What If the Treatment Is Making You Worse? | Laura Delano & Blake Mycoskie

25:35It's more of a marketing story, this idea that you just have some faulty brain chemicals and we're going to fix them with this pill. But that I think that underpinning narrative that suffering is just the byproduct of like faulty brain chemicals has really shaped how we understand these drugs. So when we take an antidepressant, just the word antidepressant, you think, oh, it's going to act against my depression. It's going to, you know, adjust the chemistry and, you know, balance things out. That's not actually what these drugs are doing. They are doing something, though. It's just they're not working by fixing pathology.

26:12They work essentially by disrupting how your central nervous system works. And just like alcohol, like maybe it was the same for you. when I was debilitated by anxiety and like social anxiety, the thought of like going out into public, having to talk to people, having to like perform. Sure. Couldn't handle it, but give me a glass or two of wine and like, I'm, I'm good to go. I mean, look at so many musicians, right? Like you see so many musicians that go on stage that, you know, they, they perform better when they're completely obliterated because they have no social anxiety and they can just let it out.

26:47So like, you know, alcohol does work in that regard. Now, is that good for your long-term health? And does that actually make you a better performer? So explain that because I think this is such an important point of what these drugs are doing versus what we kind of think that they're doing. So at the end of the day, psychiatric medications, all of them, whether antidepressants, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, they're psychoactive chemicals, just like caffeine, nicotine, alcohol. And when you take a cycle, they're drugs. Yeah. So that's another thing I always say is like, you know, sometimes people say, let's say a plant medicine, a drug, and then they call drugs medicines.

27:25It's very interesting, right? They're all drugs. They're all affecting your brain chemistry, whether they are legal or illegal, they are drugs. Exactly. And it speaks to the power of the language itself because you hear the word medication and it connotes different thoughts in your mind than drug. And so I think part of this crisis that we're in is a crisis around the information itself that we've been given. Because when I was taking all these drugs, thinking they were medications treating an illness, I wasn't making an informed choice about them. But had I been told, you know, this intense suffering and struggle that you're going through is real.

28:07We don't have any evidence that it's caused by a pathology in your brain. We're going to put you on these pills that are psychoactive. And the only really, you know, evidence base we have for them is short term. So if you stay on them long term, we don't really know what that's going to mean for you. But they might be helpful because they might quiet your thoughts. They might slow you down. They might numb the pain. They might, you know, just shift your consciousness in a way that feels helpful. Had I been told that, that would have been a much more informed choice. Yeah. And what you're saying, I think is, again, I want to be very careful for people who are listening or watching.

28:46You're not saying that these drugs cannot play a role, especially in the short term and say helping someone with anxiety or sleep or, you know, someone who's grieving the loss of someone, you know, getting them some extra support. but we have not studied these long-term. Number one is what I'm hearing. And number two is we're not really educated on what are the potential side effects. What is actually going on when you take them? They're just like this nice little marketing message of you're depressed, take this, this will make you feel better. And it often doesn't. Yeah. It's really about, to me, talking about language in this way, drug versus medication, you know illness versus response to a hardship is essential to making a true choice because if the very words that you're using to think about the choice you're making are misleading in some way then you can't choose yeah and i think this other thing about like this brain chemistry thing i'm so glad you brought up because that was what was used against me totally as well and i had some extremely obvious situational problems in my life that were causing total havoc, which makes a lot of sense why I was depressed and this core wound that I had never addressed in deep therapy.

30:12Instead, it was my brain is messed up. Take this medicine. There was nothing wrong with my brain. There was a lot wrong with my situation and with this limiting self-belief. I just want to really make sure that that's, you know, really clear to people watching, listening is you really have to look at what is going on in your life, your situation, you know, these potential core wounds as a first-line defense, I think. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Well, and I think I want to return to what you said at the beginning too, when you were sharing your story about how impactful getting a diagnosis can be, because I know when I finally embraced this story, albeit a false story that I had faulty brain chemistry, It was so relieving to hear, like, I'm not a bad person.

30:57I'm not a lazy person. It's not your fault. I'm not an F up. Yeah, I'm sick. I just have bad luck with my chemistry. And unfortunately, in, you know, the broader culture now with this, you know, now at this point, it's been 20 plus years of, you know, mental health awareness and fighting the stigma, this medicalized framework that reduces emotional and mental suffering to just, you know, a list of symptoms of an illness. The intentions behind a medicalized story were good. It was this very thing, like you're not a bad person. You know, it's not your fault. And you should be able to talk about your suffering.

