America's Men: Are Marriage and Children Literally Driving Them Crazy?
By Julie Obradovic
As of this week, I now know five people my age who have been married to or are married to a man with a mental illness. Five. And that's only the ones I know about. Three of the five marriages have ended in divorce because of it. It's alarming to say the least.
The story is always the same, too. Right after they got married and started having children, something changed. For some, it was a subtle change or a pattern of behavior that took years to pin down. For others, it was an intense episode of mania or depression that required immediate psychiatric attention. The man these women had thought they married...who they insist they married...changed. He became selfish and immature, withdrawn and impulsive, irrational and reckless, depressed and sometimes suicidal. He was, in short, like a stranger.
The most common aspect is that it started right after a baby was born. For one, it was after she got sick. For another, the onset began pretty much immediately after saying their vows. One now sees the signs started in college, but didn't realize what it was. All of them agree, however, marriage and children exacerbated it.
For a long time, most of the women chalked it up to rebelling against being tied down. Suddenly, faced with the enormous responsibility of providing for a wife and family, they regressed into their childish ways, trying to live vicariously through their unmarried friends.
The men insisted that wasn't the case, however. They loved their wives and kids, they pleaded. They didn't know why they were doing these things. They begged for forgiveness, support and understanding.
These wives then made excuses for them. They blamed it on their husband's parents or siblings. They fought for them. Sought counseling. Prayed their hearts out. And eventually, got a diagnosis, bipolar being the most common.
Sadly, however, the diagnosis didn't fix anything. Yes, it put a name on it, and that was some relief. But managing such a condition proved very difficult. Finding the right medication and dose was painful at best. One husband literally went crazy when put on the wrong drug. He was hospitalized for it. He then became an unemployed, pot-head, video-gaming junkie, and she left him. This was a guy who graduated at the top of his class from a very competitive university. Who had never done drugs before. It was a stunning and tragic downfall. He was barely in his thirties.
Another husband feels good after the right medication is given, but only for a little while, and only to build up a tolerance. He constantly needs more. He has tried to go off, but his depression sets in almost instantly when he does. He is horrified at the thought of spending the rest of his life on medication. He too is in his thirties.
I've asked my parents if they knew this many people with mental illness when they were in their thirties. My dad knew one. My mom knew a few, but speculated there were more. She wondered if maybe no one talked about it then, making it less determinable. She also said many of them were Vietnam vets who had never been the same.
Fair enough, I agreed, but here's the thing. No one talks about it now either. These women that I happen to find out had a husband with a mental illness weren't exactly advertising it. And none of their husbands were in the military. They talk about it like it's a dark, awful secret, still trying to protect the reputation of the man this happened to...even the exes. There is still such a stigma attached to mental illness that most people only figure out it could be one after they have been a part of it. We don't exactly advertise the warning signs or anything.
Before I knew anything about Autism, I'm fairly confident I would have chalked up all this diagnosing to the pharmaceutical industry wanting to make more money. Many mental illnesses appear on the surface to be nothing more than a maturity-chip or responsibility-chip missing. "If they would just grow up..." many claim.
But I know these men. They are grown up. They were grown up. And something happened. Something changed. The familiarity in those sentences is haunting. It's just like regressive Autism. Something. Happened.
But what? I wondered. What could trigger all of this in so many young men these days?
I did some research and came across a few well-accepted components of their mood disorder. It often starts in the early twenties, and grows worse from 25-40. It is almost always triggered by a stressful event. There is no genetic explanation, although they believe there is a genetic susceptibility. And the environment, although they don't know how, is at play. It is lifelong. It can only be managed, not cured. And the treatment prognosis is actually not that good. All eerily similar, no?
Additional research, however, some that I've been doing to prepare for an annual Autism presentation I give, coincidentally just reminded me of the identification of the disorder. It was in The Age of Autism by our very own Olmsted and Blaxill. Emil Kraepelin, the German psychiatrist who met with Leo Kanner to look for native Americans with GPI (a form of neurosyphilis) in the 1920's, named the disorder in 1902. Throughout the 1800's, mental illness was exploding all over Europe, and Kraepelin made a career out of naming, describing, and categorizing them. He is literally the father of the DSM.
