A Life Shocked into Darkness
In 1998, 14-year-old Chris Dubey began struggling in school and reached out for help.
“When I was a teenager, I was very shy, isolated and sad a lot. My parents, especially my mother, wanted to help me,” he recalls.
Like many teenagers, he felt uncertain and withdrawn—but what followed would take him far beyond ordinary adolescence.
At 15, Dubey’s mother brought him to a psychiatrist, who told him he was depressed and prescribed the antidepressant Paxil. Trusting his instincts, Dubey decided not to take it. For a while, he avoided medication altogether.
But in 2002, as a university freshman, his parents—still worried about his limited social life—arranged for him to see a psychiatrist again. Persuaded by the psychiatrist, and learning that his sister had taken the same drug, he finally agreed to try Paxil. That decision, he would later say, marked the start of a devastating downward spiral.
Over the next three years, Dubey remained on Paxil. He became lethargic, gained 40 pounds and began acting in ways that went against his own moral standards. When he tried to stop taking the drug, the withdrawal was unbearable. “Each time I would try to get out, I would have terrible insomnia and overwhelming suicidal thoughts.”
In 2005, at age 22, his despair reached its peak. “After fighting with my parents, I jumped off an overpass. I woke up a little later in the creek.” He had broken both legs and fractured his skull and spine. He was airlifted to the hospital.
“In hindsight,” he said, “I am now sure the suicidal ideation was a manifestation of Paxil withdrawal and, if I had never taken it, I would have responded differently to my family—without a crisis.”
But his ordeal was not over. “That’s when they told me they wanted to put me in the psych ward, the Institute of Living.”
It was there, under the guise of help, that he was subjected to shock treatments, which ultimately led to his permanent disability.
Doctors diagnosed him with “treatment-resistant depression” and, without his consent, ordered 16 rounds of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)—electric currents sent through his brain to induce seizures in hopes of “resetting” him. Instead, Dubey says, the treatments left him subdued, disconnected and unable to function as before.
Dubey had also been prescribed multiple antidepressants—Paxil, Lithium, Celexa and Seroquel—each promising relief but deepening his dependency. Every attempt to stop brought severe confusion and despair. Even as he later tried to rebuild his life, the damage from years of “treatment” lingered.
“I now understand that the mental health system not only failed me, but deceived me, nearly killed me, permanently disabled me, abused and traumatized me and ruined my life.”
In the years after his ECT, Dubey began researching psychiatry and the treatments he had received. He began to understand what had happened to him and saw that the combination of psychiatric drugs and ECT had not helped him recover, but had factually destroyed his life.
“I now understand that the mental health system not only failed me, but deceived me, nearly killed me, permanently disabled me, abused and traumatized me and ruined my life. What’s worse is that this continues to happen to thousands, with the truth about psychiatry rarely heard.”
Gradually, he withdrew from psychiatric care, tapering off medications and seeking to regain control over his health and his life. He later connected with CCHR and became an activist against ECT.
Today, Dubey lives with lasting disabilities and continues to speak out to save others from this betrayal in the name of help. Watch his testimony at Scientology.TV/ECT.
END PSYCHIATRIC ABUSE
As a nonprofit mental health industry watchdog, CCHR relies on memberships and donations to carry out its mission to eradicate psychiatric violations of human rights and to clean up the field of mental health. To become part of the world’s largest movement for mental health change, join the group that has helped enact hundreds of laws protecting citizens from abusive psychiatric practices.
