There are quite a few relatively mainstream doctors now talking about the harms of benzodiazepines and anti-depressants on social media. As usual other psychiatric drugs (neuroleptics, anti-convulsants, -- called anti-psychotics and mood stabilizers, etc) are given short shrift. This is about informed consent. If people don't know about the very serious potential risks involved in... Continue Reading →
Some of us have been on the front lines figuring out this stuff years before anyone was publicly acknowledging it. I am sharing this info and collection in response to the two recent @nytimes articles.
I see in retrospect that some core, vital part of me was always there during the drugged years, learning and remembering much that would help me in these years of coming off meds and now being med free. I no longer believe that I “lost” my life to drugs. This is, as Mary Oliver, puts it, my "one wild and precious life."
My "chronically ill" body rewards my gentle persistent attentions with never-ending insights into the nature of being an embodied human. Healing is alchemy and it never ends. The sensitive body holds the entire world's pain, trauma, joy and madness within it. And yes, the suggestion is that most of us are not embodied. The conditioned self is disembodied. Coming to embodiment can be very painful.
A favorite way to dismiss those of us who find transformative healing via what gets called "mental illness: they say we "romanticize" it... As though our process is a piece of cake and we know shit all about moving through such hell realms. They want to pretend that those of us who heal don't exist. One more cruelty. One more negation on a path in which all of society spits on us the whole way through to wholeness...
When separation and microaggressions are legitimized and put into public policy and discourse, we become second class citizens and subhumans. This is oppression and bigotry systemically supported and then denied by almost everyone, including those most seriously affected. We come to believe these lies. ...
I was recently interviewed by Taking the Mask Off -host Cortland Pfeffer. We had good fun. I hope you enjoy it too: View the website here: Listen, Rate, and Review on ITunes: Itunes Taking the Mask Off Podcast Ep 005 Beyond Meds Listen Here on WordPress: podcast episode 5 beyond meds https://soundcloud.com/cortland-pfeffer/taking-the-mask-off-ep005-beyond-meds... Continue Reading →
Let us please open our eyes and help one another to see. Right now those in public and sanctioned positions to help us are actually harming us unintentionally. We must bring this to a stop. We must help one another. There is no motivation to heal without drugs if there are no safe places to do it. Right now it's not safe for most people most of the time. This alone will keep people from even attempting to do it or even realize or acknowledge it's possible. It's scary and the fear is justified and even rational given what we face. I am in a rare and privileged and lucky position and I still get frightened too. This is scary stuff. ...
So, funnily enough, I did go to a psychiatrist. Someone I met some years ago. He's in the mainstream and well-respected there because he knows how to float between worlds. He's awake. He and I talked about your work some years ago. He was familiar with it and respects it. He's one of the kindest human beings I've ever met. ...
If you've never seen the cops (or mental illness professionals) out of control for no good reason whatsoever you should watch this. This is how we get locked up and force drugged for no good reason. (video on site)
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