But something else was going on in the 1800's at that time. Men, women, and children were being doused in mercury. From mercuric chloride, used in some syphilis treatments, to mercurous chloride, used as a topical agent for cuts and wounds, there was no short amount of it anywhere. Add to that, the industrial revolution was underway, literally belching tons of it into the air to be sprinkled over everyone. Their book details these incidences in exhaustive and stunning detail.
Which made me think. Many mental illnesses, like bipolar disorder per se, weren't identified until only about 150 years ago. They sprang onto the scene at a time the world was being doused in mercury, medicinally and environmentally.
Today, we are still doused in mercury, especially environmentally, and still by means of our teeth and medicine. And in the mean time, three variations of biploar disorder have been added to the DSM, most of which reflect milder versions. Isn't it at least possible that our chemically saturated environment is triggering a mental break down in young men experiencing significant stress for the first time in their lives? Is it possible mercury, metals, andstress also combine synergistically? It certainly seems so.
Either way, I'm horrified by what I see and what I know. The destruction has become so catastrophic, and at times, completely overwhelming. It's not just our children, it seems. We are all at great risk for becoming or loving someone who is susceptible to becoming very, very neurologically sick these days....particularly our young men.
Julie Obradovic is a Contributing Editor to Age of Autism.
I agree there are definitely similarities between the increase in bipolar disorder and autism; actually for all behavioral disorders (especially ADD/ADHD). What baffles me is how duped society is into just accepting these disorders based on totally observational (i.e, non-biological) diagnoses. Some psychiatrist fills out a checklist, determines what diagnosis "fits" best, and then proceeds to medicate on a trial and error basis. I personally feel the field of psychiatry has set us back at least 100 years in understanding the brain.
Since autism is such a severe behavioral disorder, I think we as a community have always been quick to ask, "what caused it?" I was surprised at the response I got when I asked a friend what she thought caused her son's ADHD. She was actually somewhat offended that I even asked, and went on to tell me how their "doctors" explained that he was basically born with it. Really? As if it were completely natural for an eight year old to be dependent on a stimulant to function. But just think of it, when asked the question, what response can a psychiatrist or psychologist really provide? The only tools they have are a big book of checklists and drugs that treat the symptoms (not the cause). These disorders are managed (not cured).
I think the key to brain science is getting the lay person to understand this is NOT acceptable. Whether it be autism, bipolar disorder, or ADHD, SOMETHING caused this to happen. Yes, individuals can detox and clean up their diet to help, but we really need a complete shift in the scientific community and national research agenda to figure this out. This will be extremely challenging, because unfortunately, many individuals involved in the debate and decision making for "mental health" research at the national level happen to be psychiatrists and psychologists...
Posted by: mlinn | April 18, 2012 at 12:25 AM
For those afflicted, I strongly suggest removal of all amalgams, then treatment with the Andy Cutler protocol for detox.
I have firsthand experience behind my certainty that anxiety, sleep disorders, depression, anger outbursts, and bipolar behavior can be caused by mercury toxicity--and cleared up by Cutler detox. In addition to my firsthand observations, I also personally know others who were similarly mercury toxic then detoxed to greater health and sanity. The internet is also replete with 'anecdotal evidence" from folks I don't know who similarly report that amalgam removal along with mercury detox were helpful if not indeed curative of depression, bipolar, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Anecdotes aren't proof, but they are certainly evidence!
Why is gluten-free suddenly becoming so common--is that also not likely due to increasing mercury toxicity of the population since mercury interferes with the digestive enzymes needed to digest gluten?
Observing the behavior of many of our country's leaders and average citizens, it appears to me that mercury-induced madness is widespread. As Andy Cutler puts it, mercury toxicity causes "disordered thinking"--which certainly seems to me to be a rampant problem.
Amalgam fillings, repeated vaccines, mercury in fish, in other foods (HFCS is a common "foodstuff" with identified mercury content--how many others are similarly contaminated?), broken thermometers, broken light bulbs, broken gauges--the potential exposures are numerous--and certainly cumulative, especially in those who can't detox for genetic reasons, and also in all those who repeatedly take tylenol or antibiotics for maladies that they may well suffer due to the effects of mercury on their immune systems.
