The Gaslit Truth

The Pill That Steals Lives Katinka Newman's Terrifying Journey to find the Truth about Antidepressants

• Dr. Teralyn & Therapist Jenn • Season 2 • Episode 86

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What happens when the medication meant to help you becomes the very thing that steals your life? Katinka Blackford Newman's journey from successful documentary filmmaker to psychiatric patient began with something deceptively simple: stress-induced insomnia after learning she would lose her family home during a divorce.

When one doctor's visit turned into a prescription for an antidepressant, Newman experienced a nightmare reaction that medical professionals refused to recognize. After just one dose, she developed excruciating akathisia and fell into psychosis, hallucinating that she had harmed her children. Rather than identifying this as a medication reaction, doctors diagnosed her with "psychotic depression" and later bipolar disorder, leading to a cascade of additional prescriptions that left her emotionally numb, physically debilitated, and unable to function as a mother to her children.

For an entire year, Newman found herself trapped in a medical system that interpreted her concerns about medication harm as further evidence of mental illness. The breakthrough came unexpectedly when her insurance coverage ended, lea

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Dr. Teralyn:

Therapist Jenn:





Dr Teralyn Sell:

You've been gaslit into believing antidepressants and ADHD meds are harmless. The truth their unpublicized risks include suicide, violence and overdiagnosis. We are your whistleblowing shrinks, dr Tara Lynn and therapist Jen, and this is the Gaslit Truth Podcast. Today we have a special guest, katinka Blackford Newman. Katinka is the author of the bestselling book the Pill that Steals Lives, her memoir, which shines a light on the dangers of psychiatric drugs and how she was gaslit by the medical community. She also writes for national newspapers on the risks of mental health medication, is the founder of the not-for-profit Antidepressant Risks, is a life coach coach and the host of the MedFree Mental Fitness Podcast. Please welcome Katina to the show, katinka. I'm sorry, katinka.

Jennifer Schmitz:

It's all right.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

This is the second time I've done this intro and I've just messed it up twice and, yeah, I'm so sorry, it's a drill. I'm on the struggle bus this morning. Anyway, back to you, katinka. Yes, all right. So let's just get this started with your story. So if you want to begin from the beginning, we'll just start from there.

Katinka Newman:

So my story began in 2012. I was working as a documentary filmmaker and my marriage had recently fallen apart. I coped very well. I was the poster woman for how to cope with a failed marriage. I did everything. I was training for a half marathon, I expanded my friendship group, I was taking lots of exercise. I started dating again. Everything was fine.

Katinka Newman:

I was coping really well, and then something happened that just took the rug from under my feet, and that was that I'd assumed that my ex-husband would let me stay in the marital home beautiful Victorian home and I promised my children, who are aged 10 and 12, that we would stay there, and, to my surprise and upset, my ex then announced that we were going to have to sell the house. I was very upset and I couldn't sleep. I had some sleeping tablets for jet lag. I took those. I still couldn't sleep. I could not bring myself to tell the children that I was going to break my promise to them that we were going to have to sell the family home.

Katinka Newman:

And so then I went to a doctor for more sleeping tablets, and he said that he couldn't give me sleeping tablets, but he could give me an antidepressant, and I think he sort of persuaded me that I was depressed somehow. And I remember thinking at the time that's odd, because I kind of I wasn't depressed last week, I was really happy last week. So there's only just kind of like something that has kind of happened this week that has suddenly made me depressed. So I didn't really quite agree with it, but I didn't really care either, because he was going to give me a pill that was going to make me sleep, so that was all I really cared about. So little did I know that I was one of the small minority of people that have a really really severe adverse reaction to antidepressants at least one in 100 by Trump company data. We know now that it's much higher, according to unpublished trials.

Jennifer Schmitz:

So anyway.

Katinka Newman:

I took. Even just after one dose, I started losing my cognitive abilities. I started having this quite agonizing condition called akathisia, which in Greek means literally inability to sit still. I was very, very restless, which meant that I couldn't sleep, but somehow I still had been persuaded that I should still continue to take them. I took a second dose, possibly a third, and at that point my mind went into a psychosis, a terrifying, terrifying psychosis. I think this is also after two nights of not sleeping as well. So at that point I was hallucinating. I thought I'd killed my children. I remember running to the park thinking that I'd killed the children, but it didn't kind of make sense because they were there. And then suddenly I thought I was being filmed and I was on this game show, and the game show was that everybody was voting on who was going to be the better parent, my ex or me, and the whole world was voting for him, which meant that I was going to lose the children. I mean, it was just terrifying. Amidst all of this, I remember being in physical agony as well in that psychosis. So I think the akathisia was still playing out in all of this, and I remember taking a knife and stabbing myself, at which point, again, I thought I'd stab the children. It was all very confused. My children then were terrified because their mother had gone mad and they called in my ex and my sister. They took me to a private hospital where I was sedated. It was a Saturday night.

Katinka Newman:

Later, on a Saturday night, I was sedated, admitted, and the next morning I woke up and I was still psychotic. I thought that there were cameras in the ceiling, but somehow I knew that I shouldn't take the antidepressant which. So when I'd gone in, my sister said oh, she's very ill, she's on this medication, et cetera. So when the nurses came around, here's your citalopram, that was the. Somehow I knew that that was had, you know, had made me ill. At the time I was hallucinating that it had poisoned me or something. So anyway, I didn't take that. Had poisoned me or something. So anyway, I didn't take that. So I think they gave me benzodiazepines or whatever, but I didn't take that. However, when the doctor, when the psychiatrist, came and interviewed me, I said to him I said look, there's a suicide pact with God and I need to kill myself so that my ex can have the children. So that was kind of like quite damning evidence, as far as they were concerned, that I really was a danger to myself.

