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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast.

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Speaker 2: Today, we have one of my most awkwardly favorite subjects

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Speaker 2: because I try to educate people as much as I

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Speaker 2: can about the psychiatric care industry and what these drugs

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Speaker 2: are doing to people who are being overdiagnosed, over prescribed.

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Speaker 2: And I feel like sometimes I'm just yelling into this

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Speaker 2: echo chamber and no one's really listening. And then last night,

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Speaker 2: I think it was last night or over the weekend,

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Speaker 2: I was on X and I saw this tweet from

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Speaker 2: this woman and I was like, yes, yes, this is

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Speaker 2: someone who can speak from true life experience and has

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Speaker 2: created an entire career over helping people who don't need

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Speaker 2: to be on these medications get off. So I have

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Speaker 2: Laura Delano with me today. I'm so excited about it.

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Speaker 2: I'm so excited about what you do.

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Speaker 1: Laura.

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me, Toodar.

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Speaker 3: I'm happy to be here.

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Speaker 2: Your story is interesting because, like I said, you are

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Speaker 2: someone who was put on medications, and I guess when

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Speaker 2: we're talking about this, kind of explain what we're talking

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Speaker 2: about with psychiatric medications and what your journey was from

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Speaker 2: age fourteen to twenty seven on these medications.

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Speaker 3: So, yeah, when we talk about psychiatric meds, we're talking

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Speaker 3: about antidepressants, benzodiazepines, So you know, Prozac is an antidepressant,

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Speaker 3: Klonipin is a benzodiazepine, and then mood stabilizers like lithium lemictal,

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Speaker 3: anti psychotics like brispert al sarahquell, and then stimulants like

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Speaker 3: ritalin and adderall and sleep aids like Lunesta or ambient.

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Speaker 3: So those are the kind of broad drug classes, and

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Speaker 3: for me, I ended up taking all of them over

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Speaker 3: the years in varying combinations, and as a fourteen year old,

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Speaker 3: what got me into this, this whole long relationship with

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Speaker 3: these medications that I ended up having, was that I

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Speaker 3: was just a struggling girl who was angry and confused

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Speaker 3: about who she was, and I felt overwhelmed by despair,

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Speaker 3: and I was injuring myself and spinning out at home,

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Speaker 3: and my parents just didn't know what to do, and

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Speaker 3: they were scared and confused and they felt very alone

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Speaker 3: with the experience, and so they sent me to a therapist,

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Speaker 3: who eventually sent me to a psychiatrist who, in the

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Speaker 3: span of one session told me that I was bipolar

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Speaker 3: and because I was angry and having anger outbursts and

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Speaker 3: rage issues.

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Speaker 1: Those were symptoms of mania.

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Speaker 3: And then the despair and the cutting and the you know,

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Speaker 3: the down feelings that I was having were symptoms of depression.

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Speaker 3: So like that, in the snap of a finger, I

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Speaker 3: was told I had this lifelong illness that required meds,

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Speaker 3: and I was put right out the gates onto on

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Speaker 3: a mood stabilizer and on an antidepressant that that list

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Speaker 3: grew over time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've had a very similar experience with someone that

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Speaker 2: I love in my family who went and said, you know,

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Speaker 2: I've forgotten literally first appointment, I've forgotten a few things

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Speaker 2: I've had some where I get distract did easily when

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Speaker 2: I'm working, and then forgotten things at home and without test.

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Speaker 1: Without that's what blows my mind.

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Speaker 2: There's no I mean, you can't do a blood test,

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Speaker 2: but there's no actual written exam.

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Speaker 1: There's nothing.

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Speaker 2: It was a fifteen minute appointment in the doctor's office.

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Speaker 2: Immediately five medications, one of which was adderall, which is

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Speaker 2: someone who they said, oh, well, you're anxious, but you

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Speaker 2: also have ADHD, so we're going to put you on

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Speaker 2: an anti anxiety drug and adderall at the same time,

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Speaker 2: and it was just like, this clash of chemicals inside

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Speaker 2: of this person's body seemed shocking. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And what happened to your family member is how

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Speaker 3: it is for literally every every single person who gets

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Speaker 3: a diagnosis in this country. It's based on completely subjective

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Speaker 3: observations made by the clinician. There are no tests of

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Speaker 3: any kind, no lab tests, brain scans. It's it's these

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Speaker 3: these these emotional difficulties, these behavioral struggles, These get translated

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Speaker 3: into this medical language you know, of symptom and condition,

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Speaker 3: and we just take for granted that that's what they are,

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Speaker 3: that there must be some pathology in me if a

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Speaker 3: doctor's telling me I have this, But when you step

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Speaker 3: back and you actually think it through, you're.

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Speaker 1: Like, wait a minute, this doesn't really make sense here.

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Speaker 2: Yes, And that, I think is what you just said

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Speaker 2: is key, is that we always assume the doctor's right.

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Speaker 1: If a doctor told me this, then this must be

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Speaker 1: the case.

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Speaker 2: And honestly, this was how I felt up until I'm

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Speaker 2: a cancer survivor. And when I went to the first doctor,

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Speaker 2: they had this kakamamie idea of what they were going

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Speaker 2: to do, and I was like, man, that sounds intense,

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Speaker 2: like I think I'm going to go to a few

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Speaker 2: different people, and I had never really been that person,

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Speaker 2: which this also sounds crazy, but I'd never really had

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Speaker 2: a big medical experience before, so I had never been

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Speaker 2: that person to go get two and three opinions on something.

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Speaker 2: But that was that moment where I went man. Medicine

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Speaker 2: is different depending on who you talk to. Every different

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Speaker 2: person has a different impression of how to solve your problem.

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Speaker 2: But when it comes to something psychiatric, what I think

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Speaker 2: is so key and what I love about what you've

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Speaker 2: done in your book that is unshrunk a story of

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Speaker 2: psychiatric treatment resistance is that I don't think a lot

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Speaker 2: of people, including parents, understand, and I don't think it's

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Speaker 2: explained to us what the side effects of these medications are.

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Speaker 3: You're totally right, and we're not only not told about

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Speaker 3: the side effects, but we're also not told about the

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Speaker 3: evidence base upon which these drugs are approved to even

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Speaker 3: begin with. So, for example, when I was put on

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Speaker 3: these meds as a fourteen year old and my parents

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Speaker 3: and I were told I would need them for the

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Speaker 3: rest of my life, no one said and just by

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Speaker 3: the way, these drugs have actually only been studied for

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Speaker 3: about six to eight weeks before we approve them. No

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Speaker 3: one ever said, just by the way, this combination we

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Speaker 3: have you on has never been studied for safety and effectiveness.

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Speaker 3: So it's both the evidence base itself that we're not

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Speaker 3: told about, and then, as you said, the long list

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Speaker 3: of adverse effects, which you know are in the drug labels.

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Speaker 3: They are spoken quickly at the end of drug ads.

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Speaker 3: It's not like no one knows that these drugs have

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Speaker 3: problematic side adverse effects, but we're I think we're so

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Speaker 3: desensitized to that because we hear all those drug.

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Speaker 1: Ads day in and day out, and the.

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Speaker 3: Long list of symptoms at the end, I think it

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Speaker 3: doesn't sync in in the way.

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Speaker 1: That it should.

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Speaker 3: And I think and also because so many of the

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Speaker 3: adverse effects mimic psychiatric conditions themselves or you know, other

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Speaker 3: health conditions.

