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Complex PTSD and dissociative symptoms can arise as a result of repetitive developmental trauma or neglect and persistent social stress due to bullying, discrimination, political violence or the sadness of being separated from family and country as a refugee.
But there are far more external factors that affect our mental health that are ignored by psychiatry! Feeling safe is something that significantly affects our mental health.
Free and informed consent means that you have the opportunity to say “yes” or “no”, that you receive correct and comprehensive information about the possible benefits and harms of medication and that you have access to good treatment even if you do not want it. chooses not to take any medication. In current mental health care, none of these three conditions are fully met.
In practice as well as research and advocacy work, we meet people daily who describe side effects but also the lack of alternatives to psychotropic drugs. People who call for support in tapering off and answers to questions about how prescribed medication affects their everyday life and well-being.
It is not "pill shame" that is the problem, as the Norwegian Psychiatric Association claims. The problem is that patients in psychiatry often cannot say no to medication, even when the medication does not work for them. Medicines that do not have a good effect and that cause serious side effects are for many the only treatment they receive.