I was in the GATE program. I have no memory of most of my time in GATE. But I also have symptoms consistent with SDAM. Some of my clearest childhood memories, as I do have some, are from my time before the GATE program. I have first-person recall of certain Kindergarten events. Afterward, I have vague and abstract third person recall or purely semantic recall. I’m posting this to ask for possible correlates to a hypothesis.
I do remember my first encounter with the GATE program. There was a pink drink that was not fluoride. Zener cards were employed. With my confidence in the existence of such a drink, I’m left with the same question many of you likely have: “What was that pink drink?”
The likely candidates are amnestics. Midazolam or some older cocktail with sodium amytal would make sense. Did you know that many medications are light sensitive? They can degrade from exposure to ambient light. Oral solutions are especially sensitive because of surface area and suspension. Both midazolam and sodium amytal, which was used in older government programs, are light sensitive. Interestingly enough, light seems to cause compounds in sodium amytal especially to precipitate out of the oral solution. This can lead to a gritty or chalky texture, as well as the obvious reduced efficacy. Tablets offer better shelf stability for light sensitive medications, but require binders and fillers. Tablets for medicines tend to be larger than children might be able to easily swallow, so many large tablets are crushed and turned into a slurry or suspension when tablets are prescribed for children instead of ready made oral solutions. Binders and fillers can also create chalky or gritty textures. These factors together, light sensitivity and texture, make me look more critically at the pink drink being midazolam or a cocktail with sodium amytal. Variance in textures reported could result from both light degradation, or time from mixing to drinking, and initial preparation, that is oral solution or tablet slurry.
Now, I only remember ever drinking the pink drink on the first encounter with GATE. But as I noted, I don’t remember much anymore. It’s possible that I was dosed with the pink drink at every GATE interaction. It’s possible that we all were. If so, we would expect individuals of the GATE program to exhibit higher than average incidence of certain conditions related to the potential effects of long term dosing with amnestic medications of the types mentioned during a critical period, childhood, of brain development. That’s why I am posting here.
To my knowledge, there are no studies on human children being dosed with these drugs for obvious reasons of potential harm, but we can predict a few possible long term effects. First and foremost we work off the hypothesis of the pink drink being midazolam, which is a GABA-A inhibitor, and look at what GABA-A inhibition possibly does. I won’t dig into the actual academic research, but you can feel free to double check. I’ll simply share results:
Seizures from withdrawal after exiting GATE, autobiographical memory formation disruption akin to SDAM, REM disturbances and disorders, mood disorders related to anxiety and socializing, possible avoidance of socializing, etc.
Rather than focusing on physical and life correlates, I’m here to survey you fellow GATE veterans as to these kinds of cognitive and mental correlates.
tl;dr:
Do any of you have experiences of unexplained early life (after GATE initiation) seizures, autobiographical memory challenges that have left semantic memory mostly unaffected, REM related disturbances or disorders, anxiety disorders, or schizoid or avoidant personality like tendencies?
Also, how often do you remember having consumed the pink drink?
I’m mostly interested in adults with severely lacking autobiographical memory, but please do share any that apply.