31:34You know, these are all important messages. But I think what's happened, perhaps unintentionally, is that when you medicalize your struggles, you cut off the context in which your struggles are occurring. Because you can't simultaneously just have bad luck with your brain chemistry and also be responding to like a deep existential crisis of who am I beyond this business I've built or for me, who am I beyond my grades and my athletic accomplishment, whatever it is. You can't both have a sick brain and be having a meaningful, healthy response to your life. Well, what I find is so interesting is oftentimes when someone finds themselves in a psychiatrist office and is in crisis, they've had an event.

32:19Something has happened. They've lost someone. They've lost connection with who they are from a vocation perspective. A relationship fails. So an event happens, but then instead of looking deeply at the event, we immediately go to, well, you always had this brain chemistry problem and the event just triggered it. I hear that all the time. Oh, yeah. And the other thing people often here, and I can't remember if this is how it happened for you that you got your bipolar diagnosis. No, it wasn't, I don't think. But often it is where someone will be put on an antidepressant and get ramped up, not sleep well.

32:51Suddenly they're hypomanic or manic, and then the doctor says, oh, the antidepressant triggered your underlying bipolar, which had been dormant. Or you're having an adverse effect to the stimulating drug that's making you manic. And then they give you a medicine to help you sleep well, which then causes a whole other set of issues. So, okay, again, like there are some times when, you know, someone who, you know, meds can be helpful. What are some things that you would say to someone who's considering going on a med? Because there are times, and I think that's important for us to talk to as well, is, you know, what if someone here and I think one of the things that's so hard about being depressed or feeling stuck is confusion.

33:30And so one of the reasons I'm doing this podcast is to help people with tools, with resources, with experts, so they can be less confused about their mental health. And so for me, I was very confused. I'm sure there's someone listening or watching that is also confused. Like, should I try an antidepressant? Should I try an anxiety medicine? And if they believe that they should, what would you recommend to someone who's potentially being prescribed these meds? To me, it comes down to helping people get what they need to make a true choice, which starts with information. So I'll speak for myself.

34:03You know, when I returned to a psychiatrist's office at age 18, after kind of rejecting, you know, the idea that I was bipolar, what I needed to have been told then was, you know, this is a drug that is approved on the basis of trials that last around six weeks, eight weeks, maybe 12 weeks. So if you stay on it beyond that, you know, that's not based on evidence of safety or effectiveness. You know, this is what, you know, when we call a drug, when we call this drug effective, this is what the trials showed. So just as an example, I was on Ambien as prescribed for years and years and years because I had horrible insomnia.

34:45And I just assumed if I was being put on it for years and years and years, my doctor must have been referring to some kind of evidence base for it. when I actually looked at the drug label on the FDA website, which I encourage everyone to do, don't take my word for anything I'm saying here. The FDA provides all the drug labels for any psychiatric drug. You can go look at them themselves. When I looked at the drug label for Ambien and I found that it had been approved on the basis of three trials, one of which lasted one night, one night. The other two lasted something like five weeks. And the longer term trials didn't actually even have meaningful benefit.

35:25It was like 23 minutes, you fall asleep faster. And it was, I was like, wait, this is what effective means? And so that isn't me saying no one should ever take Ambien, but that's me saying, read the drug label so that you can understand what is meant when you're told this is effective. Because these words are powerful. You hear safe, You hear effective. You just assume. You have an assumption about what that means. So I think it starts there, educating yourself about the prescriptions you're considering taking and not being afraid to be your own, you know, become a researcher. Teach yourself how to look at a drug label and what it means.

36:04It's not easy, but it's important. I think also for someone who's in a— I would say maybe it's even easier today because you can use AI to read this long, long, long, long label and ask the AI to say, hey, give me the five points that I really need to know. Not that that's perfect, but I know that the drug labels can be very daunting to someone, especially like a parent thinking if they should, you know, follow the guidance of a psychiatrist for their children. Like these are like can be life altering events. And so it's worth taking the time to really do this. InterCompass Initiative, the nonprofit I founded, we have a free guide to how to read a drug label for this very reason because we realize how hard it can be.

