The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - What Antidepressant Withdrawal Is Really Like ｜ EP 171 Brooke Siem

00:00:00.000 People don't understand antidepressant withdrawal. They know opiate withdrawal and it does not feel

00:00:05.000 like a normal withdrawal. It's not like a hangover or a painkiller withdrawal. It's just like being

00:00:10.820 put in a horror movie. I literally locked myself in my apartment and just waited it out thinking

00:00:15.360 I was nuts. There was intense intense mood swings, rage, really really severe rage, like destructive

00:00:21.420 rage. It was like two and a half years like that could have been my parents lives like my dad in

00:00:27.080 hospital actively being tortured from the side effects my mom bringing him food every day

00:00:32.280 from medications he just needed to be taken off of i'm pissed off about it

00:00:44.200 hey folks i thought advertising for schwank grills was a good idea for this specific episode

00:00:49.160 because of the topics we cover psych med withdrawal and how i really only survived

00:00:53.880 through that without more misery because of the lion diet, the all meat diet I'm on. Because of

00:00:58.440 the diet, I have tried basically every meat company and grill out there, at least in North

00:01:02.620 America, and I can personally vouch for how amazing the Schwenk Grills specifically are. I own one and

00:01:07.580 it has produced some of the best tasting steaks I've had. Right now, Schwenk Grills has an amazing

00:01:12.640 discount, the biggest discount I've ever seen them do, and they say they've ever done, with $255 off

00:01:18.420 when you use code MP255 at checkout.

00:01:21.840 Their Black Friday deal was supposed to end November 30th,

00:01:24.740 but for my listeners only,

00:01:26.220 it has been extended to December 5th with code MP255.

00:01:30.220 Typical grills reach a temperature of around 600 degrees.

00:01:33.780 Schwenk grills reach 1500 degrees,

00:01:36.540 which is what you get

00:01:37.320 when you go to high-end steakhouses like Morton's.

00:01:39.960 The grills are also portable,

00:01:41.100 so you can take them on the road camping

00:01:42.380 or to any place outdoors where you need to cook a steak.

00:01:45.040 You never know when you're gonna need a steak.

00:01:46.400 For better steak in less time and $255 off, just go to schwankgrills.com and use code MP255

00:01:53.780 until December 5th only. This is seriously the biggest sale they've had, so if you are ever

00:01:58.940 considering buying one of these bougie 1500 degree grills, this is the time. MP255 and schwankgrills.com.

00:02:07.360 I wanted to have you on my podcast because I think you went through a similar experience

00:02:21.940 that I went through which was awful I have your book here may cause side effects so

00:02:29.040 before we get into this can you give me a brief background about who you are and what it is you

00:02:35.820 do? Sure. So my name is Brooke Seam. I'm sort of, I guess, most known as a chef. I won the Food

00:02:42.480 Network show Chopped a couple of years ago. So that's where a lot of people know me from, I

00:02:47.740 suppose. But really the work that I mostly focus on now is awareness around antidepressant withdrawal,

00:02:53.780 especially when it comes to medicating children and then having them be on it for really long

00:02:57.820 periods of time. So my book is about the year I spent in withdrawal after I was pulled off these

00:03:03.640 drugs too quickly by a doctor who didn't have any education on the subject. And this is the first

00:03:10.260 book, it's a memoir that exists like this on the subject. And I just really hope that it can help

00:03:15.540 patients feel less alone and less crazy because what they're going through is a very real thing.

00:03:20.320 And also doctors really needed to help identify symptoms to avoid misdiagnosis, to be able to

00:03:26.500 just have a better understanding of what it can be like to be in withdrawal for people who are

00:03:30.580 experiencing this. Okay, great. So let's start with some background information then. Do you

00:03:37.160 mind talking about what you were taking and how long you were taking it? Sure. So I was medicated

00:03:43.000 when I was about 15 years old. My father had suddenly passed away and I was put on, we tried

00:03:49.340 a few antidepressants before we landed on a combination of Welbutrin XL and Effexor XR.

00:03:56.240 Those were the really the only two antidepressants and psychiatric drugs I stayed on for my entire experience with this, which is pretty rare.

00:04:04.760 A lot of people end up getting shuffled around.

00:04:06.540 But I also collected about four or five other drugs that ultimately were used to treat side effects caused by the antidepressants.

00:04:14.580 We didn't really know that at the time.

00:04:16.340 No one had put two and two together and said, you know, maybe the fact that your hair is falling out and you can't keep any food down is a side effect of these drugs.

00:04:24.400 Instead, we thought they were separate issues.

00:04:26.720 So all in all, I ended up on a cocktail of about usually between six, sometimes seven

00:04:31.620 drugs, depending on what was going on at the time for 15 years.

00:04:35.420 It was never questioned by any of the doctors I saw in multiple different states.

00:04:40.640 I lived in three different states for those 15 years.

00:04:43.240 They were pretty much refilled without question.

00:04:45.920 And it wasn't until I suddenly had the light bulb moment that I hadn't had an unmedicated

00:04:50.440 moment as an adult and that I was still actively suicidal and depressed.

00:04:54.400 that maybe this wasn't working. And that's when I decided to get off the drugs.

00:04:59.200 Okay. Wow. How old are you now? I'm 36 now. So most of this went down when I turned 30. So

00:05:06.920 that, you know, big year. Yeah. Okay. So how fast were you taken off the medications?

00:05:13.740 I was taken off of Fexor cold turkey. At the time I was on 37.5 milligrams of it,

00:05:19.440 which is the smallest dose you can get on the market. So this was also 2016. The literature

00:05:25.620 and research on it, on the topic was scant, basically non-existent. So the doctor at the

00:05:31.600 time, she said, well, I can't prescribe you a lower dose. We can't get that from the pharmaceutical

00:05:35.420 companies. So just stop taking it and see what happens. And she said, I might feel like I had

00:05:41.380 the flu for a few days or, you know, but basically just kind of a load of very nice things that

00:05:48.760 sounded nice but didn't end up being true and so I was pulled off that right away and I started

00:05:54.100 experiencing pretty severe symptoms within about three or four days and they only escalated over

00:05:58.820 the next few months and then I stayed on the well butrin during that time and then later I was

00:06:02.880 pulled I took that stopped cold turkey as well okay yeah so when I was on ciprolex so I started

00:06:11.320 taking ciprolex I was in grade it was the summer of grade five and I was extremely depressed and so

00:06:16.720 but so young so early it's so early yeah and I stopped taking it cold turkey when I was 20

00:06:22.880 I can't it was 2015 so I 23 yeah yeah so about the same length of time ish 10 years at least

00:06:31.100 it sounds like right yeah and and I was on a lot I was on the highest dose that you could like safely

00:06:37.140 I was actually on the higher dose I remember I tried to get a prescription at one point when I

00:06:41.180 changed provinces in Canada and they were like oh we can't fill this like what yeah you can't fill

00:06:46.120 it i've been on this i need this right because otherwise i'm like unbelievably depressed but

00:06:50.360 anyway um can you describe what your antidepressant withdrawal looked like what symptoms did you have

00:06:56.100 and how fast did that start so most of mine most of my serious very like acute symptoms came from

00:07:03.440 the effects are more than the wellbutrin for me personally effects are has a shorter half-life so

00:07:08.580 it leaves the body faster and creates more intense symptoms um the very first notable symptom i mean

00:07:15.820 I kind of felt off. I, you know, if you've ever missed a dose of these drugs, like I used to feel

00:07:20.420 like, oh, I had just taken like four shots of espresso, you know, my heart would race and I

00:07:24.380 would feel kind of shaky. So I anticipated that, you know, if I'd accidentally forgotten to take

00:07:30.160 it or, you know, the pharmacy was closed or something. But then what happened is one day I

00:07:35.040 was living in New York City at the time and I was walking on Park Avenue and it had just started to

00:07:39.360 rain it was about dusk and all of a sudden like in one moment all of my senses intensified like

00:07:47.020 I saw the light bulb like come into focus and all the lights from the taxis coming at me went from

00:07:53.860 round orbs into really sharp stars and everything got super loud and then my skin started really

00:08:00.840 hurting with the rain the rain was coming down and it felt like bullets on my skin like little

00:08:04.980 BB gun bullets. And I was just so overwhelmed by this sensory feeling. And that's the first

00:08:11.080 time I realized that something, something big is about to happen to me. And these drugs were doing

00:08:16.100 a lot more than just, you know, keeping my depression at bay, which is what I assumed

00:08:21.340 was the only effect that they were having. I realized in that moment that they were having

00:08:25.100 an effect on my entire physical system. And that in some ways was actually kind of cool because I

00:08:30.840 was like oh my god it's like I've just woken up like what else what else is there but then the

00:08:36.560 psychological side effects set in for me and those were just the horrific ones I mean the

00:08:41.200 for me the worst part was violent intrusive thoughts that just went on for months and it's