Katinka Newman:

But anyway, the next day, which was two days after being admitted, I woke up and I was okay because the citalopram had worn off. I was shocked. I didn't really know what had happened. I sort of knew that a drug must have caused it. Rationally, I thought it couldn't have been the citalopram. That's a prescription drug. So the only way I could make sense of it was, I thought, has somebody actually spiked my drink with acid? Was what I was thinking. Anyway, I said to the psychiatrist look anyway. Look, I'm fine, now I'm going home. Can I go home? And he's like are you kidding? Of course you can't go home.

Katinka Newman:

Yesterday you said there was a suicide pact with God. You came in, you stabbed yourself, we're going to keep you in, we're going to detain you. All of that would have been fine. I was now in an expensive hospital. They came around with a sort of timetable of yoga and Pilates and therapy and the food was great. It would have all been fine if they just said look, drink lots of water, have some therapy, et cetera, et cetera. Of course that isn't what happened. They said look, you need to be, we need to give you medication. So, uh, of course, if you react badly to one of these SSRIs or a drug that works on your serotonin system, it's highly likely that you're going to react badly to all of them. So immediately they gave me the next antidepressant, I started having a.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Can I just I just want to intervene for a second. So they did recognize that this was because of this antidepressant. They completely did not.

Katinka Newman:

No, no, no, no. They absolutely didn't know. They literally said no, you have got psychotic depression.

Katinka Newman:

And also they said and it doesn't really matter. They said it doesn't because I kept on saying no, I think it was a talopram. Then, you know, or somebody's drunk my spike, my drink with acid. They were like it doesn't, we don't really care, it doesn't really matter, we're detaining you anyway because, whatever caused it, you know, you were a danger to yourself. If I'm being cynical, I might also think it's a private hospital and I was being covered by private insurance, by my ex's private insurance. If I'm being cynical, I might be thinking it was probably quite beneficial for them to keep me in. Yeah, probably Quite beneficial. So the private insurance basically covered me for the next six weeks. Effectively.

Katinka Newman:

As soon as I started taking that next antidepressant, I started getting akathisia. I didn't go into a psychosis, I started getting akathisia. That also meant that when I was doing the therapy or whatever, I couldn't sit still. So they were like she's not getting any better, she's getting worse, she's so anxious she can't even sit in group therapy and talk to people and also I couldn't really talk. I didn't really make any sense at all.

Katinka Newman:

They were also then adding in antipsychotics at the same time. They were also every time I got anxious they were throwing in a few benzodiazepines, et cetera, et cetera. So I remember being in absolute agony at that time, which was akathisia. I didn't recognize it at the time. I knew it was the drugs, I just completely knew it was. But I didn't have any choice. I was there and I was being poisoned and I could not get them to listen to me. So after a few weeks and I remember as well so my kids would visit I remember the doctor, the psychiatrist, sitting them down and saying your mother, she's got a chemical imbalance and we're making her better, right. All of that bullshit was going on at the time Yep.

Katinka Newman:

Anyway. So at the end of that, those four weeks I just about managed which, by the way, coincidentally I think was, you know, four to six weeks, was when that, when the first loss of private insurance runs out, then you have to go away and then come back, kind of thing. So at the end of that time I was let out. By then I was an addict. Yep, not in a, not in a, not in a the way that some viewers might think, in a in a kind of. It wasn't like I was craving the drugs, but I knew, and I started. I knew it was the drugs that was causing this. But when I skipped a dose because I was trying, trying to get off it, I was. It got even worse, the akathisia got agony, and so I was frightened to not take the drugs. For that reason, and also because I was frightened, because then I was at home with the kids, with my ex-husband who had moved in, and I was frightened that if I didn't take the drugs, that then they would readmit me to the hospital.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Yes, so I was in this kind of like catch-22 situation.

Katinka Newman:

But anyway, I had to keep going back as a day patient. They kept on giving me more and more. I got iller and iller. They kept on giving me more and more drugs. There was a turning point when they gave me the antipsychotic olanzapine, and at that point I became catatonic. I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't dress myself, I couldn't wash myself, I was dribbling, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't go out the house because I would lose things. I wouldn't remember to close the door, the front door. I couldn't walk down the street, I certainly couldn't have a conversation.

Katinka Newman:

And at that point I started trying to medicate myself, self-medicate with alcohol, cigarettes. So before I'd been a keep fit fanatic and I'm now actually so I'd been training for a half marathon, never almost a teetotaler. Suddenly I was smoking 70 cigarettes a day and I was drinking whiskey because I was trying to do anything to counteract the effects of this cocktail of drugs that I was being given and um, and of course these drugs. We know they work on the dopamine receptors. So I was, you know, trying. That's why I was smoking as well.

Katinka Newman:

The drugs as well make you rapaciously hungry. So I was. I ate so much I could not stop eating. So I put on half of my body weight again. So I became 12 stone instead of eight stone in a matter of months. So I was unrecognizable to to my children uh, well, to everybody, I mean. I couldn't have a conversation, I couldn't watch a television program, I couldn't work. All I could do is eat. And let's put you on lithium. Oh, I know it's. Treatment, resistant depression, oh, you know, let's. Oh, we've worked it out. Now, let's. We're going to give you a little bit, you know, more risperidone, and then we're going to take down the Prozac and we're going to add the sertraline, and then we're going to do that. All of this, all of this.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

All because you couldn't sleep.