36:43So it's getting informed. And I think it's also about, however, you know, I know intimately how terrifying it is to be with overwhelming despair and hopelessness. And like you said, it creates confusion and a sense of urgency that makes it really hard to sit and be with and be curious. But I think it's so important before embarking on a relationship with any kind of pharmaceutical that you have made the time to be curious about the why. You know, what has happened to me and around me that has led me to this moment? Because one of the challenges with the medical model, by which I mean suffering is a mental illness in your brain, is that the framing is something's wrong with you instead of like something's happened to you.

37:36Yes. Or something's happened around you. So ask yourself that question because that might give you – shed some light on things that help you get clear on whether a medication is right or not. This year, I met some engineers from Nike who invented a new type of office chair that has not only changed my life, but actually saved my back, especially because I am on about five hours of Zoom calls every day. The MoveLab chair has two different pivot points under the seat, which keeps your body in continuous micro movements all day. The founders told me it is the equivalent of taking 3 ,000 steps. And all the lubrication of your joints and the blood flow is why my back no longer hurts.

38:17And I can focus on my work so much better. I loved it so much that I actually joined the team as a co-founder. And I will be sending one to every person I know when we launch this fall. If you're interested in learning more or pre-ordering one, we only have 500 in the first run. You can check us out at movelab.com. And that's spelled M-O-O-V-L-A-B dot com. I decided not to take advertising for the first season of No Medi Pill. So I could actually use these moments to talk about something I'm super passionate about. Now, one of those things is my morning routine. And every morning it starts the same way.

38:56I drink morning water. I take this packet, I pour it into this bottle, and I drink it. Now, what's in this packet? It has creatine, L-theanine, magnesium, many other supplements, electrolytes, basically all the things that I used to have to take so many supplements for. I mean, my kitchen counter, it looked like a pharmacy. I mean, it had bottles of pills and pills and pills. And half the time, I would even forget to take them. So now it's all in this simple formula that my friend Austin created. And I do it every day. And this month, we're giving everyone a special offer. Go to morningwater.co forward slash no magic pill.

39:32And when you sign up, you'll get 25 % off your first month. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. When I think about what my life looked like when I started Psych Meds, I was totally sleep deprived. I was doing cocaine and ecstasy and drinking, you know, college, just not like doing crazy stuff. I was completely malnourished. You know, I was in the era of, you know, fat free, sugar free. So just like loading my body up with nasty fake sugar. I wasn't getting enough fat. I wasn't getting enough protein. So I was malnourished. I was just completely overworked and stressed in school. I see now how so many variables in the way I was living my life were driving my suffering.

40:17And so a pill isn't going to fix that. No, if anything, it's going to make it worse. Oh, my God. And it's hard to hear that because when you're desperate for relief, you don't want to be told, like, eat more fat. Yeah, or that it's your fault. Maybe you should lay off the cocaine. Yeah, totally. And that's where we need this extreme polarity where it's either you're a bad person or you have a bad brain, essentially. Like, you got to transcend that and find the nuance. You can not be a bad person and also, you know, maybe need to make different choices for yourself. It doesn't make you a bad person.

40:53We got to find more nuance. I think that that's great. Well, I want to go to the time in which you decided, okay, I'm now sober. I've never had a time in my life that I can remember that I was not on some form of meds. I'm potentially concerned that it is the meds that could be making me sick. What did your doctor say when you came in there after 20 years of this and said, I have a different idea? Let's just say it wasn't the most supportive response. And I see now, I don't blame him. He was doing the best he could with the information and framework that he was trained in. But basically, I was told this is a really bad idea.

41:41You have an incurable illness that's really extreme. You have a history of coming off meds is a really bad idea. So, you know, I did not get emotional support, moral support from him or the rest of my like seven person treatment team because I was, you know, in this program. Yeah. No one supported me in this decision, but also they couldn't stop me. Yeah. I wasn't. How did they suggest that you taper off the meds? Well, my psychopharmacologist who had no idea what he was doing because no doctors right now are trained in safe tapering. And I know we'll talk about that in a minute. He said that I should come off my five med regimen in six months, which is cold turkey.

