Sometimes I happen upon folks talking about the work on this blog when I’m out and about on the internets. The other day for example I found a google group full of people who were largely inspired by the work on this blog. It was a lovely and surreal moment as I accidentally eaves dropped on their comments of gratitude about having found Beyond Meds.
Today instead I stumbled upon a comment in which the person mused the opposite. She was not at all comfortable with my message:
Hrmmmm…read over this lady’s pages and I just can’t get behind anything she says. I think it’s IMMENSELY dangerous to suggest that the bulk of psychiatric disorders aren’t even illnesses, and that psych meds are hokum. Clearly, she was over medicated and under treated as a teenager. However, I think this “withdrawal symptom” is a load of BS and is, in actuality, her disorder in an untreated and worsening state. Do you withdrawal from meds initially, sure, but for years? I doubt it. And it’s not as if I don’t have experience here. I was on some serious meds as a teen and young adult, and like her, wasn’t getting anywhere but sedated and deadened. However, finding the right meds takes time and a good doctor. I finally got there and found out that my mood swings and sensitivity didn’t have to be the way I lived my life. Without my meds, I can honestly say I wouldn’t be here.
The only real issue here is that she imagines her experience is somehow universal. We are all individuals and when we forget that we are potentially dangerous to anyone for whom we think we know better than they do.
I am not this woman and she is not me. There is room for both of our experiences. When we project our experience onto someone else we cease to respect them. We cease to acknowledge them as a separate person.
Let us stop doing that to one another. I won’t do it to this woman who found that medications saved her life. I ask that she and others like her not do it to those of us who have been gravely harmed by the very same medications.
And to those of us who’ve been harmed I send great big hugs and love because it’s doctors and a medical system who believes as this woman does that continues to make it difficult for us to heal once we’ve been iatrogenically injured.
In response to her concern that I am in a worsening state I can only say that I am in a state of deep gratitude for the lovely healing machine that my body is as my improvements take on an exponential pace. Everyday I can do more now and also everyday now I understand more about my body/mind and spirit.
I am in awe of this life we have been given. Let us respect the path, however it unfolds, in each and every one of us.
Now also on Mad in America
See: Many paths (as many as there are beings)
Please do not attempt to discontinue psych drugs without first very carefully educating yourself on the risks involved so that you might minimize the chances of developing grave iatrogenic illness if you decide to withdraw: Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up
More on topic:
● Stop taking your meds, right now… (NOT!)
● To my friends and readers who still take psych drugs (and to the whole spectrum of folks on and off meds too)
● Informed consent and pro-choice when it comes to drugs and medications
● Dogmatic anti-meds stance can be dangerous
● Some thoughts on stopping psychiatric medications