It may not be the root of all problems in current society, but mercury seems a likely suspect as a contributor to many, many troubles.
Posted by: Detoxed | April 17, 2012 at 06:34 PM
To Benedetta, It really appears that your daughter has a problem excreting mercury (inability). Maybe you should look into the Andrew Cutler protocol for detoxing mercury from the body. So much better than expecting medications to solve the issue. Once the mercury is out, the body heals.
To Vicky Hill, One point that is never never discussed by modern medicine, is that the mercury in their vaccines, damaged the immune systems of little babies and children for decades- No wonder you needed antibiotics for your children. I live in India, where supposedly children drop like flies to vaccine-preventable diseases. Only problem is- I just havent seen that, even after living here for many years. The poor of India do not use vaccines, or very very few and yet, by and large their children survive. I do see and hear of children dying of accidents and diarrhea, both of which are not preventable by vaccines.
Posted by: Cherry Sprelin Misra | April 17, 2012 at 11:39 AM
To Hg Stinks - You should discuss with your husband the possibility that he get those amalgams taken out by someone who knows how to do it correctly. It could be done for anywhere from %175 - $300 per filling, depending on the tooth and size of the filling (and where you live, of course). Best to do them 1 at a time and spread the removal out, from what I've learned. A dentist told me that there is actually evidence of causation, not just correlation, with alzheimers, now. And he said a second major concern is it being tied to heart problems, which was surprising to me.
Posted by: Jenny | April 17, 2012 at 09:36 AM
Speaking as a grandmother and from the UK perspective and having read all of the comments here and talked it over with my 70 year old husband, my instinctive take on all of this is that what we are seeing in our modern world is a combination of what I call Anxiety Overload plus the absorption of various forms of toxins on a daily basis in our environment. If the young married men are cracking up it's because they feel that us women can and will take over the caring of our children and so they can, and will, opt out. But the whole human race is suffering from a combnation of anxiety overload and toxins. Mass media intrudes into our daily lives with a daily diet of horror. Cell phones are constantly interfering with our brain waves. What does it take to produce a sick society? How does any psychiatrist define mental illness these days?
Is this young man in Norway who massacred over 70 children insane? Psychiatrists say no. I think he may not be classically insane but most assuredly he is a mentally broken being capable of carrying out unimaginable terror upon his fellow man. The stresses and tensions of a culturally chllenged world is having its effect everywhere on this sick Planet. We are coping with a world in turmoil with hidden enemies and hidden terrors and ineffective governments out of touch with the people. Plus the poisons of modern medicine where a medicial consensus has decreed that the mass of the people has become more important than the individual.
My daughter aged 45 rang me in tears yesterday as she is so terrified of flying now that she feels almost unable to take her young son on a much planned trip to New York. It's because it's America, she sobbed to me. This is a normally happy girl who loves coming out to Spain to be with us, but the thought of the flight to the US now fills her with sick anxiety. That same morning her phone had rung with someone trying to sell her a Will. She began to imagine it was a Sign! I advised her to take a tranquilliser. God Forbid! This is modern life. Its not just bills and uncertainties over jobs it's a whole world out there full of horrors and instability. So the drug companies are laughing once again, sales of sedatives are no doubt very healthy in their eyes.
And to cap it all we are all supposed to cope with raising our beloved children in this kind of atmosphere. I am not surprised men and women are cracking up.