42:27Like similar, that's similar to, you know, you said it was like four months, five months, six months. That's fast. Yeah. And especially for someone like me who had been on these drugs for so many years. The longer you've been on, the longer it's going to take to get off. Yep. And so I thought that was slow. I was frustrated. Six months? Are you kidding me? Because I had no idea that all psychiatric medications can cause physical dependence. I don't know if he even knew that then or if he even knows that now. But one thing that's really important to name for your audience is because these are psychoactive chemicals, if you take these medications repeatedly over sometimes as short as a few weeks, but certainly over months or years, your central nervous system is going to completely adapt to the presence of those meds.

43:13It's going to change itself, how it functions, the structure of your neurotransmitter systems is going to change. And physical dependence is not addiction in the sense that you're not craving the drug. You know, I'm craving my Zoloft. I'm going to go buy some illegally, even though I know it's not good for me. It's a different phenomenon than addiction. It's purely physiological. So there I was on five meds long term with no idea how, like you said at the beginning, how dangerous it was to come off them as fast as I did because my doctor didn't know either. Yeah. And so for someone who is thinking about, you know, potentially tapering off even one med, where do they find this information?

43:55Because I think there's a lot of people who might be questioning the meds that they're on even before this conversation and maybe even more so now. And so they're thinking, well, where do I go for help if I want to try to safely see what life would look like without the presence of this, you know, this psychiatric med changing my, you know, my situation? Well, until now, the safest place to go for information about how to taper responsibly has been the layperson withdrawal community. Essentially, the tens upon tens of thousands of people around the world who've had to figure out for themselves how to get off these medications safely.

44:36Because their doctors didn't know how to do it or wouldn't do it, did it way too fast. So the quick answer to your question of, you know, how does someone do it is it's different for everyone and it should be based completely on how you're feeling. So some people can come off. And with a trained psychiatrist or some support, right? Well, in an ideal world, every prescriber would be trained in safe tapering. That currently isn't the case, although I think that might be changing now. So it's finding someone who understands safe tapering, whoever they might be. Maybe they're a prescriber. Maybe they're a therapist.

45:11Maybe they're a former patient. But the key thing is that the rate of a taper needs to be based on how the person is doing. So some people can go faster, by which I mean weeks, months, maybe a couple headaches. They're fine. But other people might need years, years to taper in a way that avoids destabilizing withdrawal symptoms. And one of the challenges is that withdrawal symptoms often mimic the diagnoses themselves. And so we have this confusing variable where people are coming off their medications thinking they're doing it slowly. They feel horrible when they come off. And then they're told, see, you're having a relapse of your underlying condition.

45:55This is why you need to be on your meds. And then they go back on their meds and they feel better because the symptoms have, you know, abated. and then they think, oh my gosh, yeah, my meds are really helpful because every time I don't take them, I feel horrible. Not realizing they're actually in withdrawal because they've come off too quickly. And so again, this is an information problem where patients, family members, therapists, doctors, policymakers, everyone here has been in the dark about this dependence and withdrawal issues. So everyone is understanding this through an incorrect lens. So making sure that people understand and their support system understand, you know, this might need to take a while and we're going to do it at a rate that avoids destabilizing withdrawal symptoms as much as possible.

46:46And if I feel bad as I'm doing it, it might mean I'm going too fast. I'm going to slow it down. It's a black box of information out there right now in terms of doctors, medical institutions understanding any of this. But I do think that's changing. And then what about just support system? Like how does this look differently for someone who maybe has an incredible support system, great access to nutrition for someone who is a single mom working hourly paycheck? Like it's got to be different based on that. Yeah. And I'm so glad you bring that up because I do think the issue of class is a big piece here.

47:21Like you and I had resources so that, you know, when I came off way too fast, I was insulated from a lot. And so I think at the end of the day, the same philosophy applies to anyone, regardless of your resources. Tapering at a rate that is slow enough to avoid you being destabilized is the basic philosophy. The key tips, I would say that when people reach out for support, I say, you know, what does your life look like right now? How much stress is on your plate? Can you remove any of it? How rooted and stable do you feel? And if someone's like, I'm in the middle of a divorce or like, I just switched jobs or I don't have a job and I'm struggling, then that might not be the right time to try.

48:05And it's, I think it's about optimizing your body so that, you know, sleep, good food, brain-friendly food, gut-friendly food, sunlight, all the basics, which isn't easy for a lot of people. And then it's about, yeah, do you have a support system around you who gets this, who respects this decision you're making for yourself and who will be by your side, especially if things get tough? A lot of people don't have those things. And so it might mean it's not the right time. I mean, I'm working through the nonprofit. We're trying to change that so that anyone, regardless of economic circumstances can get access to information, resources, and support.