Katinka Newman:

Because I couldn't. It started with me not being able to sleep yeah, that's how it started. And they diagnosed depression, which, well, I mean, was I depressed? You know, I was really pissed off.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Well, you said it, I was really upset For, like you know, I was really pissed off. Well, you said it when you were like a week.

Katinka Newman:

I was really anxious that we were going to have to lose the family home but. I wasn't, you know, it wasn't like I was clinically depressed and had kind of you know and hadn't been out the house and you know.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

I wasn't.

Katinka Newman:

I didn't have.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

This was situational, this was a huge situational stressor I didn't have. Uh, this was situational, this was a huge situational despair.

Katinka Newman:

If somebody had said, oh, you can keep the house, I'd be like hooray.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Even if they said you can't keep the house. Eventually you'd be like, all right, all right, this is. This was horrible, but you know, we get to a place of acceptance, right? Yeah, um, it was horrible in the beginning and I I'm like man, this polypharmacy happened because you couldn't sleep, because you had horrible news about losing your home that you didn't want to lose for your kids. To me, that makes sense. To me, I would be like, yeah, I probably wouldn't be able to sleep either. That would be horrible, right, like to me, all of this makes sense. That doesn't need medication. It needs to make sense, right. It needs some validation why you're feeling that way. It needs maybe some sleep hygiene needs. It doesn't need six weeks inpatient. You know polypharmacy.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Maybe, maybe, let somebody work through what is a natural emotional state that's occurring. Yes, and let them work through it.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Right yeah, completely, I mean totally, like nobody looked at you before, like nobody looked at you before and said, oh look at, look at her. She's doing great Going through a divorce, doing well, exercising, eating right, All these things.

Jennifer Schmitz:

And then the idea of depression too, right, like how you had said. It's almost like I was kind of convinced that maybe I had a little depression in here, right? So I think, um, do you recall why it is that he couldn't prescribe you um something for specifically for sleep?

Katinka Newman:

Well, he said.

Jennifer Schmitz:

I think he said oh, I can give you one sleeping pill, Okay, Okay, because part of part of that that intrigues me right there a little bit, because he had to almost create something that was going on for you which he used your circumstance in life, I'm sure happening.

Katinka Newman:

Oh, you're going through a divorce.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Yes, you're losing your house, right? He had to create a story to be able to prescribe that medication to you, even though you came in really saying, listen, I just I can't sleep and I've got some shitty news. That just happened and that's literally what's going on. But my lifestyle is great. I'm the epitome of exercise and nutrition. Yeah, I'm getting divorced, but I feel good it's not taking me down. But so he had to create a story almost for you to be able to then prescribe that medication for you.

Katinka Newman:

Yeah, just to justify it. To justify it, yes, I mean, I suppose. I suppose, looking back, what was missing was the fact that it was that this was so kind of like temporary you know, it was like I hadn't been depressed the week before Right.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Right, by the way, I'm just. I'm going to say this If, if you were to do a, a screener, even in an office, a depression screener, the week after, like last week, you were fine. This week you got the news and you couldn't sleep. If you're doing a screener, it says in the last two weeks, well, last week, no, I was fine. Like, has this been going on for at least two weeks? No, it was one week, not even.

Jennifer Schmitz:

It was one week.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Yeah, right, it was one week and I you know yeah, exactly it was, it was, it was one week.

Katinka Newman:

I mean, what he could have picked up on was the fact that I, you know, it was true, I was really anxious.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

I was really. I was really upset. I could see why. I mean, if you were to look at a friend and they're like, yeah, all this happened in this sequence up to like I'm losing my house, that I that I really wanted to stay in for my kids and I feel anxious and I can't sleep, You'd look at that friend and go, yeah, I probably same, like I would probably feel the exact same way. Like that feels like a logical thing to feel right, like that feels appropriate, that feels like something typical that somebody might feel after they got news. Like that Right, Like it doesn't feel like pathology is what I'm saying. It doesn't feel pathological, it feels normal, mm, hmm, like a normal lived experience and a normal response, mm hmm.

Katinka Newman:

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I mean I don't know what pathological is.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that they're Diagnostic being able to diagnose something you know, make a clinical, making it clinical.

Katinka Newman:

I'm not completely on board with the fact that there's ever a, you know, a great justification for prescribing these pills because of what I know now, which is that they're not hugely effective. No, they are effective in emotionally numbing people and that might be helpful in some instances. I don't think, you know, if the drugs had worked for me and they didn't you know, I was one of the minority that have an acute reaction but if they'd worked for me and they'd emotionally numbed me, I'm not sure how helpful that would have been in terms of coping with a house losing line.

Jennifer Schmitz:

I think you said something right when you started this story, katinka. One dose okay, one dose of an SSRI led you to some akathisia and even some psychosis. Right Now, can we add in the fact that you hadn't been sleeping Sure, like that's a confounding variable that matters, right.