00:08:47.760 just you know it's a little difficult to explain but it's kind of like this this awareness that

00:08:53.860 you have the ability to hurt yourself or others at any moment and then you can kind of see in

00:08:58.280 your mind's eye what you might do and if you'd never experienced that before you I thought I was

00:09:04.380 absolutely crazy like obviously I needed to be on psychiatric medications because this is who I am

00:09:09.620 on the inside that's that's what I thought but I was too terrified to tell my psychiatrist about

00:09:15.240 it because I thought she would put me on an involuntary hold so I just ended up like I

00:09:19.500 literally locked myself in my apartment and just you know waited it out thinking I was nuts and

00:09:24.400 that was the hardest one for me to deal with mentally but then there was you know the intense

00:09:30.560 mood swings you know intense intense mood swings rage really really severe rage like destructive

00:09:37.880 rage I stopped sleeping I didn't have akesthesia too I don't think like if I did it was more in

00:09:45.420 just like a general pacing kind of antsiness that I associated with just so many changes but you know

00:09:52.180 i know a little bit about what you've described in your acesthesia situation like i didn't feel

00:09:56.140 like that and i just feel like my god i was so lucky not to have to have gone through that

00:09:59.640 i mean i was yeah well after seeing what happened to my dad so so for me i stopped taking them cold

00:10:07.340 turkey too and rich and um i'd been on i'd been often on wellbutrin for for a while but i actually

00:10:15.580 i ended up having a seizure on wellbutrin so i'd stopped taking that when i was 21 i was on they

00:10:20.920 like increased the dose to try and get a hold of the like depression and get the depression

00:10:25.520 symptoms under control and then i had a seizure so we got rid of that one which i don't i think

00:10:30.040 i just felt better getting rid of that one but um the ciprolex i felt pretty good like i got my

00:10:36.860 depression under control with dietary changes i was like well don't need this thing anymore

00:10:41.460 stop taking that and then i felt pretty good for about a week and then and like good like oh wow

00:10:48.380 I can feel I'm not sedated like things are great and then it was really for me at like a two-week

00:10:54.840 period where I went and it almost went from like normal to suddenly horrifying in like

00:11:03.260 like a moment yeah it was a day and I think it coincided like um for me I was trying to

00:11:11.100 reintroduce more like carbier food so I tried to introduce a food and had kind of an autoimmune

00:11:15.340 response and then that combined with the antidepressant withdrawal and I hallucinated

00:11:19.300 like I went out it was the same thing it was like things are a little too real and they're a little

00:11:23.120 too close and sounds are too loud and like lights hurt like and I'd always had kind of an aversion

00:11:29.140 to fluorescent lights which might have been part of being on drugs yeah um everything was too bright

00:11:37.600 and too loud and too dark and like scary and um and I was like my heart was beating faster than

00:11:44.740 it should and I was like I think I like am I panicking am I having a panic attack like what's

00:11:48.760 going on here and I ended up hallucinating like my brother into kind of this demon face looked at me

00:11:54.900 and I would like I looked at him it was like went into my apartment and the same kind of thing

00:12:00.000 turned on all the lights closed the door and was like okay yeah maybe I live here for the next

00:12:04.980 while yeah yeah that's yeah was it like um was it like uh how's the best way to describe it was

00:12:14.460 it like a mind's eye hallucination or was it like if you had like his face was replaced in your

00:12:21.320 visual field i mean it didn't like i knew i was hallucinating obviously but my he turned around

00:12:27.860 and it had this horrifying like teeth I think teeth like demon face on my brother like so he

00:12:35.580 turned into a little demon looked at me and I was like okay I've stopped taking all like kind of

00:12:40.160 similar I've stopped taking all my medication and now I'm fucking crazy right but then also part of

00:12:47.500 me was like no I felt so good like I know there was a period of time where I could feel good so

00:12:52.300 i had antidepressant withdrawal for two and a half years um and and it kind of went like up and down

00:13:00.880 and up and down and then and i just knew you know i think i'm pretty sure i'm not depressed

00:13:05.900 like that i just needed to wait and at the time actually how long did it take you to figure out

00:13:11.100 that you were in antidepressant withdrawal did you know that you were in withdrawal yeah it didn't

00:13:15.880 take me very long uh I I think like after maybe the first you know severe violent thought episode

00:13:23.180 um a couple things happened one I had talked to a psychologist who was a friend a family friend

00:13:29.560 who lived in a different state so I was she couldn't commit me so I was like okay I'll talk

00:13:33.640 to her um and she she kind of helped me understand that one that she said crazy people don't know

00:13:41.340 they're crazy so she basically made me aware of the fact yeah the fact that since I was aware of

00:13:47.420 it then that that is an important part in in the process of making sure you're not actually going

00:13:52.760 to act on any of these thoughts it was still terrifying but at least it like calmed me down

00:13:56.240 from thinking that oh god I'm gonna do something terrible um and then she you know kind of

00:14:01.200 indicated that it was about withdrawal but she didn't know too too much about the subject either

00:14:05.760 it really wasn't until I then just got on the internet and I started searching and there was

00:14:10.580 there was almost no literature at the time but there were a couple of like rogue websites with

00:14:15.860 other people explaining the same uh the same things that made me think okay I'm having I'm

00:14:24.340 having a reaction to getting off these drugs it's clearly antidepressant withdrawal I didn't know it

00:14:28.380 was a thing I thought it was really rare I thought I was just like in a really really rare camp of

00:14:32.840 people yeah and it's you know now I know that that's not the case that this is much much much

00:14:37.560 more common than i ever thought in that that we ever thought at the time but it did make me feel

00:14:42.200 like okay at least this is an anecdotally documented thing that i'm not the only one

00:14:48.920 i didn't know how long it would last though i thought it would go away a lot faster than it did

00:14:53.880 that's for sure yeah how long did how long did it take for you for the acute symptoms

00:14:58.200 i the acute symptoms were about a year and at about a year is when i started to say okay like

00:15:04.360 I don't know how long because it's you know the windows and waves you're kind of going up and down

00:15:07.980 at least that's how it was for me and so about after about a year a year I felt confident that

00:15:13.840 if I had a bad stretch I was going to come out of it so that's for me when I started to make

00:15:20.400 the mental shift that okay this is not a forever thing I don't know how long it'll last but I'd be

00:15:25.100 I started to you know just embrace it if I guess if you can and find some radical acceptance for

00:15:29.500 the process and the more i did that actually the more things lessened and you know by about two

00:15:35.000 years i was like quite confident that i was through it i didn't know that it was i'm so pissed off

00:15:42.220 about this entire thing i didn't know it was anti-depressant withdrawal because i was doing

00:15:46.360 these diet so i've got a arthritis and i was doing these diet tests and i was reacting quite badly to

00:15:53.240 like certain carbier foods that were giving me arthritis and autoimmune flare-ups and that

00:15:58.540 coincided with how severe the antidepressant withdrawal was for me so i was attributing the

00:16:05.060 withdrawal to food reintroductions just combined with the flare-ups and arthritis yeah right so for

00:16:11.500 the first two and a half years i literally just thought i had extremely severe reactions to food

00:16:18.100 i did like didn't know it was antidepressant withdrawal i think because it took two weeks to

00:16:22.340 hit and then when it hit it was when i reintroduced a food that gave me an autoimmune response and it

00:16:28.120 like after that i just couldn't like couldn't get things under control and it was crazy i was like

00:16:33.140 having hallucinations periodically it was like terrifying it didn't occur to me that it was

00:16:40.040 antidepressant withdrawal until dad so he stopped taking the antidepressant wait okay so what's the

00:16:47.660 order who went first you or him i went first okay so i went first i stopped taking them december

00:16:53.380 2015 about three months after i started a really low carb diet and got my autoimmune symptoms at

00:16:58.740 the same time yeah yeah when did when was yours um i started in like march of 2016

00:17:05.380 yeah okay so that was that was december 2015 um dad

00:17:11.360 stopped around the same time it was later maybe february and um i mean neither of us

00:17:22.740 even though he's a psychologist he didn't know about the antidepressant like people don't

00:17:29.260 understand antidepressant withdrawal they know opiate withdrawal they're like okay people can

00:17:33.920 get addicted to opiates they get like you can't stop taking those suddenly you have to wean off

00:17:38.820 it can be unpleasant like extremely unpleasant it can depending on what you're on and how long

00:17:44.600 you've been on it and what dose and all that but they do not know about antidepressant withdrawal

00:17:49.600 and it does not feel like a normal withdrawal.

00:17:52.900 It's not like a hangover or a painkiller withdrawal.

00:17:56.140 It's just like being put in a horror movie.

00:17:58.360 This episode is brought to you by Better Fed Beef.

00:18:00.500 Better Fed Beef is a direct-to-consumer beef company

00:18:02.860 that specializes in certified Anya beef.

00:18:05.320 You guys have probably heard me talk about Better Fed.

