The Gaslit Truth
Welcome to The Gaslit Truth Podcast – the mental health wake-up call you didn’t know you needed. Dr. Teralyn and Therapist Jenn are here to rip the bandaid off and drag you into the messy, uncomfortable, and brutally misunderstood world of the mind.
Think you’ve got it all figured out? Think again. Everything you thought you knew about mental health is about to be flipped on its head. From outdated diagnoses to the shady underbelly of Big Pharma, these truth-telling therapists are here to tear down the myths, expose the industry’s dirty secrets, and unpack the uncomfortable realities most people are too afraid to touch.
In a world drowning in misinformation, The Gaslit Truth Podcast cuts through the noise with raw, unfiltered conversations that break down walls and challenge the so-called experts. This isn’t your grandma’s therapy session – it's a relentless, no-holds-barred exploration of what’s really going on in the world of mental health.
Warning: This podcast isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s for those who are ready to question everything, confront the lies head-on, and dive deep into the truth you were never meant to find. Because real healing starts with facing the ugly, uncomfortable truths nobody wants to admit.
Welcome to The Gaslit Truth Podcast – where mental health gets real, the revelations are explosive, and nothing is off-limits. Tune in, open your mind, and prepare to unlearn everything you thought you knew.
The Gaslit Truth
Gaslit Into Medicating Normal with Angie Peacock
Angie Peacock's life changed forever when she sought psychiatric help after serving in Iraq. What followed was a 13-year nightmare on more than 40 psychiatric medications simultaneously – a pharmaceutical regimen that robbed her of her identity, relationships, and basic functioning.
"I completely got robbed of my twenties and thirties," Angie reveals, describing how she lost the ability to shower, read, or even watch TV while heavily medicated. Her medical records ultimately labeled her as having "chronic and persistent mental illness not likely to improve." The psychiatric establishment had written her off.
The turning point came when Angie was invited to share her story in the groundbreaking documentary "Medicating Normal." During a catastrophic cold-turkey withdrawal from benzodiazepines, she endured three years of akathisia, intrusive thoughts, and physical agony. Yet something remarkable happened – her brain began to heal itself. Without supplements, alternative therapies, or more medications, Angie's psychiatric symptoms resolved completely.
Today, Angie lives on the road in her camper van, traveling the country as a psychiatric drug withdrawal consultant and advocate for informed consent. Her story challenges everything we're told about "chemical imbalances" and lifelong medication. As she powerfully states: "These drugs have murdered my brain. That's what happened."
Through heart-wrenching honesty and moments of unexpected humor, Angie illustrates how the mental health system traps patients through gaslighting, creating symptoms that are then blamed on underlying illness rather than medication effects. Her journey demonstrates the brain's extraordinary healing capacity when freed from pharmaceutical interference.
Whether you're questioning your own psychiatric treatment, supporting a loved one through withdrawal, or simply concerned about our medication-first approach to m
The Gaslit Truth Podcast will be live and in person at the Feed the Recovering Brain Conference in Dublin, Ohio
Join us with the top names in brain health, including Christina Veselak, Hyla Cass, and Julia Ross, author of The Mood Cure.
We’ll be bringing you interviews and behind-the-scenes content as we explore how nutrition transforms mental wellness.
Are you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at thegaslittruthpodcast@gmail.com
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Dr. Teralyn:
Therapist Jenn:
Oh man, it's like I want to do the hook here, but boy, are we having a hot mess this morning. This is what's up. Everybody you know what it's going to be. Okay, we're going to make it through this. Here's what's going on. What if you have been gaslit into medicating normal? We are your whistleblowing shrinks Dr Tara Lynn and therapist Jen. This is a Gaslit Truth podcast and Hot Mess Express. Today.
Speaker 2:That's okay, you can tell by my audio. It's the Hot Mess Express, so bear with us today. But first of all we're going to bring in my book, and my camera's not turned around in the right way and my audio sucked. But here's my book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can look on my side. Look, if you're on YouTube, look on my side, because I got my shit together this morning and Terry doesn't, and that's the first ever, so I'm going to bask in this for a hot second.
Speaker 2:You wrote a book. I did. I wrote a book. It's called your Best Brain and you can find it on Amazon. And if you get a book, please leave a review, but only five stars are welcome. Thank you very much. That's my PSA and we're going to bring in our guests today because I got to get moving in this to get my groove back on, because we've been dealing with this crap for 30 minutes trying to figure this out All right.
Speaker 2:So we're going to bring in our guest and we're super excited to have her here. I'm going to put her on the screen right now. Welcome Angie Peacock to the show. Hello, hi. Yes, angie is an MSW, so a master level social worker, a CPC but I don't know what that means. Certified professional coach Okay Is a psychiatric drug withdrawal consultant, healing coach and advocate for informed consent and mental health.
Speaker 2:A US Army combat veteran, angie survived trauma, was diagnosed with PTSD and endured 13 years on over this is mind-blowing to me 40 medications before reclaiming her health and rebuilding her life. Her story is featured on the documentary Medicating Normal If you haven't seen that, you guys need to go watch it like ASAP where she shared her experience in pharmacy and the challenge of psychiatric drug withdrawal. Following the film's release, she leveled outreach efforts, engaged 80 audiences in discussions on mental health, informed consent yay and harm reduction. Angie has held leadership advocacy organizations such as Benzodiazepine Information Coalition, intercompass Initiative oh, they just started following me on Instagram. And World Benzodiazepine Information Coalition, inner Compass Initiative oh, they just started following me on Instagram. And World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day.
Speaker 2:Now, living full-time on the road in her camper van Angie speaks, writes and builds community around healing trauma, recovery and rethinking mental health care. She is the founder of HeartCore Collective, a new paradigm for supporting people in their journeys to true mental wellness, and you can find her at AngiePeacockcom. She'll be tagged and everything she can find her there too. Welcome Angie to the show Probably the longest bio I've ever seen, sorry, but it was good. Everybody needed to know all of those things. Those are important things, yes, so please welcome you to the show. I was trying to think about when I met you and it was I know why.
Speaker 3:I know why, I know my, my tiktok went viral.
Speaker 2:My tiktok went viral, not because of mental health but because of burning man burning man, yes it was burning man and I and I saw her and then I was like why is this lady's uh viral video viral for burning man? And then I went to her bio and I'm like shit, she's a therapist. Are you shitting me right?
Speaker 3:now, and so that go ahead. Well, I'm not a therapist, but I was trained as a therapist. I thought she was a therapist because it had msw on there, right, so right, yeah, yeah, thanks for the clarification she's one of us.
Speaker 2:I was more like she's one of us, so I need to talk to her. So then, therapist, because it had MSW on there Right, so right, yeah, yeah. Thanks for the clarification. She's one of us. I was more like she's one of us so I need to talk to her. So then I reached out to her because of Burning man. What a weird, weird thing. So yeah, it was. It was really cool because I was like how did I meet Angie Burning man? I wasn't at Burning man, but she was.
