All About You FRIDAY – How to Break a Human

The title of this blog isn’t original. It was taken from an article on Substack written by Dr. Roger McFillin, psychiatrist and host of the Radically Genuine podcast. This article landing on my feed could not have been more timely.

There aren’t many occasions someone walks into my clinic that I don’t have an answer to their problem. At the very least I have options of things I can try. I’ve been in the profession long enough and seen enough to be able to piece together answers for those who seek them. But a week ago, I was presented with a problem I wanted to solve so badly and I had no answers.

A colleague of mine had reached out. I hadn’t heard from her in over a year. In June 2024, she had been diagnosed with rectal cancer and the chemotherapy to treat it ravaged her body. It wasn’t supposed to. It was supposed to be an tolerable solution, but she developed complications that weakened her system and she was unable to complete it. Despite that, she was making her way back. Getting stronger and healing.

And then in August of this year she was forced to sell her medical practice. An opportunity arose and It was a decision that had to be made swiftly. She was the kind of physician everybody loved. I know, because I saw her patients and her caring, professional demeanor had won many of them over. She wasn’t in it for the money. She cared about the whole person, she loved what she did and it showed. Selling her practice of 30 years, though the logical move, was devastating.

Her life as she knew it had turned in a direction she never could have imagined. Gone was her purpose and her connection to the people for whom she cared. She developed severe tremors from the anxiety and was diagnosed with functional neurological disorder (FND). The tremors made it difficult to walk and sometimes took her speech away for hours. Very little is known about how to treat FND.

“They tell me to ignore the symptoms,” she said. “Think positive thoughts.” Her mind had taken over her body and she was trying to reverse that. She had tried seven different anti-anxiety medications to no avail.

In his article, How to Break a Human Being, Dr. McFillin bucks the materialist viewpoint common in psychiatry. “We agree on the data,” he writes of his colleagues, “The drugs do not work as advertised. The diagnoses are not valid. The system creates more patients than it cures.” They agree on the “what?” but not on the “why?”

“I see a spiritual attack on human beings. A systematic severing of everything that makes us whole,” he adds. “The moment I use the word “spiritual,” half the room files me under “not serious.” The moment I name God, I am no longer a scientist.”

He goes on to describe the blueprint that creates human suffering at scale:

Tell people their inner life is a malfunction. Their emotions are not signals.
Sever them from meaning
Disconnect them from each other
Cut them off from the sacred
Tell them it is genetic
Convince them they are powerless
Then alter their biology with synthetic chemicals that disregulate the very systems that are attempting to restore balance. Call it treatment. Watch them get worse. Prescribe more.

McFillin write, “Loneliness kills faster than smoking. Love predicts survival after heart surgery better than any drug ever tested. Service to others lifts depression more reliably than SSRIs. A single session of forest bathing boosts immune function for 30 days. Spirituality reduces recurrent depression by 90%. No pharmaceutical on earth comes close. You cannot patent love. You cannot bottle the forest. You cannot sell someone their own connection to God.”

He goes on to say, “We will fix it by remembering what we are. Conscious beings. Not machines. Embedded in webs of connection that our health depends upon. Capable of healing ourselves and each other. Equipped for transcendence. Wired for God.”

Connect. Connect. Connect.

That’s how we stop breaking humans.

As for my colleague, in the middle of my evaluation, she asked how my son was doing. I told her I was trying to find a solution to some vestibular problems he developed after receiving the Covid vaccine. And in the middle of her pain and tremors, she insisted her husband write down the name and number of someone who could help my son.

I saw a glimmer of who she was at the core. The physician who still is. Who still cares. Her connection to her former life has been severed by disease and anxiety. But she is a natural connector. She is wired to care. And it is my hope and prayer that this wiring finds another avenue to help the world. For her sake and ours.

At this time of year when so many among us don’t feel the joy of the season, may we remember why. I love this time of year because of all of the reminders of the ones I love. I am fortunate to have a very connected life. And I have a deep connection to the God I love. I don’t know how I would survive otherwise. Maybe I wouldn’t.

Connection is a solution that is within all of our grasps. Some just need a little bit of help. We fix the problems by remembering what we are.

It’s been a long week. Don’t forget to celebrate. And maybe invite someone to celebrate with you. Connect. For your health and for life.

Until next time…