I noticed these podcasts sadly have a small following. My belief is , that as more of us experience the HELL of psych med. withdrawal , the more attention these informative videos will garner .
Bear in mind, not all people have sideefects, so they don't "know" meds are not helpful and making them sicker. Some are bearly functioning, thinking it's "progression of symptoms" causing problems. They just don't know. I took it for 20y, hoping something might work. On the other hand, many people get off meds and just continue with life, they don't want to remember cs it was painful. So they are not here commenting.
@naomimara3340 yes agree. I thought the same thing. Too painful and want to move on and forget. I need a support person. And cant afford to join her program.
She speaks very well. She was lucky, as she said, to have a supportive family network. Not all of us have that. I'm a single, working dad with a mortgage and all of my family are interstate. I've been suffering PAWS for 5 years, though I reinstated after 54 days, it was too late. Those symptoms have been permanent since. Tinnitus in both ears 24/7, increased anxiety, fear, highly emotional, quick to anger, sadness, despair, dizziness, heart palpitations, etc. I've been tapering properly now for 3 years and thought I had a year to go, but due to the occupancy rate, it may be another 2 years. I'm so desperate to get off so that I can begin to recover yet while this poison is still in my body, I will never be normal. Life is a constant struggle, going to work etc. I'm pushing on because I have no choice but God it's tough. Thank you for the encouragement to keep on. Almost brought me to tears because I'm so desperate right now.
Same AJ..Im 71 and i dont see the point of trying to taper again…i have two rare spinal diseases and am in chronic intractable pain. Used to run marathons, gym rat, etc. and now i cant walk around the block without pain. No support from family.
The first two years of PAWS is hell. I’m 4.8months Paws and have almost healed 100%. It’s such a long journey. I’m one of the lucky ones with family support. My family have been horrified but thankful for people like Laura to help others. Love and peace from Australia 🇦🇺
Mine is 6 years and still dont know what to do. How can we deal with that trauma. It always remember me of the worst things. Also have neuropathy because of this meds. I dont know if i will make it.
@@jameskoss1054 last time i was on Cymbalta 60mg, Seroquel 75mg, Lamotrigen 150mg for 3 years. And before other ads paxil, etc... I did go to neurologist. Nothing he could find.
After 3 failed attempts that led me to hellish withdrawals, I am finally doing a proper taper down to zero mg of the drug. I’m glad I have my “why?” for coming off the drug. I’m looking forward to my sexual functioning to come back. I’m looking forward to my new or reborn life full feeling and experiencing what it means to be human again. ❤
Laura you are a lion you have more balls than millions if war brakes out tomorrow I’d want you on my team do not be nervous your life story will save many namaste 🙏
I want to start weaning off of 5mg of olanzapine. Dropped from 20 to 5 with no issues but going to the 2.5mg was awful my anxiety was through the roof. It’s so annoying the first week and a half was fine but after that was hell and I didn’t realise it was withdrawals initially. Fell out with best friend during this time and our relationship never recovered. So that wasn’t worth it!! I now have no support to help me with this taper
Great talk today. I have been through this same experience as your body seems to come "alive" when you go through withdrawal. You can experience a new richness of emotions, greater memory in better detail and a better feeling of "being in touch with your body". This only happened for me by deliberate focus on the emotions of thankfulness, what I'm excited about, what I'm looking forward to, what great about today. Self Expression can also be a great healer - speaking out loud, acting, singing and BEING HEARD. She is so right is saying that healing comes through sitting with pain - whatever form that may take - emotional or physical. I think what heals more than anything is powerful purpose in our life that we can anchor on. And meaningful things/people that make us feel at ease.
Thank you for sharing your story Laura. Very powerful. I'm looking forward to reading your book! (I don't see the Q & A box. I guess it was taken down.) A few comments: "Treatment resistant" = the drugs don't work -- It is most definitely NOT that there is something wrong with you. They'll never admit that it wasn't someting wrong with you but something wrong with them and the drugs they hand out like candy and of course the social context which causes so much trauma. The best book I've read to date on this unholy business is BigPharma industry insider Peter Gotzsche's, "Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime." If that doesn't wake people up nothing will. Another great book that was just released in by the renowned Gabor Mate, M.D. : The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.