Posted by: Patricia | April 17, 2012 at 05:22 AM
I didn't notice if anyone mentioned this but one of the treatments for bipolar is LITHIUM. Lithium is a metal. WHy couldn't/wouldn't Mercury and or aluminum disrupt the natural balance of lithium. Throw in some mercury laden High fructose corn syrup (consumed in sodas) more flu shots than any other generation, and amalgams . . .why wouldn't more people be reaching the tipping point? And--estrogen is somewhat protecting against mercury until--MENOPAUSE--when so many women develop Alzheimers. . . so very sad . . .also, Dr. Amen noticed that mom's of Autism kids had brain scans that looked like Post Traumatic Stress disorder. I thought that was validating to the shock we go through at first--and then it hit me. WHAT IF PTSD is actually a pattern that hits the brain when it encounters too much mercury ? And either mercury causes the same damage as wartime Trauma or what we are calling PTSD is actually from all the soldier vaccines? It's abnormal--but no one looks for it until the soldier is additionally injured
Posted by: Carolyn KylesMom | April 17, 2012 at 01:58 AM
my husband got two fresh mercury fillings just a few years ago (son was dx'ed and I was floored that he would do this after all we were finding out about mercury!!!) anyway...things have not been the same with him mentally, emotionally...he jokes (but it's not so funny, really) that he is "losing his mind" :(
Posted by: Hg stinks | April 16, 2012 at 10:18 PM
I suspect -- without any proof whatsoever -- based purely on observation in three cases, one being a young child, that the cause of bipolar disorder are anti-depressants. I think some are sensitive to whatever the drugs are doing in the brain and then they go from being depressed to bouncing from depression to mania. I had read that bipolar in children was unheard of before young children started to be given anti-depressants.
Posted by: Mfischer | April 16, 2012 at 09:04 PM
My neighbor for 20 years, and a dear friend
buried her son-in-law last summer.
He pulled over on the side of the interstate and there they found him dead. He was 34 years of if that old. Died of heart failure.
My neighbor's daughter and himthis young man had had their good times. They moved from Kentucky all the way to Colorado for his job as an engineer.
When a job opening came in Kentucky - backed they moved, nice job, good home, two boys.
There was some trouble about relocating with this job in Noth Carolina-- but I am not sure that is the whole story.
There was the beginnnings of depression, he began to have trouble getting a job, holding down a job, arguements, separation and then divorce. There were no interest in other women going on here. He was desperate enough to sign up to work for a company that was putting down communication lines in Afganastan. He did bring in a lot of money with that job. Wonder how many vaccines he received to go there?
He was not back in the states but few months, the Sunday before he died, he dressed up as a dinosaur for the oldest boy's birthday - he was going down the interstate -- all the way down to Tenn three hours away - working at yet another new job.
Our health of the young people in this country hangs by a thread. I don't know how the young in the military are managing more vaccines and a malaria drug to boot?
This poor young man's oldest son - is a little strange - he has very narrow interest- and his speech is way above average for such a little guy, can't put my finger on it exactly.
Posted by: Benedetta | April 16, 2012 at 07:31 PM
It is not just men in their 30's. I know of several men who have had this occur in their 40's & 50's. All with histories of multi amalgams and yearly flu shots.
Posted by: Michele | April 16, 2012 at 07:25 PM
Cheers John,
So true
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/10-famous-fictional-characters-you-didnt-know-wer
Angus
Posted by: AngusFiles | April 16, 2012 at 06:57 PM
I would like to add my take on this. Mercury/ Fluoride/and wireless are a recipe for disaster. I suggest every parent of an autistic child read this article. Or google: It Just Makes Sense, by Nancy Sarangan.
prd34.blogspot.com/.../it-just-makes-sense-link-between.ht...
Elizabeth Thode
Posted by: Elizabeth Thode | April 16, 2012 at 06:34 PM
Angus
Quite so, but interesting narratives are much better in fiction than in real life!
John
Posted by: John Stone | April 16, 2012 at 06:21 PM
I am sure I know more than a few that fit the mould..also you have to see probably after high dose mercury (as they were wealthy)...
"Unfortunate Couples: Adultery in Four Eighteenth-Century French
Novels
Abstract
In Love in the Western World, Denis de Rougemont affirms that "to judge by literature, adultery would seem
to be one of the most remarkable of occupations in both Europe and America. Few are the novels that fail to
allude to it." In Adultery in the Novel Tony Tanner reaches similar conclusions: "Adultery as a phenomenon is
in evidence in literature from the earliest times, as in Homer (and indeed we might suggest that it is the
unstable triangularity of adultery, rather than the static symmetry of marriage, that is the generative form of
Western literature as we know it)." An investigation of adultery can ignore neither the light de Rougemont has
thrown upon the relations between adultery, courtly love, and death, nor the insights Tanner allows into the
"great bourgeois novel." De Rougemont traces the degradation of the myth of courtly love through Petrarch,
L'Astrke, and Racinian tragedy, noting its eclipse in the eighteenth century and suggesting that it reappears in a
secular form in the nineteenth-century novel. Tanner's analysis builds on de Rougemont's thesis, and, taking
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse as a precursor to the novels of the next century, he
locates the ideological shift in attitudes to marriage and adultery in the middle of the eighteenth century. He
also contrasts adultery with other forms of sexual transgression: "Earlier fiction, particularly in the eighteenth
century, abounds in seduction, fornication, and rape, and it would be possible to show how these particular
modes of sexual 'exchange' were related to differing modes of economic exploitation or simply different
transactional rules between classes or within any one class. Adultery is a very different matter." The
implication that adultery has not always been a threat to the institution of marriage seems worth examining
more closely. I undertake this analysis, however, not solely to study the various conceptions of marriage in the
eighteenth century; I consider a rather more elusive concept: the married couple."