00:18:07.280 I do that because that's basically the only meat I eat now

00:18:10.140 unless I run out of them and then I eat lamb

00:18:12.060 and I honestly, I kind of hate lamb.

00:18:14.020 I ate lamb for a long time.

00:18:15.120 I never really want to eat lamb again.

00:18:16.440 This beef, on the other hand, is like Wagyu

00:18:19.180 except they actually treat the cows really well.

00:18:21.160 That's the other thing that makes these guys different.

00:18:22.940 The cows are humanely raised on Midwestern family farms.

00:18:25.960 The offer I have for BetterFed is insanely good.

00:18:29.020 You can get 25% off your order

00:18:31.100 when you go to betterfedbeef.com and use code MP.

00:18:35.260 That's betterfedbeef.com and use code MP

00:18:37.540 for a whopping 25% off your order.

00:18:40.540 Normally that kind of percentage off

00:18:42.260 doesn't happen in the meat world.

00:18:43.960 And in a world where big business is taking over

00:18:45.960 and the Gates family is buying up farmland

00:18:47.980 like nobody's business it's important to support family farms like better fed beef you never know

00:18:52.120 if you're going to be eating crickets eventually i'm certainly not but i'm supporting these types

00:18:56.380 of farms also because of the craft butchering process they use the whole animal which is cool

00:19:01.320 so you get cuts that are typically hard to find like oxtail liver beef tongue and bone marrow

00:19:06.340 their bone marrow is to die for as well as the usual favorites like ribeyes and new york strips

00:19:11.840 and ribs did i mention ribs their ribs are very good too if you like good beef then you should

00:19:17.100 try better fed beef you can go to betterfedbeef.com and use code mp for 25 off i've heard it's similar

00:19:23.460 to benzo withdrawal um i've never been on benzos so so this was what this is what happened with us

00:19:30.740 so antidepressant withdrawal was one thing i was on lorazepam a little bit off and on thank goodness

00:19:35.380 i didn't take any benzodiazepine long term that seems worse so whatever antidepressant withdrawal

00:19:41.760 which was like it was the worst thing i've ever experienced um and then i saw my dad so he went

00:19:49.100 he basically stopped taking antidepressants and then didn't feel good like neither of us felt

00:19:55.900 good we were trying to get it under control with diet and my mom got cancer and he started taking

00:20:01.240 a benzodiazepine but i think the reason he started taking it this was through his doctor of course

00:20:06.820 was because he was in antidepressant withdrawal and so he was like he was like I'm suicidal I'm

00:20:14.040 having these thoughts I can't sleep he couldn't sleep at all and his doctor was like whoa here's

00:20:20.180 Klonopin and that was a bad idea that was a bad idea and I've done a bunch of research into this

00:20:27.800 there's this doctor named David Healy who's pretty knowledgeable about yeah the dangers um of drugs

00:20:34.140 and like medicating somebody in antidepressant withdrawal with a benzodiazepine just like

00:20:40.220 destroys them so he was on that for a while and then getting off of that the withdrawal that

00:20:45.920 caused almost killed him that's when the akathisia popped up and that is that's everything

00:20:51.720 antidepressant withdrawal is plus the absolute inability to stop moving like how is this something

00:20:59.940 that exists that doctors aren't screaming about it's so unacceptable

00:21:06.580 i i don't know i wish i had a better answer i mean i it's just it's baffling i

00:21:14.020 um i i especially i don't know i think that part of what's happening now is we're getting

00:21:21.860 into a period of time where people have been on these drugs for significant portions of their life

00:21:26.280 and because there's not a single long-term study for any of this stuff right most most drug studies

00:21:31.680 are like 12 weeks and you know that's where all the that's where all the nice sounding data comes

00:21:36.680 from right is from these 12-week studies and so because there's absolutely not a single study on

00:21:41.820 long-term use or pulling people off like I think they just haven't seen it and then so many of the

00:21:47.180 signs and symptoms mimic other psychiatric disorders I mean when I was in withdrawal I

00:21:51.820 could have been diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia or a paranoid disorder, a paranoid disorder

00:21:56.280 easily. Right. And I think that's what happens to most people. That's, that's how they get like

00:22:00.720 so many different drugs just layered on top of them and whatnot. But I think there's also just

00:22:05.640 been a huge failure in the system to, I mean, psychiatry has been rife with not listening to

00:22:11.980 patients since its inception. Right. And, you know, I don't, you can't fully blame psychiatry

00:22:17.920 and psychiatrists as a whole when most people are getting their antidepressants from gps

00:22:22.100 like that's what i did i got mine from a gp for eight years and so they're they're general

00:22:28.960 practitioners it's right there in the name they're not they're not experts on this stuff so

00:22:32.800 it's just it's just and then it makes so much money so it's just it's such a terrible like

00:22:39.480 perfect storm of events of why people are now so screwed um or why some people are now so screwed

00:22:44.800 on these things i would say like and i don't want to freak people out but this like from just because

00:22:52.380 i was so entrenched in this for first it was me and i didn't know what it was right it actually

00:22:58.600 i remember i had this moment when dad kept getting misdiagnosed with like bipolar schizophrenia i was

00:23:04.660 like he's not schizophrenic he's reacting to the med like something's going on with the clonopin 0.99

00:23:08.860 like he's not schizophrenic you morons yeah this is ridiculous they're like well what do you know 1.00

00:23:13.660 like little blonde girl right it's like also like how do you measure schizophrenia right like give 1.00

00:23:18.260 me a blood test you can't measure it in the same way so it's just like based on yeah so annoying

00:23:24.420 so bothersome um yeah i'm i don't know i think probably awareness is just the right way to go

00:23:31.140 i had somebody messaged me like i get messages constantly from people who are really really

00:23:37.900 suffering you probably do now yeah you've come out with a book but um somebody yesterday was like

00:23:45.820 you know i'm i'm suicidal my i'm suicidal with depression and then you can do the one way where

00:23:53.020 it's like oh go talk to your doctor except that never works because then you're suicidal with

00:23:58.780 depression and better put that person on a benzodiazepine antidepressant antipsychotic

00:24:04.140 something to calm them down and so I was just like well how long have you been taking the meds

00:24:10.180 two years it's like okay were you suicidal before you started the meds no I was just depressed

00:24:18.420 okay suicidality is a lot worse than than being depressed I was like so anyway just like sent

00:24:26.340 some information but finding a doctor that knows about this stuff is like nearly impossible do you

00:24:31.220 do you have recommendations for people who are currently on medications about like

00:24:37.380 how to do this other than like weaning down and locking yourself in a room like there's

00:24:42.580 got to be something there's got to be resources i mean there are resources but they're certainly

00:24:46.900 not perfect and they are they're very much in their infancy and so it's kind of one of those

00:24:51.300 things where you know i'm happy to kind of let people know what the latest stuff is but at the

00:24:56.580 end of the day i think what antidepressant withdrawal and depression and all of this

00:25:00.420 this stuff really asks you to do is to go inward and find what works for you I mean you know all

00:25:05.480 about that right with the lion diet right like it might not work for everyone but it's been a

00:25:08.940 lifesaver for you so like that the amount of inner resilience and inner gumption you have to have in

00:25:15.960 order to make that sort of choice for yourself despite what other people say is huge and that's

00:25:20.220 what I think that's in a lot of ways what healthy mental health is it's figuring out what each

00:25:25.540 individual needs. So, you know, for example, like the main theory right now with antidepressant

00:25:32.580 withdrawal and how to avoid it or how to get off these drugs safely is something called hyperbolic

00:25:37.840 tapering. It's basically a dose reduction method. It ends up looking like a hyperbolic curve. So

00:25:43.740 one that starts off very steep and ends up flatter because you make percentages of cuts for each

00:25:50.940 drug. So say you're on 100 milligrams of something, you cut it by 10%, you cut it by 10%. So you go

00:25:56.840 down to 90 milligrams. And then assuming you're doing okay, you cut that another 10%. So 10% of

00:26:02.940 90 milligrams is nine grams. So now you're down to 81, and so on and so forth until the doses get

00:26:08.480 smaller and smaller. And the reason why this tends to be more successful in the early research they've

00:26:13.440 done is just because it allows the brain and body to basically stabilize at an easier rate

00:26:20.920 instead of having to make these big jumps in between the typical pharmaceutical doses.

00:26:26.520 This isn't perfect. There are still people who struggle on these, you know, and have serious

00:26:31.020 symptoms even while doing hyperbolic tapering, but it's a start. So I would say, you know,

00:26:36.380 Google that, read the research on that. You know, also Madden America is an amazing resource.