It seems that whenever I listen to you, Laura, since my own journey began, is to get emotional - even deliberating whether I want to continue listening. But I know I must, so I continue. In my own case, I was put on Serenace (Haloperidol) at the age of 20 in 1970. The drug was new. I have fond memories of my doctor. I had debilitating nervous tics and I wanted a solution. Over 40 years later I developed mysterious symptoms, the last being TD. I went off my 1.5mg d dose almost cold turkey. You can imagine what I went through and still am - maybe forever. But it was because of that I learnt so much about the mechanisms behind my current discontinuation condition. Needless to say one of these was watching your videos. Thank you so much! Yes, it was a journey. It was a journey I can impart onto others. Once again, thank you!
I cold turkeyed Effexor about 25 years ago after I forgot to take it one morning and about 10:00 I could not move my eyes from one thing to the other on my computer screen without feeling like I had just jumped 5 feet from something and jarred my head. I went home and took it to stop the withdraws till I had an appointment with the psychiatrist and asked him what that drug was doing to me. He just said, "It is an anti depressant." I said, "No! What is Effexor physically changing in my body that would not be happening if I did not take it?" He said,"I have been taking it for three years.. It would be a few years before I had a severe break, being That was 20 years ago. I am very glad your stuff came up on my feed from a channel you started and have a handful of videos from 9 years ago.
Yes wish there was a wellness center specifically for this. I've withdrawn from 4 antidepressants. Not fun. One caused suicidal thoughts in 2 days. I went off the second day and the 'thoughts' lasted a week. Luckily I knew it was the drug and survived.
Alternative to Meds Center have harmed people in wd by making them take multiple supplements when one should be extra careful about any substance during wd.
I've been on psiquiatric drugs for 30 years, I' m 50 now. I think that my life would have been much better without having taken the misfortunate detour of medication. It is as if my life was hijacked. Inside me two lifes are coexistent, the apparent, and the aborted. Lost touch within, thus from the world. It is a kind of misery hard to understand for the people around me who haven t been through it. Plus the stigma of having a ' mental illness' The paradigm that has been casted upon society is unfair in so many cases in favour of big businesses, it s very sad.
I am never one to comment on videos but I just wanted to say how much I appreciated this video and Laura's Journey. Thank you SO much for sharing your personal journey to healing and coming off of these medications. As I'm currently going through my own healing journey off of Sertraline for over 6 years and struggling with all the withdrawal symptoms, I feel hopeful and inspired to one day be able to speak to my experience and story, and hopefully be able to encourage and educate others as well. Thank you for what you do and I look forward to reading your book!
Wow, I’m so glad I came across this. My own WD has been so hard and I’m at the very beginning. I had chills and tears through Laura’s speech, it meant so much to hear that what I’m going through can have a greater purpose. I want to get involved in this community, thank you for this!
Great interview. Laura, you are so amazing and inspirationionail! Thanks so much to both of you. I am stuck in protracted w/d from alcohol and 2 years of rx opioids for pain mgt. The alcohol was an addiction for most of my adult life but the opioid dependency developed from taking them daily for a back injury. I quit the alcohol 1.5 years ago and jumped from the opioids 6 months ago after a 4 month taper. I've been off of everything now for 6 months but the PAWS is still raging. I suffer 24/7 from depression, anxiety, insomnia and a general feeling of malaise (nausea/headache) like nothing I've had before. My sleep has improved somewhat but it's still very inconsistent. I pray I can recover some day and feel healthy and balanced again. It's been an epic struggle to stay positive when my brain and body are just so compromised.
Great vid regarding your difficult time, very well explained, I understood your past feelings and how you had to cope Fromm day to day, I must say you seem fine and also look great so I would take on board all your advice and knowledge as someone that has had the experience thank you for this and all the best for your future great life , baz.
IF WE WERE INFORMED PROPERLY HOW TO TAPER IN THE FIRST PLACE IT WOULD NOT TAKE MANY OF US YEARS TO GET OFF ( not shouting :) Sadly we are sent away to taper with little to know education, information or what to expect. It can be very scarey when u run into awful side effects, side effects you would not have had, had you started reducing by a smaller amount in the first place :(
Yes, I had that. I had terrible side-effects and when I just couldn't tolerate them I cut back or stopped. I was shamed by my doctors, most of my family and friends. Nobody knew what hell I was going through and they just didn't listen.
