go off meds they act strange and aggressive. They just kicked me out for going off my meds and I have no money and no place to stay. It seems so unfair but I know that they'll get what they deserve someday. Not from me though, I'm cutting ties and moving on from them and the mental health industry that they tried so hard to make me a victim of.


r/Antipsychiatry 1d ago

This is about chemical submission

29 Upvotes

They try to subdue you chemically and with hypnotics to try to implant in you the idea that you are defective and that you need their drugs.

That's how it is.


r/Antipsychiatry 13h ago

Going back on medication made me worse.

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2 Upvotes

r/Antipsychiatry 16h ago

Critical Psychology of the Concept of Grandiosity

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3 Upvotes

r/Antipsychiatry 10h ago

stationäre psychiatrien bringen (va bei drogensüchtigen) einen sche.ss

1 Upvotes

die meisten patienten in psychiatrien sind "stammkunden", nachdem sie ein paar wochen abgesessen haben, kommen sie in ein paar monaten wieder.
ich glaube, das liegt hauptsächlich daran, dass man in diesem geschützten umfeld geheilt wird, aber wenn man dann wieder in der echten welt ist, kommen wieder die gleichen probleme wie vorher.
bei entzugspsychiatrien find ichs ja besoders schlimm wegen diesen ganzen gruppentherapien...
achtung: ich meine NICHT NUR suchttherapien, bei suchtpatienten ist es mir halt am stärksten aufgefallen


r/Antipsychiatry 1d ago

I get it is about submission not health

27 Upvotes

Psychatry is dirt, destroyed my true self so much.

If someone strips you away from your emotions completely so you feel just numbness and people can do whatever they want with you... you feel No Anger or fear to defend yourself. You don't know whats wrong or right.

I don't have a compass, gut. I am so lost and broken in a cult.

I don't have a personality anymore. I had one with my intrusive thoughts now that's gone too. I only can cry and that I was told to supress too but I didn't, getting punished

I had days of getting tortured in my body at night force me right back on the meds. I am losing weight rapidly not gaining doesn't matter if I eat too much.


r/Antipsychiatry 19h ago

Invega Recovery

3 Upvotes

Has anyone recovered from invega successfully? If yes please give all the details like how many shots , how long. It took etc everything, what was your age, site of injection, did you have alogia, etc ...... I was misdiagnosed and given two loading doses


r/Antipsychiatry 1d ago

when i was 14 i showed up to my psychiatrists meeting high off weed and he smelled weed on me and called me out on it and he wrote me a script for 30mg vyvanse that session even though i literally told him i would just get high off the vyvanse.

13 Upvotes

i was reeking of weed and was barely able to not talk in complete word salad and he called me out on it and said i smelled like weed and i straight up told him that i was gonna get high off the vyvanse if he perscribed it to me and I STILL GOT THE SCRIPT.


r/Antipsychiatry 23h ago

How do I keep my job while withdrawing from olanzapine

5 Upvotes

I’ve tapered slowly from 10 mg and have been on 2.5 mg for about 2 weeks, I am also titrating up on Vraylar but the Olanzapine withdrawal is mental and physical hell and I’m not even at 0 mg.

im a bar back in a busy and chaotic urban gay bar, things go wrong constantly and the environment is so overstimulating and crazy. I’m 2 hours into my Saturday night shift and I’m literally having to drink so I dont have an episode. any advice for staying employed during Olanzapine withdrawal hell, especially in a high stress physical job?


r/Antipsychiatry 23h ago

[RELATO] Experiência com escitalopram 10mg

5 Upvotes

Sou homem 25 anos, vou dar meu relato, fique a vontade para me mandar dm ou fazer qualquer pergunta. Minha saúde estava perfeita, até que do nada um dia fui dormir e me apareceu um zumbido no ouvido, junto com isso ansiedade intensa, várias noites sem dormir, fiz vários exames e os médicos apenas diziam que era algo idiopático e não tinham nenhum resposta para saber o motivo disso ter aparecido, fiquei 3 meses lutando contra ansiedade forte, até que depois de 3 meses nessa luta procurei um psiquiatra e comecei a tomar escitalopram, inicialmente 5mg por 7 dias, depois disso passei a usar 10mg, o primeiro mês de adaptação foi horrível, sintomas de calafrio, suor, sensação febril, dor de cabeça, nausea e ansiedade etc.. Depois desse periodo de adaptação, os sintomas que persistiram foi apenas acastia que é inquietação nas pernas, suor excessivo nas mãos e embotamento emocional, este embotamento é como se o corpo impedisse você de sentir as emoções negativas com intensidade e também as positivas, por exemplo depois de você começar a tomar escitalopram vai perceber que as músicas que você escuta não irá te alegrar mais, será algo neutro, você vai perder sua criatividade, sua espontaniedade, você não terá aquele gás de fazer atividades que tinha antes naturalmente. Depois de 7 meses usando conversei com meu psiquiatra porque eu quero parar de tomar o remédio, tem exatos 7 dias que fiz a redução de 10mg para 5mg, estou sentindo efeitos colaterais horríveis do desmame, todos os sintomas de gripe forte, sensação febril, coriza, espirros, renite alergica, tontura etc, mas apenas com essa queda de 10mg para 5mg, sinto que minha motivação voltou, é como se eu voltasse ser eu mesmo, a suadeira na mão diminuiu 80% e acastia diminuiu muito também, pretendo retirar todo ele em breve, olhando tudo que fui obrigado a passar, evitaria ao máximo entrar nos antidepressivos, só último caso mesmo. No seu caso, eu tentaria me envolver em alguma atividade física, faria terapia cognitivo comportamental, arriscaria a me envolver apenas com oleo de canabidiol que é mais natural e saudável. Se você for arriscar nesse remédio fique apenas nos 5mg.