Speaker 1:Well, we, we wore our special shirts for you today, Angie.
Speaker 3:I've got to see this. What does it say?
Speaker 2:I've been wanting to know Mine's backward, though Mine is backward, I'm so sorry. Personally victimized by neurotransmitters. Yep.
Speaker 1:Totally victimized by my neurotransmitters. That's what's up.
Speaker 3:Chemical balance is walking around. We are. It's like a swimming pool. You just got to put a little more chlorine in there, or something.
Speaker 1:I need to get one made just to be sassy, that says something to the effect of it's just your chemical makeup. It's just your chemical makeup. That's why you need that I need one of those.
Speaker 1:Just air quote it For anybody who is out there and makes t-shirts. If you would ever like to advertise your shit on this show and it's something that has a pun to do with psychiatric medication, mental health, anything in the realms that we talk about being gaslit on on this show you give Terry and I a holler because we will probably wear those shirts.
Speaker 3:I love it.
Speaker 2:I said to Jen I said these should say professionally victimized.
Speaker 1:That's what I thought it said when I was reading. It's the next one yeah, all right.
Speaker 2:If you're listening etsy person, make it happen, all right, yes, all right. So so, angie, we need to know, because our listeners may not know um your story, and I think, yeah, primarily, I want to know why you never became a therapist.
Speaker 3:Like why you didn't do that. I was hoping you would ask me that I was hoping.
Speaker 2:Yes, Because I'm thinking I wish I was you at some point.
Speaker 1:Because she's fiscally smarter than us. Let's start with that. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yes, we'll start with that. All right, so where would you like to begin?
Speaker 3:What would you like everyone to know? I mean, my bio pretty much said it, but basically my childhood wasn't the greatest. I grew up in a poor family, so I joined the military because poor kids join the military, rich kids go to college. And I found myself in the war in Iraq at the very beginning in 2003,. Lots of trauma in that experience.
Speaker 3:Basically, what happened was I got medically evacuated after six months in theater for a now what I know is an antibiotic injury because we were given antibiotics for anti-malaria and it just really wrecked my system. I started having panic. I had really bad gastrointestinal, low blood pressure pots like stuff. And then the day I got home back to Germany at the hospital, my convoy got hit and my soldier came back injured and then I saw that trauma and then I just said I can't take it anymore and I walked down the hallway to psychiatry. Because that's what they tell you to do when you have issues, you go to someone for help, and that was the worst decision I ever made in my entire life. And that was the worst decision I ever made in my entire life to ask for help from someone that sits in an office and writes you a prescription. And then I found myself completely disabled for the next 13 years on more medications. Like you guys, 18 at the same time.
Speaker 1:Like I could not.
Speaker 3:Psych meds. It was like, okay, antidepressant, anti-psychotic sleep medicine, pain medicine, antidepressant anti-anxiety, then migraine meds, stomach meds, hormones, like all together oh my gosh and, oh my gosh, what I can tell you about that is that's not even polypharmacy I don't even what's that.
Speaker 1:What is the word for that? That polypharmacy I don't even know what's that, what is the word for that? That polypharmacy doesn't even cut it. That's like yeah, but Malpractice it takes away, that's the word, but it takes away your ability to even know that there's anything wrong with that.
Speaker 3:Do you know what I'm saying? Yes, yeah. So then I found myself with a post-tra or generalized anxiety, major depression, panic disorder, with agoraphobia, pssd, um, like no, zero libido, no interest in other people like I. I don't even know what I did with my life except read self-help books and go to therapy.
Speaker 2:That's it so I'm surprised you were able to do that.
Speaker 1:By the way, yeah, that's even seems like a feat, knowing what the body and the brain go through. I mean, you had to be walking around drooling I had dread dreadlocks in my hair.
Speaker 3:I did not like practice good hygiene. You know, people see me now and they're like there's no way you were really mentally ill. I'm like no, yes, I was like as mentally ill as you can get besides, you know, like talking to yourself on the street Not that there's anything wrong with that, even but that's how bad it was, okay.
Speaker 1:So to back this up. Angie the catalyst. The start of this was an antibiotic that you had been given that started it, and then there was a trauma that you experienced, lots of trauma, chronic trauma like every day. So those pieces together then created this trajectory of you going and just seeking out help, essentially for that. Okay, when did you figure out in this process that the antibiotics had such a play?
Speaker 3:in this Not until I was off and looking back through my medical records.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:No the medical records.
Speaker 3:Jen.
Speaker 1:Here's the deal.
Speaker 3:I can't even read them because, honestly, they're the deal Okay. I can't even read them because, honestly, they're so traumatic to me I can't even read most of it. I still am not there.
Speaker 1:I wanted to ask about this, angie, because people ask Terry and I this a lot and I'm sure your clients ask you the same thing, right? When I am consulting people on deprescribing and working with them on this, one of the first things that I will tell them is, if you have it in you and you can go get your records and part of that for me as well, right, I recently just took printed off stack, asked for them, right, 25 years worth. I said look at it if you have the capacity to, because when you put together a timeline it spells out so much shit for you, right, that, like you just cause you're so used to living it. Then all of a sudden, you put these timelines together and it's like, okay, well, what came first?
Speaker 1:This came first and then this came, and so sometimes records can be helpful. Sometimes they're not, um, but if you have the ability to do it, I tell people to do that because they paint a story.
Speaker 3:I had a guy make me a Gantt chart which shows first it was Klonopin, then it was Paxil, then it was Zoloft, then it was Ambien, then it was a beta blocker, and he stacks them in a timeline to show what overlapped. It's kind of helpful to see it that way because it's like, but I honestly I can't even open the email, like I almost don't want to see it because I, my poor brain has been. It's amazing, it's I'm a miracle that I'm like alive and able to talk and run a business and talk to people. Like honestly, yeah, um, what was I going to say about one thing? Uh, I forgot, nevermind, keep going, you get it. I had so many thoughts.
Speaker 1:I had so many thoughts, just jump in, it's fine, continue, it's fine. Well, I interjected by asking you the question like what came first right and what were the two things that started? So it was the antibiotic and then these recurrent like traumas that were happening. So you did what you do, you went out, you asked for help.
Speaker 3:Then I asked for help. Then it was a benzodiazepine and now VA illness and then the polypharmacy began to to where, like, I didn't even know who I was anymore. I completely lost a sense of self. I lost my twenties and thirties Basically. I did not have children, I did not get date, I didn't get married, I didn't have friends like the basic human things that everybody else gets to have. I completely got robbed of. I couldn't watch TV. I don't have any cultural reference, like people always say these things like did you watch, you know, breaking Bad? No, I didn't, cause I was numb and couldn't you know? Yeah, it was bad that's called.
