Akathisia Stories

In this third episode, we hear from Kristina Kaiser Gehrki, whose daughter Natalie's prescription drug-induced tragedies began at the age of two and a half, when she was prescribed a powerful cancer drug to combat juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Around the time of her 10th birthday, Natalie was put on Prozac for mild social anxiety. A year and a half later the prescribing doctor advised Natalie to take a medication holiday. Kristina Gehrki: “When the doctor told her to immediately and cold turkey stop Prozac, within two weeks I had to rush Natalie to the hospital. And what I did was this: I came into Natalie’s room and she said, ‘Mom’ – she was very flat – she said, ‘Mom, I can’t stop thinking about killing myself, but I know I can’t so I won’t.’ And I was just shocked. And I rushed her to the hospital because I didn’t know what was happening and I was so concerned. And what we learned is you’re not supposed to stop cold turkey. You’re supposed to taper. And if you do stop cold turkey, it can cause withdrawal akathisia."

In this episode, we bring you more from the Kim Witczak interview featured in Episode 4. Here Kim talks about the legal battle she waged in the courts; her work producing the Selling Sickness conference; more about her work with the FDA panel and its involvement with the drug Chantix; and becoming involved with MISSD and the first time she met MISSD founder Wendy Dolin.

In this episode, we hear from Angela Peacock. At age 18, Angela went into the United States Army, where she rose to the rank of sergeant. Five years into her service, the U.S. invaded Iraq and Angela was deployed to Baghdad. For a variety of reasons, the deployment took a physical and mental toll on her, and within six months she was medevacked out of Iraq to recover in Germany. A day after her evacuation, one of the soldiers in her platoon was badly injured, requiring medical assistance in the same military hospital where she was recovering.

[Angela Peacock] And he was like clearly traumatized; you know, it had just happened 48 hours prior. I don’t know how to explain it. I just felt, like, out of control. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to handle it. I just said OK, I can’t hear any more; I’ve got to go. And I just walked out of his room and I walked down the hall, and I didn’t have anything in my mind at that point, to, like, go get help; I just saw the sign; it said “Psychiatry,” arrow. I was like, I need to talk to somebody right now, and I just walked straight into the office and I was like, “My soldier just told me what happened; I don’t know what to do; I’m having a hard time as it is, readjusting to Iraq — or back to Germany. I feel like I almost died,” and then the answer was, here’s a prescription.

Angela Peacock is a former U.S. Army sergeant and subject of the documentary film “Medicating Normal.” Diagnosed with PTSD after one deployment to Iraq in 2003, she was overmedicated for it for over a decade and a half. She suffered from akathisia during a medically supervised taper and during withdrawal. Angie is part of the “Medicating Normal” outreach team, having already facilitated more than 150 post-screening panel discussions with communities worldwide. Her past roles include Veterans of Foreign Wars Legislative Fellow, Wounded Warrior Project Courage Award recipient, and finalist for Student Veteran of the Year with Student Veterans of America. She is a mental health advocate, writer, and YouTube creator who travels in her campervan across the United States with her service dog, Raider, in an effort to improve the mental health care system for veterans and civilians alike.

In this episode of “Akathisia Stories,” we hear from Colleen Bell, the loving niece of Stephen O'Neill, who died in 2016 at the age of 48. Stephen was a devoted family man who Colleen describes as having dedicated his life to helping others. A talented singer-songwriter and guitarist, Stephen was well known to pub-goers and nursing home residents in Northern Ireland, playing frequent gigs, several of which were abruptly canceled in the summer of 2016 when he had what was later characterized as a catastrophic reaction to the antidepressant Sertraline, also known as Zoloft. Within 48 hours of starting the prescription, Stephen experienced the scariest night of his life. His heart was racing and his mind was in overdrive with a relentless stream of dark and disturbing thoughts.

[Colleen Bell]: He said that his thoughts were multiplied by a thousand. He could feel almost things crawling on his skin. And he felt like he couldn’t sit down. He couldn’t settle. I believe he went for a walk because he wanted to try and shake the agitated feeling that he had throughout his whole body, and he still didn’t feel any better. So he basically said that he just waited for the sun to come up so that he could go and get help.

We'll have Colleen and Stephen's full story in a moment.