48:45We have a mutual aid community and we have groups and all that. But the reality is life is really hard for many people. And this is a big decision to me. Yeah. I mean, I can say firsthand when I was doing the final parts of my tapering from the bipolar meds, I did not have the support I needed. I actually went to a facility. I checked myself into a facility. Luckily, I had the resources to do that. It's called the Alternative to Med Center in Sedona. It was amazing. I was there for 60 days for the final two months of my taper because I need to be in an environment where I could eliminate all the stress in my life and just focus on that and have that support, have that community, have the therapy help me get to the underlying causes of the depression and the kind of crisis that I was in.

49:27Yeah, I think it's really important what you're saying is, you know, you can want to taper as much as you want, but if you don't have the right system and support and all this stuff is there, it's probably not the right time. Well, and this is where slow tapering becomes so important because I - Yeah, because there's less, yeah, I was actually probably going too fast. And so that's why I needed the support. Had I gone slower and taken the five months and turned it into a year long taper, it might have not been, I might not have needed the level of support that I needed. Yep. And that's a really important point because I don't want people who might be in a situation where they don't have resources or they are to give up to yeah because you can totally people every day in really difficult circumstances with limited resources are successfully getting off they're just making sure to go extra extra slow and also i want to really quickly add to that when you're it isn't just about going slow it's also about making reductions in a hyperbolic way meaning as your overall dose is getting progressively smaller the amount you're cutting each time is also getting progressively smaller.

50:31There's really interesting research that's come out showing that the effect of these drugs on neurotransmitter function is not linear. So it's not like five milligrams of a drug has this much effect and then doubles when you go to 10, doubles when you go to 20. Much smaller doses actually have dramatically larger effects on the brain. So it's really important that slow tapering also means hyperbolic tapering where your dose gets smaller over time. Well, that's what I was saying at the beginning of the show is that, you know, and this is a great example of, of, I think, you know, I've been really well advised on this is after I got off all the meds for bipolar, which I wasn't, but I was still having some underlying issues with sleep and mood.

51:14I got on a med called Trazodone and it really supported me a lot in that year of me kind of putting my life back together and feeling better. And then about, you know, six or seven months ago, I was like, man, I've been feeling great for a year. Like, I don't think I need this. And then I said, okay, I'm gonna take a very long, slow process to go from 300 milligrams to nothing over like how it's been almost seven months. And I'm down to 12.5 milligrams, which is this like tiny squirt of liquid. But I've been, but the last say from about 75 milligrams to now, which I'm almost done has been incredibly tiny, tiny little reductions from exactly what you just said is what my psychiatrist told me is that these small amounts can have the biggest effect on how you're going to feel.

51:58And so you've got to go really slow. And it almost just feels like it's hard to believe how small it is. Yeah, it feels like a subtherapeutic. And I just want to emphasize that your psychiatrist is a rare psychiatrist because most do not yet understand this. And so they'll almost, I've had people reach out to me saying, my psychiatrist is kind of making fun of me for wanting to make such a small dose. Oh, it's having no effect on you. It's literally the opposite. So it's so awesome that you happen to find someone who understands this because it's not common right now. Well, I think one thing that we should also talk about, and we were exchanging some emails about this.

52:32I think it was about a couple of weeks ago or maybe a month ago, there was an executive order fast tracking some of the psychedelics in terms of legality and FDA approval. For people who are advocates for plant medicine and how they can have a role in mental health, that was great news. It also really scares people like yourself and even myself because in order to work with a psychedelic, oftentimes you have to get off a psychiatric med. They're counteractive. So now if this is going to be happening and we are going to have more plant medicines available for people to work with in their kind of as one tool in their mental health journey, they're going to have a lot more people now tapering off.

53:22which if they're not informed properly, and it's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show. I think I called you right after I saw this executive order come out. So like, what are your thoughts around that? It's a complicated issue that doesn't have a clear, easy answer because you're totally right that tapering off a med is an essential piece of the puzzle here that isn't necessarily going to be a quick, easy thing. And so if you've been in the depths of despair for a really long time, and then now, you know, you have an option of trying another, you know, treatment that a novel treatment of some kind that requires you to get off your med, in an ideal world, there's enough time built in that the medication taper of the existing prescriptions you're on can happen safely because what we don't want is for, you know, drugs that for some people may have great promise to actually not be able to be effective because people are in withdrawal from the old drugs that they've come off too quickly.