Speaker 2:You know the iatrogenic harm like caused you to be more mentally ill than than the mental illness piece of it that you should have been treated for right. So the PTSD that you should have been treated for well, you were quote unquote treated for that caused you to be more medically mentally ill.
Speaker 3:Well, even worse than that. I chased my tail in the mental health system for all those years Like what's wrong with me, something's wrong, and so I was being told that was post-traumatic stress. So then I'm like, okay, let's try EFT, let's try EMDR, let's do CBT. I've done all those fucking lettered therapies. Waste of my goddamn time.
Speaker 2:Wait.
Speaker 1:Do you know, jen and I were talking about this, though, because we are thinking that when you are overly medicated, or even medicated period, and you can't do them, I have been like Angie, if you ever find any research on that, I have scoured the wet, like the deep, dark web of like tell me, someone's got to do a study on this idea. That, like, how is it that we can do these interventions that are to heal the brain, especially EMDR, because we've done a ton of research on EMDR, even got some experts in on it that we know to ask this question like there, how can it actually be effective?
Speaker 3:But there is a piece of research on EMDR and benzos in particular, which are indicated because people cannot process. They're numb, yes.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, but we think, but we think it's way more than that. We even think it's like a general SSRI will not allow you to do that, and the the way people talk about it is, but you know we need these things to get stable so you can then do the work, and I'm like I'm so fucking tired of hearing that.
Speaker 1:I am tired of hearing that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, so even more, the more if you, if you want to go on the therapy bent. I went to therapy, you know. I went to train to be a therapist. Okay, and I, I'm looking at that from like, I'm a critical patient perspective while I'm in social work school and what I noticed is all these lettered therapies are in your therapist's mind and they're not with you and present and listening to you. They're thinking about oh, is this attachment theory? Oh, what if it's? You know this bullshit in their head.
Speaker 1:Let's label it. Label, label, label.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's preventing you from being with me. Right now. You're thinking about what's wrong with me. Stop that and just be with me as a human being, please. Yes, so yes, reason number one why I'm not a therapist there's more than one reason, Angie.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's tons, there's millions. Oh, maybe we shouldn't have called this why I won't be. If I could rewind time, I probably wouldn't be a therapist either.
Speaker 1:We did a whole episode on all the harm we caused and the 30 biggest things we said to people that caused them harm. And then we went on Mad in America and and did their podcast and talked about that and on another one I need to go listen to those.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'll listen to that. Listen to the dirty 30, listen to the dirty 30. Cause. Yeah cause.
Speaker 2:we literally call ourselves out for all the stupid shit and the manipulative language and the harm that we have caused, and we're laughing about it now, but it's very serious. We didn't know, though, at the time like when you're trained, you don't know that this is harmful to people.
Speaker 3:This is what I share. Can I share? Yes, okay, here we go.
Speaker 3:Uh, let's, where do I begin? Um, that's, it's not possible for you to have PSSD. You need to lose weight, um, and then your libido will come back, okay, the another. Another one was uh, no, meds don't do that. Um, this is your post-traumatic stress disorder. Uh, when I had a lapse in PSSD, I had like some of the feeling come back. A therapist told me you must've been sexually abused. So maybe you need to do work on that. What that's not. Yeah, here's another one. When I was in benzo withdrawal, my psychiatrist wrote in my record patient believes she's in benzodiazepine withdrawal and that brings her comfort.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, let's blow these people up. You got what. I got names. Blow this shit up. Angie, like what's his name? Who?
Speaker 2:should we be tagging? Who should we be tagging? Who should we be tagging on social media right now?
Speaker 3:we're gonna make like a doctor website and just review all of them oh, there is.
Speaker 1:There is my god, there is one that's out there, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:I had a therapist laugh at me one time because I told her I took extra tramadol because I didn't feel good and she's like, why would you do that? And she started giggling and then she was grossly unprofessional and unhygienic, let me just put it that way. And I was looking at her like you're laughing at me. Look at you, you're a mess. Why would I take any advice from you in the first place? You know um horrible things that you know. Let's try another therapy. I think you need to go to ptsd inpatient. You know? Uh, it's all over my record. It says chronic and persistent mental illness not likely to improve. Chronic and severe Take meds for the rest of your life Angie.
Speaker 1:Was the context that you received these services all through the VA? No, both, so all over the board.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was in the VA system, but I also had civilian providers and they both basically signed off on each other's bullshit. And not once, not once I said this in the film, not once. You know, I'm going to all this therapy. I was very emotional Neuro emotional is what we call it now Like like everything felt like a crisis, Like I just like couldn't handle my own feelings because I was a fucking mess. And not once did a doctor say, or a therapist, especially one that I saw because what are therapists taught? You know, we can look at your context, but don't talk about the meds and that's none of your business, and don't practice medicine. If one person would have done that, you would have saved my fucking life from all the pain that I had to endure, you know. But no, that we're not allowed to talk about that because we're therapists. Get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 2:I have a huge argument with that too, because I'm like we are the eyes and ears of psychiatry.
Speaker 3:Honestly. You are with me. Yeah, you guys are with me four hours a month and they're with me for eight minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Every six months or three months or whatever. Yeah, yeah, or two months, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:How did this roll you into medicating normal then? How did that idea come to? How did that come to fruition for you?
Speaker 3:basically, what happened was I, I guess. When I was on the 18 meds I met a psychiatrist. He said who put you on all this? He took me off 10 overnight in a psych ward and I hallucinated oh my god yeah and complete.
Speaker 3:I literally saw people walking down the hallway with no heads and told the nurses like I am seeing dead people. And uh, they kept me in the hospital for like 45 days. Then I get out and it took me another 10 years to deprescribe the rest and most of it was not done correctly. So I tapered some balls in myself for two and a half years and then I got down to two benzos and I changed doctors and I said I want off this shit. I like put both the bottles on his desk. And I said I want off this shit. I like put both the bottles on his desk. And I was like I want off of this. And he goes. Well, you shouldn't be on two benzos in the first place. So pick one. So he cold turkeys me off one and puts me on the second.
Speaker 3:I was on Ativan three, three milligrams a day. So then I start tapering the Ativan. I get to about two years of tapering and then he told me to make a cut from 1.25 milligrams to one milligram and it was just too much. It shocked my system, yep. And then I didn't know what was happening. I start like having like convulsions while I'm trying to fall asleep and, um, I go to the emergency room like three times in a week, and the doctors are like, stop doing that, you're not dying. Just updose on your Benzo.
Speaker 3:So I up up dose like three days in a row and that third pill, I stuck it in my mouth and I was like I can't do this, like this is poisoning me, that's what and listen, I am not telling anyone to cold turkey. Okay, this is what happened to me. Do not cold turkey. A benzo, please. You could die from that. Okay, so I go to the hospital. Well, I go to the hospital. Well, so then I'm standing in my kitchen I'm sorry to be graphic, trigger warning, press, mute, whatever you need to do but I'm standing in my kitchen cutting carrots to make a pot roast and I wanted to stab myself.