Jennifer Schmitz:

You can add all kinds of confounding variables in you know, like how you're hardwired your medical history right, the toxins in the air, the nutrition you have, okay, all the things right. But you know, if we just remove this idea, one dose, so you changed one thing in your life we have so many people that argue that idea with us and that it's not possible that you can take one or two or three doses of some kind of medication and that you have that reaction. I think that when this happens to people and I know that you're saying you're kind of part of, like that small population of people that have such an acute reaction what I think is probably even me, just like anecdotally, saying I think that a lot, there are a lot more people out there that have that type of reaction. But when they make that very first phone call to their prescriber and say I'm overly anxious all of a sudden, or I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin or I can't stop moving, the response that they get is you got to take it a little bit longer, you haven't given it enough time.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Or see, that is your depression and it's popping through, you've got symptoms popping through, and so instead of people thinking it's that one dose, they're going back to thinking it's me and I've got an underlying mental health condition that's popping now for me and this is what's causing it. So I think that the statistics on this are more so from people that it's probably super low. I think a lot of people can have one, two, three doses and just take it for a little bit, and this is what happens. But they don't blame it on the med, they don't connect it to the med, right. They're told by a prescriber no, it's this underlying depression, katinka, like seriously, like here it is, it's popping, we've got to keep going, we've got to keep medicating, you've got to take this longer, and that skews our results, that skews how people report things. I mean totally, totally.

Katinka Newman:

This is entirely my experience because, fast forward now. You know I I write about this for um, for newspapers, and I and I have a, you know, a not-for-profit antidepressant risk. So I'm you know I'm contacted by people all the time to whom this happens. You know, I wrote recently about somebody who took an antidepressant for neuropathic pain. Right so no history of you know, she didn't get it, wasn't? You could never argue that this is for depression. She had um pain in her teeth caused by a, a facial that went wrong. It was neuropathic pain. She ended up jumping off a building because of akathisia to try and end her life.

Katinka Newman:

Yeah, she jumped off of it she survived, but that but that happened. But I've had countless calls from people, oh, and they obviously have realized it. But of course then there are people that take their lives aren't there and their relatives don't realize that it was a medication-induced suicide no-transcript.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

And so the conversation around that is that, oh well, it's just triggered off bipolar disorder that was underlying the whole time, and it's like, or the medication caused you to have mania, like because you shouldn't have been taking it.

Katinka Newman:

So all of this stuff just makes me wonder about, you know, over-diagnosing, bipolar disorder or psychosis, or you know all of these things, all of those things, yeah, I mean that was entirely the narrative that was given to me oh, you must be bipolar because you're or you must have treatment resistant depression Right, first it was psychotic depression, then it was bipolar, then it was yeah, then all the things everything everything, yeah. Never once was it? Oh yeah, Then all the things, everything, everything, yeah.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Never once, was it? Oh, it was the drug Right Cause this, I think as a mom too. When you were telling your story, I am imagining myself being in an inpatient facility and having some kind of uh in the background, thinking I'm I'm going to lose my kids if I don't do this, if I don't follow through with these protocols and try to do everything that I can, I'm going to lose my kids. I don't know if that was part of things that you were feeling throughout this too. If I can't get the hell out of here and follow what they're telling me to do, like that is that to me, is so fucking scary. Yeah, but you knew what the problem was, but you can't not. You know what I mean. Can you speak to?

Katinka Newman:

that I mean it was. It was horrific because I knew the truth and I was being. I knew that I was being poisoned. There was no way that I could not take the drugs because they were watching over me. And also, after not very long, as I say, I was dependent on the drugs. I mean not in a good way, but I wouldn't have been able to hide the fact that, even if I've been able to that, I'd come off the drugs because I would have gone into a kind of like, a sort of a fit, and you know and this happened throughout the course of the year that if I skipped a dose yeah, you know I would I would go from feeling awful, really awful, awful, to kind of like, to be absolutely almost kind of like.

Katinka Newman:

You know, if you've seen those videos of people who've got intense akathisia, that's what it would have been, that you know it would have been. I would have been hot, literally have gone to A&E probably. So there was there, was that so it? Yes, it was terrifying. It was like I don't, I just didn't know which way to turn and you were damned if you did you't.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

I just didn't know which way to turn.

Katinka Newman:

And you were damned if you did, you were damned if you didn't Like. Either way, there was some weird mind fuck thing going on where at some point the site there was in their notes. They're like well, there's. You know, they do these questionnaires and if you say that the medication is making you worse, that's a sign, yes, that you're ill.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

That you're ill, yeah, that you're ill. Or you're in denial of your illness, exactly yes, it is weaponized against you. Or if you were to say I think these meds are poisoning me, just the word poisoning, she's psychotic, she's psychotic, she's psychotic again.

Jennifer Schmitz:

She's psychotic. She's psychotic again. I use the words mindfuckery all the time with my clients in my therapy practice and it's kind of like the icebreaker and everyone laughs. But then when we break down what that actually is and how these words are used against us, how diagnoses are used against us, how the history that we have is weapon used against us, how diagnoses are used against us, how you know the history that we have is weaponized against us, that's really honestly what's happening. Yeah, totally, I think you know it's. It is, it's all mind fuckery.

Katinka Newman:

Um, it was like being in a fit in some kind of like weird film. It really was. It was, you know. I just remember being trapped in this system and also just knowing that these drugs were making it impossible for me to function as a human being and I could tell that they were draining my ability to care. And particularly, there were very frightening moments for me with the children where I was like I don't know why this is, but if my children were to run out in front of a car, I'll be like, yeah, whatever, you know, I would not be able to react.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Right.

Katinka Newman:

And actually, you know, my kids are now 22 and 23. I think they have some trauma around that because there were times when my you know, my daughter would try to. She would have panic attacks in order to try and get my attention. She could not get my attention because I was so emotionally numb that I couldn't respond at all.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Yeah, how long did all of that go on for you?