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Speaker 1: We just we have this.

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Speaker 3: We're trained to not kind of think critically about how

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Speaker 3: the pharmaceuticals that we take are going to be altering

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Speaker 3: our bodies, and instead, when we have problems, we end

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Speaker 3: up getting new diagnoses that end up needing more medications.

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Speaker 1: So that's another one that I love.

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Speaker 2: This is now this is causing this, so we're going

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Speaker 2: to add this, and that's kind of I think that's

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Speaker 2: how Ambient actually gets added to the protocol sometimes because

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Speaker 2: oh wait, this stimulant won't let you sleep.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's put this on and now you'll.

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Speaker 2: Sleep, and you'll sleep in this weird drug induced coma

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Speaker 2: that doesn't actually give you good sleep, and you might

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Speaker 2: make yourself a meal in the middle of the night

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Speaker 2: and crochet a an entire throw for your couch, you know.

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Speaker 1: Like it was bizarre. Oh my gosh, tutor, when I

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Speaker 1: was on Ambient. So I was on Ambient for years,

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Speaker 1: you know.

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Speaker 3: Of course this drug is not approved for more than

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Speaker 3: two weeks. And I would, without fail, blackout after about

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Speaker 3: twenty three ish minutes, and I'd wake up in the

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Speaker 3: morning and I would have empty bowls, It's empty cereal

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Speaker 3: box bowls, spilled milk everywhere. I'd write weird things in

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Speaker 3: my journal. And then, as you said, too, that's scare up.

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Speaker 3: I ended up feeling so sedated during the day that

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Speaker 3: they have started on Provigil, which is an anti narcileptic drug.

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Speaker 3: So I was literally on an insomnia drug at night

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Speaker 3: and an anti narco elliptic drug during the day. At

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Speaker 3: the same time not to mention like two or three

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Speaker 3: other meds too.

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Speaker 1: I mean it was wild and I never and then

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Speaker 1: who are you as a person?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's the question, And especially for those of

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Speaker 3: us who end up on these meds as kids when

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Speaker 3: we haven't even had a chance yet to forge a

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Speaker 3: sense of ourselves, you know. And adolescence, which was when

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Speaker 3: I got psychiatrized, as I like to put it, that

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Speaker 3: was I was just waking up to self, to my body,

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Speaker 3: to how I fit into the world around me. I

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Speaker 3: had all these questions and these struggles that I now

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Speaker 3: see were these meaningful, deep, profound questions. And because I

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Speaker 3: got diagnosed so young and I got put on these meds,

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Speaker 3: that process was interrupted, was disabled, really, and so I

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Speaker 3: had no sense of, no baseline sense of myself through

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Speaker 3: these critical years of my life, my teens, in my twenties,

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Speaker 3: which in turn made it hard to then extricate myself

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Speaker 3: from it because I didn't have an old me to

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Speaker 3: look back to. You know, sometimes people will start meds

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Speaker 3: later in life, and you know, they realize, like, hey,

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Speaker 3: this I don't really I'm not really the way I

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Speaker 3: used to be, Like I'm not the same mom I

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Speaker 3: was five years ago, or I'm not the same you know,

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Speaker 3: person at work. Maybe something's going off with these meds.

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Speaker 3: When you're a kid, you don't have anything to compare

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Speaker 3: yourself to, and so I think it's it's especially insidious

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Speaker 3: for young people.

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Speaker 2: And I think in our generation that's when it really well,

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Speaker 2: you're a little younger than me, So I think that

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Speaker 2: I didn't go through. It wasn't until I think maybe

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Speaker 2: I was in high school, that the younger generation was

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Speaker 2: coming in using Riddlin and that they there was like

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Speaker 2: this real push for Riddlin. I remember that being and

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Speaker 2: I don't remember people in my class being on medication

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Speaker 2: or talking about it, but it was almost like a

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Speaker 2: badge of honor for the younger.

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Speaker 1: Kids, like, well, I'm on Riddlin.

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Speaker 2: You know, I have a special dispensation here because I'm

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Speaker 2: on this or I'm on that. And then that kind

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Speaker 2: of expanded, and I think it became incredibly normal for

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Speaker 2: us to go, oh, is this person struggling with coping

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Speaker 2: with something, Then there's got to be a med for that.

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Speaker 2: Where the quick fixed society and you're right, those ads

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Speaker 2: were very so so quick and so fast and so

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Speaker 2: constant that even though they said, if you're feeling the

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Speaker 2: thoughts of suicide or harming someone else, go to a doctor.

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Speaker 2: We just kind of forgot about that, and I wasn't

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Speaker 2: so the first and this may be a place you

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Speaker 2: don't want to go, and you can tell me to

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Speaker 2: stop if you don't want to. But the first school

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Speaker 2: shooting was right after I graduated from high school. I

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Speaker 2: was in college at the time. I was actually graduating

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Speaker 2: college at the time, and I interviewed a psychiatrist who

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Speaker 2: met with those with Dylan and the other kid now

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Speaker 2: his name escapes me, but met with them or read

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Speaker 2: their file. The one that was nineteen read his file,

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Speaker 2: and he was like, look, kids have not become less depressed,

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Speaker 2: and they've become more violent since we've been giving them

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Speaker 2: all these medications.

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Speaker 1: He said.

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Speaker 2: I forced the FDA to say these ads had to

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Speaker 2: say you might be considering suicide or harming someone else.

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Speaker 2: He was like, I guarantee you if you look at

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Speaker 2: every school shooter, they have one of these medications in

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Speaker 2: their system.

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Speaker 1: Why don't we talk about that.

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Speaker 3: It's such an important question. And I think the whether

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Speaker 3: it's you know, because the story is about most mass shooters. Oh,

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Speaker 3: this was someone with untreated mental illness quote unquote, and

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Speaker 3: then they know that's why they did this. But as

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Speaker 3: you said, if you look at the stories of many,

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Speaker 3: if not most, if not all of them, they were

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Speaker 3: already interfacing with the mental health system in some way.

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Speaker 3: And so whether whether they were on these drugs when they,

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Speaker 3: you know, committed these horrific acts, or maybe in some cases,

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Speaker 3: had stopped these drugs abruptly, which itself can cause withdrawal

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Speaker 3: symptoms that literally are suicidal or homicidal ideation. I mean,

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Speaker 3: I wouldn't be because they've made it so hard to

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Speaker 3: look at these shooters medical record. I have a friend

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Speaker 3: who's a professor who tried to foil them and couldn't

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Speaker 3: get them. You know, we can only ask these questions,

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Speaker 3: but I think I think it's worth asking them. And

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Speaker 3: the fact that these questions are getting shut down, I think,

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Speaker 3: you know, indicate something important. And just to quickly piggyback

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Speaker 3: on what you said about that, you know what you

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Speaker 3: saw in high school with the rise of stimulants, You're

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Speaker 3: hitting something so important, which is that you know, in

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Speaker 3: the case of stimulants and this a d D thing

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Speaker 3: and ADHD and school and performance you know, instead of

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Speaker 3: stepping back to say, like, why do we all force

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Speaker 3: ourselves into this one rigid way of learning in this

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Speaker 3: one rigid school system that some kids do well in

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Speaker 3: but some kids don't? You know, why, why are we

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Speaker 3: doing this? Do we have to do it this way?