Speaker 3:And I was like what the fuck just happened? Because I am not, I was in the military. We don't play with knives, we play with guns. So I'm like why am I having this thought about a knife? I'm not into that. So it was like a very foreign, scary thought to me. And then I got really really suicidal, like really fast, and I'm looking at my life. I'm like a 4.0 student, I'm a statistics tutor at Washington university in St Louis. I'm like why am I suicidal? There's no reason to. I'm about to graduate in like a year and a half and I'm like something is wrong, but I didn't know. What I didn't know was the meds. I didn't know it was the taper. I didn't know nothing.
Speaker 3:Okay, so, and I'm a psychology student, um, so I? I call my sister. I said you need to come watch the dog. I can't do this. I need to go to the hospital. I go check in the hospital. I tell them this is anxiety. Medicine is obviously not working. I'm more anxious than I've ever been. So they put they check me in. On Monday morning the resident came in and I said am I going to experience any withdrawal? And listen what he said to me. He said you might hear voices and they might say your name. That's what he said to me and I'm like, okay, yeah, it doesn't make any sense, I don't, that's what he said to me, so so. So then I get I think it was 0.25 milligram at like 10 AM and then at 2 PM I got another 0.25 and then I was cold turkied and then the rest of the week I sat there playing puzzles in the psych ward, talking to the nurses and listening for my voice, like is anybody saying my name?
Speaker 2:mean like what's happening?
Speaker 1:I'm waiting for the side effect to happen. I was gonna laugh. It's so asinine, like I just, yeah, it's so, it's so acid. I sometimes like we just laugh because it's like, how else do you even react to, to this like?
Speaker 3:yeah. So then Friday comes along and the doctor says well, we don't want to keep you another weekend, it would be counterproductive, so we can go ahead and check you out. So I remember leaving the hospital thinking these people thought I was addicted to that. Ha ha, ha. Cause I wasn't, I knew that I was tapering. I went off of this shit. I'm not addicted to this in the traditional sense. So I drive home that next morning I went to the gym. The next, uh, I ordered a pizza and then I start eating the pizza and I'm like, why does this taste weird? It's like really salty. I can taste all the flavors in the sausage. Something is wrong. The next morning I wake up. I'm sensitive to light, to sound, everything. It was like, boom the hell, the gates of hell opened and um, Did you hear your name?
Speaker 2:Not yet. I never did Not yet. Okay.
Speaker 3:I, um, did you hear your name? Not, yet. I never did not yet. Okay, okay, no, I heard lots of other shit, though I did anyway.
Speaker 3:So then that plunged me into the next three and a half years fighting for my fucking life. I had akathisia. I had homicidal and suicidal thoughts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, like kill yourself, kill yourself, you're gonna die, you're dead to die, you're dead, you're going to have a stroke, you're going to have a seizure. That was my intrusive thoughts for three and a half years I couldn't stand up to shower. For two and a half I could not read, I didn't speak. For six months I could not even read a comment or a Facebook post, or I just like disappeared. And my best friend was like I said I'm mentally ill, take me back to the hospital. I said call Wounded Warrior Project, tell them to sell all my stuff and put me in a home. I'm not coming out of this. This is like next level hell. I really thought I was like schizophrenic or something like overnight Like this is from the benzo.
Speaker 1:This is like the very last end of you. Got through all these other drugs, right, and we're going to cold turkey off a quote unquote low dose of a benzo Yep, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I would argue, it's from all of them, and this was the last straw, I know, but this is the shit, people say to us right, they're just like and it can't be from that thing, or there's no way someone could have a reaction like that from getting off of one medication when in reality it's not.
Speaker 1:It's the whole story.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, carry on and then that doctor you know said maybe it's ms um. The therapist at the hospital said uh, we're missing something because I was reporting my symptoms. They tried to give me act therapy and watch my thoughts fly. But I'm like my thoughts are telling me to kill people. What the fuck do you mean? Watch them float by? Um, I've even had someone in our movement tell me you know this stuff, it was in you. No, it wasn't.
Speaker 2:No like they're saying, you were a homicidal person.
Speaker 3:Is that like well, I even had one person who writes about akathisia. Tell me um, you know you were in the military, so this stuff was inside of you. I'm like like, no, it wasn't.
Speaker 3:I was in a war zone and I didn't even have these thoughts. Okay, so those are more gaslighting. If we're on that topic, no, these chemicals are that dangerous. It changes the nature of your thought and thank God I knew it's got to be the drug. Yeah, yeah, people that don't know the drug, that's when people are crazy and do stuff in the world. Thank God I didn't do that. Okay, I'm lucky, because it was like inches away sometimes.
Speaker 3:Um, so anyway, I fought for my life for the next three and a half years let's just put it like that.
Speaker 3:Um, but during that process I think I was like 10 months off the filmmakers found me on a Facebook group and they messaged me and said do you want to be in a movie about this? And I said no, because I'd already been in three documentaries about post-traumatic stress and warriors coming home and trauma and blah, blah, blah, and I was kind of like a poster girl for PTSD and getting help, so I did my own set of gaslighting. Okay, other people are telling people to get treatment and all this other crap. So then they flew to St Louis and basically begged me to be in the film and I was like, okay, basically begged me to be in the film and I was like, okay, I guess. And then when I dropped the filmmaker off at her hotel, I thought, well, shit, now I can't kill myself because I have to tell this story, because if I die I don't want them to like say at the end of the movie like oh, angie was such a great person but she ended. She ended her life.
Speaker 3:So like I had, this illness was so bad yeah so I had to stay alive for the movie and and because I was mad and I was like if I die, everybody's going to say, oh, she was mentally ill. We tried to help her. She's so disgruntled, she's such a dysfunctional veteran, you know, poor thing. We tried and I was like, no, that's not what's happening. These drugs have fucking murdered my brain. That's what happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, god, I just didn't take a minute I'm like holy shit, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, no, because I'm.
Speaker 2:You've been through the ringer and I'm just thinking, like all the thoughts that you had, though like you had the right thoughts like I am not gonna let anybody fucking win. Nobody's gonna win. I'm not gonna take my life because I'm the only one who'll lose, you know. And then they win again and your story still can't be told in the way that you want to tell it. You know, you're still not in control of your story here.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, let's be real, even in the film. The film is like eight minutes of my life edited. It's not the whole story of what happened. If anything, it looks happier than it actually was in real life, like it's kind of scripted to make you feel hopeful at the end and I was still fighting, you know yeah it's.
Speaker 2:I don't think there is a way in a film, I don't think there is a way to in a film, or even really good words for you to describe what you're going through like right. I don't think words or a film can do it justice. Period.