@hummingbird4934 Yes, I had about 9 months of bad side-effects effects, but I eventually decided the side-effects were worse than my mood I was trying to correct. I sometimes take a microdose for a week if I've been sick and my mood is low but otherwise I stay away from psych meds and psych doctors/GPs because they have no idea what they are doing to people.
All wd heals. But not all major brain injury from psych heals. A truth i had to sit with every day all bc i couldnt find the inner compass website when it mattered
Who was the Dr who ok your "tapper" thd one issue I have is we in a way protect these Dr by not calling them out Just stating a fact, We say as my Dr prescribed Hell why not say as Dr Smith !!! Why prescribed !!! Why protect them ??? We are to soft on these Dr, it's a war and us patients are losing
What do you think about limbic system training/mind body connection/neuroplasticity of the brain?My gut is wrecked ..its so much gut/brain connection? Thoughts?
True. I also wrote to the minister of health care to change the law because my insane doctors gave me clonazepam in October as so called non habit forming sleep aid!!! I used for 12 days but the damage was done so in hell and only halfway taper yet and I feel my brain is black so there's definitely more than just withdrawal.
I was completely sane and high functioning with literally everything going for me in life ready to spread my wings. I got cortisone for something I shouldn't have and was in cortizone withdrawal and said everywhere I don't understand why I cannot sleep, something is weird in my brain and no doctor took me seriously and now I'm obviously way worse and feel like dying. I don't think I'm strong enough to even last this taper.
I’m on 7.5 mg of remeron and .75 mg of Klonopin Been on since end of 2021 after COVID I developed insomnia and ended up polydrugged on psych meds and diagnosed with bipolar after having an adverse reaction to an SSRI celexsa I’m stuck What do I taper first Heard bad stories about mirtazapine I’m in MA
What was your menstrual time like? Omg I’ve been horrible week before and during so bad so bad never this bad in my entire life literally I dread that time of the month because I feel so so bad so insane
@@brokenwingedsongbirdplease don’t. Have you tried the ketogenic diet? I think it might help greatly. Please do your research on it and see if you can do it as many people have healed their original mental illness on it not just withdrawals.
I noticed these podcasts sadly have a small following. My belief is , that as more of us experience the HELL of psych med. withdrawal , the more attention these informative videos will garner .
I think people want a quick fix and not the hard long journey to recover without the SSRI drugs
Bear in mind, not all people have sideefects, so they don't "know" meds are not helpful and making them sicker. Some are bearly functioning, thinking it's "progression of symptoms" causing problems. They just don't know. I took it for 20y, hoping something might work.
On the other hand, many people get off meds and just continue with life, they don't want to remember cs it was painful. So they are not here commenting.
Most people don’t even know they exist 😢
@naomimara3340 yes agree. I thought the same thing. Too painful and want to move on and forget. I need a support person. And cant afford to join her program.
I agree. But I wish that the information had been available BEFORE THE PRESCRIPTION was written.
She speaks very well. She was lucky, as she said, to have a supportive family network. Not all of us have that. I'm a single, working dad with a mortgage and all of my family are interstate. I've been suffering PAWS for 5 years, though I reinstated after 54 days, it was too late. Those symptoms have been permanent since. Tinnitus in both ears 24/7, increased anxiety, fear, highly emotional, quick to anger, sadness, despair, dizziness, heart palpitations, etc.
I've been tapering properly now for 3 years and thought I had a year to go, but due to the occupancy rate, it may be another 2 years. I'm so desperate to get off so that I can begin to recover yet while this poison is still in my body, I will never be normal. Life is a constant struggle, going to work etc. I'm pushing on because I have no choice but God it's tough. Thank you for the encouragement to keep on. Almost brought me to tears because I'm so desperate right now.
I am praying for you AJ. What medication were you on....for how long and at what dose?
Same AJ..Im 71 and i dont see the point of trying to taper again…i have two rare spinal diseases and am in chronic intractable pain. Used to run marathons, gym rat, etc. and now i cant walk around the block without pain. No support from family.
Where can i reach you Laura???