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Speaker 3: I think it's a lot easier and more convenient to say, Oh,

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Speaker 3: this one individual kid here, something's wrong with him because

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Speaker 3: he can't sit in his desk for six hours straight

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Speaker 3: and not get sunlight and focus on you know, mundane tasks.

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Speaker 3: You know, I think I think pathologizing kids and making

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Speaker 3: them the problem instead of stepping back to problematize the

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Speaker 3: school system itself, you know, I think that is a

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Speaker 3: part of what's happened here with this predominance of the

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Speaker 3: psychiatric paradigm is instead of looking at the context of

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Speaker 3: our lives and understanding our behaviors and our struggles as

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Speaker 3: responses to the environment that we're in, to the food

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Speaker 3: we're putting in our body, to the breakdown of social

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Speaker 3: networks and neighborhoods and intergenerational families. I mean, the list

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Speaker 3: is endless, poverty, all all these possibilities. Instead of doing that,

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Speaker 3: we say, oh, the problems inside of your brain, and

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Speaker 3: here's the pill. And I know, you know, I think

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Speaker 3: I think we're finally reaching a point where enough people

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Speaker 3: are realizing does that really make sense?

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Speaker 2: And it's crazy because you really are altering their brain chemistry.

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Speaker 2: But then there's not, like I said, there's no actual test.

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Speaker 2: I mean, if you have a broken arm, you know

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Speaker 2: the fix right that, and then the arm is no

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Speaker 2: longer broke and you move on with life. When you

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Speaker 2: have someone who has a broken heart or you know,

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Speaker 2: thinks things that are sad or depressed, there is no

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Speaker 2: obvious answer. And I talked a little before we got on.

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Speaker 2: When my daughter was eight, she was just anxious. They

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Speaker 2: had talked about germs in school, but I couldn't figure

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Speaker 2: out what had set her off if it was that,

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Speaker 2: but she was so concerned about germs. She was freaking

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Speaker 2: out if anybody would get near her. And so we

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Speaker 2: talked about it at her well child visit. She should

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Speaker 2: go to a therapist and talk to the therapist. And

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Speaker 2: again this is at a point where I'm like, I

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Speaker 2: want to be obedient.

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Speaker 1: To my doctor because my doctor knows.

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Speaker 2: Then we went to the therapist and the therapist saw her

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Speaker 2: for probably about I mean, i'll give her credit. She

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Speaker 2: saw her for probably about four visits before saying she

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Speaker 2: has to be on two different medications and you have

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Speaker 2: to go to a psychiatrist. And I said, well, we're

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Speaker 2: not interested in that. And then the next day I

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Speaker 2: got a call from the pediatrician's office and she's like,

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Speaker 2: we received.

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Speaker 1: This long letter. Your daughter has to be on.

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Speaker 2: An antidepressant and an anti anxiety medication.

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Speaker 1: And I was like, well, I'm.

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Speaker 2: Not going to do that, and they're like, you know,

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Speaker 2: well it's been it's in the file.

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Speaker 1: Now you have to go. And I got to the

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Speaker 1: point where I was getting calls from them.

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Speaker 2: I was getting calls from the psychiatrist's office, and I

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Speaker 2: was afraid I was going to get a call from

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Speaker 2: the state saying like this, you have to get your

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Speaker 2: kid on medication. And I finally just said, look, it's

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Speaker 2: not going to happen. I'm going to block the number

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Speaker 2: if you.

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Speaker 1: Keep calling me.

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Speaker 2: And we went home and I said, okay, I'm going

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Speaker 2: to pour everything into figuring out how when something happens,

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Speaker 2: what we do. And there was like I started reading

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Speaker 2: about it, and certain kids have like soothing mechanisms and

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Speaker 2: for her, it's like if you can get to her

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Speaker 2: and I kind of rub her back and be like

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Speaker 2: we're okay. That's like to her, it brings down all

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Speaker 2: those emotions.

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Speaker 1: She can calm down.

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Speaker 2: And just last week was the end of school and

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Speaker 2: they all at the end of school, the teachers like

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Speaker 2: say these affirmations over the kids over and over again.

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Speaker 2: The kid the teachers were saying, she's such a light.

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Speaker 2: She's such a bright light when are at class. She's

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Speaker 2: just always cheerful. She is the kid that brings other

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Speaker 2: kids in. And I think, to this day, if I

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Speaker 2: had done that those years ago, would she be light?

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Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, tutor, I feel so emotional thinking about it,

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Speaker 3: because there's so many kids out there who have parents

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Speaker 3: who don't necessarily have the They don't know, they don't know,

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Speaker 3: they feel pressured into it, they're insecure, they're afraid, they're confused.

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Speaker 3: And the number of parents who have reached out to

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Speaker 3: me with kids who are now in their twenties, some

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Speaker 3: even in their thirties, who say, oh my gosh, what

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Speaker 3: did I do twenty years ago, ten years ago, five

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Speaker 3: years ago when I listened to what the school said

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Speaker 3: about getting my kid on adderall or I listened to

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Speaker 3: them telling me I needed to take my kid to

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Speaker 3: a psychiatrist. And now all these years later, they're young

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Speaker 3: adult children are oftentimes disabled, unable to work, completely dependent

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Speaker 3: on their families and all of course this is this

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Speaker 3: is all being translated into illness. Oh that they're just

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Speaker 3: very mentally ill. But when I think about my experience,

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Speaker 3: you know, through my twenties, as I got more and

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Speaker 3: more disabled in mind, body and spirit, and of course

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Speaker 3: every step of the way, it was two.

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Speaker 1: Meds, three meds, four meds, five meds.

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Speaker 3: It was the meds that were injuring me and harming

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Speaker 3: me in all of these ways that my parents and

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Speaker 3: I just didn't see because we were so unquestioning of

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Speaker 3: these top doctors, you know, because I came from a

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Speaker 3: family of associ economic means, I was seeing the best

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Speaker 3: of the best. So who would we be to have questioned?

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Speaker 3: And so I really feel for the bind that so

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Speaker 3: many parents are in, who don't have resources, who don't

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Speaker 3: have the time to educate themselves, who who feel, you know,

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Speaker 3: who don't feel you know, confident in their in their voice.

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Speaker 3: How do we support them? Because a lot of them,

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Speaker 3: you know, are are they mean well, and they love

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Speaker 3: their kids. They want to do it's best for their kids,

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Speaker 3: and they just don't have They're doing the best they

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Speaker 3: can with what they have, and so how do we

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Speaker 3: get them what they need?

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Speaker 2: Well, and explain to me a little bit about what

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Speaker 2: that was like for you, because my experience with folks

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Speaker 2: who are not only the parents but the actual patient

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Speaker 2: themselves is like, there's this inability to admit that maybe

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Speaker 2: I've done something wrong and that there's and an inability

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Speaker 2: to see that there is a more complete and exciting

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Speaker 2: life without these medications dimming you. And like you said,

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Speaker 2: it really is you become disabled. It's like a fog

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Speaker 2: over what how you can accomplish things. I mean, I

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Speaker 2: have people that I know that are like, I just

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Speaker 2: can't get from here to there, and they don't see

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Speaker 2: that it's the medication. So how do you open their

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Speaker 2: eyes to this is the medication. There's no shame in it.

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Speaker 1: You are allowed to let it go.

