Here are some of the reasons that readers of Beyond Meds find this site useful:
Beyond Meds is the single most valuable source for both firsthand and research information about coming off psychiatric drugs. It’s my top referral for people looking for information on the Internet.
Will Hall, Madness Radio, MA Psychology
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I am struck every time I read a Beyond Meds page, how much information is here. Such openness and honesty, Monica. The deep attention to easy access and organisation is stunning and I feel beyond grateful for what you continue to offer to the world. Your words have helped me to allow my fear of fear to drop away and to become independent of the drugs I was told I would need the rest of my life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! … With outrageous courage and tenacity, you are expressing a new paradigm that some people all across the planet are resonating with and easily able to access. – Kathleen Blanc
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I want to take a moment to say how much my life has been changed by having access to beyondmeds.com. Beyond Meds has become a constant in my life that I look forward to on a daily basis. I can count on the information being current, addressing concerns regarding mental health, especially regarding alternative care. I have a masters degree in social work and find that the subjects that are addressed on Beyond Meds, especially the ones that might be considered controversial, are not readily available from other sources, or I have not been made aware of them.
Monica Cassani’s comments on what she presents are always sensitive, articulate and presented in an open-minded way. She is willing to share from her own experience. She includes an endless number of contributors and I have been re-introduced to authors I treasure as well as a host of new ones. Many of the articles presented speak to the body, mind, and soul, and nurture one’s heart.
Beyondmeds.com is an invaluable resource which I depend on regularly in order to gain inspiration and move forward in both my professional and personal experience. I highly recommend it to persons in all walks of life!
Delores Jankovich, LMSW
Licensed Kansas Social Worker
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This blog – Beyond Meds – has been a lifeline to me since I found it. For the longest time I’d thought I was the only one who had experienced “waking up” from, well, a 15 year walking coma. I’ve found the information here to be extremely validating not only of my experience with psychiatry and the numerous labels I’d been marked with but also in the process of withdrawals and residual effects from the drugs. Until I found Monica Cassani’s blog I was sure I was the only person in the world who had suffered what I’d suffered at the hand of psychiatry. I no longer feel alone and I’ve come to realize that those of us on this particular journey have much in common. Beyond Meds is not only my first resource for information relating to psychiatry, drug withdrawals and the healing path but is my first reference source as I now support others who are considering making these changes themselves. Monica Cassani and Beyond Meds – are truly a world class resource for anyone wishing to have a better understanding of their experience in the mental health system, their life experiences and of themselves as Monica continues to share the knowledge that truly is empowering.
Susan Kingsley-Smith author, A Journey
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I would like to thank you for your amazing and generous effort in having and keeping up this blog. This is easily the most comprehensive critical blog available on the state of mental health in the United States and not a few other countries. Its critique of the way in which mental health is approached in mainstream medicine and psychiatry is invaluable and so is the wealth of alternative views and resources you offer to your readers. I know that you are terribly sick because of the brain injury caused by bad and excessive medicating by unscrupulous psychiatrists, and while this truly validates your presence on the net and what you report, it also gives me cause to admire you for your perseverance in your effort to bring justice and sanity to the truly insane world of mainstream mental health. I regularly use your blog in my classes on mental illness and psychiatry and my students have learned much because of you. Again, thank you, and good luck.
Dr. Giovanna Pompele
University of Miami
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I first started reading “Beyond Meds” upon rushing to NYC over a year ago. My daughter was experiencing symptoms of bipolar disorder during her early experience in college there. She was frightened, extremely anxious and the “medication trials” that she was immediately placed on made her feel zombie like and even more out of control than ever. Eventually she came home to California and took a semester off. She worked on CBT, met with counselors and looked for other ways to deal with her diagnosis. I stumbled upon your site when googling non-medication ways to work with her symptoms and Beyond Meds has resonated so very much with us. It is important to include suggestions and modalities other than medications alone, and the many topics that you offer helped our daughter and us alike. I am an RN and my husband is an MD and both of us are grateful for your insightful and wonderfully articulated blog. She is doing better and is learning to deal with her symptoms, sometimes with medications, sometimes without. It is a struggle at times but your blog reminds us that we do not struggle alone.
Happy Anniversary, 5 years of helping others is a huge accomplishment and you have no idea how many of your articles I have forwarded to others. From the Bell Chant to Carl Jung I love the spiritual topics best and wish you health, happiness and praise for taking a difficult situation and turning it into something so valuable for the rest of us.
With appreciation from California
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Beyond Meds is an excellent resource because it helps the reader to gain awareness of the natural and peer supports out there for recovery from mental health challenges. I have learned so much from reading Monica’s blog throughout the years. I have been able to connect with others and reduce a portion of my medication and lead a more meaningful and productive life. Monica is very prolific in her postings and has a lot of great knowledge and insight to assist her readers. She also has email updates of her latest blog postings which I really enjoy because it alerts me to what is going on and what I need to pay attention to.
Melissa F. — peer advocate and activist
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From the time he was 19 until 21, having swallowed over 5,000 pills of these psych-drugs, at some 650 mg/day, completely drugged, my son was in a shape worse than before his admission to hospital. Then, via your website, we learned about OPEN DIALOGUE, we traveled to Lapland in Finland to meet the innovators. Today, our son has “healed” from his psychosis, he worked his way out of psych-drugs, and he is happy again and back in college. Had his psych-treatment been going on, say until his 75, then he would have swallowed over 250,000 pills and paid some 165.000 Euros (over US$ 200,000) to psychiatrists and pharmacists, not reimbursed by our health insurance. – That is the average price of a two bedroom apartment of 95 m2 in Belgium…
The pharmaceutico-psychiatry business is very lucrative indeed.
Healed and drug-free thanks to you, Monica, our son can now work and save that to invest into his own apartment.
With our gratitude comes our encouragement:
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
Luc from Belgium
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And lastly some lovely tweets that were shared with me:
@beyondmeds OK, thx. Btw, I’m grateful beyond words for your blog! Could not have freed myself from 15 yrs of dx, drugs, shock w/o it.
@beyondmeds In 2009 I mentally quit bipolar during an awful pdoc appt. Went home, googled “undiagnosing myself” and found your work.
@beyondmedsFor me withdrawal has been awful but so so worth the struggle. Your blog has been my best online resource.
@beyondmeds I don’t mean to gush I’m just so grateful 🙂
— Sonia K Weaver (@soniakweaver) October 4, 2012
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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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