00:26:43.440 is Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whittinger. There's just a lot of information there that I

00:26:49.240 think patients can help educate themselves and then go take them to their doctor, take the

00:26:53.120 information to their doctor and say like, because you still need a doctor to like, you know, fill

00:26:56.500 your prescriptions and help you go down. So, you know, the best course of action is going to be a

00:27:01.240 partnership. If you have a doctor who's completely dismissive of your, of one, what you want for

00:27:06.300 yourself and also you know information continuing education on how you can hopefully get through

00:27:14.320 this as best as possible if you've got a doctor who's fighting that it's time to find a new doctor

00:27:18.440 like it's time to step up and take some agency and say no we're not doing this together and

00:27:22.680 you know go off and find a new one um so and that's honestly that's kind of it at this point

00:27:29.420 other than just so sad but other than other than just you know reading the room reading anecdotes

00:27:36.900 a little bit we've seen a lot more mainstream articles about antidepressant withdrawal and

00:27:41.540 you know new york times and the new yorker and new york post and all of these very like

00:27:46.120 traditionally you know medication all the time people so i'm glad to see that that means that

00:27:52.320 that shift is changing or i mean there's a there's a change oh god glad to see that there's you know

00:27:57.980 a change in the narrative there um there's also a lot more research being done in europe and the uk

00:28:03.100 than there is here in the u.s so sometimes you have to go outside of the u.s and uh but yeah

00:28:10.520 beyond that i mean it's it's it's a bit dark world out there but it's like i don't know for me was

00:28:17.080 the best decision i ever made to get off these drugs like yes it's very scary too it's a scary

00:28:21.600 thing and i you know on the one hand i want people to be really aware of what this what can happen

00:28:27.200 And so they're they don't think that they are schizophrenic suddenly. Right. Yeah. And, you know, yes, it can be really, really difficult, but it is the single best thing I've ever done my done for myself, even though it was the hardest thing I've ever been through.

00:28:39.340 And my life is so much better. I'm so glad I did it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. This by no means means don't do it. You're stuck on this forever.

00:28:47.820 it just means first of all cold turkey is so dangerous and it's not even just like um it's

00:28:55.340 not even just that the withdrawal is sudden and much worse it's also it can also trigger like

00:29:00.960 secondary things like akathisia yeah in certain people and not everybody gets that but in certain

00:29:07.320 people that can happen and once you trigger something like that going back on the medication

00:29:13.580 doesn't necessarily get rid of it so the cold turkey thing can be very dangerous especially

00:29:18.960 if you've been on a high dose for a long period of time but getting off of them yeah it's been

00:29:25.880 it's i i was experiencing a lot of side effects that i had been attributing to my autoimmune

00:29:30.660 disorder i was just about to say my entire life i was just about to say like how interesting it is

00:29:35.340 how all your other issues at least for me like directly connected back to this it's such a

00:29:40.740 systemic thing. And we really think it's a, we think it's only about our emotions and our

00:29:44.780 feelings. Right. And it's just not, it's completely systemic. Yeah. So you had, can you talk to me

00:29:50.580 about what kind of like side effects you were treating that you found out were just attributed

00:29:54.520 to the antidepressants? Yeah. I mean, we don't have like, I don't have conclusive evidence that

00:29:59.720 it was, that it was, or that it was, you know, um, because of these drugs. But what I do know

00:30:05.480 is that I didn't have these issues before I went on the drugs within a year. I had all these

00:30:10.140 problems and then when i got off these drugs 15 years later all those problems disappeared so i

00:30:14.440 was like okay um i don't know coincidence maybe uh but the first thing is i developed like

00:30:22.300 hypothyroidism and all the signs of hypothyroidism so my hair was falling out i like was getting

00:30:28.420 crazy charlie horses at night and then blood tests actually showed that my thyroid function

00:30:33.000 was low and so that's when they started giving me synthroid which is a synthetic hormone

00:30:36.920 i also developed something called bile reflux disease uh this took a little while to diagnose

00:30:42.820 but it basically is like it's like acid reflux but lower down in your gi so your pancreas spits

00:30:48.720 up all this extra bile into your stomach and then i would just get randomly nauseous and like

00:30:52.880 you know be walking to walking to school and i'd throw up on the sidewalk and it was just like oh

00:30:56.840 um yeah yeah i had something similar okay i had i had something similar it wasn't like

00:31:04.460 chronic like that it happened um a couple of times when i mixed so i was quite like the

00:31:11.460 antidepressants initially when i was a kid and went on them i can remember feeling relaxed and

00:31:15.480 relief and being like okay i can sleep right like i'm not having intrusive thoughts and and all this

00:31:22.200 and i was already on immune suppressants at that point when i went on the antidepressants but um

00:31:27.100 but my depression was horrible the entire time like it didn't make you go away and it was more

00:31:32.600 intrusive i would say the older i got the higher and i just you know went up on medication and up

00:31:37.780 on medication and then my depression got worse and worse um and i tried adding in 5-htp which is

00:31:43.800 just it's like a herbal supplement and i tried adding that in and i threw up every morning for

00:31:49.800 a week i was like what taking a supplement this shouldn't just cause you like half an hour after

00:31:54.980 the supplement on the way to school on the subway it's like up throw up in a garbage can what is

00:31:59.900 happening and it was like oh there's too much serotonin because of the 5-htp it's like that's

00:32:04.660 weird but i was little so i was like you know 17 i was like well okay no 5-htp yeah so it was it

00:32:12.440 was kind of similar i just would randomly puke and so they put me on like a really really heavy

00:32:18.060 anti that's fun anti-acid for that yeah it was so fun um and then i was nauseous all the time

00:32:23.780 um then then like my skin got really bad and so I ended up on a variety of like stuff like either

00:32:31.980 like tetracycline which is antibiotic which is bizarre eventually it was on accutane like that

00:32:37.100 never really went away oh which I mean again like it's like nobody looked at what I was taking

00:32:42.440 and thought combining this was a good idea um and then I also had like constant headaches and

00:32:49.080 migraines. So I was always taking either migraine meds or a lot of Advil for that. And I just like

00:32:56.260 dealt with that for, you know, again, the same, the same 15 years. But then when I started,

00:33:01.180 when I got off the Effexor and then later when I got off the Wilbutrin, I was like,

00:33:04.820 I was just like, I'm on a roll at this point. We're just going to get off of everything and

00:33:07.760 see what happens. So I got off the Synthroid and the Sucrophate, which was for the bile reflux

00:33:14.300 disease. Neither one of those things came back and my thyroid levels are totally normal now.

00:33:22.060 And then, and then the last issue that is still kind of a thing is just that like gut health has

00:33:27.380 been an absolute nightmare to get back. And I mean, again, when you look at this, these drugs

00:33:32.700 have a huge impact on your gut. Plus, I mean, I was on antibiotics for acne at some point, right?

00:33:37.920 That'll, that'll kill your gut. And so, so many years, I think of that damage has made it pretty

00:33:42.660 challenging to get my gut back on track like it's doing better now with a lot of a lot of very

00:33:49.460 expensive like medical help and supplements and testing and all that but um and kimchi but yeah

00:33:56.840 that's it I mean oh that's it and then the other thing too that's really interesting and I'm so

00:34:00.380 fascinated about the audio autoimmune stuff and the trigger because I actually in withdrawal

00:34:04.520 developed something called nodular vasculitis which is an autoimmune response to it's like a

00:34:11.440 like inflamed blood vessels so i had all these weird little bumps all over my skin and like

00:34:16.540 patchy discoloration that they thought was lupus but that's hard to diagnose and then when they

00:34:21.160 actually did a sample of it it was just my blood vessels were all so inflamed that they like puffed

00:34:26.440 up and that's a autoimmune response associated with tuberculosis of all things as a stress

00:34:31.900 response from getting off these drugs okay so i've been really interested um and this is all

00:34:39.460 like there isn't any this is completely new right people didn't even know antidepressants cause

00:34:43.980 withdrawal um i've wondered from watching what happened to my dad which was just like the worst

00:34:50.020 i thought my antidepressant withdrawal was bad and then i watched him and that experience was

00:34:54.000 worse than like my auntie was so bad um where was i going with that okay but it looks like a lot of

00:35:01.920 the symptoms that you get from antidepressant withdrawal or benzodiazepine withdrawal mimic

00:35:06.540 like nerve damage right like how can you have lights hurt and sounds i still have issues with

00:35:14.980 like certain sounds like oh yeah normal people i don't think have like hey that sound hurts

00:35:23.020 sounds aren't supposed to hurt and like you said it actually hurts like i can't explain how it

00:35:28.560 hurts but somehow it's like it's not just uncomfortable it's not just like oh like let

00:35:32.800 need to go to another room it like like scratches your brain a little yeah and i feel like in my

00:35:37.120 bones in a weird way yeah yeah yeah wow i mean i'm not sure other than i mean obviously we don't

00:35:44.740 know we don't even really know how antidepressants work so we sure as hell don't know how antidepressant

00:35:48.920 withdrawal works but like i just i just think they they just must have such an intense effect

00:35:55.220 on you know the neurobiology and your whole system and i mean like what is it 90 of our