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Speaker 2: And don't fear letting it go because you've even said

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Speaker 2: you work with people on this and they go, I'm

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Speaker 2: afraid of a relapse.

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Speaker 1: I might have to go back to the meds.

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Speaker 3: Oh, it's such an important question, and I wish there

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Speaker 3: was like one clear path of an answer. I mean,

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Speaker 3: I know, for me, what when I look back, you know, so,

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Speaker 3: as I said my twenties, as my med list grew

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Speaker 3: and I grew more and more disabled, I grew more

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Speaker 3: and more hopeless along the way, because eventually I was

385
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Speaker 3: told that I had, you know, so called treatment resistant

386
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Speaker 3: bipolar disorder, which basically meant like, oh, you are just

387
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Speaker 3: so defective that even our treatments can't help you.

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Speaker 1: And what a horrible thing to think it was.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it was that story that led me to

390
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Speaker 3: eventually try to kill myself, because I was completely convinced

391
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Speaker 3: that I had exhausted every option that might give me

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Speaker 3: a chance at feeling okay, and what's left for me?

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Speaker 3: And so when I eventually did two years after my overdose,

394
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Speaker 3: was the year that I woke up, you could say,

395
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Speaker 3: And what actually jolted me, what started to jolt me awake,

396
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Speaker 3: What was like the first kind of thing that forced

397
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Speaker 3: me to step back and begin questioning, was was having

398
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Speaker 3: a few experiences with with psychiatric force, basically with the

399
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Speaker 3: power that mental health professionals have to strip you of

400
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Speaker 3: your civil liberties. So I was made to go into

401
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Speaker 3: a hospital when I didn't want to go in. I

402
00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:22,040
Speaker 3: actually did want to go. I just wanted to go

403
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Speaker 3: home to get my belongings. First, security guards were called.

404
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Speaker 3: There was a whole thing that was the first time

405
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Speaker 3: I was forced up against this realization that this system

406
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Speaker 3: I had been turning to for care was actually also

407
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Speaker 3: about control, about controlling me, and I just hadn't seen

408
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Speaker 3: it because I had never said no before. So I

409
00:20:42,840 --> 00:20:45,080
Speaker 3: had a couple of other experiences like that that just

410
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Speaker 3: got me questioning this faith I had had, and all

411
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Speaker 3: of these doctors and all these pills and these hospitals

412
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Speaker 3: and programs for so many years, fourteen years. And then

413
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Speaker 3: in that space of questioning, I began to wonder, you know,

414
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Speaker 3: who would I be off of these meds.

415
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Speaker 1: That I've been on since I was a kid.

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Speaker 3: It was just this question at first, and it kept

417
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Speaker 3: nagging at me because I realized I didn't have any

418
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Speaker 3: sense of myself off meds, and I had never been

419
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Speaker 3: off meds as an adult, and so those those those

420
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Speaker 3: curious questions just kept eating at me. And then I

421
00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:23,719
Speaker 3: eventually did find a book that led me on this

422
00:21:23,800 --> 00:21:28,480
Speaker 3: journey that I'm still on today, and the book was about.

423
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Speaker 3: It was written by a medical journalists and it was

424
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Speaker 3: basically looking at, you know, why do we have such

425
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Speaker 3: poor long term outcomes in the United States compared with

426
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Speaker 3: you know, other parts of the world that aren't aren't developed,

427
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Speaker 3: that don't have all these pharmaceutical products. And what he

428
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,240
Speaker 3: found was that if you actually look at the outcomes,

429
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Speaker 3: if you look at the long term data on psychiatric drugs,

430
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Speaker 3: they're making us sicker. You can make a strong case

431
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Speaker 3: for that. So I had that aha moment then when

432
00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:57,760
Speaker 3: I read this book and I was on five meds

433
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Speaker 3: and my whole life had fallen apart during the year

434
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:02,440
Speaker 3: I was on them, and I realized, like, oh my gosh,

435
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Speaker 3: what if it's the treatment and so but you can't

436
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,879
Speaker 3: force that awakening in someone. You can't make someone see

437
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:13,600
Speaker 3: And so I think what it's really about is creating

438
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:18,320
Speaker 3: opportunities for people to identify with this story and someone else.

439
00:22:18,320 --> 00:22:19,960
Speaker 3: I mean, it's why I wrote my book. I wanted

440
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,639
Speaker 3: to write a book that I could put out into

441
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:25,480
Speaker 3: the world to start a conversation and that might help

442
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:30,240
Speaker 3: spark a sense of identification and other people who maybe

443
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:33,639
Speaker 3: didn't haven't yet realized that my story might well be

444
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:36,600
Speaker 3: their story too. So I think telling personal stories, putting

445
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:40,119
Speaker 3: our stories out there, and then just creating opportunities for

446
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 3: people to step back and ask questions and be curious,

447
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:47,199
Speaker 3: because you can't force an Aha moment in someone and

448
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:50,560
Speaker 3: everyone's path to that is different. But I think the

449
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 3: storytelling aspect, I think is really big because that's what

450
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:56,160
Speaker 3: also helped wake me up that book. I was mentioning

451
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:58,600
Speaker 3: there were stories in it, and I saw myself in

452
00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:01,359
Speaker 3: the other people's story in this book, and that's I think.

453
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:04,399
Speaker 1: Why I was able to say, Holy cow, what if

454
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:04,880
Speaker 1: it's the true.

455
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:07,240
Speaker 2: You've got more coming up with Laura Delano, but first

456
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about my partners at Ease.

457
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458
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459
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460
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461
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462
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463
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464
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465
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470
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474
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475
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476
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477
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479
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Speaker 2: You've got to sign up now. Stay tuned. We've got

480
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Speaker 2: more coming up after this.

481
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:30,639
Speaker 1: This is a treatment.

482
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:33,399
Speaker 2: It's the only time we are willing to go to

483
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 2: a doctor regularly and never be healed. That to me, So,

484
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 2: I was a psychology major in highsch or in college,

485
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,919
Speaker 2: and as a psychology major at the university that I

486
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:46,679
Speaker 2: was at, you could work at the there there was

487
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:51,199
Speaker 2: like an inside the university. There was a little psychiatric clinic,

488
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 2: and so you could work there, and it was all

489
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:57,360
Speaker 2: the psychology students, and then I think they had a

490
00:24:57,400 --> 00:24:59,160
Speaker 2: psychiatric portion as well.

491
00:24:59,359 --> 00:24:59,919
Speaker 1: But if you were a.

492
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:04,640
Speaker 2: Student at the university in the psych or the psychology department,

493
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:09,919
Speaker 2: then you were able to read everybody's every single patient

494
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 2: file unless they were a student or somebody that worked

495
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:14,920
Speaker 2: at the university. So there was a massive amount of

496
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:18,120
Speaker 2: community members that came in and they were patients there,

497
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 2: and I was pretty deep. I mean, this is probably

498
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 2: my junior or senior year, so at this point I'm

499
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:27,440
Speaker 2: planning on going to get my master's degree and become

500
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 2: a therapist myself, and this is my first kind.

501
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 1: Of exposure to therapy.

