When psych drugs clearly do not work from the very beginning, instead of calling it quits and utilizing the many other possible natural options that exist to assist a person in mental distress and trauma there is instead a belief in some totally elusive but perfect (as well as completely deluded) med “cocktail” that simply must be discovered.
And so the med merry-go-round begins…an ever-changing combination of psychopharmaceuticals. I ended up trying over 40 drugs by the end of my psychopharm career. I was often taking 6 or 7 at once. Even for folks who find combos that are tolerable for a time generally that will change too and so med-merry-go rounds are often episodic and repeated over and over again. How many combinations can a creative MD come up with? Rather endless ones, really. It’s a never ending carrot that is dangled in the front of psychiatric patients – yes, that elusive perfect cocktail.
The costs of remaining “med compliant” can also be very high. See: If I had remained med compliant…
There are many options to standard psychiatric care. Most can be used in conjunction with medications as well, perhaps in a process of minimizing or coming off drugs. To begin thinking about what one can do to support themselves or loved ones you can look at the drop-down menus at the top of this blog. It is not an exhaustive list. There are as many paths to wellness as there are human beings.
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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 or scroll down the homepage for more recent postings.
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