00:36:02.240 of serotonin is created in the gut and these are ssris so they are selective serotonin reuptake

00:36:08.500 inhibitors so they're well also theoretically theoretically right like marketed as selective

00:36:15.180 serotonin reuptake inhibitors i don't think they actually know how they work no they don't like

00:36:19.240 they have theories yet but they definitely don't act on just one thing because like

00:36:23.380 no such a complex system even if something does act on one thing your entire body has to react

00:36:28.120 and readjust right so I mean I my my completely unscientific theory is that you know yes these

00:36:37.280 they they blunt emotional pain they blunt they numb the edges of both good and bad experience

00:36:44.540 they also numbed all of my physical experiences as well and that's what I was kind of describing

00:36:50.440 when that first moment when it was like the cellophane was lifted off my body for the first

00:36:54.140 time and all my senses and nerves were like lit up either someone someone really fun ways like

00:37:01.240 color got brighter like literally oh my gosh my color got yeah color got brighter for me too i

00:37:06.760 was like that's what red looks like yeah and if you've been on these since you were a kid like

00:37:11.660 you just don't have any frame of preference for what red looks like and so that was great i'm i

00:37:18.140 like that my world is more colorful now but then there was the actual like physical pain like i

00:37:23.220 couldn't wear clothes i struggled to wear clothes because it just felt like scratchy daggers from

00:37:28.480 the fibers who knew that that was going to be connected i didn't be told yeah still don't

00:37:36.260 really know why interesting yeah no i had the same thing i wore rayon for a really long time

00:37:42.360 when i was in like a cute me too rayon's nice and soft yeah yeah that's so strange a few times

00:37:47.360 if i got this one's gotta go can't wear it wow around like this that's so awful that's so awful

00:37:56.500 and i'm sure there's so many people like i can remember when i was on them and i i took them

00:38:01.600 religiously at night for like over a decade um when i was in university i got quite a bit sicker

00:38:08.860 got more mentally ill um my diet also just went to complete shit i was drinking all the time

00:38:13.760 and there were there was a day or two like one time I got switched from Ciprolex which is an 0.96

00:38:19.980 SSRI and I was like this is not working like I'm on fire like something not this isn't working I

00:38:26.760 need something else I need more and I got put on an SNRI and I can't remember what the SNRI was

00:38:33.200 called because I took it for two days and they just added it in and I was like oh I just wanted

00:38:38.300 to like just punch holes in walls all the time it was like that's gotta go that didn't work

00:38:44.080 never mind i'll just go back to what i'm doing um but no i'm incredibly grateful that i stopped

00:38:49.460 taking them yeah well who knows what that was right that could have been withdrawal effects

00:38:53.780 that you started to experience and then they put an snri in there but you were still experiencing

00:38:58.340 withdrawal from the ssri oh for sure who knows what's what right happens all yeah no it's crazy

00:39:06.500 and I'm also grateful that I avoided like like when I started experiencing antidepressant

00:39:12.280 withdrawal this is before dad stopped taking his I went out for dinner with my mom and dad

00:39:16.680 and they're just like how do you feel and I just like bawled and I'm not like I don't I'm not a

00:39:22.640 crier I just got I was just like I was in the middle of a horror movie it was terrifying and

00:39:27.720 I just like bawled and I sat down and I was like trying to you know order my food and make sure

00:39:32.720 that it didn't have any these foods that were like making the autoimmune symptom worse and i was just

00:39:38.100 like teary and weepy and my parents were like whoa maybe you should start taking those again

00:39:45.240 like this doesn't look good and i was just like absolutely not i am never taking anything again

00:39:53.220 like and i didn't even know i think a couple years in i realized when even when i started taking like

00:39:59.920 okay i'd take an antihistamine i can't take antihistamines i get like severe side effects

00:40:05.020 from antihistamines i can't take anything anymore without getting extreme side effects

00:40:11.240 tylenol sometimes is okay that's about it have you heard of the sip 450 gene and sip 450 tests

00:40:19.380 i feel like this might be highly relevant to you your family

00:40:22.960 oh um cyp i don't know is that a peptide uh no um so i mean my knowledge on it is like

00:40:32.140 you know sort of limited obviously because i'm not i'm not a genetic oh interesting but so the

00:40:39.320 cip 450 test and and and what they do is it's it's designed or or what they do is it's primarily

00:40:45.660 using for cancer at this point right now so they test you for these gene variants because it helps

00:40:51.980 dictate whether or not you're able to metabolize drugs and so but there's research from a researcher

00:40:58.520 named selma eichlin bloom shavald and she's based out of new mexico she's testing this particular

00:41:06.480 these genes and these gene variants against psychoactive drugs because what is starting to

00:41:15.140 come up a little bit is you have all of these instances of you know severe violence that can

00:41:19.080 happen when people start taking these drugs yeah the question is why right and so her theory is

00:41:24.740 that um is that it has to do with these genes and that if you have what like what does she say she

00:41:32.220 says there's an association between prescription drugs most notably antidepressants and other

00:41:36.720 psychoactive medication having variant alleles alleles for alleles for sip 450 genes and altered

00:41:44.540 emotional states of acts of violence so these particular that's cool yeah these particular

00:41:50.020 genes seems to indicate okay you can't metabolize these drugs or any drugs some people apparently

00:41:55.440 can't really metabolize any of them which is why they test them for cancer drugs and it creates a

00:42:01.340 literal toxic buildup in the system oh my god that's why things go haywire for certain individuals

00:42:07.680 so like this i think it's so fascinating from you know a violence standpoint but then i don't you

00:42:13.960 know i would be very interested to know if like your your sensitivity right if that is somehow

00:42:19.240 connected like is there just literal genetic inability to metabolize a lot of these compounds

00:42:24.360 that's interesting okay something's got to be going on because something has to be going on

00:42:30.280 because i'll do you know um i had to have surgery for my ankle um this was after i got off all the

00:42:35.840 medications and um i started taking hydromorphone for pain it was an ankle replacement surgery

00:42:43.380 and i ended up it was okay at the beginning and then it was hives and then it was throwing up and

00:42:48.640 i was like okay well can't take this anymore like within half an hour of taking it throwing up i was

00:42:53.280 like okay what's that about and then it's the same thing with like antihistamines i get this horrible

00:42:58.800 crawling sensation everywhere and my dad was the same way like anything he takes is like absolutely

00:43:04.120 not we've realized tylenol is okay kind of and that's it it's crazy maybe it's that i'll look

00:43:12.880 into that it's got to be some sort of inability because it feels like i'm having some sort of

00:43:17.760 allergic reaction yeah like a like in a very angry way right well especially if you like got a couple

00:43:23.560 days where it sort of worked and then it got worse over time that could indicate a build up or it's

00:43:29.820 not processing out interesting wow well hopefully talking about this stuff will make people aware

00:43:37.540 that they're not just you know that these are serious and people don't know how they work or

00:43:43.720 how to get off of them very easily yeah that being said i've also seen people get off of them

00:43:48.300 without having nearly as many issues yeah oh so have i i mean i think like some of the research

00:43:53.540 is about 50 that it's roughly about half and half that about half people get off of them have no

00:43:59.240 real issues at all and then the other half about about of the people who have withdrawal symptoms

00:44:05.800 about uh half of those it's severe but then so that's still a that's still way too like one out

00:44:12.520 of four and your sound is gonna hurt yeah when there's so many tens probably hundreds of millions

00:44:18.520 of people around the world on these drugs like it's just way too too many people but it's certainly

00:44:24.420 not a guarantee um yeah and it's that's about right in my anecdotal experience too about the

00:44:30.740 people like i've got a lot of friends and people who say okay well you know i want to get off my

00:44:36.300 drugs like will you will you coach me through it and i'm just kind of like yeah well i'm not a

00:44:39.480 doctor but like i'll i'll help you make sure you know give your shoulder to cry on and tell you

00:44:44.260 that you're not crazy and from my anecdotal experience too it's it's roughly about split

00:44:49.020 half and half is people who are having a pretty hard time and people who are just like i don't

00:44:53.620 know i might be a little weepy but like it's okay so interesting hmm yeah so it's not everyone well

00:45:04.560 that's good did you notice um an increase in food sensitivities when you stopped taking them

00:45:09.380 or did you not really notice a diet roll so for me diet was like i mean of all the problems i was

00:45:17.140 having with food seemed didn't even occur to me that that could somehow be contributing at all

00:45:22.880 um i've since found out because i've now been kind of on this journey to figure out why my

00:45:28.020 gut's so screwed up that like i i've stopped eating both gluten and dairy and have markers

00:45:33.440 for the sensitivities there and i like everything's doing a lot better since stopping that so

00:45:38.400 you know god only knows that i was doing that the whole time but i don't know if it would have

00:45:41.820 helped withdrawal specifically um then i was i was like i was so kind of far gone in a way that

00:45:47.700 i wasn't really in even in a place to like consider whether or not i should go out get