54:23I mean, I have a friend of a friend who, it's a very tragic story. I just want to share it to warn people. But, you know, he was offered an opportunity to do some psilocybin therapy for his depression, which, you know, sounded like something that he really wanted to try. He had been on pharmaceuticals and it did not seem to be working for a long time. And he went cold turkey and he ended up, you know, himself. Oh, gosh. And I think, unfortunately, we're going to hear more of those stories if we don't get the word out that you're sharing today, and that is how important it is to, you know, be under the right care when you're tapering, if you are going to, and to go extremely slow.

55:06Because I think people get desperate. They hear, oh, this psilocybin, you know, treatment really helped my friend and they want to jump into it. No, this is not something you can jump into if you're on these psychiatric meds. you must go through the long process, which could take years, as you said. And so it's so, so important because I think we could literally save lives with this podcast because I know that there is going to be the temptation, the allure, for quote a magic pill, of these plant medicines. And some of them can be extremely supportive, but you must do the first step, if that is the case, and really go slow on this tapering and do it the right way.

55:47Yeah. And so much of it would, you know, when it comes to psychedelics, I think about, to me, their beauty is that they are these temporary, you know, sometimes one time or small number of times use drugs, at least the naturally occurring ones that when you come into them with an intention of curiosity and openness. Like, what can this show me about what might need to shift in my life? They can be life-changing. I do, you know, sometimes think about, you know, what happens to the possibilities of psychedelics if this quick fix magic pill mindset is applied to them when, you know, naturally occurring psychedelics are quite antithetical to quick fix kind of thing.

56:32And so I think a lot of this comes back to the stories that we are telling ourselves about who we are, what our suffering means, what it means to be human. I know for me, I spent so many years under this impression that the purpose of life was to perform well, to be balanced, put together, happy, high functioning. That's arrival. That's what it means to have arrived. And now in retrospect, I see that life is not about the absence of pain. It's about a sense of connection to your body, to your instincts and your intuition, to other people, to nature, to God, to purpose, to service. I know you've talked about that, and it's been big for me too, getting out of self, getting out of others.

57:17So I think that to me is the biggest lesson I learned was, you know, how am I – what are the stories I'm telling myself about my suffering to begin with and what I need to like do, quote unquote, about it? Well, I know I read recently that you – it was in an article or it might have been a podcast you were on. You were talking about how you're learning to sit with the pain. You're learning to sit with the struggle, be curious about it versus immediately thinking you need to reach for something. Totally. You know, and so talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah, well, having been so medicated through my teens and my 20s, you know, I never had the opportunity to learn how to listen to what my body was telling me or what my emotions even were telling me.

58:01So coming back into my body and into a sense of integration between my physicality and my consciousness, this. I've realized like it is a practice and you develop a muscle, so to speak, over time of, you know, hanging in there with the discomfort and just like giving it a chance to tell you what it needs to tell you. And I ran away from that for so many years, you know, into psych meds, eventually into booze, into, you know, performance, into all of it. And so to just sit with myself and feel what my pain is telling me, my emotional pain, which I still feel tons of all the time, to me feels like the most liberatory and like powerful thing I can do.

58:52And sometimes it is telling me that I need to take different action. Sure. But sometimes I realize like, I just need to feel this. Like I'm a sensitive, I think you are too. Like I'm a, I think we're all born sensitive and you know, like these sponges absorbing the world around us. We're all like deeply empathic beings and we need, you know, we grew up in villages just feeling each other all the time and sensing when, you know, a family member, a friend needs something. We're sensitive beings. And I think coming back into that and recognizing sometimes I just need to like feel this grief. And I don't even know what the grief is about, but I think I'm just like absorbing it from the world right now.

59:35And I just need to feel it because there's always a through. And it's like by feeling it, feeling it is what then can catalyze. For me, it's like what's catalyzed is my art, my writing, my mothering, my stepmothering. The more I'm feeling myself fully, the more it helps me like know how to be in the world with the people around me. I love you say that because I think some people, including myself for so long, was so afraid to feel it. Like I didn't think I could handle it if I really felt it. Whatever that message it was trying to tell me, whatever the pain or the suffering was, you know, if it's like, well, if I feel it too much, it will break me.