502
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 2: So you get to I mean, you do all the

503
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:36,160
Speaker 2: filing and everything, but you really get to sit down

504
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:39,959
Speaker 2: and read the cases. And I remember sitting down with

505
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:43,919
Speaker 2: one and I read day one and his file was

506
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 2: ten years long, and I went to the tenth year

507
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 2: and the stories were the exact same, And there was

508
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 2: this moment that struck me so hard where I said

509
00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 2: to myself, how do you live with this being your

510
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 2: career if you can't help someone? Because there was no

511
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 2: change in this person, and I asked that question. They

512
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 2: were like, Oh, we're not here to solve their problems.

513
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 2: We're here to get them through week to week. And

514
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 2: I thought, what a terrible way of looking at this.

515
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 2: We're just here to keep them alive. They're miserable people.

516
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:21,920
Speaker 2: We're just here to keep them going from one miserlled

517
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 2: week to the next. And that was unacceptable to me.

518
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 2: It's like, that is not what I thought this major

519
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 2: was about. This is not what I thought we were

520
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 2: here doing. I thought we were helping people. That was

521
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 2: what I wanted to do, was to help people, and

522
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 2: it seemed like they were keeping them trapped. And just

523
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:41,919
Speaker 2: the conversations. If you think about the conversation, the conversation

524
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 2: is kind of like it's a gossip session. Okay, well,

525
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 2: how did that make you feel? Yeah, you had a

526
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 2: right to feel that way. And it's almost like even

527
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:53,919
Speaker 2: the therapist and I'm not saying this in all cases,

528
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 2: because I do think there are times when therapy gets

529
00:26:58,080 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 2: you through a situation.

530
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 1: And that's the problem that we have.

531
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:03,440
Speaker 2: They are a therapists who say, Okay, you've had a

532
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 2: death in the family, you went through and you know

533
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:09,880
Speaker 2: a lot had a marriage breakup or something, and there's

534
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:12,679
Speaker 2: a let's go through the next few months of getting

535
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 2: you back on track, and then you want to see

536
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 2: the patient leave. The goal should be in my mind

537
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:19,760
Speaker 2: to want to see the patient leave, and yet there

538
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 2: are there's a whole industry built around in my town.

539
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 2: The person has to have a meeting every week with

540
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 2: their psychologist, to once a month have a meeting with

541
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 2: their psychiatrists so that they can stay on all of

542
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 2: their meds. It's like a cash cow. You have to

543
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 2: have the gossip session once a week to get the meds,

544
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 2: and that means that you're constantly paying these people to

545
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:45,479
Speaker 2: keep you in a bad place.

546
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 3: For me, beginning therapy as a kid, what should have

547
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 3: been a period of my life when I was developing

548
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 3: meaningful friendships that I could you know, I could turn

549
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,879
Speaker 3: to my friends in times of struggle, turned to the

550
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 3: for comfort, for mentorship, for guidance. I learned to turn

551
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 3: more and more to these paid professionals whom I was

552
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 3: seeing once a week and eventually twice a week. And

553
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:18,160
Speaker 3: the more kind of accustomed I became to relying on

554
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 3: therapy as my source of support, the less even interested

555
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 3: really I was in friendships to begin with. And I

556
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 3: think what you were saying earlier too, about when you

557
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:36,199
Speaker 3: were in your third year as a psych concentrator and

558
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 3: like what you were seeing that these years and years

559
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 3: and years of people not getting better. You know, that

560
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:46,719
Speaker 3: gets to the heart of this brilliant business model really

561
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 3: that the mental health industry today is built upon, which

562
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 3: is this idea of chronicity. These are chronic, incurable conditions

563
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 3: that you'll have for the rest of your life, and

564
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 3: it's about managing them quote unquote man, I mean that

565
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 3: was the word that was used for me. This isn't

566
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 3: about This isn't about me, you know, really growing, changing, transforming, evolving.

567
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 3: This was about finding a med regimen that would help me,

568
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 3: you know, so called manage my symptoms and you know,

569
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 3: get by. And if you look at the history of

570
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 3: the mental health industry over the past seventy eighty years,

571
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 3: prior to the rise of psychiatric drugs in the nineteen fifties,

572
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 3: the baseline operating assumption was that these these challenges were episodic,

573
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 3: even you know, extreme altered states that you know today

574
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 3: are called like these chronic conditions like bipolar and schizophrenia.

575
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 3: Before the rise of the psychopharma pharmaceutical industry, people assumed

576
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 3: like you have hard.

577
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: Times in life.

578
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 3: Sometimes they last a few weeks, sometimes a few months,

579
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 3: maybe sometimes longer, but you moved through them, you move

580
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:02,239
Speaker 3: beyond them. And I I think this medical model of

581
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 3: incurable mental illness requiring lifelong treatment has just slowly, over

582
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 3: the decades, led us to forget that these difficulties in

583
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 3: life do not have to be forever, and.

584
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 2: It's normalized that we shouldn't actually have any difficulties. And that,

585
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 2: to me is it's a weird thing because you don't

586
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 2: have really medical malpractice when it comes to psychiatric care.

587
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 2: And yet there are true great therapists who say, you

588
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 2: went through something tough, let's get you through that and

589
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 2: let's get.

590
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: You back into life as normal. And it is a.

591
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 2: Few meetings and then you're off. But I do believe

592
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 2: that there should be some accountability for people who keep

593
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 2: people in this cycle of you're right, that's really hard,

594
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 2: no wonder you're depressed, and that's why you carry this

595
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 2: label and other people don't, because you get these young

596
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 2: people to believe there's no way out.

597
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: Labeled this.

598
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 3: Now, this is who I am, yep, And I think

599
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 3: because as young people, you know, we're we are searching

600
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 3: for a sense of belonging. We're searching to understand ourselves

601
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 3: and how we fit in and where we fit in.

602
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 3: And one of the great tragedies I think of this, really,

603
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:22,719
Speaker 3: you know, overly medicalized society, is that that identity of

604
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 3: being mentally ill quote unquote becomes it becomes the I mean,

605
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 3: speaking for myself, it became the thing that I was

606
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 3: proud of because if I wasn't ever going to be

607
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 3: able to be just a normal person. And of course

608
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 3: today like what is normal? What does that even mean?

609
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 3: But at the time that's what I thought, Then at

610
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 3: least let me get really good at being a psychiatric

611
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 3: patient and it being crazy and mentally ill. And the

612
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 3: more diagnoses, the more people will see how much I'm struggling.

613
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 3: The more meds I take, the more they symbolize how

614
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 3: how much suffering I'm in. They these this whole realm

615
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 3: of like medicalized pharmaceuticalized living came to become the singular

616
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 3: focus of my life, my sense of self, my relationships,

617
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 3: my purpose.

618
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: My purpose was being a good patient.

619
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:15,040
Speaker 3: And I think there's so many young people who grow

620
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 3: up on meds in therapy, thinking of themselves as sick.

621
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 3: And this is not me judging any of them for this,

622
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 3: because I relate that was how I grew up too.

623
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 3: But I see now in retrospect that I was what

624
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 3: I was seeking, which was a sense which was feeling

625
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 3: seen and heard and understood in my struggles. I actually

626
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:42,719
Speaker 3: was doing the very opposite by medicalizing myself and thinking

627
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 3: the solution was pills and professionals.

628
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:46,320
Speaker 1: What I really.

629
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 3: For me now, the way I think we can most

630
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 3: validate a struggle in life is as a response. You're

631
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 3: having a response to something that's happening in your life,

632
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 3: and this response is a signal. It's a message. It's

633
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 3: telling you something about where you need to go from here.