00:45:52.320 myself some good you know some good healthy organic broccoli instead of just like yeah

00:45:58.240 whatever was in my cabinet so i think i was lucky in in the way i never considered stopping taking

00:46:06.100 the antidepressants i never was like this is a problem and i want to stop them i was like i'm

00:46:10.480 gonna be on these forever and thank god i have these like that was my opinion but then when i

00:46:15.800 started playing around with diet for the arthritis and the skin issues and then that started and then

00:46:21.140 my depression went away I was like what that's associated and so I think I was I probably avoided

00:46:28.760 some symptoms by cutting down because I I noticed for sure when I reintroduced certain foods that

00:46:36.900 would cause the like hallucinations and I just attributed it to the diet but it was 100% because

00:46:43.320 of the antidepressant withdrawal and just flare-ups just like it was like the reaction my body was

00:46:49.400 having to certain foods was the same as like sound hurting and light hurting um it was the

00:46:56.020 same kind of thing but miserable experience wouldn't recommend it to anyone there are

00:47:01.580 definitely ways to get off of them where you don't just stop taking them and then wonder what's going

00:47:05.540 on for two and a half years yeah or even if you are you know going through a tapering process

00:47:09.900 and you're being really diligent with it and you're still having symptoms at least you know

00:47:14.760 why at least it's not this i guess i'm crazy forever depressed forever type of thing like

00:47:21.640 there's there's a real reason and it does go away yeah it does yeah and it goes away people really

00:47:27.220 need to know that because when you're in it it doesn't feel like it's going to go away ever and

00:47:31.680 that's that's part of the really scary part is like whatever the symptoms are it's like this is

00:47:36.800 i'm crazy and i'm going to be stuck like this forever i had those thoughts but then i was like

00:47:41.860 there's a part of me that was like nah people can't survive this crazy i was like people that

00:47:47.140 like this state of being isn't survivable so i must be damaged and if i'm damaged i should be

00:47:53.000 able to heal because like this is too crazy to last exactly god i think that's so important

00:47:58.220 because the whole narrative in mental health is like okay this you know you've got this bad thing

00:48:04.180 so you have to manage or cope with this bad thing but there's no focus at all on our body's innate

00:48:09.880 ability to heal and how our body's always trying to get back to homeostasis it's trying to get back

00:48:14.700 to like a natural happy healed point for our own personal body so like the brain is amazing it's

00:48:21.480 plastic it's malleable it can change it just needs time and you have to give it time and if you you've

00:48:28.900 spent so many years basically like literally changing your brain chemistry through these

00:48:33.060 neurotropic drugs like it's unreasonable to think that like in my case I spent 15 years on these

00:48:39.200 drugs that i was going to be like you know perky and normal after a week it's just need more time

00:48:46.720 yeah and if you think about it like well as if like if somebody was drinking and they drank

00:48:53.860 every day right then getting off of alcohol is going it's going to be messy right it's you're

00:48:59.980 not hung over for a day or or two if you've been drinking every day for 15 years right and these

00:49:05.840 drugs like they work every day it's crazy to subject your brain to something that saturates

00:49:11.440 all your neurotransmitters in something constantly for for like a decade and a half for you

00:49:16.840 yeah and it gets stored in your body too so that's why it doesn't just like

00:49:20.200 it stays in your body for longer periods of time so it has to filter out and

00:49:25.400 takes different times for different people and then there's also there's like that i'm very

00:49:30.880 curious to know how you dealt with this because there's the there's the psychological fallout of

00:49:34.700 it all too like like I had not only created this whole identity around this idea that I was broken

00:49:41.860 permanently and that there was you know it was my brain that was the problem it wasn't me so

00:49:45.960 you know I was going to be depressed not just who I was I had spent so long in that space that I

00:49:52.520 had developed an identity around it and so you know it's very convenient in some ways I had an

00:49:56.420 excuse for everything but then once I got off all these drugs and like started healing suddenly I

00:50:01.140 was completely I had no idea who I was I'd been medicated since I was a kid since my dad died

00:50:06.140 right like there's you can't use your 14 year old self as your frame of reference for who you are as

00:50:11.680 a 30 year old adult so then that process of actually almost like relearning who I was and

00:50:18.740 figuring out who I was as an adult while also feeling incredibly stunted because so much of

00:50:24.040 what I like I feel like so much my emotional development was stunted when I was medicated

00:50:27.900 i had that that's been brutal in a completely different way just because it's like i feel so

00:50:33.300 behind and like having to learn stuff that most people learned in their 20s and it's just

00:50:39.500 it just makes me feel handicapped in a way i had that i had that for sure um i didn't know

00:50:49.500 what role and he just antidepressants had played in the development of my personality

00:50:54.700 right so if you're on them i started them i was either 11 or 12 i think i was 12 and um i had like

00:51:04.100 a set personality on them and now it turns out after i started taking them when i was 23 i'm 30

00:51:10.540 so seven years not being on them i'm like no i'm pretty much like i was on them but much much less

00:51:18.280 volatile and much less emotional so the emotional part of my personality is like got wiped out

00:51:25.440 and I think part of that like that might even be a hyper response to how I was because like so now

00:51:32.200 I'm in situations like this isn't stressful at all like maybe I should be feeling some stress

00:51:36.960 that I'm not feeling because everything was so stressful for so long that now normal things that

00:51:43.180 should be stressful don't feel stressful but anyway I I had that I had that for sure and I had

00:51:48.940 it like actively that I was concerned about it so I stopped taking them and I was like

00:51:53.300 am I a good person I remember I had that I was like am I a good person like

00:51:58.520 so yeah I think that's normal too and it was good person as in like my emotions were all out of

00:52:05.460 whack yeah am I feel like do I feel guilt it turns out I do feel guilt but like there was a period of

00:52:11.320 time where i was like i'm not sure if i feel guilt right it's like oh no the guilt is there and then

00:52:15.880 it's like do i care about when you know when other people are hurt oh no no i still care but like

00:52:22.600 that's really scary to go through yeah especially if other people are involved like i know it's it's

00:52:28.620 wreaked havoc on my personal relationships because i'm just kind of like like it's like

00:52:33.580 people look at me like okay you should probably react this way this is an appropriate way to

00:52:38.420 react in this situation and I'm just like like sometimes I'm either completely shut down or I'm

00:52:44.520 just bawling and either way it's like it seems very inappropriate to the other person involved

00:52:48.520 and it's just taken a long time to realize like okay there's there's an actual learning curve to

00:52:53.220 this sort of uh emotional reaction here that I am now having to learn as a 30 year old adult not

00:52:58.740 as you know a teenager which is when a lot of people learn this and um I only think it's now

00:53:05.700 i mean it's been six years since i've been off these drugs that i'm starting to feel pretty

00:53:08.540 confident and okay like what is who who am i versus what have i had to learn and

00:53:15.900 walking that line has just been really tricky

00:53:19.160 that's super interesting i totally forgot that i went through that

00:53:25.180 and but i attributed it this was before i knew i went through antidepressant withdrawal

00:53:28.860 so what i thought was i started a diet diet helped my autoimmune disorder

00:53:34.540 and then I got really sensitive to the foods I was eating for like a period of two and a half

00:53:40.740 years then I finally went on the carnivore diet and like just like geez just get rid of all the

00:53:44.920 variables yeah and then about five months after that the lingering anxiety went away did you ever

00:53:50.820 um and I didn't attribute it to antidepressant withdrawal until my dad was like obviously

00:53:56.900 reacting to the drugs he was on um did you experience a period of like elevated mood

00:54:02.740 after you stopped taking them after the down kind of like a hypomania yeah or hypomania something

00:54:08.500 like that you know I didn't get it in the sense that um I didn't get it in a way that like other

00:54:14.000 people would have said oh she's talking really fast or something seems off but it was more just

00:54:19.680 like and again I don't know if this I think I I definitely kind of over corrected but then it is

00:54:25.840 since come in a sense normalized but I just I kind of just had this like really big burst of

00:54:31.280 creativity and focus in the sense that, you know, again, I wasn't sleeping. I went from sleeping

00:54:37.000 like 12 hours a night and taking a three hour nap every day, because that was how the drugs worked

00:54:42.180 with me to like, okay, now I'm sleeping four or five hours. And like, what am I going to do with

00:54:46.400 all this extra time? So I just suddenly had this urge to paint and I would, you know, paint into

00:54:52.820 the night. And then I was, I was, I knew I was going to be on Chopped and I was having a meltdown

00:54:57.100 over that because I was in withdrawal. And I was like, I'm going to lose my shit on TV and this 0.99

00:55:01.180 is going to be bad. So I just got obsessive about flashcards and studying. And so I really 0.99

00:55:07.180 channeled that. I did that. You did? Like for school? That's so funny. Yeah. I was in biomedical

00:55:14.060 science in university. I had a retarded number of flashcards that I had handmade. I don't know