Speaker 3:No, you know, and I'm writing a book now so I can tell my own story in my own way, but even that is like hard to explain, like you know, therapist jen, like the symptoms that you have from this experience, there's no even language for it like I can't even explain what my body was doing. It was like a torture chamber and I was stuck in there and my soul left my body and I was like being haunted and the dimensions were open and all kinds of shit, like it was nuts.
Speaker 1:It's. It's almost like an alternate reality and it's not like you're worried. I don't worry about trying to like think that people don't believe me, because I know the people that know me well know that I'm going through some shit, right, but the ability to try to describe it to them. This happened a couple of days ago with my husband and I had to call him when I was driving home from a dinner with some friends and I had to pull the car over and he's like tell me what's happening to you. And I'm like it's like I'm out of my body looking at myself, but it's a whole nother world that's happening and I hear things, but not in reality. They're in me, outside of my body, and I'm trying to explain all this to him and he's on the phone just like, okay, what do you need? And I'm like I don't know what I need, but it's hard to actually describe it to people. And then sometimes, once in a while, in a textbook you'll read something and you'll go oh okay, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Right there. That might be it right there, how they just said it, but it's very subjective. It's need them on board to be able to go hey, I need a liquid of this now. Hey, I need this Right, and I don't know. For everyone listening, the best bang for my buck I got was when I would describe stuff that wasn't helpful to them, but when I put publications in front of them like the deprescribing manual.
Speaker 3:I tried that. They laughed at me with that.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's that actually?
Speaker 2:helped, but that's because, angie, I think they looked at you differently.
Speaker 1:I think your record painted you as this person Always sick, you will always be sick, right, and mine doesn't have quite that to that background. I don't have that right.
Speaker 2:And we just need to get her to a level of acceptance that this is her life. You know what I mean. That kind of thing I keep thinking about. There was several years ago, probably six, seven years ago I had someone from, a client from the came from the VA and I had them bring in their medications and I had never seen it was a benzodiazepine and some type of opiate pain killer thing. Right, I had never seen a jug, a prescription jug. It was a jug. It wasn't just a big orange bottle, it was literally a jug with a thing on the top.
Speaker 2:And yeah, and I'm like I have never for those two types of medication particularly, and that wasn't that long ago, and I remember sitting there going. Everything that you're experiencing right now is because of what's in those jugs. Like that was it, but at the time this person didn't want to hear that right. Like no, that can't be right. Like you're the only one who's told me that. Like you're talking about. Well, if only somebody would have said something to me, I don't know that you would have believed them, you know, because everyone else was saying something completely different yeah, you know, but I think that you were even saying something completely different yeah, I thought they were.
Speaker 3:They saved my life and I could not function without them and I can't go to school unless I take this because my anxiety is so bad. But it was coming, that dysregulation was coming from the drugs I was on, right right.
Speaker 2:I don't think most people realize that, especially with benzodiazepines, that the longer you're on this, the worse anxiety you're going to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I call it suicidal anxiety because there comes a point I've seen many clients that have been on benzos for decades and they become anxious and suicidal and like this is a result of the medication. This is not you. This is what's being put into you. You know, and they don't want to hear that either. Like so, but before we, before we started recording, we were talking about being spellbound. You know like this, this idea that you don't know what's going on inside of you and, plus, you're also doing all the things that people are telling you to do go get these therapies, do this, get help for yourself, like all these things. And that turned out to be the worst thing that you could have done for yourself, unfortunately yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I lost. I lost about 20 years to that. 18 years on disability yeah, altogether about 20 years.
Speaker 1:So how'd you get to where you are now, angie, with what you're doing, traveling across the country, speaking how?
Speaker 3:did this start? Let's change this. Let's, let's stir this boat in a different direction. Okay, so basically the film came out in 2019. I asked them I begged them please do not let it come out until I'm out of school.
Speaker 3:So I went to a master's program um and social work while I was in the heat of coming out of like the acute period and still very brain damaged, and I thought, okay, if I go to school and I stay around people that will keep me in reality long enough to and I will use this as, like, brain injury rehab. That's literally how I looked at school. Okay, so then I graduate school and then they released the film, and then they wanted me to fly everywhere. And I was like I can't fly, I can't be in a stimulating environment like this. So I was like, if I get an RV, can you take, can you like help me? You know, pay for gas here and there in between events or something. And they said, sure. So then it was my apartment went up in rent, I was graduating school and all my friends were getting these agency jobs for thirty thousand dollars of social workers paying for their own supervision. I was like I'm not doing that, no see, I told you, fiscally smarter than us?
Speaker 3:yes, you are not gonna do that, we're not doing that. Okay, I'm not gonna work in foster care, and you know no. So, um, and then the film came out.
Speaker 2:This is covid time, right before also right, yeah, so I literally drive from missouri.
Speaker 3:I did a film screening in el paso and austin, dallas, phoenix, and then I make it to ucla and we're about to have a big screening with kim wetzak and bomb headland, which they sue manufacturers of pharmaceuticals. And then boom, ucla closes down and everything is over. And now I'm like shit, I'm on the road, I have no furniture or any place to go. Well, I guess we're going to drive to Maine during the pandemic. So long story short is basically I use van life. This is like my healing incubator. It like shielded me from the outside world long enough to help me heal, but it also like forced me to like re-socialize and run errands for myself and like yeah right.
Speaker 3:I couldn't even drive like 20 minutes from my house for years, you know, yes, so I just kind of used it as like a healing modality. I get on my own terms, like I don't want anybody telling me how to fix agoraphobia. Let me figure it out yeah, sick of everyone's interpretation. So I took healing out into the world.
Speaker 2:There you go reclaiming your personal agency is what you did that was happening the whole time.
Speaker 1:Actually like for somebody to have the awareness that, nope, this is the drugs. Nope, this is the drugs. Like this whole entire time for you to still have that voice inside of you telling you that. I think that's a huge, powerful change maker for people. When you lose the ability to internally reflect and believe things that other people are telling you can't be true. Like I think that's when we get helpless, when we give up, when we stop pushing right. Like is that trickled through your story? Like no, it's not, it's not me.
Speaker 1:I am not mentally ill forever and ever. Amen, like this is from all of these medications.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that took me probably a year to figure out. Like I just knew that meds turned on me and now I'm off of them. And now I know I cannot go back to psychiatry to tell them what I'm thinking, cause if I tell them that my rights are gone immediately and I knew, if I tell them even that I'm suicidal they're going to put me back in the freaking psych ward back ons. And I'm not I. I knew intuitively if you put one more drug on this, I am dead. That's it, I'm done. So. I was like I don't know if I'm gonna heal from this or I'm gonna die from this, but I'm, I'm not gonna hurt myself if I can help it and we'll just see what happens. And my brain did heal. I did not use supplements, I did not do tms. I did not do TMS, I did not microdose anything, I just left it the fuck alone.