Katinka Newman:

It was exactly a year, so my book was going to be called the Year.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

My Life Was Stolen, but I think there are lots of books that are called that. They didn't want that as the title. A lot of people that have the year of their life stolen yeah.

Katinka Newman:

Yeah, forget that. We want something better than that. Yeah, okay.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Okay, so it took about a year.

Katinka Newman:

So when you, it took exactly a year and it was, by the way that I got out of this. This being gaslit was kind of like pretty extraordinary. Do you want to hear it?

Dr Teralyn Sell:

We want to hear it.

Katinka Newman:

Yes, please, okay. So after a kind of like pretty extraordinary do you want to hear it? We want to hear it. Yes, please, okay. So after a year. So then my ex had moved back into the house to look after me and the children. It became too much to see the despair in my children's eyes with me there, so I somehow managed to get myself out, and I was, and I literally went to the estate agent, put down a deposit for a rental flat, and then I was, and then I was living on my own in this rental flat, right, smoking and drinking, and just in the most terrible state.

Katinka Newman:

And when the akathisia flared up for the final time, I was literally pacing around that's London streets at two in the morning, and then I'll pick up some, you know, vodka or whatever to try and get myself to sleep, because the I guess the anti-psychotics had not, you know that were taking off. The edge of the acathesis had stopped working. So this was at the end of the year, right, and so then, for the final time I'd been in and out of that private hospital. For the final time I rang a family member in despair. I said I don't know what to do. Just help me help me. He said do you want to go back to hospital? I was like I'll do anything, anything.

Katinka Newman:

So I go back to the private hospital and I'm put on suicide watch. I'm so ill I can't get out of bed, and at that point I'm psychotic again. It's in my notes. She started, you know, hallucinating, taking off a weird stuff anyway. So then the psychiatrist comes in. He says uh. He says, um, we are, we're going to discharge you. And I was like really. And he goes the insurance has run out. You spent 50,000 pounds of your insurance and it's run out, and so I'm afraid that suddenly we don't care.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

We don't care that you're suicidal or psychotic, like back to the streets, you go.

Jennifer Schmitz:

you were being cynical before about, like, the cost of being there. Uh, no, I don't. I think this is not cynicism.

Katinka Newman:

This is reality.

Katinka Newman:

Carry on, so anyway. So then I'm discharged back to the community, into the community care of, you know the state system. So I'm back in my flat, in my little flat, my children cry if they. If they visit me they said they weren't, they won't have anything to do with me I have community workers that come in to make sure that I'm taking my medication. The place is a wreck. You know, I can't do anything, I can't function. I'm just an alcoholic, I'm shaking, I'm smoking, et cetera, and so, trigger warning, I'm going to talk about suicide now.

Katinka Newman:

So I decided then that I was going to end my life. That's what I decided. You know, I'd lost everything. I'd lost my children, I'd lost my. I hadn't lost my work, I hadn't been able to watch a television program or anything. At this point as well, I have tardive dyskinesia. It's in my notes. You know what that is? That's brain damage. So I'm dribbling and it's the beginning of brain damage. I'm dribbling and it's the beginning of brain damage. I'm thinking what's the point? So I plan to take my life that day. I'm going to we're not allowed to talk about how I'm going to do it, but anyway it involves going to a train station. I don't do it anyway, so maybe we can talk about it.

Katinka Newman:

You can talk about it you can edit this bit out.

Jennifer Schmitz:

This, no, this. This is, um, this is real and this is your story, but other people's space too, because they will be sitting on the other end listening to this going. Yep, been there.

Katinka Newman:

So that was the decision that I made. Okay, but then something stopped me, which is that I looked in the mirror and my face was all sort of puffed up. Looked in the mirror and my face was all sort of puffed up and I saw myself as a 12-year-old child and my daughter Lily she was 12 at the time. I lost my dad to suicide when I was 12 years old. Looking back, part of the journey I went on in the book was you know he'd also been on antidepressants. The inability to tolerate medication is interesting, or?

Jennifer Schmitz:

very interesting.

Katinka Newman:

I didn't know that at the time, but all that I thought was my god, I was 12 and I lost my dad. If I take my life now my daughter lily, she's 12. She will think that there is something wrong with her. Her mother didn't love her. She won't't be thinking, oh, you know the drugs. She will think that it will scar her life forever. And so something made me say to the community worker who came in to give me my pills I said to her listen, I'm really really ill. You need to take me to hospital. And she said in what way? And I said I'm actually, you know, I want to take my life, I'm that ill. So anyway, she took me to the nearest state hospital.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Your insurance ran out. That's why Because my insurance ran out?

Katinka Newman:

Yeah, exactly, and I remember I had akathisia so badly that I couldn't sit still in the car and I was like this and I was was dribbling, and you know, I was just in a terrible state. And anyway, I said at the interview with a psychiatrist who I said the words I knew would get me sectioned, that would get me interned there, I said I'm going to kill myself. I knew that he doesn't have any choice then and he was really annoyed because he didn't have enough beds. So he was like, are you really going to kill yourself? I was like, yes, I'm really going to kill myself.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Are you sure about that?

Katinka Newman:

I'm absolutely sure, 100% certain, and so he was really annoyed. So suddenly I was in this state hospital, which was quite unlike the nice, you know, private hospital. It was really scary, really really scary, and I didn't have a bed and they took the most unusual step of so we're going to take you off all the drugs that you're on and then we're going to start again oh, you got med washed yeah.

