It Gets Better: the series

Beyond Meds has been a profound act of reciprocity. Thank you.

The It Gets Better Series

From the first post as way of explanation:

The “It gets better” collection is a series of republished posts from when I was gravely ill from the psych drug withdrawal process and the following protracted psychiatric drug withdrawal syndrome. So many folks out there are now going through the often heinous process of finding their way through psychiatric drug withdrawal syndrome and other iatrogenic injuries from psychiatric drugging.

Last year for several weeks I republished old posts from the days when I was bedridden and unable to speak. I posted them with the contrast of the current commentary that reflected how much health I have found in the last few years of coming back from a severe iatrogenic injury caused by psychiatric drugs.

Today I’m collecting those posts so that I can add this page to the drop-down navigation menu.

While many find their way through after weeks or months (with relative ease), for others it can take years to really get out of the deep disability and darkness it sometimes creates. I’ have reposted personal pieces from those difficult days, so that people can see how far it’s possible to come and find hope that they too might come out of that darkness and find some peace and joy again. I know it’s possible from my own experience and from the many who have found healing and wellness again on this journey ahead of me and with me. It was in part by trusting those who had gone ahead of me that I found the faith to continue.

During the worst of these times I was unable to sit upright in bed. I was only able to walk to the bathroom and rarely to the kitchen. My muscles became totally atrophied. I was too weak to hold a toothbrush up to my mouth and therefore went a couple of years without doing what most people consider simple acts of hygiene. I wrote with the laptop propped on my knees and my head propped up a bit with a pillow. Writing was a lifeline that helped me continue. It’s been a source of great joy to find out that my keeping this blog has helped so many others. I don’t believe I would have made it without that daily contact with others who also needed the information that was helping me so much. Among other things, this blog has been a profound act of reciprocity.

The grave disability is had for many years is no longer my reality. I am up and out of bed. I practice yoga daily. I dance, I walk and I cook and run errands and do chores. I have not achieved perfect functioning. I still can’t make firm commitments or travel. Still I can enjoy many things in life and I’ve developed a deep appreciation for what I’ve been through and how much it has taught me. Life is a wondrous thing and simply being alive is a reason to be grateful as far as I’m concerned. 

I’ll post one a week for a while and see how it goes. Most of these were written from within a dark fog of various sorts of pain and hellish sensations. I will be leaving them largely unedited, so consider that when perhaps something is not clear.

 

The collection:

• The anniversary posts: the 5 years off psychiatric drugs documented
• Healing is a shocking process: protracted psych drug withdrawal syndrome (iatrogenic brain injury)
• What I looked like during psych drug withdrawal
• Miracles happen: it gets better
• SLEEPING after coming off heavily sedating psych drugs. It gets better.
• To those suffering acute and protracted withdrawal symptoms… (it gets better!)
• The isolation of illness comes to an end – IT GETS BETTER
• believe and know… (IT GETS BETTER)
• It gets better: A Portrait of Poly Psychopharmacology
• It gets better: Extreme sensitivity to noise, touch, movement, commotion etc…
• Fear is life force… (in clinical circles it’s often called anxiety) – also an IT GETS BETTER post
• It gets better: Living well while being sick
• It gets better: Healing sometimes goes so slowly you don’t know if it’s happening
• It gets better: Revisiting the withdrawal symptom list
• Hallucinations (it gets better!)
• It gets better: An email to close friends
• It gets better: This is what it’s like…
• It gets better: Neuropsych doctor confirms psych drug iatrogenisis, PTSD, brain injury
• It gets better: Sleep, insomnia and iatrogenic injury
• It gets better: Speech Psych Drug Withdrawal Symptoms (Dysarthria)
• It gets better: Dyesthesias — abnormal pain from psych drug withdrawal
• It gets better: Dear psychiatrist part two
• If I had remained med compliant… (another IT GETS BETTER post)

 

• See also: The anniversary posts: the 5 years off psychiatric drugs documented

On iatrogenic injury: Psychiatric Drugs Send 90,000 to the ER Yearly

*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. Do not assume your MD will know how to do it either. 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. See: Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up

●  Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up

 ●  Online Support in Withdrawal

See also: Peer support? This is the real thing. Free of institutionalization. (psych drug withdrawal)

For my documentation of my own journey with lots of references to what I learned on the withdrawal boards as 1000s of us were learning to get healthy see here.