634
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 3: And you just if you listen to it instead of

635
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 3: try to shut it down or medicate it or treat it,

636
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 3: you know, you open up all these possibilities for growth

637
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 3: and change.

638
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 2: And I think it's it's important to kind of zoom

639
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 2: out on your life because I'm listening to you say this, well,

640
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 2: in the back of my head, I'm thinking, here is

641
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 2: someone who was a straight A student, a nationally ranked sportswoman,

642
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 2: a Harvard student. I mean this, You're saying, like, I

643
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 2: identified as being a good patient, but you had so

644
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 2: many things that you were amazing doing amazing things.

645
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 1: How did what was that like? Because I think that

646
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 1: people go.

647
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 2: Oh, this isn't my kid, this isn't my story, because

648
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 2: my student's a good student. My student didn't have these issues.

649
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 2: But you fit all those categories too, So explain that.

650
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 3: It might it might seem incongruous. But I actually think

651
00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 3: that a big part of why I broke down as

652
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 3: a kid was because I I grew up in a

653
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 3: really intense town. You know, I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut.

654
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 3: So this town with all these incredible opportunities and resources

655
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 3: and all of that, but it was a really high

656
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 3: pressured place where the just the unspoken, kind of operating

657
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 3: assumption of everyone was that if you ever, if you

658
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 3: want to feel worthy, you need to excel. And so

659
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 3: I think because I was getting good grades and you know,

660
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 3: a good student quote unquote, and a kind of conventional

661
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:35,760
Speaker 3: way I could study and get good grades on tests

662
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 3: and regurgitate information, and because I was a good athlete

663
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 3: and all these things, I was just assuming that, you know,

664
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 3: I'm playing the game right, so maybe I'll eventually feel happy,

665
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 3: and so the fact that but what I was missing

666
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 3: really was like, why.

667
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: What do I care about? What? What ignites me? What

668
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 1: brings me alive? What? What are my values?

669
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 3: What are my I was so programmed, I was so

670
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 3: focused on this kind of programmed good grades, good sports,

671
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 3: good schools, that those deeper questions I didn't have the

672
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 3: chance to explore in myself. And so I was just

673
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 3: assuming I'll eventually feel happy because I'm doing it right.

674
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 3: And so, of course, when I broke down, because that's

675
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 3: not how it works, I believed all the more that

676
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 3: something must be fundamentally wrong with me because I have

677
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 3: it all together.

678
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 1: I've arrived at Harvard. You know, I did everything I

679
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: was meant to do. Why do I want to die?

680
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,320
Speaker 3: And so I was so terrified by that that I

681
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:38,359
Speaker 3: think that desperation is what really drove me to then

682
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 3: buy in so deeply into the idea that something was

683
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:41,319
Speaker 3: wrong with me.

684
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 2: And I think that is so I wanted to get

685
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 2: to that because I think that's key that it wasn't

686
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 2: as though you were in an abusive home where you

687
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:50,840
Speaker 2: had had some terrible thing happen.

688
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 1: This is life. This is life.

689
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:58,280
Speaker 2: Every kid is experiencing life, and so often we say,

690
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 2: you shouldn't have to feel that pain and have to

691
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 2: feel upset about this, you shouldn't have to struggle with

692
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:06,760
Speaker 2: this will make it easier. And every kid in class

693
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 2: has a different diagnosis. And I've seen this throughout my

694
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:10,760
Speaker 2: daughter's lives.

695
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: You know.

696
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 2: Here, I have twins that are going to be in

697
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:16,400
Speaker 2: seventh grade. I've got one that's going to be a

698
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:18,400
Speaker 2: freshman in high school. I've got one that's going to

699
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,360
Speaker 2: be a junior in high school. And they're all girls.

700
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 2: So I think even from that perspective, I've seen those

701
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:27,919
Speaker 2: types of pressures of girls being mean to girls. And yes,

702
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 2: as a parent, you want to say, I don't want

703
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 2: you to have to deal with this, but I have

704
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:35,359
Speaker 2: seen so many phases of life with these kids too.

705
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:40,360
Speaker 2: That's the key is that there have been really hard years,

706
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 2: not really hard seasons. I mean, we're talking about an

707
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 2: entire year of high school that was really hard, you know,

708
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 2: and we got through it together, but there.

709
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:51,760
Speaker 1: Were ups and downs.

710
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 2: And I think we're so quick to say we just

711
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 2: want to fix this, but I want to get to

712
00:36:57,440 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 2: you having this epiphany of like, oh my gosh, what

713
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 2: if it's the treatment.

714
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 1: Getting off of the treatment that's not easy. What was

715
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 1: that like?

716
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 3: Well, when I came off of five meds in twenty ten,

717
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 3: so I was in my late twenties, I had no

718
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 3: idea what I was doing, first of all, And I

719
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 3: had no idea that these these drugs that I had

720
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 3: been on for so many years had really changed my

721
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 3: brain and my body. They had that I was physically

722
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 3: dependent on them. No one told me this. I had

723
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 3: no idea.

724
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 2: I just want to stop you there, because I hear

725
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,280
Speaker 2: so many times when people go, oh, it's not addictive,

726
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:39,520
Speaker 2: so you that doesn't mean you're not dependent on it.

727
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 3: Yes, people conflate these words addiction and dependence, and I

728
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 3: think sometimes sometimes this is done deliberately, because yes, you

729
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 3: know you're not craving your next fix of your antipsychotic,

730
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:55,279
Speaker 3: but your brain may well be completely acclimated to your

731
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 3: daily dose of your antipsychotics such that if you don't

732
00:37:58,000 --> 00:37:59,279
Speaker 3: take it, it's gonna.

733
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: You know, it's going to go haywire.

734
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 3: And so when you hear someone's someone say oh these

735
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:09,240
Speaker 3: are not addictive, that may actually be that is true,

736
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean that they aren't dependence forming which

737
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 3: has nothing to do with cravings and the kind of

738
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 3: the psychological elements of what we conventionally understand addiction to

739
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 3: be like, you know this alcohol is causing you harm,

740
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 3: but you keep drinking it anyways.

741
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 1: It's not like that. This is a different thing.

742
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:31,399
Speaker 3: This is about being a compliant patient, doing what you're

743
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 3: told by your doctor, and that then leading your body

744
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 3: to become totally dependent on these pills. So, because I

745
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:42,000
Speaker 3: didn't know this, I was in this head space of

746
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 3: thinking that, you know, I've got to get off these

747
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 3: pills as fast as possible. If they've been harming me,

748
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 3: I've got to get off of them so I can heal.

749
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that I had it backwards that actually,

750
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:56,879
Speaker 3: for many, many people, the fastest way to get off

751
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 3: and stay off of these meds is to taper very

752
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:03,560
Speaker 3: very very slowly because of this dependence issue. And by slow,

753
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 3: I don't mean over a few weeks or a few

754
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:09,360
Speaker 3: months or even a year. Some people need to taper

755
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:13,720
Speaker 3: over years to get off of these medications without causing

756
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:17,839
Speaker 3: profoundly disruptive withdrawal symptoms that can literally take you out

757
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 3: of your life.

758
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I have friends who.