Speaker 1:And it figured it out. What Wait, the brain can heal itself. Holy shit. We've only been preaching that forever, Terry and I. What?
Speaker 3:It's not broke. And isn't it such a miracle that my mental illness just disappeared?
Speaker 1:Look at that Shocker, unless you have an alternate personality right now and you're traveling this world in this van, I mean that's because everybody I meet now says, angie, you're one of the most grounded normal people I know.
Speaker 2:You're like I live in a van, Just kidding.
Speaker 3:I have a. I have a real about that. Is it me? How is it that this silly girl in a van who gets naked and goes to Hot Springs and Burning man knows more about deep diving than the average psychiatrist? What the fuck world do I live in?
Speaker 2:What is the world that you live in? That's the thing. What is the world that we live in that there is still so much pushback about this idea of deprescribing? I? Mean, I'm sure you get it all the time. Still, angie, I'm sure you hear things like meds, save lives. You know how dare you talk? About this stuff, how dare.
Speaker 3:No, I just honestly like I kind of keep a low profile, like on social media and stuff. I could probably do a lot more and I'm I'm kind of lazy. But also the people that I work with, like let me just briefly say this that I have like an international coaching practice. I see people all over the world at all stages of deprescribing. I have tapering support groups. I've protracted, I have caregiver, I have other coaches that work underneath me. We are so deep helping people not end their life.
Speaker 3:I don't have time to entertain the people that don't believe us. I don't give a fuck what they think. I come sit with me for a day. I'll put a seat right next to me and you can watch this all day. The stories that I hear are so traumatic. The amount of pain and suffering the mental health industry has done to people. I hear all the ways in which doctors skate out of it and deny it and gaslight their own patients. I hear all those stories, Thousands of them. Okay, and the way, if I could predict what's happening, let me just share a prediction. There's enough of us talking about this, enough people sharing their stories on media social media and happening to enough people that their whole families are finding out that at some point the tipping point is over and you guys are all full of shit and we don't want to listen to you anymore. And that is to the mental health industry's own distress that they destroy themselves because they deny that this is happening.
Speaker 2:Period, that's my I agree with your prediction, uh, and I think it's coming in fast right now it's coming in, yeah and I think I think social media has been a huge um push for that to come in like that. Yeah, and I'm thankful for social media in that respect that it's been able to to push this through and give give people the opportunities to share an alternative reality story. You know, outside of meds, meds, meds, more meds, gold standard meds, meds, meds, whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And there's also this interesting thing happening on twitter where, like the psychiatrists, they're actually kind of critical, but they, they'll, they'll, like, they'll, put things in our mouths and they'll say things like well, they're saying that that mental illness isn't real or that, you know, somebody shouldn't be on disability for what they're feeling because it's not real and it wait. We're not saying that we understand that mental illness is real. I had it. Okay, I have been so traumatized in my life that I understand why people want to take meds. That's why I took them, because it was so overwhelming, I could not contain the experience. Okay, that's real, but your theory on what to do about that is the thing that's not real. Okay, that's the problem, you know the way that we sell people.
Speaker 3:I, you know. If anything we we do, we do our society disservice, because we don't learn how to handle big emotion. We don't, we're not there for each other. The average person cannot be empathetic with someone who's suffering. That's why we have therapists, because the average person can't do that, you know. So there's lots of broken points. Let's just put it that way lots of broken points.
Speaker 2:Let's just put that way lots of broken points well, I think one of the biggest broken points is the idea that every emotion has to be coped with. Yeah, like, not every emotion that you have you need to find a coping skill or strategy for no, sometimes you just need to let it be, you just need to feel it and let it move on you know, that's what I did in the van, like I was, you know, four years off meds, totally freaking out, could not walk in a grocery store and I would somehow do it.
Speaker 3:And then when I come out and feel like I'm literally going to pass out and die and I would sit on the toilet and just have a panic attack, I'm like there's nothing to do. Angie, just let it rip you know I would cry for hours. I would wake up with loneliness, I would just my heart would break. I just let it process and I just was like there's nothing to do.
Speaker 1:There's nothing to do, just be with your feelings, just be with what's happening, you know in one of those stupid lettered therapies that you were talking about in DBT, terry, and I, like one of the I just said this to a client this last week I'm having to do it myself right now, deprescribing and I was talking to the client about the idea of urge surfing and like you can have these emotions and they can be so fucking strong and you can have these urges and they can be so fucking strong. So instead of fighting it, sit on it and surf on it like you would on a wave right Because in 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:It will feel different In 45 minutes. It will feel different In two hours. It will feel different in 45 minutes. It will feel different in two hours. It will feel different. Like no emotion and urge can stay at that same level of intensity for 24 hours straight. It's, it's physiologically impossible, we can't do it Right. So it's this idea of like, yes, sit on that toilet for 45 fucking minutes and have your panic attack, Let it rip. Like do yourself some some things, for some grounding things that you can do. God damn it. Touch the nasty, like toilet handle or the floor and feel how gross it is, but it's cold. Like let yourself do that shit Right and just ride that goddamn ride the wave right. Like you surf it out. And I think we are constantly trying to fight it versus just let ourselves have it. When we let ourselves have it, we teach ourselves we can get through it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's what therapists teach clients really Avoid your triggers. Treat your symptoms, cope with what you're experiencing. They're not actually trying to heal things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stop avoiding all the triggers, for the love of God, you're going to have them, they're going to be there all the time. Like, sit through it. Like, find a safe way to do it and sit through it if you can Right Like, which I know. Some people get all feedback on this when I say that cause they're like oh, they're going to go kill themselves. You know what? Actually, a lot of people aren't. They haven't, they have not taught themselves that they can ride that ride, that urge, ride that emotion. You don't have to fight it like yeah, yeah where do we get to?
Speaker 2:this idea that everybody that's struggling with depression or anxiety or any type of mental illness is number one disorder and number two gonna kill themselves, like I. I don't know, are you there? That's paternalization.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a little bit You're kind of cracky, but that's paternalizing. You know, like infantile I can't speak. Infantile Infidelity no infantilizing the patient because of paternalism. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Like we know better. Stop using these big words, angie quit it.
Speaker 3:We treat people like children because we think we know what's better for them there we go because we can't even give them the respect needed that maybe they do know a little bit something about their life you know, yeah, okay, anywayantilizing yes.
Speaker 2:Infantilizing Whatever.
Speaker 1:Eroticizing.
Speaker 2:Infantilizing, eroticizing. This is going in weird directions, right now, but yes, I'm squirreling.
