Coming Off Meds

When Karin Jervert withdrew from 5 psychiatric medications the conflicting voices and forces in her head became pathways to art and spirit. Through Buddhism and earth-based ceremony Karin discovered a new world – and a new sense of self – from her suffering. Co-hosts Jacks McNamara and Will Hall discuss art, ancestors, and the nature of reality with Karin, who today is arts editor for Mad In America. Karin creates nonfiction essays, visual art, graphic narratives, and poetry that explore transforming trauma – including the trauma of forced psychiatric treatment. (Alternate 58 min version here.)

www.eventbrite.com/e/504023888017

www.something-wonderful.net/art-as-alchemy

www.medium.com/@karinjervert/five-poems-minus-one-7f2dce663908

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Survivingantidepressants.org is one of the leading and longest running communities of mutual and and peer self-help around psychiatric drug withdrawal. Adele Framer – alto strata – founded the site in 2011 and shares her experience and learning on supporting people coming off antidepressants, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines and other medications, including the emerging field of psychiatric medication withdrawal research. (Special thanks to Oddball Magazine for production assistance.) (Alternate 58 min version here.)

www.survivingantidepressants.org

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In this guest podcast, Jason Wright of Oddball Magazine sits down with Madness Radio host Will Hall, author of the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, to discuss mental health abolition, harm reduction, democratic socialism, and more in a far ranging conversation. You may have noticed the world is falling apart, time to think big and outside! (And seriously consider vitamin D supplementation). Check out Jason’s work and the community at Oddball Magazine here:
https://oddballmagazine.com/

Jyl Ion hears voices, but she refuses to view these non-ordinary experiences as a sign of mental illness. Instead Jyl came off 16 years of multiple toxic medications, talks to her ancestor spirits and has reclaimed access to unsanctioned knowledge. She struggled through the aftermath of sexual violence and was bedridden for two years of illness withdrawing from psychiatric meds – and now emerges as a strong survivor. Today Jyl has turned her voice hearing and her traumatic past into gifts, and works professionally as a forensic medium helping law enforcement solve missing persons cases. Her new book of poetry is called Soft Out Spoken. 58 min version

https://jylanais.com/

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After taking the psychedelic drug ayahuasca Martha Elisabeth went into an extended altered state diagnosed as psychotic. Her terrifying ordeal ignited a spiritual initiation that eventually brought gifts of awakening, insight, and compassion. How did Martha emerge from her ecstatic journey through a mythic, archetypal world to become an advocate and teacher? What lessons can we learn about the dangers — and potentials — of psychedelics and of altered states of consciousness labeled “madness”? Today she is a mental health case worker in the UK National Health Service, co-director of an interdisciplinary research team, and voice for more humane and spiritual treatments for madness.

http://www.santacruz.com/news/busting_the_mental_illness_myths.html
https://www.facebook.com/2ndStoryRespite/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtjP2nn6Nss
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7_q3F5bNyk
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctoziyxsZwE&authuser=0
www.psychosissummit.com/copy-of-charles-heriot-maitland

How can people come off psychiatric medications in the safest way? What are the key lessons and vital ingredients for leaving psychiatric care? Is there life after meds? Laura Delano spent 14 years as a psychiatric patient before she left behind her psychiatric diagnoses and reclaimed herself. Today she is Director of the Inner Compass Initiative and The Withdrawal Project, working to support drug withdrawal and build community beyond the mental health system. www.theinnercompass.org withdrawal.theinnercompass.org https://bit.ly/2ISZuzh

withdrawal.theinnercompass.org/preparewithdrawal theinnercompass.org/page/twp-connect

Now available as an audiobook!  Based in more than 10 years work in the peer support movement,The Icarus Project and Freedom Center’s 52-page guide is used internationally by individuals, families, professionals, and organizations to support reducing and coming off psychiatric drugs. Includes info on mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, risks, benefits, wellness tools, psychiatric drug withdrawal, information for people staying on their medications, and much more. Audiobook read by Guide author Will Hall.

A ‘harm reduction’ approach means not being pro- or anti- medication, but supporting people where they are at to make their own decisions. Written by Will Hall, with a 55-member health professional Advisory Board, more than 50 collaborators involved in developing and editing, and now available in 14 languages.