@Lululove she lives in Ct..runs programs in New Britain Ct...hit me up will try to find the location
@Lululove God Bless you
I love "the shittiest got less shitty" part 😅, I think you couldn't have described it any other way❤❤❤❤ thank you for sharing. These meds are insane.
The first two years of PAWS is hell. I’m 4.8months Paws and have almost healed 100%. It’s such a long journey. I’m one of the lucky ones with family support. My family have been horrified but thankful for people like Laura to help others. Love and peace from Australia 🇦🇺
Mine is 6 years and still dont know what to do. How can we deal with that trauma. It always remember me of the worst things. Also have neuropathy because of this meds. I dont know if i will make it.
@@mitch5222 Mitch-What type of meds were you on, at what does, and for how long? Where is your neuropathy pain? Have you seen a neurologist?
@@jameskoss1054 last time i was on Cymbalta 60mg, Seroquel 75mg, Lamotrigen 150mg for 3 years. And before other ads paxil, etc... I did go to neurologist. Nothing he could find.
I need you help
That doesn’t make sense. You say that the first two years as hell but you’ve only been 4.8 years in PAWS
i used psych drugs for 13 years now almost 11years off and almost healed from Philippines.
How long did it take you to heal?
After 3 failed attempts that led me to hellish withdrawals, I am finally doing a proper taper down to zero mg of the drug. I’m glad I have my “why?” for coming off the drug. I’m looking forward to my sexual functioning to come back. I’m looking forward to my new or reborn life full feeling and experiencing what it means to be human again. ❤
Thank goodness for book Mad in America by Robert Whitaker Explains alot.
Laura you are a lion you have more balls than millions if war brakes out tomorrow I’d want you on my team do not be nervous your life story will save many namaste 🙏
I want to start weaning off of 5mg of olanzapine. Dropped from 20 to 5 with no issues but going to the 2.5mg was awful my anxiety was through the roof. It’s so annoying the first week and a half was fine but after that was hell and I didn’t realise it was withdrawals initially. Fell out with best friend during this time and our relationship never recovered. So that wasn’t worth it!! I now have no support to help me with this taper
“You heal through living.” ❤
Great talk today. I have been through this same experience as your body seems to come "alive" when you go through withdrawal. You can experience a new richness of emotions, greater memory in better detail and a better feeling of "being in touch with your body". This only happened for me by deliberate focus on the emotions of thankfulness, what I'm excited about, what I'm looking forward to, what great about today. Self Expression can also be a great healer
- speaking out loud, acting, singing and BEING HEARD.
She is so right is saying that healing comes through sitting with pain - whatever form that may take - emotional or physical. I think what heals more than anything is powerful purpose in our life that we can anchor on. And meaningful things/people that make us feel at ease.
My neuropathy is not improving in 10 years already
@@mitch5222what was you taking are u okay now I suffer something similar for a decade
Lovely morning prayer, well done Paige, from a fellow parishioner of St Marys
Thank you for sharing your story Laura. Very powerful. I'm looking forward to reading your book!
(I don't see the Q & A box. I guess it was taken down.)
A few comments:
"Treatment resistant" = the drugs don't work -- It is most definitely NOT that there is something wrong with you. They'll never admit that it wasn't someting wrong with you but something wrong with them and the drugs they hand out like candy and of course the social context which causes so much trauma.
The best book I've read to date on this unholy business is BigPharma industry insider Peter Gotzsche's, "Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime." If that doesn't wake people up nothing will. Another great book that was just released in by the renowned Gabor Mate, M.D. : The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.
It seems that whenever I listen to you, Laura, since my own journey began, is to get emotional - even deliberating whether I want to continue listening. But I know I must, so I continue. In my own case, I was put on Serenace (Haloperidol) at the age of 20 in 1970. The drug was new. I have fond memories of my doctor. I had debilitating nervous tics and I wanted a solution. Over 40 years later I developed mysterious symptoms, the last being TD. I went off my 1.5mg d dose almost cold turkey. You can imagine what I went through and still am - maybe forever.
But it was because of that I learnt so much about the mechanisms behind my current discontinuation condition. Needless to say one of these was watching your videos. Thank you so much! Yes, it was a journey. It was a journey I can impart onto others. Once again, thank you!
Great to see people ,finally,who have tapered off psych meds.