759
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 3: Were brought off of you know, an antidepressant or an

760
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:29,759
Speaker 3: antidepressant and benzodiazepine. You know, people who had have you know,

761
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:34,400
Speaker 3: work related anxiety. This very kind of typical struggles that

762
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 3: they got put on these meds for they've been they

763
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 3: were brought off, you know, over a few weeks or

764
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,760
Speaker 3: or a month or so, and were literally bedridden because

765
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:50,360
Speaker 3: they had such horrible vertigo that they couldn't stand up

766
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 3: they would fall over, or the burning in their fingers

767
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 3: and their and their feet is unbearable. Or the brains

768
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:00,040
Speaker 3: apps that a lot of people coming off anti the

769
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 3: depressants get where you literally feel like you are being

770
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 3: having electrical shocks going off in your brain.

771
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:07,359
Speaker 2: I mean, that's crazy in and of itself. When you're

772
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:09,640
Speaker 2: describing this, I'm like, this is what your body goes

773
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 2: through coming off of these drugs, and yet we want

774
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 2: to keep people on them, yep.

775
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 3: And I think why people end up staying on them

776
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:22,320
Speaker 3: is that the so there are those physical withdrawal symptoms

777
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 3: that are strange. You know, these brains apps, No one

778
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 3: would those are just such strange, strange things that are

779
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 3: so out of the ordinary. But a lot of withdrawal

780
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 3: symptoms mimic the diagnoses themselves, and so when you come off,

781
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 3: you know you've been on your prozac for fifteen years,

782
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:40,400
Speaker 3: and you realize, like, I don't think I need to

783
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:42,799
Speaker 3: take this anymore. And you come off and you feel

784
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 3: horribly anxious down in the dumps, you lose energy or

785
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:48,960
Speaker 3: you know, maybe you can't sleep or you're restless, and

786
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 3: you realize, like, gosh, I really was depressed. I just

787
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:53,799
Speaker 3: didn't realize it because I was on my meds, Like

788
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:55,359
Speaker 3: I need to go back on my meds. I don't

789
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:58,760
Speaker 3: want to feel this way. And I think that because

790
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 3: we don't have this understanding dependence and withdrawal, people stay

791
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 3: in this loop for years and years and years because

792
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 3: they hate how they feel when they stop their meds.

793
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:09,720
Speaker 3: And so a lot of what my work is about

794
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:13,239
Speaker 3: is not pushing any kind of agenda. I'm not anti med.

795
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 3: I'm about informed choice. We are not being informed about

796
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 3: the drugs before we start them. We are not being

797
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 3: informed about how to come off of them safely. And

798
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 3: I want everyone should have the right to this information

799
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:29,359
Speaker 3: so that they can decide for themselves what their next

800
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 3: right step is. And I believe that right now, basically

801
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 3: none of us are making informed choices because we're not

802
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 3: being told any of this.

803
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on

804
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 2: the Tutor Dixon Podcast. What do you think about the

805
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:48,359
Speaker 2: diagnosis process? Because I know, I mean, I think that

806
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 2: you had at one point major depression, eating disorder, substance

807
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:56,720
Speaker 2: abuse disorder, borderline personality disorder, bipolar, all of these things.

808
00:41:56,760 --> 00:41:59,359
Speaker 1: They had said, Oh, it's this, it's this, it's this.

809
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:02,959
Speaker 2: Do you believe that they really understand what they're doing

810
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:03,880
Speaker 2: when they diagnose?

811
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:07,880
Speaker 3: Well, I think the diagnostic process. What I think people

812
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 3: really what I fail to understand, and I think a

813
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 3: lot of people fail to understand, is that the process,

814
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 3: the process of diagnosing with someone with a psychiatric condition

815
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 3: is not a scientific process that's rooted in in anything

816
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 3: kind of scientifically valid or reliable. It's it's a very

817
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 3: subjective process that that is largely about the opinion of

818
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 3: the person doing the diagnosing. And so in this in

819
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:39,440
Speaker 3: that sense, the DSM, you know, psychiatry's bible that all

820
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 3: of these diagnoses live in. I don't really take it

821
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 3: seriously as as a valid a valid scientific text at all.

822
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 1: I think it's more.

823
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 3: Of a kind of work of fiction, really, But that

824
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,399
Speaker 3: isn't me saying that these experiences aren't real.

825
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:56,840
Speaker 1: Sometimes people can think.

826
00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 3: That when I'm challenging the diagnostic paradigm, I'm challenging the

827
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:03,879
Speaker 3: reality of the struggles that people have, and I am

828
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 3: not doing that for me. The fact that I had,

829
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,240
Speaker 3: you know, six or seven different diagnoses along the way,

830
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 3: and that they would change, and you know, different doctors

831
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:18,240
Speaker 3: had different opinions, and when you look at the history

832
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:21,799
Speaker 3: of the DSM itself, these conditions are voted in and

833
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 3: voted out. That's how they That's if a diagnosis is

834
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 3: in the DSM, it's because a group of psychiatrists voted

835
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 3: on it, and that's why it's there. And so when

836
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 3: people realize that, then then you you know, some of

837
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 3: us start to wonder like, is this really the most

838
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:44,840
Speaker 3: useful way to make sense of my difficulty here to

839
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 3: just reduce it to this label, or maybe there are

840
00:43:48,239 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 3: other ways to make sense of this this struggle. And

841
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:55,320
Speaker 3: by making sense of it differently, you end up opening

842
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:58,279
Speaker 3: up different options for you, because if it's not a

843
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 3: so called illness needing treatment, and then you know, it

844
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 3: can mean so many different things that then open up

845
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:06,239
Speaker 3: maybe changing your diet.

846
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:08,320
Speaker 1: Right there's relationships.

847
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:11,840
Speaker 2: There's so many different ways that you can have something

848
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 2: that appears like major depression, but it could be a

849
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 2: something that happened in your life. It could be a

850
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:20,759
Speaker 2: temporary condition that you have to talk through. You could

851
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 2: have something that appears to be your standard eating disorder,

852
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:29,280
Speaker 2: but it might be one person has that eating disorder

853
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 2: because they need control. The other person may have that

854
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:35,320
Speaker 2: eating disorder because it's a social contagion, and their friend

855
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 2: has that and they're in a bad environment and you

856
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 2: need to get them out of that. I mean, that

857
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 2: is the concern is how do you get to the

858
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 2: root cause of a psychiatric condition.

859
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 1: They're very hard, it's very hard to do that.

860
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 3: It's very hard, and I think especially for people who've

861
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 3: been struggling for a long long time. Let's take the

862
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:59,839
Speaker 3: kind of stereotypical example of the man on the sub

863
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 3: the homeless man on the subway who's talking to himself

864
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 3: and acting.

865
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: Really wacky and scary.

866
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:09,839
Speaker 3: You know, I think are most so many of us

867
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 3: just assume, oh, this person must have this serious illness

868
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 3: like schizophrenia, and he's off his.

869
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:15,839
Speaker 1: Meds and that's why he's acting this way.

870
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 3: But if you if you step back and think about it.

871
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 3: At one point, that man was a little boy, and

872
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 3: and things happened to that boy needs were not met.