1:00:16It will end me. I will not be able to do this. But it's quite the opposite I found is if you can muster the courage and have the support to really feel it, oftentimes what you get is the message. There's a message in it. Like sometimes they say the mess is the message, you know. And I have found that so much. And I look back at my depression, my suffering, seven years of it. What was it trying to teach me? There were so many things that it was trying to tell me quietly and then had to get louder and louder and louder until I eventually had to listen because I was at the end of the rope. But I do think it's so important to encourage people as hard as it is, you know, and do it with a friend, do it with a support to really feel and try to decipher what is this suffering trying to teach me.

1:01:03Yep. And like you said earlier, for people who are in a time in their life when they are not resourced and they are overwhelmed by stress, sometimes it's okay to get relief. We can only go so far of feeling before we say, I need to check out right now, whether it's, you know, doom scrolling on X or binge watching, you know, showing ourself grace and compassion when we can't feel anymore because we all have our limits. And I just want to return to this issue of medicalization here because when you are believing that the suffering you're feeling is a symptom of an illness that basically wants you dead.

1:01:42I mean, that's the fear that I had instilled in me from my bipolar diagnosis was, oh, my God, if I let my symptoms progress, I might myself. I think that's why questioning the story of medicalization is an important one, because when you realize, like, maybe that's what this suffering means, or maybe it isn't that, that's what helps you find the kind of the faith to forge ahead into the unknown. Like, our relationship to the unknown is inevitable as human beings. That's what life is about, is uncertainty and unknown. And where are you on the spectrum of fear and faith in how you relate to that uncertainty and that unknown?

1:02:20Are you afraid of it? Or are you faithful and curious about what it might hold for you? When I was living a medicalized understanding of who I was, I was at the fear end all the time. And letting go of that has helped me shift more to the faith side where I'm like, I don't know what this means, but I can hang in there with it a bit longer because I'm not afraid of it. Yeah. Well, I really, I appreciate this so much. And, you know, traditional medicine is an incredible tool and it's just one tool. And there's so many others. I mean, you have, because you've been so outspoken with your book and your advocacy work, so many people have written you, so many people have come to you.

1:02:58What are some other things that have really helped people on this journey that we can share kind of as we, as we wrap up here? I think finding a mutual support community of some kind, that's a big part of what Intercompass Initiative is all about. Just finding other people who are on the same road as you are, just maybe at a different place in it, the same journey, I think is so essential because we live in a culture where we've not only medicalized emotional suffering, but we've also professionalized help. And so people often have this impression that the only valid help I can get is from someone with degrees after their name.

1:03:36And don't get me wrong, there are some amazing therapists out there. Some of them are my good friends, but professional help is just one kind of help. And sometimes, you know, the word expert comes from the Latin expiritus, which means tried, proved, known through experience. And I think we've lost touch with that meaning of expert in this culture. So a lot of people can be experts because they've had a lot of lived experience. Totally. And just to be by someone's side, I can be with someone who is deeply suicidal and not be afraid of that because I've been there myself and I've come through. So I think mutual aid is a key piece.

1:04:12And a lot of it is the kind of nerdy, you know, how's your diet? How's your sleep? How's your screen exposure? How's your sunlight? The stuff that feels invalidating when you're overwhelmed by pain. But in retrospect, I'm like, oh my gosh, who would have thought that what I'm putting in my body will shape how I feel? Yeah, I know. I mean, I remember that with exercise with me. I mean, there were weeks where I didn't shower or literally leave the house or definitely not exercise. And I'm a very physical person. And then like once I finally got the initiative to like, let's just go and start walking and then running.

1:04:46It's like every day I felt a little bit better. I mean, it really is. I always say there is no magic pill, but if there's one that I've come close to finding, it is exercise, at least for me. You know, like it just moved the body, get the momentum. You know, it gets everything kind of going. Yeah. Has there been any difference between men and women as you've kind of gone down this path? Do men look at this differently than women, or is it pretty much the same regardless of gender? Well, I think when it comes to men, from what I – at this point, thousands of connections I've made since starting this work 16 years ago.