Katinka Newman:

So basically they, they cold turkey'd me off. I was on seven drugs at the time. They, they called me off these drugs. Okay, so I I mean, I can't even begin to explain what that was like. It was like I was couldn't walk some of the time. I could not, I couldn't. I was screaming and screaming in agony. They didn't realize it was the drugs. They had no training whatsoever, you know, I think they also thought that it was because I've been. They knew that I'd been drinking. So I think they might have thought oh, she's detoxing from the alcohol or whatever. Or or she's just mad, or whatever. They were literally just threatening me. You know, if you carry on like this, we're going to just be. You know, detain you, we're going to put you in, whatever it's called. What is it called when they Like observation or when you're in isolation or whatever.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

I'm doing prison.

Katinka Newman:

I screamed for four weeks. Four weeks. I screamed and screamed I'm going to kill myself. I tore my skin apart. I was, you know, ringing people myself. I'm going to kill myself. I tore my skin apart. I was, you know, ringing people up. You've got to get me out of here. I'm going to kill my. This is awful, awful, awful. And then, suddenly something miraculous happened, which is that I woke up, and I swear to God, I promise you this is the case. I woke up and I was better.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

I believe, it I believe it because of the origination story. Yep, right, like you, you were fine and then you took a pill and you were so not fine. So it makes sense to me that you would actually wake up one day and be okay Like. That makes sense to me.

Katinka Newman:

Yes, so there you go. I woke up and I looked in the mirror. I was like what the hell has happened? My face was swollen. I was like what has happened in the last year? I used to be this successful filmmaker. I've now ended up in a mental hospital. My ex has got the kids. Everybody thinks that I'm mad. What the hell am I going to do? So?

Katinka Newman:

And I remember ringing my sister at the time and it was the first time I'd managed to actually just string a sentence, a normal sentence, together and I said look, it's my birthday on Saturday. I said I think they're going to let me out if I, if I ask them, can you arrange a part of a party at a you know something to celebrate my birthday? She was like what's going on? She's, she's not taught any sense for the last year. What's going on? Yeah, but she did. She got all of the family at a restaurant and they did. They let me out for the whole day.

Katinka Newman:

And in my book, which I'll come to that was I say so my, my daughter, lily, was, you know, driven to pick me up. It was the first time she'd been allowed to see me in that bit because she, because I, had been so ill at the state hospital and and we went shopping together and I what I write about in my book is that I say that was the day that I met my daughter again after a year and I was like my God, you know, I missed the fact that she's wearing a bra for the first time. I missed her first periods. I missed all of that. We went shopping and suddenly I was better and I can't begin to describe what being better is like when you have been drugged that you suddenly your nervous system is normal, you could have a conversation, you can function, I could buy clothes, I wasn't shaking, all of those things. And then I went on and had dinner with my family and my son came along looking like here we go, you know, mad mother. And he recognized by the end, he recognized the fact that I was better. And I remember him coming over to me and you know, for a year, for the last few months, he just said I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I want you out the house. And he came over and he hugged me and I remember feeling, I remember crying for the first time in a year because of course the drugs numb you and being able to cry. And I remember crying. I was like my God, this is what it's like to be human. This is normal. This is what we do as humans, isn't it? We cry. So anyway, I was better.

Katinka Newman:

I went back to the hospital. I was like Christ, god, you know terrified that they were going to drug me again. But they didn't. They relaxed the section. I said, look, I'm better now. I don't want any more drugs. I think they gave me some low dose of venlafaxine or whatever which I just chucked down the loo. Yeah, um, and they relaxed the section.

Katinka Newman:

They let me be there for six, for six weeks, coming and going kind of thing, and I was very grateful in a sense, because the place that had become a prison it became a sanctuary, because I was fragile at that time. I was really fragile because I was getting back all of my emotions for the first time in a year. So I remember the first time listening to a piece of music, I was like kind of crying with joy. The first time I was able to read a book, the first time I was, you know, I started going running again. They let me out, so I was able to go running, I went ice skating, all of of these things. I remember being able to, you know, talk to people. So from that place I reorganized my life. I got a job, I got a house, all of those sorts of things. But the most important thing that happened to me was that I googled side effects antidepressants. I was like right and.

Katinka Newman:

I came across across probably a familiar name to you, professor David Healy, who's written about this, and I rang him up and I said I was a journalist once. But is it possible that these drugs could have caused all of this, this? He said you're lucky you didn't kill yourself or your children or both. He said I've been a witness in cases where this has been the case and so I'm a journalist. As a journalist I was like, okay, this is a really, really important story. I'm going to just put that to the side. I've got to get my kids back, I've got to get a house, etc. Etc. But this is really what he's telling me is really important. And so then I became obsessed with this.

Katinka Newman:

I started looking at the drug trials, stuff that you know that when they tested Prozac the people took their lives on the trial but they didn't show up in the data Other stuff, which is just a few years after Prozac came out.

Katinka Newman:

There were just hundreds of lawsuits against Prozac. I met a man who you may be familiar with, called David Carmichael, who had taken Seroxat and had gone into a psychosis, taken his son's life. I researched stories around the world where judges had ruled that antidepressants had caused people to kill. So I wrote all of this up into a book that was then sold to a current affairs program called the Panorama called Panorama, who made a film called A Prescription for Murder, which investigated the link between antidepressants and violence. Which investigated the link between antidepressants and violence. And then I set up with David Healy. I set up Antidepressant Risks. It was his idea that we wanted people to have a voice so that somewhere they could post their story of antidepressant harm or people who they'd lost to antidepressants. And that has grown phenomenally now, and so we offer support groups and we do a.