Colleen Bell grew up in a small town in Northern Ireland and studied Law at the University of Ulster and went on to train as a lawyer at Queen’s University. She was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors in 2012 and shortly after emigrated to Melbourne, Australia. On the 29th of July, 2016, Colleen’s life changed forever when her Uncle Stephen died by medication-induced suicide. Returning to Ireland upon the devastating news of Stephen’s death, she settled into a career in local government, vowing to use all of her spare time to ensure some form of justice for Stephen was served. Using her legal expertise, Colleen led the family through the coroner’s inquest where it was agreed that Stephen had a catastrophic reaction to Sertraline and suffered akathisia. Following the inquest, Colleen founded Stephen’s Voice, a Facebook page that aims to generate awareness around side effects to prescribed medication and medication-induced suicide; she also launched Prescribed Harm Awareness Day [July 29] in 2020 and co-founded a pressure group, Families Bereaved by Medication-Induced Suicide, uniting families from all around the world to push for change. Her activism has found her a place on Dr. David Healy’s Politics of Care Forum. A busy mother of two wonderful children under three years old and a King Charles Cavalier named Buddy, she is supported by her husband, Patrick, who has been and continues to be an absolute rock to her. It is Colleen’s dream to one day be in a position to dedicate even more of her time and efforts to Prescribed Harm Awareness.

We’re releasing this episode on July 29th, 2021, the fifth anniversary of Stephen O'Neill's death. It’s also Prescribed Harm Awareness Day, which Colleen and Stephen's Voice created in memory of of those who have lost their lives to medication-induced suicide, in support of their families, and of all those suffering around the world with iatrogenic illness. To find out more, please visit https://www.facebook.com/stephenoneillsvoice.

READ THE FULL EPISODE 9 TRANSCRIPT

In this episode, we hear from Heather McCarthy, mother of O'Shea McCarthy, known as Shea, who was born in December of 1988.

His love of art and music was apparent from an early age, and by the time he reached adolescence, he had become proficient in a variety of instruments and was the recipient of numerous art awards. Shea excelled in his studies throughout his K through 12 education, especially in his love of nature and science. Upon graduation from high school, he was admitted to Purdue University where he was accepted in the Earth and Atmospheric Science Program. Prior to undergoing corrective surgery for a deviated septum the summer before his sophomore year, Shea was prescribed an extremely large dose of the antibiotic Levaquin. After a three-week course of this veritable atomic bomb of antibiotics, Shea's life would never be the same. Heather remembers that her son became a shadow of the “intelligent, curious, beautiful young man” he was as he was suddenly struggling with anxiety, cardiac issues, insomnia, and a host of other adverse effects caused by Levaquin. Despite telling his treatment providers that he believed his condition was the result of an adverse effect of Levaquin, they chose a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and subsequently prescribed a host of psychotropic drugs that included Risperdal, Lamictal and Ativan.
[Heather McCarthy] I think these drugs are so insidious on how they affect your spirit and your mind and, my belief, your soul, because it’s such a slow walk. It’s such a slow chipping away at who he was. And his anxiety was all the time. He, you know, was twitching a lot and he had so much anxiety. And I think he just got tired. And how degrading it is to not be listened to and to not be believed. I mean, we have medical records that says, “I’m afraid,” he’s telling his therapist, “I’m afraid I’m going to crash my car." In hindsight, it’s just this ridiculous, to me, belief that he was — you know, he’s going, he’s getting the treatment, he’s going to get better. Like, this is going to pass. This is a brilliant young man. You know? Like, this is going to pass.”

Heather McCarthy is an attorney from Northwest Indiana who holds advanced degrees in public administration and English lit. Prior to establishing a private law practice, she was an executive in the mental health industry. She served in the role of vice president at the administrative services organization for Regional Mental Health Center, the facility that treated her son, O’Shea. After his death, Heather pursued an eight-year legal case alleging medical malpractice of the mental health treatment providers in the wrongful death of her son. She also testified, with numerous other victims, at the 2015 FDA hearings that resulted in additional black box warnings for the antibiotic Levaquin and the acknowledgment of a disability, Fluoroquinolone Associated Disability, of which symptoms include cardiac issues, insomnia, restlessness, and psychosis, some of which can be permanent. Heather also supports the efforts of MISSD in creating awareness about akathisia, a condition that was fatal for Shea after receiving mental health treatment.

In this episode we hear two interviews with Heather, the first of which was recorded in late 2019, following the MISSD organization's silent auction in Chicago. At that time Heather's lawsuit was in progress and she was not permitted to make mention of it. Later, we hear an interview recorded just last month, following resolution of that litigation.