That has been my experience. I've had to toss out everything I've been told and learn from the inside out of this body that nature gave me. Dismantle the conditioned self and come into our being with nature. Yes, Mother Nature, in the end, has been my only reliable teacher, parent, Guru, doctor, and friend. She is everywhere, always. We need only pay attention. She is always speaking to us., we need only learn to take heed. ...
I have a long history of being gravely harmed by MDs and western medicine. It started in early childhood with multiple courses of unnecessary antibiotics which primed my immune system and gut for later auto-immune disease. Later, as a teenager, my pediatrician told my mother I could only have gotten crabs by sexual transmission. I was a virgin.
My sleep has come back slowly. One of the few MDs I've worked with who has been helpful has a specialty in sleep medicine. When I met him I was lucky if I slept one hour a night and I didn't tolerate anything (supplement or psych drug wise) to help support sleep...he assured me that what he called my "sleep architecture" would come back...(he also is familiar with the sort of iatrogenic brain injury we get from the psych meds) ... in any case his words stay with me even now and I have a palpable sense of my body reconstructing my sleep architecture over time...now I can take a few supplement supports and herbs as well...but time, also, really continues to matter. I went from 0-2 hours a night (a few years of that) to 2-4 hours a night (a couple of years) and now I'm at 4-6 hours and occasionally sleep 7 or 8 hours...it's been a trip! I continue to heal. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
My husband, Paul Woodward, who has published quite a few essays on this blog, sometimes sends emails to me about his thoughts on my (and therefore, often, our) circumstance. Sometimes he’s incredibly helpful and insightful both. I’m sharing what he wrote to me yesterday. The below is most of the body of an email. I’ve edited out a couple of sentences that were directed to me more personally at the beginning and the end. Most of it is just as it was written. As way of introduction to those who perhaps are not familiar with this blog, the autonomic nervous system injury that Paul is referring to in myself is the one incurred by psychiatric drugs and their withdrawal. It is essentially a sort of chemical and pharmaceutical and, therefore, iatrogenic brain injury. It’s often referred to as psychiatric drug withdrawal syndrome and in some people can be a severe and debilitating condition. … [click on title to read and view more]
As our bodies heals from the iatrogenic injury caused by psychiatric drugs, the process of healing the autonomic nervous system demands the continual working with fear in the body. These drugs create post traumatic stress and exacerbate that which was already in our bodies. Yoga is often helpful in the process of healing this insult to our nervous system. Yoga is wonderful for training us to be with all of the sometimes uncomfortable sensations in our body whether we’ve been injured or not. This is a skill that can help support us in our lives in many different ways. Practicing and learning to be with discomfort is an important skill to have. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Yesterday I did two posts on trauma and learning to heal from that through body practices. I talk about yoga and ecstatic dance in those posts. Qigong is another practice that can help profoundly. I love that there is simply a huge multitude of methods to heal so that everyone can find what resonates and works for them personally. Of course that is a challenge for (some) professionals who always want to believe that what they have training in is what is appropriate for everyone. This is of course why the mental health system doesn't work so well. I take great delight in the incredibly diverse healing body/mind. I've been practicing Qigong from time to time lately and really love it too though I am very much a beginner still. It's an incredibly powerful energy mover and so I do have to take it slow and carefully simply because it impacts the autonomic nervous system so profoundly and that is what is most impacted by the iatrogenic injury I'm healing from (psychiatric drug withdrawal syndrome). Psychiatric drug withdrawal syndrome is among other things also an incredibly traumatic event and therefore a lot of methods that help heal trauma also help heal this medically induced iatrogenic injury. … [click on title to read and view more]
Can you say iatrogenic injury? Never mind the many thousands of us who suffer protracted withdrawal issues causing disability that are completely denied by the medical establishment...most of us have to start hiding from doctors who want to give us more drugs rather than give our poor bodies the chance to heal. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
And in these statistics lie the many thousands of folks suffering from disabilities brought on by psych meds. The denial continues nonetheless... From NEW SCIENTIST and article from a few days ago: WHAT is the third leading cause of death in the developed world? Given that cancer and heart disease top the list, you might hazard a guess at diabetes, stroke or car accidents. You'd be wrong. The answer is "iatrogenic" deaths – those caused by medical errors, adverse drug reactions or hospital-acquired infections. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
As my body heals from the iatrogenic injury caused by psychiatric drugs, the process of healing the autonomic nervous system demands the continual working with fear in the body. This morning I did the below yoga session. Yoga is wonderful for training us to be with the sometimes uncomfortable sensations in our body, which is a skill that can be transferred to our lives in a multiple number of ways. Practicing and learning to be with discomfort is an important skill to have. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Iatrogenic injury at epidemic levels...When I got my wisdom teeth pulled at age sixteen I got very sick and actually passed out on the bathroom floor at one point because I was not tolerating the antibiotics and painkillers they gave me. I was also sick for over a week and in excruciating pain. There is good reason to question the necessity of getting those teeth pulled. The psychiatric drug withdrawal syndrome I've been faced with for the last several years has made me see all the medical "care" I've gotten throughout my lifetime in a radically different light. For example, had I not been heavily prescribed antibiotics throughout my entire childhood (I took them for months at a time) I would likely not be sick now...that was the foundation of my path to chronic illness. That is because antibiotics destroy the microbiome and we need a healthy microbiome. … [click on title to read more]
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