Medicating Normal (2020)

• 86%
• 2020
• Documentary
• Lynn Cunningham
• Wendy Ractliffe
• Dave Cope
• Brianna Cope
• Shalamar Fairweather

One in five Americans take commonly prescribed psychiatric medications on a daily basis. While these medications can provide effective short-term relief, pharmaceutical companies have hidden-from both doctors and patients-their dangers and long-term harms. Billions of dollars are spent annually promoting psychiatric drugs, including antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, mood stabilizers and sleeping pills. The arguments extolling their benefits are often the only ones presented in the mainstream media. The other side of the story is rarely reported, and it is a story of harm done. Medicating Normal follows the journeys of five high-functioning people whose doctors prescribed psychiatric drugs to help with issues such as stress, mild depression, sleeplessness and grief. The film's subjects struggle with serious physical and mental side effects, as well as lasting neurological damage from taking the drugs as prescribed. During the course of the film, experts explain how these drugs became "mainstream". And prominent psychiatrists affirm that debilitating side effects including physiological dependency are common, and yet are not commonly acknowledged.