Is there a reason why people have so many complaints about psychiatric medication on online forums and websites. are these drugs designed to heal you?

Stigma: There is a lot of stigma around mental illness and by that token stigma towards medications that treat mental illness. Now psychiatric medications are like medications to treat diabetes in other words are taken for a long time and hence chance of long term side effects. Psychiatric medications do not change who you are but just treat the illness.

Medication: Medications are not a panacea for the "cure" for mental illness. A metaphor: medications may help jump start the car, but individual psychotherapy with a competent professional helps you learn how to drive the car. In other words, medications are not a substitute for psychotherapy. They are not psychiatric aspirin.

Symptom management: There's a big difference between managing symptoms (as medications can help do), and healing. Medications can make the process of healing possible -- especially when symptoms such as depression, anxiety, or psychosis are so painful and intense that they dominate the person's life. Healing is a lifetime process of caring for all parts of the self, in harmony with others & the environment.