Katinka Newman:

And that has grown phenomenally now, and so we offer support groups and we do a stolen lives picnic and so on and so forth. We have lots of volunteers, big library of antidepressant films, virtual library and so on and so forth, and then I trained to be a life coach because, why not?

Dr Teralyn Sell:

why not? I love?

Jennifer Schmitz:

it. Well, I mean, your lived experience is what it's about Really truly. When you look at the ability to truly do coaching with someone because you can sit with them in it, you can understand it.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Yeah, I have a quick question though. So when you were, when you got off of, they took you off. We call it being med washed, so they washed you off your medications. Was there any acknowledgement by anyone that, wow, she's actually doing better off of these than on them? Did anybody acknowledge that to you at all?

Katinka Newman:

No, no, so I there was. I kept on wanting to thank the psychiatrist whose decision it was, because I was so grateful. I kept on saying. I kept on saying you don't understand. You saved my life.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

You saved my life yeah, and he's like what do you mean?

Katinka Newman:

I just took you off of everything exactly and he was like I don't really get this. He said, he said I took you off then because I was going to put you on more, and then you seemed to be kind of like okay, so I did in the book I do. Then I go and I confront the psychiatrist at the private hospital who had misdiagnosed, who had basically not spotted that it was a psychotic reaction, and had kept on medicating me. And I recorded the conversation as well because I was going to sue the hospital. It's a long story as to, well, it's not a long story, it's a short story as to why I didn't.

Katinka Newman:

I didn't, I could have done, but I just thought this is going to be too much hassle, but anyway, so I recorded, I recorded his answer and in the end he said well, he said. He said well, he said, he said he said I just didn't really think of it. He just he just said it was. He just he said I suppose it could have been, could have been the case, could have been that you were suffering side effects. But I didn't really, I didn't really think, think, think it through, kind of thing.

Jennifer Schmitz:

You know it's interesting it could be. It could be right like still not able to fully acknowledge like the full level of iatrogenic harm. That was done like right. Just can't humble yourself enough in the field to go. I miss this and I really, I really fucked up yeah.

Katinka Newman:

I know, I know. So, actually, what I did is I said, look, okay, I knew that that was going to be the best I was going to get from him. And I said okay, given that you could have made a mistake, can you write a letter to my children, who who didn't have their, have their mother for a year, to say that you could have made a mistake and that you're sorry. Could you do that?

Katinka Newman:

and so he wrote a letter, which was not particularly oh I think probably was not entirely what I had hoped for right.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

I'm shocked that he did. Do you know I I still go back to. There's another question everybody missed and that was about your own father. I know we ask questions like is there a history of depression, is there a history of whatever? But nobody asks like do you know if they're on medication and how that went for them Right?

Katinka Newman:

And you see, this is fascinating as well, because as well part of that sort of um, the, the, not evidence, but you're part of their when they do do that whole questionnaire, when you're admitted and so on and so forth, it's kind of like is there any history of, of mental illness in the family? So of course it was catnip for them.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Oh, your father took his life yes right, yeah, so that was weaponized against you too in some ways.

Katinka Newman:

But looking back as well. So this was actually the big discovery that I made in my book. So I had this genetic test, which lots of people can, which basically says that I can't tolerate that type of medication, it came back you know I've got a genetic polymorph or whatever.

Katinka Newman:

I'm not a scientist, I don't really quite understand it. Um, but anyway, immediately I was like my god. You know my father was, the was the mirror image of me when I was medicated and so, and so then I did some, you know I I found out that he was, he was med. He was on antidepressants as well. Wouldn't have been SSRIs, doesn't matter, you still can have. You can still have that reaction as well. He was a smoker. He could easily have been taking an anti-smoking drug.

Katinka Newman:

They work on the serotonin system, and so it threw a whole new kind of dimension on how I saw my father's illness which was that it may well have been iatrogenic, and so many of the people that contact me, it happens in the family and so possibly what we think of as being, you know, we think old depression, bipolar, runs in the family. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's a medication intolerance that is running through the family.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Yes, that runs through the family.

Katinka Newman:

Yeah, that is being completely overlooked.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Right, and what I think is fascinating about this and I don't want to. I'm saying this because this is the first thing I thought of when you were talking about looking in the mirror and being in that space of like. Here's my daughter's age. Here's the age I was when my father ended his life. Your dad ended his life, but it saved yours.

Katinka Newman:

Yes, yeah, it did, it did, it really did. And you know, I mean I really do believe that Grace stepped in that day. You know what are the chances of going to a hospital and then saying, oh yeah, we'll just take you off the drugs. When does that?

Jennifer Schmitz:

happen and then to be able to know a med wash and then a stack was going to come, but then for them to go. Oh well, just not add more right now because you're doing better. That's pretty rare too, like I think there's a little miracle right there as well. Yeah, there was a miracle.

Katinka Newman:

I mean, they did add the venlafaxine, but it was on a very low dose and they you know it was fine. But yes, it was so odd as well that you know that my daughter was 12. She was 12, the identical age that I was when I lost my dad. Then of course, as a child, you can't help but make it about you. You can't do anything other than internalize it and just go. I just wasn't good enough, I wasn't lovable enough, otherwise.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Right, Right, that's uh, that's pretty profound. I and you don't have to answer this question, but I'm. Have you helped your daughter make this connection now? Does she understand it now? Do your children understand the genetic piece of all this, so that they never take anything like this? Do they get that?

