The article was written by a person who says “I have spent several years of my life in various psychiatric institutions”. So it is a person with experience of this system, and what helped them. I don’t see at all how they can be seen as fear mongering. They seem to be giving their honest account of their experiences as a patient in the mental health system.
As for reality and data, there is a lot of reality and data showing that psych drugs are not perfect. There is evidence that antipsychotics cause movement disorders (restlessness, involuntary movements), metabolic effects (changing blood sugar levels), effects on heart function, weight gain, etc. And there is evidence of negative effects from antidepressants too, like sexual dysfunction, and a small increase in the risk of birth defects, just as an example:
I support patient choice. If a person wants to take psych meds, okay. But I think they should be informed by reputable authorities (CDC in the US, national health organisations in other countries, including regulatory bodies of psychiatry) about the positives and negatives of these drugs. That is the only way to make an informed choice.
Ultimately I hope for non-drug approaches to mental issues. Approaches that recognise the real issues in people’s lives that cause them distress, rather than approaches that label the patient as “ill” and dismiss them with a powerful and sometimes unpleasant drug.
Yes this makes sense to me. I definitely think we should look for better ways to deal with mental health problems. And yes you’re probably right that we should have a better standard than simply “you can now slave at a job, therefore you’re healthy”.
I think one good solution for mental health problems (maybe not always, but it can work) is talking to somebody who is willing to listen. This can be hard to find. But there are mental health charities out there who do great work in talking to people who are having problems. There are support phone lines and things like that.