I cold turkeyed Effexor about 25 years ago after I forgot to take it one morning and about 10:00 I could not move my eyes from one thing to the other on my computer screen without feeling like I had just jumped 5 feet from something and jarred my head.
I went home and took it to stop the withdraws till I had an appointment with the psychiatrist and asked him what that drug was doing to me.
He just said, "It is an anti depressant."
I said, "No! What is Effexor physically changing in my body that would not be happening if I did not take it?"
He said,"I have been taking it for three years..
It would be a few years before I had a severe break, being
That was 20 years ago.
I am very glad your stuff came up on my feed from a channel you started and have a handful of videos from 9 years ago.
Yes wish there was a wellness center specifically for this. I've withdrawn from 4 antidepressants. Not fun. One caused suicidal thoughts in 2 days. I went off the second day and the 'thoughts' lasted a week. Luckily I knew it was the drug and survived.
Alternative to Meds Center
Alternative to Meds Center have harmed people in wd by making them take multiple supplements when one should be extra careful about any substance during wd.
Wow, what an amazing woman. I've learned so much listening to her story.
Thank you. I wish I had found this before I tapered too quickly. But I’m thankful to know that I am not alone… what I struggled with was very real.
I've been on psiquiatric drugs for 30 years, I' m 50 now. I think that my life would have been much better without having taken the misfortunate detour of medication. It is as if my life was hijacked. Inside me two lifes are coexistent, the apparent, and the aborted. Lost touch within, thus from the world. It is a kind of misery hard to understand for the people around me who haven t been through it. Plus the stigma of having a ' mental illness' The paradigm that has been casted upon society is unfair in so many cases in favour of big businesses, it s very sad.
I am never one to comment on videos but I just wanted to say how much I appreciated this video and Laura's Journey. Thank you SO much for sharing your personal journey to healing and coming off of these medications. As I'm currently going through my own healing journey off of Sertraline for over 6 years and struggling with all the withdrawal symptoms, I feel hopeful and inspired to one day be able to speak to my experience and story, and hopefully be able to encourage and educate others as well. Thank you for what you do and I look forward to reading your book!
Wow, I’m so glad I came across this. My own WD has been so hard and I’m at the very beginning. I had chills and tears through Laura’s speech, it meant so much to hear that what I’m going through can have a greater purpose. I want to get involved in this community, thank you for this!
Thank you thank you for sharing. This is sooooo important. ❤❤
God Bless you all
Thank you Laura 🙏🫂
Great interview. Laura, you are so amazing and inspirationionail! Thanks so much to both of you. I am stuck in protracted w/d from alcohol and 2 years of rx opioids for pain mgt. The alcohol was an addiction for most of my adult life but the opioid dependency developed from taking them daily for a back injury. I quit the alcohol 1.5 years ago and jumped from the opioids 6 months ago after a 4 month taper. I've been off of everything now for 6 months but the PAWS is still raging. I suffer 24/7 from depression, anxiety, insomnia and a general feeling of malaise (nausea/headache) like nothing I've had before. My sleep has improved somewhat but it's still very inconsistent. I pray I can recover some day and feel healthy and balanced again. It's been an epic struggle to stay positive when my brain and body are just so compromised.
This is my favorite video on all of TH-cam
Great vid regarding your difficult time, very well explained, I understood your past feelings and how you had to cope Fromm day to day, I must say you seem fine and also look great so I would take on board all your advice and knowledge as someone that has had the experience thank you for this and all the best for your future great life , baz.
IF WE WERE INFORMED PROPERLY HOW TO TAPER IN THE FIRST PLACE IT WOULD NOT TAKE MANY OF US YEARS TO GET OFF ( not shouting :) Sadly we are sent away to taper with little to know education, information or what to expect. It can be very scarey when u run into awful side effects, side effects you would not have had, had you started reducing by a smaller amount in the first place :(
This is a great interview and wow Laura looks great
Thank you all, for the hope.
Hi from Europe.🙋
Hi from asia
❤
Brilliant Laura. I've a similar story.
12 years off and still got damage. Very scary tbh as this could be permanent. Just think of people in there 70’s trying to get off!
