Well, it's happening. Here's a personal journal/blog entry from a few days ago.

http://journals.aol.com/mnchickluvsocc/BrandiesWorld/entries/370

Thursday, July 21, 2005
Tom Cruise and Scientology Have Gotten to My Brother...

And you think I'm kidding but sadly I am not. My little brother, diagnosed as clinically depressed with social anxiety has cold turkeyed his medication. Paxil no less. He has decided, independent of his doctor, that he can and I quote: "do this on his own. I don't need medication for my crutch. I can handle this."

I only learned about this because his fiance stopped by my office yesterday and told me that their wedding was postponed. When asked why it was postponed she finally conceded that he had gone off his meds last week. Said that he had a really great few days and was in a "really up and great mood" but had suddenly become a different person, really down, saying things that did not make any sense and that he was completely withdrawn. She has never seen him when he gets manic like that and rightfully so, it scared her to death. She said he made no sense, he rambled when he spoke etc...

It was hard to have to tell her that it was due to the fact that he cold turkeyed his medication. That he was manic and that this was all a result of him not taking his medication. But, it was when she told me that he had said to her: "I really wish sometimes that I could just go to sleep and never wake up again" that I lost it. The only thing that I wanted to do was call him and make sure he was alright.

It is bad enough that he is in a cycle right now, unfortunately, there is nothing anybody could have done to convince him not to stop his meds. He has done this "independent" thing before but it was always of his own choosing. He was never influenced by anyone to go off his meds and he always did it the right way, going to the doctor and weaning himself off day by day or week by week.

When I asked my mother exactly why he had chosen to go off his meds she told me, and I kid you not:

"He told me Scientology."

"WHAT???"

"Yep, he told me Scientology. That he believes Tom Cruise and the others about us over-medicating ourselves."

"You have got to be kidding me!" was my only response. Unfortunately she was not kidding. I had a very hard time believing that even my brother would believe that BS. It floored me.

But you know, that is the problem with all these damn celebrities like Tom Cruise and those like Kelly Preston who have come out in support of Tom Cruise and his pointless, unproven ramblings about depression and medications for depression and other mental illnesses (I hate that term). People WILL listen to them on occasion and take what they say to heart.

And the result is devastating. It is truly devastating. What people like Tom Cruise do not realize is that, for people like my brother, the medication that he is on has kept him stable for the last year that he has been back on his meds. (He tried to go off last year by weaning.) It has literally been a lifesaver for him. I mean that. There was a time last year, when he was off his meds that he was so down that he could not pull himself out of bed. My mother made him come home to her house because he really did become suicidal...threatening, saying things like he wished he would not wake up again etc.. She took time off work to be sure he did not harm himself!

The worst part about all of this is really that at the point he is at right now, there IS no convincing him that he truly needs his medication to be well and that he needs to go back to his doctor. That his medication is not a crutch and that every last one of those that say people don't need those types of medications to function are dead wrong!

Think about what he is going through right now after just cold turkey, stopping his meds and NOT weaning himself off. And all because some jackass celebrities are telling people that they don't NEED medication to be stable. They need to keep their opinions to themselves and the entertainment news sites need to stop hyping it all to the point where that is all you hear and read about.

All I would like to do is show them the state that my brother is in right now, what his fiance is going through and what we as his family are going through right now with him.

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