873
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:29,319
Speaker 3: Maybe things happened to that boy that never should happen

874
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 3: to a child. And when you when you think about

875
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:35,359
Speaker 3: the kind of cumulative effect over years and years and

876
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 3: years of not having basic needs met, of having traumatic

877
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 3: things happening, of being maybe put on meds that cause

878
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 3: all these problems, and then you get stuck in this

879
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,880
Speaker 3: cycle where you stop them abruptly and you go into withdrawal,

880
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 3: but everyone thinks it's you're having a relapse. And just

881
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 3: you think about all the layers of trauma and and

882
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:59,840
Speaker 3: unmet needs and in all these kind of systems failing,

883
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 3: it makes sense then that eventually a person reaches this

884
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:07,439
Speaker 3: extreme point where they're kind of seen as this other

885
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 3: being that's not like me. And I think it for me,

886
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:14,799
Speaker 3: it's about, you know, stepping back and realizing that every

887
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:18,840
Speaker 3: single person has a story behind why they're in the

888
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,600
Speaker 3: struggles that they're in, and sometimes the story is obvious,

889
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:26,760
Speaker 3: and sometimes it's not obvious, and sometimes it's long and complicated.

890
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 3: And so I'm not someone who's like, oh, it's all

891
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 3: simple let's just you know, if we stop diagnosing people,

892
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:38,720
Speaker 3: there won't be problems. Life is really hard, messy, sometimes violent,

893
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:43,400
Speaker 3: awful things happen. I'm not pretending there's some easy solution here,

894
00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:46,719
Speaker 3: but I think we need to all realize that every

895
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 3: struggling person has a story, and the current mental health

896
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 3: industry doesn't often make space for those stories to be

897
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 3: understood and.

898
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 2: Help people to cope through life on a regular basis.

899
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:01,399
Speaker 2: And so I want to just end on what you're

900
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 2: doing now because you're kind of coaching folks who do

901
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 2: say I want to get rid of these medications from

902
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 2: my life, from my life, and I want to move

903
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 2: on and I want to feel healthy. And I think

904
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 2: I read something where someone said I felt like it

905
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 2: would happen right away, because it seemed like it happened

906
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 2: right away for Laura. But you just said it can

907
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 2: take years to get somebody off of one of these medications.

908
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:27,600
Speaker 2: So if you can explain a little bit about how

909
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 2: you talk people through this, and then also I got

910
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 2: the impression that you also coach them through those moments

911
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:35,919
Speaker 2: of you know, I'm having a panic attack, I must

912
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 2: be having a relapse.

913
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:38,759
Speaker 1: No, you can get through it. There are ways to

914
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: get through it, So tell us a little bit about that.

915
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 3: So for anyone who's on a medication, trying to come

916
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:51,120
Speaker 3: off of it, or have tried in the past and

917
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 3: didn't go well, you know, I first there's this nonprofit

918
00:47:56,120 --> 00:48:00,799
Speaker 3: that I started, Intercompass Initiative, and so over there we

919
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 3: provide people with free information and resources for learning about

920
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:06,600
Speaker 3: all so many of the things we talked about today

921
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 3: and more. Learn about how to read the drug label

922
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:14,320
Speaker 3: for your medications you can better understand its risk profile

923
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 3: and all of that, how to learn about the history

924
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 3: of the DSM. You know, we have all that information

925
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 3: there because I think it starts there. It starts with

926
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:25,080
Speaker 3: educating yourself with which is not easy. It takes time,

927
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 3: and it can be complicated. So we have everything organized

928
00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:32,719
Speaker 3: on our website that we think is you know, what

929
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 3: people need to know that they're not being told. And

930
00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:40,239
Speaker 3: we also over there have a self directed tapering manuals.

931
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:44,280
Speaker 3: So we basically took all of the late person wisdom

932
00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 3: in the withdrawal community, and by that I mean the

933
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 3: tens upon tens of thousands of people all around the

934
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:54,719
Speaker 3: world who have been forced to figure out for themselves

935
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 3: how to taper off of these meds safely. Because the

936
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,440
Speaker 3: medical system does not ignowledge this is a real issue.

937
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:04,360
Speaker 3: There are no safe tapering protocols that have been officially

938
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 3: endorsed in the United States. So we lay people have

939
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 3: become the experts on this. So we have a free

940
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 3: manual at the website that walks through how people taper

941
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 3: off of these drugs. Write down to pictures of how

942
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 3: you you know, use a syringe to make a liquid mixture.

943
00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 3: It's like very granular over there. And we have a

944
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:26,279
Speaker 3: community over there as well of people helping each other

945
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 3: in a mutual aid capacity. I do offer you know,

946
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 3: coaching and consulting support to people who want one on

947
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 3: one support. I don't do a lot of it, I do,

948
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:40,600
Speaker 3: but I know it's an important thing to offer people.

949
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 3: And that's separate from the nonprofit. And we also have

950
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:48,759
Speaker 3: a group support program where people at all stages of

951
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:50,919
Speaker 3: the journey off of these meds can kind of come

952
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 3: together and really like figure out how to feel and

953
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 3: be with themselves in the wake of all of this,

954
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:03,400
Speaker 3: because that's the thing when you when you're psychiatrized. So

955
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:05,960
Speaker 3: many of us are so afraid of our pain and

956
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:08,880
Speaker 3: of being with ourselves, that when we decide to leave

957
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:10,839
Speaker 3: it all behind, we have to learn how to do that,

958
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:13,920
Speaker 3: how to just be and not try to fix it,

959
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 3: like you said, not try to shut it down. So,

960
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 3: but the way I see it, there should be freely

961
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:23,280
Speaker 3: available information and resources and community for people.

962
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 1: People shouldn't have to pay. You shouldn't have to pay me,

963
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:27,760
Speaker 1: You shouldn't have to pay anyone.

964
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,319
Speaker 3: And that's why our nonprofit ICI exists because we believe

965
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 3: it's a right for all people to get this for free.

966
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 2: What you just said, afraid of being with ourselves that

967
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 2: really strikes a chord because I do think that a

968
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:44,800
Speaker 2: lot of people have felt like, oh, I'm too scary

969
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:49,320
Speaker 2: without some sort of aid, and this is helping people

970
00:50:49,360 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 2: through that. You have a book too, Can you tell

971
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 2: us about the book quickly or Unshrunk?

972
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:58,440
Speaker 3: It's called Unshrunk, A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance, and

973
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:01,880
Speaker 3: it's available at through my my website Lauradelano dot com

974
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:04,759
Speaker 3: or all fine booksellers. And it's a memoir about all

975
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:07,279
Speaker 3: of this, plus a lot of research and history woven in.

976
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:10,440
Speaker 3: And my hope is that it just helps continue this

977
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,840
Speaker 3: conversation and can serve as something hopeful for people that

978
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:17,000
Speaker 3: there's another story for you, beyond what the mental health

979
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 3: industry tells you about yourself.

980
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:21,360
Speaker 1: I love it. Thank you so much, Laura Delano.

981
00:51:22,239 --> 00:51:24,400
Speaker 2: It's been a joy talking to you, and I know

982
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:26,560
Speaker 2: I kept you extra long, and I just I want

983
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 2: to say I appreciate it.

984
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Such an important topic.

985
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 3: Oh, Tutor, I'm so honored to be on your podcast,

986
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 3: and thanks for everything you do.

987
00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:34,600
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to be here.

988
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, and thank you all for joining the Tutor

989
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:40,280
Speaker 2: Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others, go to Tutor

990
00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:44,240
Speaker 2: dixonpodcast dot com, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

991
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts and join us next time. You

992
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 2: can also watch the video on Rumble at Tutor Dixon.

993
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:51,759
Speaker 2: Join us next time and have a blessed day.