http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1060&context=ecf
Angus
Posted by: Angus Files | April 16, 2012 at 06:11 PM
I will add... the ones who have dodged the mental illness bullet, are NOT unscathed. There is often medical illness, various auto-immune disorders and neuro disorders.
DIET, DIET, DIET. Eat organic. Cut out fake food like substances. Eat a plant based, organic diet with lots of good fats. Cut gluten, cut the crap... and for more severe illness be sure to check out doctoryourself.com for great info on higher dose vitamin therapy. Most of this CAN BE FIXED.
Posted by: Jenny Webster | April 16, 2012 at 05:47 PM
Very common in the parents of autistic kids. We share these genes, the genes that leave us susceptible to damage from environmental stressors. We all have a tipping point. We have clearly started the extinction of the human race --all in the name of progress.
Posted by: Jenny Webster | April 16, 2012 at 05:42 PM
Don't blame the men entirely! It take two to tango. Men have a harder time understanding and dealing with the emotional components of their lives, and they also have difficulty balancing biological drives with the social reality. If they are stuck in a proper, conventional mindset and never question what it is they are doing and why, then they will never understand why it isn't working to make them happy! Thus they feel helpless, since the are doing "everything right". That's when they start to wonder if there is something chemically wrong with them...
Posted by: JNV | April 16, 2012 at 05:15 PM
Not that I have ever heard that George Washington was anything other than the most well-balanced of men, but let me mention that I read recently that he may have lost every single tooth in his head from being poisoned by mercury in medicines. I always thought that his teeth rotted from cracking walnuts. Having been an indefatigable walnut cracker in my youth, I figured this guy *really* loved him some walnuts.
The book is _The Many Faces of George Washington_ by Carla Killough McClafferty, a fascinating book for many reasons.
Posted by: Carol | April 16, 2012 at 02:18 PM
Please everyone take a few minutes to read this article and listen to what John Dingell has to say about drugs being imported to the US from overseas.
Are we sure our drugs are safe?
By John Dingell, Special to CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/01/opinion/dingell-drug-oversight/index.html
Editor's note: Rep. John D. Dingell, D.-Michigan, is a senior member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction of the FDA. He also is the author of H.R. 1483, the Drug Safety Enhancement Act, which would give the FDA more authority and funding to oversee the U.S. drug supply.
Posted by: Sarah | April 16, 2012 at 02:04 PM
Melancholic emotionalism, depression, extreme behavior.
Reminds me of those impressionist painters over in Europe in the 1800's. Didn't someone cut off his own ear? Not only was mercury in medicine in the 1800's, but so was a little thing called Paris Green - an insecticide, rodent killer, and wood preserver/fungal treatment also used as a pigment in paints. Also in wallpaper and lots of other things, too.
http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/emerald-green-or-paris-green-the-deadly-regency-paint/
Posted by: Jenny | April 16, 2012 at 01:26 PM
I don't know if increased stress in life will decrease one's biological ability to deal with a toxic environment, but I'm personally acutely aware that a toxic environment is a stressful environment, at least for some, and I'm not a man, but marriage did introduce a lot of environmental changes, some of which I know did not help my health (like birth control pills on top of an amalgam load).
I wonder about others, those these might just be at most "straws on the camel's back," like the pots and pans we cooked with, changes in diet when adding the preferences of another person and limited cooking skills, my experiments in trying cleaning products, a change in living space, new requirements to spray for pest control, mold exposures, added wifi exposure?