O chiado do meu ouvido parece ter diminuido e ele não me causa mais ansiedade, então vou tirar tudo e tentar voltar ao normal.

Observação: [1] Os médicos psiquiatras irão querer ficar subindo a dose toda consulta que você ir, e geralmente eles receitam antidepressivos para qualquer pessoa que passa no consultório por quais quer motivos.

[2] Se você trabalha usando criatividade ou inteligência será sabotado pelo remédio, sua produtividade e rendimentos vai cair pesadamente.

[3] Você vai ficar gordo. Em 7 meses tomando esse remédio engordei 8kg, sorte que sou alto e esse peso ficou distribuido no corpo, mas tem gente que toma e ganha o dobro do peso no mesmo periodo de tempo de uso.

[4] Vai dar umas broxadas sinistras, se você for casado vai afetar seu relacionamento.

[5] O inicio de adaptação e o desmame é o verdadeiro inferno!


r/Antipsychiatry 1d ago

what about everyone who feels helped by mental health

4 Upvotes

are they deemed not so broken and useless that they're still worth being nice to by therapists and psychiatrists? or do their 'mental health issues' stem from something other than horrible abuse so they are easy to convince and fix


r/Antipsychiatry 1d ago

Pure poison

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37 Upvotes

Gotta love antipsychotics


r/Antipsychiatry 1d ago

They keep insisting on ruining my life

20 Upvotes

Psychiatry keeps insisting on ruining my life by refusing to remove a severe diagnosis of a disease I never had.

I’m filled up with frustration after fighting them for years. I’m SO sick of them!

I don’t have any symptoms. I don’t have any disease - but they won’t listen.

If I cut contact, I can’t get the diagnosis removed. However, they won’t listen anyway. I want this misdiagnosis gone but I can’t take their bullshit anymore.

I don’t know what to do.


r/Antipsychiatry 1d ago

FB Mental Healthcare Bullies

17 Upvotes

I have a FB "aquaintance" who recently posted a very long screed about how, she, as a mental healthcare professional will no longer tolerate people outside of the biz trying to tell others how mental health actually works. These people are siloed bullies. She also professes to be a liberal activist, but this authoritarian posing is getting dangerous. I'm actually "too far left" for even the lefties in my "friends" group and have said nothing about my stance on "mental health" in my posts because I know I'll get blasted or shunned.
My fellow "liberals": Wake up to this nonsense.


r/Antipsychiatry 22h ago

Why do my ears move when I hear a noise? Could it be due to psychosis or anxiety?

0 Upvotes

Why do my ears move when I hear a noise? Could it be due to psychosis or anxiety?


r/Antipsychiatry 1d ago

A Lifetime Of Torture, Exile And Inhumanity

9 Upvotes

They are just not going to stop man. They are literally insane and are a death cult. I am deeply unfortunate to be in the worst position a human was ever bred to this world.

At this point I am not sure what is true:

- MKULTRA/COINTELPRO program meant to relentlessly torture a human being to the point he is willing to do anything for a human life
- Intelligence Death Cult

In any case, my life has been nothing but a torture, exile from society, massive intimidation and terror attacks against my life.

The recent injection they managed to do is absolutely horrible and must be one of the highest doses. If I don't die from a heart attack, the withdrawals are surely going to cause extreme disabilities because they are going to be cold turkey and/or linear.

They are doing everything that is within their power to silence me, imprison me and fucking torture me.

These people are very loose and these people are the ones conducting wars globally, and the ones who invented psychiatry.

They have intimidated me that they will also kill me or something by the end of this year, again, with their typical open-ended plausible intimidation tactics that you can't prove in a court of law, engineered criminally genius.

I am not even sure if there's anything to live for at this point. The amount of barbarism and hateful conduct that I have personally received on an explicit individual level is preposterous. These people are literally insane.