00:55:20.640 how many flashcards. I think I had 400 of them. Like seriously, to memorize, you know, biology

00:55:26.580 terms which is like it's a way it works yeah that's weird so i yeah i don't feel like because

00:55:34.160 i channeled it so much it felt very productive i don't know what that might have looked like

00:55:37.840 if i was like didn't have a way to channel it um but i definitely like

00:55:42.240 it was just such a contrast between being down and being and being up i mean and like as even

00:55:52.060 as i'm talking about it you can hear how it's so easily been given a bipolar diagnosis right

00:55:56.400 using terms down and up and you know those sorts of things but um it's just like when I felt good

00:56:02.980 I felt really good and I just thought maybe I was done and I felt smart and productive and clear and

00:56:08.540 focused and then it would just turn and then it would be awful for days or weeks and just kind

00:56:15.780 of never knew how it was going to go so it's just exhausting yeah that's weird see yeah that's

00:56:24.860 that's super strange i wonder what that i mean people don't know so there's not even that much

00:56:30.680 of a use of talking about it but why would that why would that happen like for instance i i was

00:56:36.840 put on oxycontin for my hip and ankle replacement when i was 17 i took an insane amount of painkiller

00:56:42.240 i was in an insane amount of pain for a whole year and then i had withdrawal i could feel it

00:56:48.920 for about a year after that so it was like acute for six weeks and then i was like okay it's over

00:56:55.360 but it wasn't my brain's like every six months i was like oh i'm a bit better for a couple years

00:56:59.960 but it was kind of linear it was like you know three weeks of really bad and then three weeks

00:57:06.760 of kind of bad little bit of suicidality at the end there and then and then better and then six

00:57:12.380 months better and antidepressant withdrawal which is why i correlated it with the autoimmune reactions

00:57:19.260 i was having because i was definitely happening but they went crazy up and down like why would

00:57:25.180 you feel fine in the middle of withdrawal for a while and then be back in like hell so strange

00:57:32.780 i don't know it's really good question i mean i would just kill for someone to do some

00:57:35.900 very diligent brain scans while someone's going through this i just i mean for all we know like

00:57:43.840 stuff is turning off and on i mean we know that some of these um psychotropic drugs they

00:57:49.000 they decrease gray they do gray matter i think they they change they change brain size they

00:57:55.520 they atrophy parts of your brain i mean and then the brain has to overcorrect and other parts of

00:58:00.600 the brain like tick up and are overactive and so i don't know maybe it's just like literally the

00:58:07.080 brain kind of going back and forth until it finally finds balance but we don't we don't know

00:58:11.660 we don't have the research that i mean that's just my armchair hypothesis here yeah well it

00:58:19.040 was wild when we went to so we couldn't get any help in the western world to get dad off of meds

00:58:26.040 and and like dad's super smart so he'd get into the office and he'd like you know out talk the

00:58:31.040 person but he was having like he wasn't able to stop moving and and he knew it was the the drugs

00:58:37.440 too but going down on them made that worse it was like this is bad it exists on the drug and getting

00:58:44.920 going lower makes it worse I was like I think they all have to go completely right and and we

00:58:51.060 tried to go everywhere I kept calling you know hospitals and doctors and being like okay

00:58:55.820 this is my dad he's having like an allergic reaction to the medication he's on plus mixed

00:59:00.580 mixed withdrawal what would you do if we got there and they'd be like well it sounds like bipolar so

00:59:06.040 we'd adjust his medication and I was just like we called 52 places and I was like okay so we went

00:59:12.280 to Russia and they just got rid of the drugs which was so dangerous and so scary um but he felt way

00:59:20.520 better in like a six-week period almost like it was bad but you know he didn't die in an asylum

00:59:28.040 which was what was going to happen and and now he's like you know it took 2019 it took like three

00:59:37.720 years for him to like recover from all that and now he's on tour and he's totally fine and he's

00:59:42.100 not taking anything right yeah but like this stuff it kills people i i wonder how many of the people

00:59:48.900 walking around the streets that you see talking to themselves are on psychiatric medications and

00:59:55.900 have been missing doses or going up and down or being switched yeah and that's not even their

01:00:01.480 mental disorder yeah yeah the uh robert wettker goes into that a bit the monotony of an epidemic

01:00:06.680 was one of the hypotheses because the so many of the bipolar drugs and the antipsychotics

01:00:12.200 like create major uh brain changes over time that create the tremors and all sorts of things

01:00:20.140 i mean if they're getting okay pulled off and start and stop and left right and center

01:00:25.040 you know they okay so they create major brain changes yeah so that that's why so i started on

01:00:30.440 that like the russia topic because when we went there they did scans of my dad's brain and and 0.96

01:00:35.760 they're like oh he has brain changes from the antidepressant use and i was like what the fuck 0.95

01:00:41.020 like what do you mean brain changes that can't be good they didn't this they're speaking in 0.98

01:00:46.560 russian i'm like getting information through a translator they're just like yeah antidepressant

01:00:50.560 caused brain changes and i was like no that's not supposed to happen yeah i was like is that

01:00:55.500 because then that would have happened to me it's like that's right that's not supposed to happen

01:00:59.280 it's like yeah yeah it's long-term high dose antidepressant use brain changes yeah oh brain

01:01:04.500 changes sounds bad yeah i mean i think if we think of i i think that there's such a spectrum

01:01:10.900 here right i think there there are you know there are people who can get off these drugs no problem

01:01:15.000 um no issues at all there are people probably more like i think i'm probably on the far end

01:01:20.760 of the spectrum where like i'm not sure i had actual brain damage but i had really severe

01:01:24.840 withdrawal but then there are other people who seem to have like actual like brain damage that

01:01:32.160 you can see in scans and i don't know if i had that because i you know was nowhere near that

01:01:36.140 ability to get a scan but it's just it's it's like complex ptsd right it's not just ptsd it's

01:01:43.340 an actual there's actual changes to the brain the brain the organ has been harmed and it makes

01:01:48.380 sense that then you're having these you know biological physical symptoms that cascade down

01:01:52.980 the chain yep pretty unacceptable so you have it's i think you know this is going to happen

01:02:03.800 to a lot in more and more people it's just sorry go ahead no I just wanted to say like I just I

01:02:10.820 think that you and your dad you saved a lot of lives by being going public with what was going

01:02:15.760 on and it was pretty instrumental for this book to happen actually because I remember when you

01:02:23.420 started doing all the updates for your dad when he was in Russia and the fact that that was

01:02:27.980 happening that told me I was like this is this is about to be a really big deal because we have

01:02:32.640 someone here who's pretty high profile going through this and this is going to get a lot of

01:02:36.660 people's attention and that really told me that honestly it told me that I wasn't that I wasn't

01:02:40.880 nuts and that the story really needed to be told and it gave me a lot of motivation to keep writing

01:02:46.240 this book and get it out there and so I just like I think you guys have helped a lot of people

01:02:53.800 indirectly and directly from sharing that experience and just thank you for that

01:02:58.340 oh like not not gonna cry thank you thank you I've been so angry I was so angry like I saw my dad

01:03:09.660 just get tortured I got tortured like hallucinating what the fuck is that I want to

01:03:16.140 hallucinate demons that's scary like other than everything else but then what happened to dad 0.98

01:03:21.820 with akathisia and then it was so bad it was every doctor we went to and it was like him too

01:03:29.520 being like i'm done i'm done like i'm gonna die i'm done and then i was there being like 0.97

01:03:36.380 no absolutely fucking not you're not gonna die like this is a drug thing and your brain can heal 0.97

01:03:44.400 but like whoa did his brain have to heal akathisia is a terrifying thing and he doesn't have it 0.99

01:03:51.320 anymore so thank god for that but i was like this is like i'm not gonna be able to stop

01:03:56.940 talking about this because this almost killed my dad and like it didn't almost kill him it almost

01:04:02.120 left him to be tortured every day from psych med effects in an asylum that's where it almost left

01:04:09.500 it almost left my mom like oh it got me but like when he was hospitalized for a while

01:04:19.660 she was like bringing him food every day

01:04:23.020 i've got like a touch of just a touch of ptsd from these like experiences but it was like 0.98

01:04:34.660 fuck it was like two and a half years like that could have been my parents lives like my dad in 0.96

01:04:39.560 a hospital actively being tortured from the side effects my mom bringing him food every day 0.99

01:04:44.440 from medications he just needed to be taken off of so anyway i'm pissed off about it so that's why

01:04:52.540 we started we started to talk about it too it's like if there are other people going through this

01:04:56.800 they just need to know that they have to wait they just have to get through it and they're

01:05:01.300 going to be okay afterwards and then to also incorporate like this this needs to be enough

01:05:07.520 up in the zeitgeist that when people are considering starting these drugs

01:05:11.440 they need to know that this is a possibility and not in just some like form that's four pages long

01:05:17.700 of tiny print and you sign saying oh yeah i was informed of the side effects like this needs to be

01:05:22.080 a serious conversation with your doctors before these medications are started and especially for

01:05:27.880 god's sake for kids like these drugs still i was on effects are in will butrin like well they're

01:05:31.920 still not prescribed they're still not approved for children why like why was i put on them i

01:05:37.700 off-label like it's just it's just I think we are such a fear-driven society in that

01:05:44.620 especially like with all the you know awful suicides and everything that's happening with

01:05:49.200 kids that it's just terrifying parents into trying to avoid the hard stuff and to avoid

01:05:56.480 looking at their own role in their children's lives and what's happening to the child I mean

01:06:01.580 you know I don't know what was going on with you or in in fifth grade but like there had to have

01:06:05.900 been something right like did i don't know if this came out of the blue or what and well i i'd be

01:06:10.460 curious to know but i don't you know it's obviously your story you don't have to answer it i mean it's

01:06:16.180 pretty complex like if i could go back then i would you know obviously now knowing what i know

01:06:21.060 i would say absolutely not but i mean i was very depressed so i'd been i'd been diagnosed with

01:06:26.600 arthritis and i was on two different immune suppressants in grade two and so by grade five

01:06:33.100 I was like, I wasn't on anything other than two like injectable immune suppressants like

01:06:39.200 methotrexate and Enbrel.

