The de-prescribing laws in North Carolina USA, circa 2021 did not allow me to get my controlled medication and proper mental health care circa 2022 and thereafter.
You should not deny someone on a controlled substance previously prescribed, weaned but once again forced to take it without a prescription due to lack of provider care- after 7 months I was quickly weaned off the drug And was forced to find alternatives for this problem and labeled as drug seeking. I was, in fact, seeking drugs because chemical dependency is a REAL thing.
This is thanks to the Sackler family.
I had to pay out of pocket or nil. I was on waitlists for months out just to see someone under my insurance. (My insurance was terrible and I was struggling financially) And everyone I spoke to would not help me with the issue. I greatly underestimated the consequences that it took on me biochemically. Not to mention- not one person in my immediate circle was looking out for me, and I walked into the trap of predators making my already pre existing suicidality issues much much worse than I could have ever conceived possible.
This is a massive fail on the part of the health care system, but more broadly the social circles or lack thereof that we are exposed to. And I suppose, if I was around one individual in the healthcare system who identified me as a high risk- who would have prioritized me as an individual with a large problem, rather than a mere number with legal liability, this could have been properly dealt with. I could not help that my social circle was terrible and that no one cared what happened to me while in psychosis.
I was a 33 year old woman at the time of medication withdrawal. WAY too much emphasis was put on the therapy side and personality-disordered issue. I really should have been in a hospital. I hurt myself during this period in such a way that it cannot be reversed.
And still, after my death I will be blamed with individual fault. It will be treated with indifference because I could not advocate for myself or more specifically, I brought it upon myself for being such a nuisance to society. It begs the question to how we treat people here.
Is someone truly addicted or prescribed?
And should we treat all cases as the fault of individual choice if our choice making abilities are altered significantly?
This should've never happened to you, this 'opioid crisis' hysteria is out of control and preventing people who are in pain from accessing anything that could help if there is even an inkling of a chance that it may be addictive, or helping people wean off medications or get to a level where a smaller dose is required. He
althcare system policies in most countries are founded on rationing resources and mitigating liability above all else, and do not take into account the individual patient's needs. Only the individual doctor's career is what's prized.
I grew up in a very rough area and spent most of my childhood surrounded by drug users and deaths everywhere. None of those people had been prescribed opioids or any controlled drugs in a clinical setting before they turned to hard drugs, so I honestly think the opiate hysteria in the US is a massive hoax the media has ran with to cover up the damage dealt by the unmanageable influence of street dealers and cartels that has penetrated north American countries.
This article (
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/what-america-got-wrong-about-opioid-crisis/595090/) straight up says only 22-35% of what they consider drug mis-users had been prescribed any substances by a doctor. It's so glaringly obvious this entire fabricated narrative is concealing the real issue underlying fatality is street slinging, but innocent people like you are the ones being punished instead. Doctors suddenly cutting patients off medication that has built a physical, chemical dependence and willingly causing suffering to save the image of their own pathetic ass is pure evil.
The only person I've ever seen "addicted" to opiods, and I would say the dependency is warranted in this case, was my 70 something year old great uncle who was completely bedridden with severe chronic pain and no quality of life. It makes perfect sense why he would need heavy pain relief to get through another day.
If opioids are so fatal and dangerous in a prescribed setting according to Americans, then I wonder why in the UK we can quite literally buy codeine pills over the counter. Why was I prescribed over a month of them before and after a surgery, and never developed an addiction or urge for recreational use following the regimen? Millions of people take low dose opioids for pain relief when they need it and nothing else has worked, and aren't keeling over in the streets. It's the same with benzos. Benzos can be used responsibility and without danger with proper precautions and planning, to ensure a physical tolerance does not build, but instead of taking that into account those in charge would rather blanket ban everything when there is no good alternative available.
The fatal flaw with many institutions in this day and age is that they are intertwined with an amalgamation of regulations that do not often benefit the users of such organisations (students in education, patients in healthcare, etc) and are designed to protect those in power from legal liability. Having everything regulated to a tee leaves little room for freedom of thought and action in situations that do not fit a perfect mold, and this strict conformity to rules ends up hurting those who fall through the cracks.
While healthcare is the biggest example I can think of (good luck being a person who doesn't respond to a list of approved treatments on a ticked box list in a country with socialized healthcare because they just refuse to help after that point) the institution of education is immensely corrupt as well by infinite rules and regulations.
This doesn't just occur in our individualised western world either, but also in collectivist societies where cultural is heavily influenced by Buddhist doctrines of stoicism, etc. You will see pets and animals suffering greatly towards the end of their lives who desperately require a merciful end, but then individuals following cultural norms influenced by Buddhism will refuse to put the animals down and drag out their suffering because, "that's the rules" if you subscribe to Buddhist teachings. There's no flexibility of thought when stringent rules are involved, and there's even less compassion for a suffering human because you're taught to be stoic.
The most infuriating thing to me during my university education was that my institution had absurdly strict policies and basically had no humanity or leeway for exceptions. A girl got extremely ill during an exam at my campus and had to go to hospital, only to be told she failed the exam and wouldn't be allowed to take it again because she didn't submit a form within the same day and "that's the policy" no exceptions. Who are these insane policies actually benefitting?
Forcing people to behave like robots and follow soulless policies and procedures all the time is probably what's killing a good chunk of humanity's soul in a sense. In many jobs, you can have a drive to help people and sincerely want to, but such regulations prevent you from being personable or taking any productive action. I had a friend who worked for a hotline and got immensely frustrated because they were only allowed to speak from a script and couldn't share any details of their own personal life either that might help them connect with a suicidal person on the other end of the line.
I've also worked in an organisation that regularly dealt with suicidal people, and while my role was more behind the scenes and not dealing with such situations myself, the lack of actual help available to anyone was infuriating. You could tell so many people just really needed pragmatic help, they needed a friend and a supportive person to be their friend and instead just get referred to a billion different defunct MH organisations where a person is keeping a professional distance and doing a job, so they won't actually ever "care" about a person's plight.
TLDR: Everything has become corporate and robotic which means it lacks in actual humanity. It doesn't feel like we have a cohesive society with any sense of cooperation.