Katinka Newman:

Oh well, I mean. So part of my reason for wanting to write the book and to do the investigations was because I just was determined that they would know that it was, that it was the drugs and that it wasn't me, that there wasn't a possibility that one moment I could just go crazy, stab myself with a knife and end up in a in a mental hospital again. So that was my driving force as well, because I was so angry that there was as well that there was this narrative that I, that I was depressed and I'd gone mad, etc. Etc. I was, I just was affronted by that. But more importantly, it was for the children that they would know that and we all went on that investigation together. They were, I guess, 12 and 31. I remember us, you know, sleeping in this big bed and reading all this stuff together. They were fascinated by it. So they read the book.

Katinka Newman:

Lily found it very difficult, the bit when I said I was going to end my life. She found that very, very hard. Oh yeah, she told me that. But they a hundred percent know about medication, that and the dangers of, and they a hundred percent are know about how we make these diagnoses and how you know there are. Many of their friends are taking adhd drugs or on antidepressants, all these things. My kids, they know all of that. They would not. They just don't buy into it. They would never buy into it and they would never, ever, ever, ever, ever take a um a psychiatric drug. Not just because of well, because because they understand that it's genetic, but also because they saw what happened to me and also because they know they've read about they've read my book.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

Yeah, they have an autographed copy. I would imagine they're in the book as well. They're in it yes. Is there anything else you'd like for our listeners to know or understand?

Katinka Newman:

What do you think your listeners need to know?

Dr Teralyn Sell:

I like how you just turned that back right around on me.

Jennifer Schmitz:

You just like apologized us right now. She just did the whole therapist thing where you answer a question with a question to two therapists.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

So all right. How do you establish a sense of self and autonomy within a system that makes you reliant on other people's viewpoints only?

Jennifer Schmitz:

Whoa oh yeah, take that one.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

It's early and I haven't even finished my coffee yet, so there you go.

Jennifer Schmitz:

Wow, terry, damn Okay.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

How do? How do people? How do people listen to themselves? Because it sounds like you listened again to your intuition, like you were still inside of you.

Jennifer Schmitz:

the whole time, listening the whole time. This is wrong.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

I know the problem, yes, so how do people tap into that or know that that is right, even when they're feeling like it's wrong or they're being told that it's wrong?

Katinka Newman:

Okay, so we are the experts on our lives, aren't we? And it's so easy to actually want to outsource that kind of thing, and I suppose there was a bit of me all those years back that kind of wanted to outsource it. Oh God, you know somebody else's problem, or I'll take a sleeping tablet, or whatever. We're the experts on our lives and we're also incredibly resilient, and, of course, feelings are information, aren't they? So suppressing feelings isn't a very wide. It's not a great idea, really, because if I think back to those, you know, sleepless nights, what was it telling me?

Katinka Newman:

I needed to deal with things, didn't I? You know, the status quo was not going to be as it was. I needed to take action, I needed to work something out, I needed to get into exploring something else. Change was going to happen, change was happening. I needed to get into the driving seat of my you know the, the driving seat and steer somewhere else. All of these things are really important and so, actually suppressing your feelings they are our GPS. I guess we need all of that. We need our feelings always.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

So don't work so hard to get rid of our feelings because they're the GPS. So don't work so hard to get rid of our feelings because they're the gps.

Katinka Newman:

Get rid of them and if you're going to get rid of them, do it in a way that is fun, like you know taking recreational drugs or drinking or eating chocolate or whatever because that is so much more fun than taking a prescription drug. Actually, it doesn't even feel good, does it no, it doesn't.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

It just creates dependence. That's it.

Katinka Newman:

It doesn't even feel good, yeah I mean, I don't know that many people that just go. Oh, you know, I took an antidepressant, I just felt marvelous. I know there are some people, there are some people for whom that happens, and then I would argue that they're manic, but anyway, how easy it is going to be to get off them or whatever. But I would say, if you want to numb your feelings, just have a really good time with it. I think that is really good advice.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

No, that is really good advice because you know what, If you want to numb your feelings tonight, just do it. Have fun. Tomorrow is a brand new day and you might not need to do that again. So yeah.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

I actually kind of like that. I'm going to. Yeah, I kind of like that, all right, all right. So I have a statement to read real quick. Thank you for being on the show, katinka, so we really appreciated you here. If you're a listener and you've been harmed by SSRI or SNRI withdrawal, your story matters a lot. We're calling on you to submit your experiences. When I say withdraw, I mean even report if you miss a dose or two, what happens to you? We're calling on you to submit your experience to the FDA's MedWatch system. Let's make it impossible for them to ignore us. Join us in submitting your story at antidepressantinfoorg. And if you've hung out with us this long, you've been listening to the Gaslit Truth Podcast. Please like, comment, share, subscribe, do all the things, hit the bells and send us your Gaslit Truth stories at thegaslittruthpodcast at gmailcom.

Jennifer Schmitz:

And make sure that you guys go out and get a copy of Katinka's book the Pill that. Steals Lives and check out her nonprofit as well. Oh, look at that.

Katinka Newman:

There it is, guys.

Dr Teralyn Sell:

There's the book If you're watching us on YouTube, Just to warn you it's going into reprint, so you may have to wait for a couple of weeks to get the thing, but anyway, okay, sounds good. Thanks so much for being here, katinka.

Katinka Newman:

Thank you very much indeed. What a lovely chat this has been.

Head Shot

Dr. Teralyn Sell

Co-host
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Jennifer Schmitz

Co-host
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Dr. Teralyn Sell

Guest
Head Shot

Jennifer Schmitz

Guest
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Katinka Blackford Newman

Guest