And now on youtube too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YLjODGKOX4&ab_channel=WillHall https://www.madnessradio.net/lyme-and-dyskinesia-monica-cassani-madness-radio/ I always love talking with Will Hall. We did our first interview in 2009...this one is very different!
the rise of coercive treatment in psychiatry and society
I never stop being aware of is how unsafe it is to be vulnerable in this society. The below book takes a magnifying glass to what is happening all over society, under our noses in the name of psychiatry. Anyone who doesn't fit into the mainstream is vulnerable. Rob Wipond has written a book that... Continue Reading →
SSRIs cause bacteria resistance
there is so much supporting evidence about what I'm saying about tardive dyskinesia, psych meds and systemic infections..... this is the latest... in Nature magazine: How antidepressants help bacteria resist antibiotics!! if you don't know what I'm taking about see: Tardive Dyskinesia, Chronic Lyme Disease, and Infection – Mad In America I've been writing about... Continue Reading →
Mad Camp (July 20-24 2023)
Madness radio announces:Mad Camp is Coming! July 20-24 2023 Mad people are gathering for summer camp in the forested mountains two hours north of San Francisco. You heard that right! Swimming, hiking, campfires, hanging out, napping, dancing, music, art, dancing, the stars… Mad Camp is all about community friendship and connection. And there are also stirrings of... Continue Reading →
new article at Mad in America (tardive dyskinesia, lyme)
it's been a long while...4 years in fact... Tardive Dyskinesia, Chronic Lyme Disease, and Infection - Mad In America https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/12/tardive-dyskinesia-lyme-disease-and-infection/
The gut microbiota and ancestry (depressive symptoms)
Ancestry is absolutely critical in understanding individual microbiomes. I've only begun to really address it publically as it's taken a while to figure out how to articulate what I've come to know ..I got clear on how to eat when I remembered my own upbringing with a very traditional and healthy Italian mediterranean diet... ...it... Continue Reading →
Invitation to dance…music included
Ecstatic movement has been a critical part of my healing. Ecstatic dance practiced with intent is movement meditation. Below is compilation from my favorite “wave” ever. You don’t need to read anything about it…just start moving to the music. downloadable audio file here: allison-watson dj'd this collection If you want to learn more about ecstatic dance... Continue Reading →
Mindfulness / Meditation and Complex Trauma: The Rewards and the Risks
What media hype and those selling mindfulness don’t tell you is that mindfulness is a process that can radically transform you, and it’s not always safe, nor is it easy or straightforward. We make it safer by being aware of the risks and learning to listen to our own bodies about when it is or isn’t okay for us. No one else actually knows.
Now Available! Will Hall’s Book Outside Mental Health Voices and Visions of Madness
Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness reveals the human side of mental illness. In this remarkable collection of interviews and essays, therapist, Madness Radio host, and schizophrenia survivor Will Hall asks, "What does it mean to be called crazy in a crazy world?" ...
Consent and choice: psychiatric drugs
A collection of posts exploring what consent and choice in mental health care looks like today and what it might look like in the future when more meaningful alternatives are actually made available. This post will be part of the navigation menus at the top of Beyond Meds.
Music and sounds for the soul
I used to hate this sort of new age music…I can’t say that musically I like it now…but on an energetic level my body gets ecstatically chilled out…so good…
I suspect it will depend where one is on their healing journey…I suspect this would have been a major irritant even 6 months ago for me…
so with that as a caveat…try it out … [click on title for the rest of the post]
The Mental (Illness) system and thoughts on alternatives: a collection
“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
I can’t call the current system of care a “mental health system” when it’s so clearly one that generates, encourages and sustains mental illness. And so I’ve often referred to it as a mental illness system. Here I’m underscoring that as it’s important that we make big changes if we want to help not only the most vulnerable people in our society, but also society itself. We create one another. None of this happens in a vacuum.
Dark night — healing the shadow and the dark emotions
There is a lot of talk about “light workers” in some spiritual circles these days. I’d like to ask: what about those of us who are doing SHADOW work? The shadow of humanity is that which largely remains unconscious in most human beings…thus, shadow work is very important! Coming to full consciousness demands it.
Everything matters
EVERYTHING matters. The body you were born with. The body you have today. Your relationships with others and the planet, the food you eat, and the air you breath…. how often you move your body and the thoughts you nurture in your mind and soul.
That is what understanding ourselves as holistic beings entails. Understanding our relationship to EVERYTHING in our environment, what we’re born with and how it’s all connected. It’s not some sort of new age hogwash. It’s just plain and simple reality.
Growing Up Mad in the South: Stories, Poems, and Other Aberrations
In southern California I ran a yarn shop, Happy Hookers, and later, in northern California, a drop in center, The Mental Health Client Action Network for the neurologically diverse and frequently homeless. People came to the needlework shop to knit for the pending birth of babies, for crocheted bikinis and for something to do while they sat with the dying. While the south still called a psychotic break with reality a “nervous breakdown,” best kept in the backroom, Californians proudly wore sweat shirts that said “I graduated with a brain chip from UCLA Hospital.” I joined Psychiatric Inmates Rights Collective carrying signs that read “Housing, not Haldol” and became fascinated by the rhyming “word salad” of the so-called “seriously and persistently mentally ill (SPMI)” who were “likely to deteriorate.” While working full time, I have published prose and poetry in 43 mostly small, low circulation journals, magazines, and anthologies, one mimeographed. ...
I like good food
Food as art form in the moment. My internal Kitchen Witch and muse at work. About I started sharing recipes when I started cooking “healing” food after becoming critically ill and disabled for years. I always have loved to cook so that part wasn’t new.
wisdom and foolishness
The cycle breaker, the black sheep, the "mentally ill" and the unstable, the creative, the artist, and the mystic. The throw-aways and the odd balls in society have this calling. These days only some of us make it. The chronically ill, the homeless, the imprisoned, those who use lots of substances to cope etc are all called to this path. The shaman of our time need societies support. The fringe is where wisdom is formed.
Nutrient dense head to tail eating
I minimize animal products in my harm-reduction approach to life. I also have brain injury and need some. With the shift into fall it's been more lately. Today for my heavy animal nutrient dense breakfast: organ meats from a whole chicken cooked in butter and sage with 2 eggs on top. The chicken is being... Continue Reading →
Everything Matters 
You must be logged in to post a comment.