The Guide and this audiobook are Creative Commons copyright and you have advance permission to link, copy, broadcast, and distribute. (Text version here: www.willhall.net/comingoffmeds).

Download the Audiobook here (rt/cntrl-click save as).

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What if psychotic experiences express historical and intergenerational trauma? Does one person’s emotional crisis reach beyond their own individual mind? Could synchronicities and meaningful coincidences guide recovery instead of just being “symptoms”?

Naas Siddiqui, a psychiatric survivor and therapist in training who founded the Spiritual Emergence and other Unusual Experiences student group, descended into altered states after withdrawing from psychiatric medications. She discovered how her Bangladeshi heritage shaped her madness, and found a unique pathway to use her visionary states to heal personal and family trauma.

http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/10/transmuting-historical-trauma/

https://www.madinamerica.com/author/nsiddiqui/

Marijuana is now legal in two states, and legal for medical use in 23 states and the District of Columbia. Polls show the majority of Americans support cannabis legalization, and more and more of the country is joining the legalization trend. As a counselor working with people diagnosed with psychosis and mental illness I am often asked about my opinion and clinical experience — as well as my personal experience — with medical cannabis.

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Are there ways to reach people in states of madness? How do talking with ghosts, hearing voices, and seeing visions — as well as enduring family turmoil — relate to psychotic crisis?

When Dina Tyler discovered the meaning of life in an altered state, the treatment she received only inflicted further trauma. Dina instead embraced her madness as a guiding force for recovery, and found a way to leave labels and medications behind. Today she works as a counselor to youth experiencing psychosis, communicating across different realities with people driven away from traditional care.

Dina is the co-director of the Bay Area Mandala Project, co-founder of Bay Area Hearing Voices, and works with an early psychosis intervention program in Alameda County, California. She was awarded Peer Specialist of the Year by the National Council for Behavioral Health in 2015!

https://youtu.be/2rtBYHttOBg 

www.bayareamandalaproject.org

www.bayareahearingvoices.org

What if ordinary families could provide care for people psychiatry has given up on? Is there a way out for people stuck long-term as mental patients? Can human relationships and living together be more effective than medications, diagnosis, and hospitals?

Carina Håkansson’s values wouldn’t allow her to work in the traditional psychiatric system in Sweden. She left to create the Family Care Foundation, providing foster homes, therapy, and supervision for people with psychosis and extreme emotional distress. What can we all learn from this visionary — and simple — solution?

http://www.familjevardsstiftelsen.se
http://bit.ly/1l8KYQz
http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/04/carina-hakansson-family-care-foundation/

What if researchers collaborated with patients rather than treating them as “informants” and objects of study? Nev Jones survived her mother’s frightening extreme states — and then her own mind unravelled into different realities. She was herself diagnosed with schizophrenia, and began a lifelong exploration of the uniqueness of madness.

Today Nev is a post-doctorate fellow at Stanford University, founder of Chicago Hearing Voices and the Lived Experience Research Network, and part of the the movement to create alternatives to professional control of research on psychosis.

http://depaul.academia.edu/NevJones
http://www.chicagohearingvoices.org

Are Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan and other benzodiazepines really more addictive than heroin? How can these common drugs for anxiety actually worsen the symptoms they’re prescribed to treat? What are the dangers of protracted withdrawal?

Matt Samet, former professional rock climber, Outside Magazine writer, and author of Death Grip: A Climber’s Escape From Benzo Madness, discusses his recovery journey from psychiatric drug addiction.

http://us.macmillan.com/deathgrip/MattSamet
http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/05/matt-samet-climbing-out/

Are elders living with forgetfulness, Alzheimer’s, and dementia unreachable? Are there parallels with states called psychotic? Can meaning be found in the confusion of brain injury and coma?

Stan Tomandl, MA, DiplPW and author of Coma Care & Palliative Work, and An Alzheimer’s Surprise Party: Unveiling the Mystery, Inner Experience, and Gifts of Dementia, explores communicating with memory loss and how to make an end of life transition with dignity.

http://www.comacommunication.com