YES, thank you…don’t believe the hype about how essential drugs are in severe cases. It’s possible to make healthy choices and avoid neurotoxic and dangerous drugs most of the time. People need to be offered options as a very real possibility. As it stands now people are often misled to believe they need drugs when another method of care may actually be more appropriate for long-term positive outcomes. “Alternative” care needs to become mainstream so that people might become truly and deeply healthy.
From MedPage Today:
Major Depression Does Respond to ‘Minor’ Tools
Patients with more severe depression gain as much clinical benefit from low-intensity interventions, such as self-help books and websites, as those with less severe depression, researchers found.
In a meta-analysis, patients who were more severely depressed at baseline had larger treatment effects with low-intensity interventions than those who were less depressed (coefficient -0.1, 95% CI -0.19 to -0.002), reported Peter Bower, PhD, of the University of Manchester in England, and colleagues online in BMJ. (read more)
People have a right to know it’s possible to heal naturally from depression (and all psych diagnosis, too, really) so that they might find the motivation to try. As things stand right now far too many mental health services do not tell people there are many alternatives to drugs.
For many alternative modes of healing check the drop-down menus at the top of this page. It’s not exhaustive…there are many different things that can help different people. The above lists though can get you thinking outside the psychiatric box. There are as many paths to healing as their are human beings.
For more related information see this page on SSRIs and the risks involved in taking them.
and here are some posts with collections that might help one start thinking about alternatives:
- Rethinking depression
- What if grief is the natural order of things, a way of loving life anyway?
- Fear and anxiety: coping, reframing, transforming…
- Dark night — healing the shadow and the dark emotions
- The anger and rage collection: what we don’t engage we cannot transform
- Conversations about Suicidal Feelings
- Reframe your experience
- Yoga for your health and wellbeing, helps with your heart and anxiety and depression
- Nutrition and gut health – Mental health and diet
Here is a place to start as well. Click here for a list of posts from the category depression in chronological order.
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*it is potentially dangerous to come off medications without careful planning. Please be sure to be well educated before undertaking any sort of discontinuation of medications. If your MD agrees to help you do so, do not assume they know how to do it well even if they claim to have experience. They are generally not trained in discontinuation and may not know how to recognize withdrawal issues. A lot of withdrawal issues are misdiagnosed to be psychiatric problems. This is why it’s good to educate oneself and find a doctor who is willing to learn with you as your partner in care. Really all doctors should always be willing to do this as we are all individuals and need to be treated as such. See: Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up
It’s become clear to me that whenever it’s possible that it’s helpful for folks who’ve not begun withdrawal and have the time to consider a carefully thought out plan to attempt to bring greater well-being to your body before starting the withdrawal. That means learning how to profoundly nourish your body/mind and spirit prior to beginning a withdrawal. For suggestions on how to go about doing that check the drop-down menus on this blog for ideas. Anything that helps you learn how to live well can be part of your plan. That plan will look different for everyone as we learn to follow our hearts and find our own unique paths in the world. Things to begin considering are diet, exercise and movement, meditation/contemplation etc. Paying attention to all these things as you do them helps too. The body will start letting us know what it needs as we learn to pay attention.
For a multitude of ideas about how to create a life filled with safe alternatives to psychiatric drugs visit the drop-down menus at the top of this page.
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