Speaker 2:Yes, but I think also going back and adding into people say, well, nobody taught me how to deal with that, nobody taught me how to do these things, and we talked about this on a different episode that we just have. Like, where in the world did we get to the idea that somebody has to teach you everything about your emotions, about how to work through them, about how to just be a person? It's not all taught. Sometimes you're self-taught, like you teach yourself how to get through these hard things, and that's okay, you know, we don't. Their therapists are put in this position of like know it all, like we're supposed to know it all, to teach all this to everybody. And I hear things like everybody should go to therapy. I'm like no, they shouldn't. Like not everybody should be going to therapy. As a matter of fact, most people probably shouldn't. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Like yes, I, I don't know like usually the people that are in therapy yeah, usually the people that are in therapy don't need it. It's the people around them that need it let's talk about kids especially kids especially kids, yeah do you do, do you work with kids and teens?
Speaker 2:at all. Yeah, actually, I just saw.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just saw a teen last week. I love working with teens and because the average teen they don't get treated like they're an actual human being. They get treated like they're just stupid or young or they don't know anything. And so I like, just because really that's how I work, is like I'm just with you, Like.
Speaker 3:I'm not there's nothing fancy going on here. I'm just present and I'm listening with you, like I'm not, there's nothing fancy going on here. I'm just present and I'm listening to you and I'm attuning and I might reflect back to you and that's about it. I don't do anything else, like there's no. So when I do that with a teen, they like they're like oh my God, I really love you Cause you listen to me. I'm like, yeah, nobody in their life even listens to them. It's sad, you know.
Speaker 2:But I mean, jen and I were taught that the the best thing you can do in therapy is just that therapeutic alliance like you know, building those relationships, you don't need to do all those fancy letter things. You don't need to do all that extra. You don't need to be extra don't be, extra yeah don't be, I don't think it's thinking back.
Speaker 3:I don't think I ever had a therapist that did that for me. It was always interpreting everything as illness or something wrong or something to fix, and that's one problem with therapy is, even now, I still have to like Angie, there's nothing wrong. Stop watching this self-help shit. You don't need to fix this. Just feel what you're. Just be who you are Like. Who cares if you're weird?
Speaker 2:You can buy my book if you want your best brain to know.
Speaker 3:Sorry, Now I'm like you're going to dip in sales Cause I'm like don't read anything else.
Speaker 2:No, read my book.
Speaker 1:Don't read any self-help books, just Terry's book. Hers is okay, just mine.
Speaker 2:Mine's the last self-help book you're ever going to need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's it's. It's way less self-help in terms of the therapy world and it's more about the brain. What you're talking about, angie, this concept is like you're living walking proof that the brain itself does heal. It's not fucking broken, because we get this a lot and we have to really state a case for people to try to view this alternatively. State a case for people to try to view this alternatively, Regardless if you've got schizophrenia or you've got addiction to heroin, everything in between it doesn't matter. The brain itself is this organ that can heal. So when you look at what your brain did, that's exactly what it did.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, even because I had that therapy background and psychology background while it was happening to me, I was fascinated and horrified at the same time. I was like holy shit. So I thought I really saw, like concretely I'm sorry to get spiritual for a second, but like our mind is so powerful, like you don't even understand how much power you have in there and your power to listen to it or massage it or to back off and watch it, like I had to come to a whole new understanding of all of that that no therapist ever taught me. No self-help book caught me. I was like thrown in the deep end and you are either going to sink or you're going to swim and you're going to have to figure this out because you cannot go for help. The help is what did this?
Speaker 3:So I got a crash course and a speed pass and suffering and how to be with it and what was important to me and all the stuff that I've been running from by taking meds in the first place. It all came to a head and I had to face all of it, including my fear of death, like everything. Boom, here it is. There's nowhere to run, and I see this too a lot with the people I work with sometimes where they're still looking for something Like there's something outside of myself that's going to fix it, that's going to make it all better. What if I take magnesium and fish oil and do psilocybin and I maybe I just need to trip on ayahuasca, like no, stop, yeah, stop trying to treat it If you keep, that's what got you here in the first place, you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, so I've learned a lot of lessons and and that, and even sometimes I feel like I don't live in this universe all the way because, like, I'm like living in the suffering world during the day and my connections are deeper and I can't really like relate to, like normal people a whole lot and I live in a van and like I, you know I'm more in nature than most people. I'm a little feral, you know, but I like it's just what it is. This is what happens. A little feral, I love that. Wait, I have a hat for that, do you?
Speaker 1:oh, she's got merch I hope you have a feral cat feral but friendly.
Speaker 2:I love it. It's great my sister made me that.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that's so good, that's funny.
Speaker 3:So there you go.
Speaker 2:That's my story in a nutshell, Anyway if you can tell somebody, like if somebody came to you and was like I'm thinking about, you know, my, my mental health is just not very good, Um, and I'm thinking about going on medication what would you tell that person now?
Speaker 3:I would say I want you to try everything else, like let's go to the root issue of what's going on for you, what in your life is making you feel like this, and can we work on that first? And meds should be last resort and short term, if anything, because the risks that come with meds are not even you can't even understand them until it happens to you. No, like if somebody was told me like I read the pamphlet and said dizziness, and so I thought, oh, I'll just be lightheaded when I get out of bed. No, the amount of dizziness that I had like prevented me from showering for two and a half years and it felt like I was on a tightro rope over the grand Canyon with a gun pointed to my head. That's the amount of dizziness Like you can't even understand, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, like like libido you said to be libido earlier. That's one of the first things that I thought about. Right, Like it said, yes, like low libido, say, is fast forward 15 years and your marriage is almost going to end because you can't feel pleasure.
Speaker 2:Nothing that's much more realistic. But, jen, that's not your fault, that's your husband's fault for wanting sex in the first place.
Speaker 1:Listen, I was told I needed a sex therapist. I was told, jen, you need to go, get you a sex therapist.
Speaker 1:Never by my prescriber, by the way, never once was it. Hey, maybe it's the 15 years, 20 years with the meds, yeah, no. So you know, like that's what the pamphlet should say. Like I, when it comes to informed consent, terry and I are so big on this, Like you are, angie like just huge. I love that you had that in your bio too, because that part that doesn't exist. And I like, if you got true informed consent and you could weigh all your options, your risks, your benefits, the alternatives, alternatives, meaning let's try these 15 things first. Right, if people really had that level of informed consent, OK, then make your choices. Yeah, make your choices, but they don't get that. We don't get. We don't get that. That doesn't exist. Our clients, the people we see, don't get that. None of us got it.
Speaker 3:I could. I and honestly, like for akathisia or PSSD, you cannot get informed consent for you can't give it because you can't even imagine what that actually feels like, because you don't have a frame of reference for it.
Speaker 1:Right so it's like.
Speaker 3:It's like asking someone to do you give consent to being in a cartoon channel AI created.
Speaker 1:You don't even know what that would be like. Akathisia is also one of those things where, even today, informed consent is not given, when that word is brought up because it's only studied in people who are taking antipsychotics.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I was just going to say that it doesn't even get attached to your typical antidepressants Nope.