Maybe a different topic, but like with vaccination, I wish there was greater understanding of the history and limitations of the "science" behind "anti" psychotics. I can't say I'm an expert, but I think it's safe to say that none of these drugs have been truly shown to outperform a placebo, particularly long-term, the adverse effects are so often attributed to the "conditions" for which they are prescribed, and case studies of individuals who've become psychotic when taking these drugs for rather minor conditions don't seem to deter those prescribing them. Individual accounts of adverse experience with these products get about as much consideration from the "experts" as accounts from parents of vaccine-injured children.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | April 16, 2012 at 12:59 PM
Very sorry to hear about these tragedies. It's very upsetting to see it happen to loved ones. We haven't seen this happening among close friends in many years but we do see it all around us. A youngish father of a boy in my son's second grade class just killed himself a month ago and no one is talking about it, the school hasn't even organized a campaign of condolences for the family because this kind of thing is only talked about in stifled whispers. But I suspect that whenever there is a new mass trend of mental issues that effects every walk of life and people in every situation-- and adult onset mental disability is certainly one of the mass trends-- pharma was probably there too.
Disabled mental illness among adults was 3 per 1000 in 1955 and it's higher than 1 in 76 today. It has risen with pollution obviously, but the statistical trend has had particularly radical spikes appearing after the mass marketing for specific "mental health" drugs. So now when I hear of someone formerly functional breaking down, I wonder what modern medicine may have had to do with it, especially when it's sudden. When new babies come home and no one sleeps-- particularly when the baby is vaccine injured-- your mainstream helpful docs often offer sleep aids (benzos)or antidepressants, both of which carry specific warnings for causing mania. We were offered such kindness by a practitioner we no longer see, but we knew of too many people losing their minds on the drugs so we went through the whole post-natal experience with twins and then double vaccine injury regressions and all-night screaming and night-waking with no palliative chemical aides. I wish to God that we had extended the same skepticism to vaccines. Later we found out that some forms of genetic susceptibility to vaccines could overlap in families with susceptibility to adverse drug effects: the meds are all mito toxic.
We've heard so many stories now. Someone is prescribed a common sleep aid or "anti-anxiety" drug and they're given no warnings by the prescribing doctor about common reactions. Then the mania side effect appears, the same prescribing doctors rarely point to the drug as the cause, instead saying that the medication has 'helpfully uncovered' an underlying mental illness, for which the doctor "helpfully" prescribes another drug with side effects, for which another drug is prescribed and on and on in a practice which is now being referred to as "polypharmacy."
When I read Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic" I was shocked to learn the epidemic of drug-induced adult onset mental disability is as big as the autism epidemic among children, probably why Dr. David Healy's new book is entitled "Pharmageddon." We are in so much trouble in this country.
I don't think drugs are the sole cause of breakdowns, but I don't believe that the vast majority of mental illness is "genetic" for a minute. No such thing as a genetic epidemic and the world is so toxic. Life is really getting harder economically and socially in a country where individual rights are being dissolved and most people are in denial about all of it, so it's difficult to get even old fashioned consensus for the sake of sanity. But there have been harder times in history that didn't come with this massive trend, so it seems the cause is probably toxic environment, whether from air, water and food or medically prescribed. Whatever the cause, it's very tragic and I'm hoping the increased dialogue will help.
Posted by: By the skin of our teeth | April 16, 2012 at 12:39 PM
I think these men may represent the beginning of what Newsweek dubbed "The Boy Crisis" http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2006/01/29/the-trouble-with-boys.html. In a letter to the editor the following month, Lyn of Safeminds made astute comments representing our community.
The problems may not have manifested fully until the responsibility of marriage and fatherhood hit them.
As a psychologist, my practice has gone from having very few men to about half of my practice in 20 years time.