What kind of damage Ruthie?
thank you for sharing with me ,this is i hope in me that my faith will reach you to know me
Every time I wanted to get off the drugs people acted like they would leave me or I couldn’t be around them if I didn’t do the pills or ECT
Yes, I had that. I had terrible side-effects and when I just couldn't tolerate them I cut back or stopped. I was shamed by my doctors, most of my family and friends. Nobody knew what hell I was going through and they just didn't listen.
@@user-3282did you manage to come off? I’m sorry that was your experience that’s tough 😢
@hummingbird4934 Yes, I had about 9 months of bad side-effects effects, but I eventually decided the side-effects were worse than my mood I was trying to correct. I sometimes take a microdose for a week if I've been sick and my mood is low but otherwise I stay away from psych meds and psych doctors/GPs because they have no idea what they are doing to people.
One does wonder if these drugs can have permanent damage. Not all of us have years and years left to heal, if that’s even possible 😢
the worst withdrawal i ever experienced was from xanax!
Can give me a tips ...i got resperidon 2 mg for 2 years...and now my dosis 0,13mg ...but still hard to coming off ,....please help me 🙏
All wd heals. But not all major brain injury from psych heals. A truth i had to sit with every day all bc i couldnt find the inner compass website when it mattered
Yes effexor cones in a liquid
Effexor..horrible big Pharma poison
💙☀️
Please - i really need your help- im on 200 grams of antipshicotics- its ridiculous.
Have just swapped to a different 💊 😢 couldn't cope with withdrawals not enough support 😮
Who was the Dr who ok your "tapper" thd one issue I have is we in a way protect these Dr by not calling them out Just stating a fact, We say as my Dr prescribed Hell why not say as Dr Smith !!! Why prescribed !!! Why protect them ??? We are to soft on these Dr, it's a war and us patients are losing
What do you think about limbic system training/mind body connection/neuroplasticity of the brain?My gut is wrecked ..its so much gut/brain connection? Thoughts?
I filed complaints against my doctors but doctors protect each other
@@xy-qy2yg least you tried how feeling
True. I also wrote to the minister of health care to change the law because my insane doctors gave me clonazepam in October as so called non habit forming sleep aid!!! I used for 12 days but the damage was done so in hell and only halfway taper yet and I feel my brain is black so there's definitely more than just withdrawal.
I was completely sane and high functioning with literally everything going for me in life ready to spread my wings. I got cortisone for something I shouldn't have and was in cortizone withdrawal and said everywhere I don't understand why I cannot sleep, something is weird in my brain and no doctor took me seriously and now I'm obviously way worse and feel like dying. I don't think I'm strong enough to even last this taper.
I’m on 7.5 mg of remeron and .75 mg of Klonopin
Been on since end of 2021 after COVID
I developed insomnia and ended up polydrugged on psych meds and diagnosed with bipolar after having an adverse reaction to an SSRI celexsa
I’m stuck
What do I taper first
Heard bad stories about mirtazapine
I’m in MA
Insomnia after covid is so hard. How are you going now?
I’ve been off and on mirtazapine a few times… Not a biggie, but those benzos that’s the thing. Mirtazapine is neither an SSRI, or a benzo.
So you just stopped taking the mirt?
My dose is 7.5 but people say not to just stop it
what is the facebook group called please?
What was your menstrual time like? Omg I’ve been horrible week before and during so bad so bad never this bad in my entire life literally I dread that time of the month because I feel so so bad so insane
The same happens to me! Ever had issues with PMS and now I’m a psychopath around that time. It’s terrible.
I just started my taper of zopiclone.
Laura you are so beautiful i would never know you were bpd ,you are beautiful xxx
She probably doesn’t have it anymore bpd is caused by bad environments
5 years of hell and you’re 12 yrs still sensitized! At 65 I should have just gone to Switzerland for euthanasia 😢
Which medication were you taking
I'd go in a heartbeat. I'll just do it the old fashioned way
@@brokenwingedsongbirdplease don’t. Have you tried the ketogenic diet? I think it might help greatly. Please do your research on it and see if you can do it as many people have healed their original mental illness on it not just withdrawals.
How can you have a relationship with God or dedicate your life to him when you not you.
good point
Because god is a delusion in psychosis and no entity can enter the mind ,its all a process of neuro recovery
Desperation
exactly. my faith ain’t shit no more.
There are no gods, so it is really easy to not have a relationship with a fairy tale deity.