Speaker 1:SNRIs, the anxiolytics none of that. It's not attached to that within research, so you don't even get it, even though it is very real and you can pop on any of these social medias and see many of us taking these meds that aren't antipsychotics, that are. Akathisia is about, yeah, putting the edge right, so it's, it's. That's the part that I think needs more work is the actual informed consent piece. Um, I feel like every time I meet with a client, I'm actually giving them their very first dose of informed consent. They just sit there like open mouth, breathing, looking at me with this, this, and I'm like it's because you didn't receive this.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, even for deprescribing I feel like here's a conversation just quickly, but I don't know if everybody can deprescribe. I've I've met people where I'm like this I'm trying I just try not to project my own experience on them but I'm like I don't know if they have the support and tools that they need to get through this. That's how hard it is. It's fucking hard.
Speaker 3:It's not, and some people I think you know I worry about it Like I don't want to ever come across as like I'm influencing people to get off their meds. That's not what I'm saying. That's actually why one of the reasons I keep a low profile too, because I don't want on the meds that I didn't make that decision for them. They came to that conclusion themselves. I'm never going to be one to like try to talk you into it or anything. In fact, the other day in one of my taper support groups, we had 10 people and one of the girls asked why are you all coming off? And so we went around the room and we said what was your? Why?
Speaker 3:Every single person in that group group it was I don't have a choice. I am so sick I cannot function. Yeah, it wasn't this. I think psychiatry just thinks we get this wild idea we want off our meds and actually that's the thing that's keeping us well, which is bullshit. No, people are so fucking sick they can't function and there's nothing else wrong with them. It has to be the meds by like process of elimination, you know. So I that's another thing in the media that I worry about, just like people don't get it to a point Like these drugs are making us sick, like it's not some crazy idea that we had. I think.
Speaker 2:I think there's the majority of people that I talked to about medication. Even when I was on it, I didn't want to be on it. I think a lot of people don't want to be on it and I think that's intuitive. I think there's an intuition there. You know, it's not just a I'm going to be a resistant patient. It's there's some intuitive thing that's like I don't feel well, but I can't put my thumb on it.
Speaker 2:And I know, I know when I went to the doctor to try to get off of it or to tell her how bad I was feeling, like I wasn't hurt at all, it was just well, maybe you need more Like that was. That was the response. It wasn't helped me to get less, you know, help me to do these things. So then you stop telling your doctor, you stop telling. I stopped telling them and I would just get the prescription because I didn't know what else to do. So I would just go refill, refill. Stop sharing anything, which is not where we want to be either, because then doctors aren't hearing, they're like oh, you're doing fine.
Speaker 1:You're doing fine. I lie to mine all the time this last week, All the time my symptoms. I gloss right over it because I don't want to hear any of this.
Speaker 1:You're going to say, when I already told you I'm titrating off of this. I don't want to hear it. So, the PHQ-9, the PHQ-4, all the questions Yep, I'm good, good, good, good. Do you have anything additionally to talk to you about your doctor? Nope, doing great. Nope, everything's fine, all good, yeah. And so it creates that. But for me it's a safety thing because I'm not even going to bring this up again. You know what I'm doing and yet every time I'm in here, you want to talk to me about possibly going back up or on because of the symptoms I'm having. Right, but these are withdrawal symptoms. This is what's happening in the taper. So we start to like silence ourselves. It's like we can't even feel comfortable with providers, just like what you were saying, angie. I can't go in and tell them I'm suicidal. If I do, they're going to lock, lock me back up, because I have been. I am chronically mentally ill and it won't get better, and that's in my charts, right, like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:It went so far as I fired my psychiatrist at 14 months off because I kept trying to tell him and teach him and I'd bring him papers and I'd wear my Washington medical school shirt and like here you got to read this is what's happening to me. And then finally I had it and I was like I'm done, I'm never coming, never coming back to you again. I literally said you're killing my friends, I'm out of here. And then I walked across the street from the hospital and I sat on the grass and I started crying because it was just like I'm done, you know.
Speaker 3:And then I, literally in that same second, I was like Angie, you can't cry across from a hospital, They'll lock you up Like, oh my God, I know, you know that stays with me a little bit Like that's the collateral damage. You know, if I cry in my car, I worry if somebody sees me or they're going to come ask if. I'm okay. Yep, like yeah, I'm okay, get away from me.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know, we're also we're also in a very hyper suicide focused society right now. Any emotion might you might kill yourself, you know. And so, yeah, you know, I think people do overreact a lot to that and people listening to that, no, people underreact to that. We need to you know, like, actually, it's okay to feel, it's okay to be sad, it's okay to you know, be upset, it's okay to be like mad, so mad you're crying you know, it's okay to do all of that, especially with this.
Speaker 2:And you know, I am going to say like your brain is not broken in the start. Your brain is where it needs to be. However, it becomes broken, it becomes diseased due to these medications, and then it is our job as people to know that your brain has the ability to heal. To that, I look at the brain kind of similar to the liver, like the liver heals itself too, like, if you allow it, right, Um, there's, there's not a lot of other organs that do that, you know. So I'm like it's a pretty special organ and I think we need to treat it that way too and understand that I don't think the human psyche, um, is going to respond well to be medicated. It's the human psyche. We don't know enough about it. You know, this is our soul, this is our psyche, this is what makes us human, is our brain, and we keep dampening the humanity all the time with medication.
Speaker 3:My opinion so here's my meme. You guys will both enjoy this, I think. Okay, ready, neuroscience we know less than 5% about the brain. Psychiatry we know everything.
Speaker 3:Therapists, whatever they say perfect oh my god that is a great place to end. Yes, merch, that's it. So, as a meta commentary, is that we have messed with the human body with chemicals that we don't even understand, and people will figure that out one way or another. And then you will figure out they're not going to help you and you're going to have to save yourself, and the more you look to try to fix that, the worse it's probably going to get for you. So cut your losses, do something safe and save yourself that's kind of what I learned and find somebody like us who can just be there with you.
Speaker 3:Just hold your hand and not tell you that you're something wrong with you. Yep.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yep Well on that. That's a great. That's a great space to wrap up. Thank you for being on the show, angie, Thank Well on that. That's a great space to wrap up. Thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 3:Angie, thank you for having me. That was the best podcast I ever did. Yay, well, hell yeah. Ladies, can't wait to have you on mine, woo-hoo, yes.
Speaker 1:I hope we could swear, because otherwise it's going to be really fucking hard for me. Oh yeah, absolutely. I know for the F word, don't you?
Speaker 3:know I won the F award in Medicaid Normal, the most F bomb.
Speaker 2:Oh, nice, nice Okay.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody. Well, we are the Gaslit Truth Podcast. We are going to make sure that we tag Angie's socials and everything that we put out here so you can find that in the show notes or in any of the deliverables we're going to put out. If you want to send us your, rate us and give us only five stars or six or seven, let's give us all the things. And Angie, thanks again for being on. Thank you so much, that was fun.
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