Posted by: healthforchildren | April 16, 2012 at 11:50 AM
I've been reading the book Age of Autism for the past few days, and you're right, it's stunning in its detail and accuracy. It observes that mercury treatment caused dementia and/or paralysis in millions of those treated for syphilis, all the way up to the '40s, when penicillin made mercury treatment obsolete. And yet this is not recognized at all in medical textbooks, which only observe that syphilis came back to Europe with Columbus, and it was devastating until penicillin was available to cure it. Nothing about doctors being the cause of horrible disability in millions! There was no paralysis where no mercury was given to treat syphilis, none in Norway or among poor Indians and blacks. The book talks about how Freud cluelessly went on and on about childhood sexual trauma having caused his patients' severe gastrointestinal symptoms, sleep disorders, paralysis, and pain, while noting but failing to see the significance of the fact that all of them had taken calomel (with mercury) or had administered mercury-containing ointments and antiseptics to their sick relatives, absorbing mercury through their hands. Teething powder with mercury killed countless babies whose parents were clueless as to what the cause of their decline had been.
Both my arms were temporarily paralyed after a mercury-containing tetanus shot when I was nineteen. I later developed M.S., unknown before the nineteenth century. As I read Age of Autism, when I got to severe insomnia caused by mercury, I thought check, my permanent severe insomnia started with the first symptoms of M.S., but every doctor I went to thought it was psychological in origin. When I read numbness or tingling in the extremities caused by mercury, I thought check, that has been a common symptom of my M.S. When I read of hemiplegia, paralysis of one side caused by M.S., I thought check, check, I was paralyzed on the left side for over a month in an attack of M.S.
When I read about Freud's Wolf Man being unable to have a normal bowel movement since taking calomel, it made me think of my autistic daughter with a similar problem. She got a mercury-containing hep-B vaccine at birth.
It is totally incomprehensible why so few public figures are willing to publicly admit this link to so many diseases and take appropriate action. (Like banning vaccines as devastatingly dangerous.)
Posted by: cia parker | April 16, 2012 at 11:31 AM
Or could it be hidden autoimmune disease that has been working on them for years and years since their vaccines?
Are these the guys that squeaked by?
Where did my thyroid disesase come from? No one in my family had trouble except for my generation - I do have a cousin with it and another cousin with MS.
I sort of feel like the heart disease thing that started way back in the 50s began with flu shots.
I have a friend that developed diabeties in her late 30s and she too had no family history.
My daughter since she is female, and estrogen does protect her - would have squeaked by - maybe later this auto immune diseae would have gotten her much later down the line - if not for the HEP B series. But these guys don't have the estorogen to protect them.
Just like the men that developed heart trouble in the 50s and 60s.
Posted by: Benedetta | April 16, 2012 at 11:12 AM
nature may have culled those with weak immune systems in the past but the culling now is man made IMO and has nothing to do with nature
Posted by: Sarah | April 16, 2012 at 10:39 AM
I would have these men checked for folate receptor antibodies.
If it started right after they got married, then maybe it could be something sexually transmitted? Having mental illness myself I am definitely all for using condoms even in a monogamous marriage. My husband is the only one sane in the family and I need him to stay so. I do not want him to 'catch' what I have.
I am not saying that's what it is, just adding one thought to the discussion...
Posted by: Karin | April 16, 2012 at 10:14 AM
My DH and I have had our amalgams removed (full if Hg & Ni according to our dentist) and are using AC chelation.
We feel more energized and less depressed!
Get the poison out!
Posted by: Michelle | April 16, 2012 at 10:12 AM
And as far as bipolar, top of their class and all - I have been there with my daughter - After her Hep B
/high SED rates.
It affected her sleep patterns. She is now on a seizure medicine although she is taking it for mood stabilization - not eplilespy - but I expect that is why it works so well for her - it is taking care of the seizures in her sleep.
The heart thing, she won't take it serious.
Posted by: Benedetta | April 16, 2012 at 09:05 AM
Another possibility is the unintended side effect of antibiotics. Thanks to the advent of antibiotics, we have been able to save lives for several decades now that would otherwise have been lost to disease. My older son would never have lived to adulthood in an earlier age, as he had far too many once-deadly infections while growing up. Was this, perhaps, nature's way of 'culling' those with weaker immune systems? I'm ever so greatful that he has lived to adulthood, but I still wonder if earlier generations didn't see as many adults with these challenges because those people simply didn't live to adulthood.
Posted by: Vicki Hill | April 16, 2012 at 07:44 AM