01:06:40.920 They use methotrexate for cancer.

01:06:42.580 Like it's an intense drug.

01:06:44.160 But I was like, I wasn't sleeping.

01:06:46.500 I was having really vivid nightmares.

01:06:48.580 I was having suicidal thoughts.

01:06:50.580 I was really angry, like punching walls angry.

01:06:54.220 I was just in grade five.

01:06:56.080 And that was from like, honestly, this is part of the reason I talk about my diet all

01:07:01.320 the time is i i do think if i had even just gone gluten-free and dairy-free and gotten rid of the

01:07:08.160 processed foods i think that would have lowered all of those depressive symptoms but i can also

01:07:14.740 understand like my parents my dad was also depressed at the time like looking at their

01:07:20.540 kid and being like you don't want them to hurt like a grade five or grade six or whatever you

01:07:25.160 don't want them to hurt themselves and it's like well they could take the medication i'm taking

01:07:28.820 it helps me that's what my dad thought and it did help initially which just makes everything

01:07:34.260 confusing it's like oh yeah mikayla's calmed down but then it was like years went by and i got like

01:07:39.320 worse and worse and the depression got worse and worse and suicidal like impulses and violent

01:07:45.000 thoughts got worse but if you think about it like i mean i just can't imagine what the the stress

01:07:52.960 the emotional stress on a second grader for all all of the physical stress and you know those

01:08:01.540 those really heavy drugs and you know a young brain that can't rationalize any of this stuff

01:08:07.120 i mean you know it's just the the i think the fear how much is that the fear and the depression

01:08:13.320 seems like a natural reaction to a pretty terrible situation for what like a seven-year-old

01:08:17.380 who can't express themselves very well and you know obviously like i know i don't i don't know

01:08:24.840 how we would address that with a young child um but i just well you can't put them on a drug

01:08:31.340 that causes this kind of what like this isn't the answer there's there's some something needs

01:08:36.660 to be done but i don't know how much uh like part of the problem too is both my parents were also

01:08:43.500 like ill so it's just like a family of sickies luckily we're not a family of sickies anymore

01:08:49.340 but like so i can't i don't know what you would do like yeah i was definitely depressed i remember

01:08:55.180 like not wanting people to at school to know my brother would go i was like don't say i have

01:08:59.700 arthritis it's like an old person disease yeah so don't say that but i do think that the physical

01:09:04.840 like the anger and stuff i don't i think that was diet related i think a lot of that was diet

01:09:12.160 related given the fact that i can get my body to calm well i know what my reaction to foods is now

01:09:18.240 yeah and i get angry so yeah well then it's probably yeah it's a cycle too right the anger

01:09:24.060 is gonna increase the inflammation and so the arthritis is gonna get worse and so on and so

01:09:27.840 forth you know yeah pretty crazy just for like a little so what's your plan then yeah what's your

01:09:36.040 plan in the future yeah what's your goal here uh i mean i my goal is just to speak on this topic as

01:09:41.140 much as possible i would love to see this book in meds medical schools and also in psychiatric

01:09:46.980 residency trainings um yes that book may cause side effects you know they use like the bell jar

01:09:53.540 as an example of depression and in some medical schools they use an unquiet mind for um bipolar

01:10:01.640 is it an unquiet mind yeah or schizophrenia i can't remember there's so that's the thing there's

01:10:06.880 so many memoirs about psychiatric illnesses that are used as part of curriculums because

01:10:12.960 it helps practitioners understand what their patients are going through, but there's nothing

01:10:18.660 about withdrawal. And so I think that like, we need, we need that. We need that to be a part

01:10:23.580 of the conversation. So for me, it's just as much knowledge as I can get out there as possible.

01:10:28.640 I would also really, really love to see legislative, legislative change and requiring

01:10:35.260 pharmaceutical companies to provide more reasonable, smaller jumps in their drugs. So

01:10:42.340 it shouldn't be that you have to go from 75 milligrams of Effexor to 50 to 37.5. The jumps

01:10:48.420 are too big. You should be able to get much, much smaller, possibly even custom dosages.

01:10:53.860 You can get custom dosages through compound pharmacies, but not everybody has access to

01:10:59.620 those so i would i would just really like to see ironically more availability of lower dosages for

01:11:07.420 these drugs and smaller dosages so people can help taper more effectively that's something we should

01:11:14.720 probably mention too so one of the things we figured out um well one of the things i figured

01:11:20.180 out you could do to taper off these meds is use a compounding pharmacy so you can like search them

01:11:25.520 if you're in cities it's a lot easier much easier but you can have your doctor fax specific

01:11:33.380 prescriptions so if you're at like 100 you can go to 91 and they'll compound the medication for you

01:11:39.740 and give it to you so if you have access to a compounding pharmacy and you're trying to get

01:11:43.000 off of medications you can go down 10 at a time or whatever your body can tolerate using a

01:11:49.200 compounding pharmacy they're very helpful you do have to pay extra and there isn't really

01:11:54.800 an alternative other than and in like slicing pills like that it means you're gonna go like

01:12:02.000 up and down in doses which is gonna make the withdrawal worse it's just yeah and you can't

01:12:06.420 even slight like not all pills can be cut because then you break the chemical chains so it's really

01:12:10.400 important that you've got the knowledge of each specific drug i mean some can be dissolved in

01:12:14.880 water some can't some you can cut some can't some you can count the beads out some you can't so

01:12:20.580 it's just very important to have the deep knowledge of that which I mean the information

01:12:25.280 is out there on the internet I mean because it's had to be this has been very much a patient-led

01:12:29.060 revolution and it's because enough people are starting to make noise that we're starting to

01:12:35.180 sort of i think maybe you see a little change very early on yeah i think so i think it's the

01:12:45.000 same kind of thing like people kind of know processed foods aren't good in a in more of an

01:12:50.000 in-depth way than they knew 10 years ago right like they knew what junk food was but they're

01:12:54.040 like oh no it's more than that yeah i think the same thing is probably going to happen with

01:12:58.240 you know the more people talk about talk about this plus what is it you'd probably know this

01:13:03.660 better than me but isn't it 20 of people are on psych meds uh there's a bunch of difference i

01:13:10.740 think it's like one in five so yeah that's yeah 20 and then i mean it also it's really hard to

01:13:16.860 get data in the u.s because we don't have a centralized system so you're not getting full

01:13:20.940 reports so the reports we do get are like from like insurance companies and all those sorts of

01:13:25.980 things there's more there's more data from um other countries i mean even like i mean in let's

01:13:34.480 see in 2019 43 million americans were taking lex pro zoloft or another ssri that's just ssri

01:13:41.420 lexapro that was the one that made me angry yeah yeah yeah okay well brooke um where can people

01:13:52.100 find you online or find more information about your book so i'm i'm brooke seam everywhere that's

01:13:56.680 b-r-o-o-k-e-s-i-e-m you can find me on my website on instagram um i'm not particularly active on

01:14:03.560 other forms of social media but i do exist there um i also have a newsletter called happiness is

01:14:08.340 a skill that talks a lot about these sort of things and that's just at learnhappy.substack.com

01:14:14.340 and the book is available everywhere wherever books are sold amazon audible bookstores

01:14:21.180 uk australia canada everywhere good good well thank you very much for coming on thanks for

01:14:28.640 writing your book sorry you had to go through that but you may help a lot of people so maybe

01:14:33.360 the suffering is worth it yeah in the end same for you guys thanks so much for sharing your story

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - November 29, 2022

What Antidepressant Withdrawal Is Really Like ｜ EP 171 Brooke Siem

Episode Stats

Transcript