1:05:21So when I connect with men who are in the process of coming off these medications, what I often see is we live in a culture that hasn't made enough space for men to be vulnerable and feel the full spectrum of their emotions, which I think is why a lot of boys and men end up on these medications because they are taught, you know, you're not meant to feel it. You're not meant to express this. Like it's not manly, whatever that even means. And so when, you know, friends and colleagues of mine in the withdrawal world who are men, often when they're coming off these meds, realize like they have to return to these basic lessons that they never had the chance to learn because they went right on medications instead of having the opportunity to actually learn how to express themselves emotionally in a culture that didn't make a lot of space for them.

1:06:11So I think for men, it's like returning to that original crisis that led them on the meds in the first place and having to figure it out, you know, later on in life. Like, how can I be vulnerable and emotional in a world that doesn't necessarily make enough space for that? The other thing I will say is that for a lot of men who are on antidepressants or even other pharmaceuticals like hair loss drugs like finasteride, there are really profound sexual effects. There are also effects for women too, but it's not just a men thing. Taking these medications can cause sexual dysfunction and all kinds of issues related to that.

1:06:49But also coming off of these drugs, there's a condition called post-SSRI sexual dysfunction that I know many men who are now grappling with where they come off the medication and maybe in part it's how fast they did it. We don't know. There's not enough research on it. But they find themselves completely sexually disabled. Like, and not just lack of libido, like genital numbness. Wow. Zero sensation. Wow. And then all the other components that, you know, come with that. And when you think about what that means for any human being, but certainly for a man, like your sense of self and how you are in the world.

1:07:31Because it's not just about actual sex. It's also about, like, your soul as an erotic being. So I think there needs to be more research into that. Men and women need more support around that because it's something that we haven't been told about. And talk about informed choice. If you're not told that before you start an antidepressant or a hair loss drug or whatever it is. Well, I think that's one of the big things that I want to encourage people to think about, you know, is that we have talked a lot today about how difficult it is to get off. how long that process can be, how many side effects like the ones you just mentioned.

1:08:07So it's even more reason to why you need to be very thoughtful and considering to getting on because it's easy to get on, very hard to get off. And I experienced that, you experienced that. And I have to think that a lot of that education is what you're doing with the Inner Compass Initiative. So as we wrap up here, you know, for people who want to find you, want to learn more, want to know more about Intercompass. Give us a little bit about that. Sure. So Intercompass Initiative, I started it almost a decade ago. My husband, Cooper, now runs it. And our mission is to help people make informed choices.

1:08:42So we're not anti-medication. We're not anti-psychiatry. We're about everything we've talked about here today. So we have a lot of free written resources. We have a free step-by-step self-directed tapering manual that shows how people safely taper off these medications. We have a mutual support community. called Inner Compass Exchange. Our view is that all of this information should be freely available to people. And so you can find us there at theinnercompass.org. We have tons of resources there. And then you can find me at lauradelano.com. And I have some free workbooks and things like that, things that were helpful for me in my own journey that I've tried to turn into resources that might be helpful to others.

1:09:26But I think just if you're listening to this And maybe you're thinking about starting a med or maybe you're on a med and wondering if you maybe want to reduce it or maybe you're in the process of coming off. I think just know how far from alone you are, how many hundreds of thousands of people right now are out there trying to find their way through this. And I think just stay full of hope that there is a way through. It can be really terrifying to realize you've come off medications too fast that you weren't properly informed about. And now what the heck do you do? Just trust that there is a way through and that there are many people by your side and that the information you need is freely accessible to you.

1:10:11It's not gatekept and hidden in some, you know, fancy expert's office. It's all on the Internet right now for free. And just not to give up hope. because there is a way through. And you and I know that well. And it's hard to believe that when you're in the thick of it, but that's where faith comes in. And if we could do it, having faith in the people who've walked the path before you, you can't have it for yourself right now. Well, Laura, I love this quote. I said it before, when someone can take their mess and turn it into their message. And you have clearly done that with your life these last few years.

1:10:47and I love the book. I love this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on No Magic Pill. Oh, it's such an honor to be here, Blake. And the same to you. Thanks for taking your mess and turning it into such a beautiful message. Thank you. If this episode spoke to you, please share it with a friend, family member, or someone you love. Because No Magic Pill is not just a podcast. It's a resource to help us all live better lives. Hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode and let us know what you think by leaving a comment. A quick note that this episode is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended as medical advice.

1:11:27Always consult a qualified healthcare professional regarding any medical questions or concerns you may have.