We have wildly different experiences with psych meds and psychiatrists, but Darcey and I share an incredible conversation in this week’s podcast episode!
This Episode’s Guest
Darcey Segers was a teacher in the public school system for five years. She has two daughters, and is a mental health educator and advocate, writer, entrepreneur, music lover, and enjoys doing all kinds of things outside.
Darcey was diagnosed with bipolar 1 in 2016. She took psychiatric medication for a year and a half before deciding to taper off of psych meds for good. She tried 20 psychiatric medications and was on as many as five at a time. Darcey got to a point where she was so miserable that she was either going to commit suicide or attempt to get off the psych meds.
Darcey’s psychiatrist graciously oversaw her tapering experience while allowing her to lead her own taper. She learned a lot in the process. She had to- as most psychiatrists are not trained in tapering patients safely off of meds at a tolerable pace. Darcey did an immense amount of research before and during her taper and learned to listen to her body and intuition when making decisions about tapering. It took Darcey around three years to taper off her last cocktail of four psych meds. It was, by far, one of the most difficult things she has ever done in her life. Darcey’s road to healing has included immense trauma work using a variety of healing modalities and coping strategies. Major lifestyle changes and the way she shows up in relationships have also been an integral part of her symptom management and healing process.
Darcey has been free from psychiatric medication for one year and is healthier than she has ever been, as she continues to heal from her trauma and serve others with experiences like hers.
Darcey will soon launch Liminal Mental Health Mentoring Services where she will be helping clients one on one who need the support they may not be finding in the mainstream mental health system. She specializes in supporting those who are tapering off psych meds, but welcomes anyone who wants first-hand knowledge about healing from psychiatric diagnoses, trauma recovery, practical coping skills, and how to transmute painful experiences and ways of being into a revelation and transformation.
Links
- Follow Darcey on Instagram
- Follow Darcey’s Liminal Mental Health consulting account for mental health and psych med taper mentorships
- Amino Acid Sleep-Supporting “Cocktail”: Glycine + Taurine + L-Ornithine + L-Theanine + Melatonin
Show Notes
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this episode, mental health mentor Darcey Segers and I…- discuss the connection between “mental illness” diagnoses and childhood and family trauma
- share Darcey’s diagnosis of Bipolar I and the symptoms she had that led to that diagnosis
- share about regulating the nervous system, processing trauma, and the importance of taking breaks in the healing journey
- discuss the importance of researching medications and considering long-term impact of medications like Seroquel, Zoloft, Lexapro, benzos, Naltraxone, and more
- share some practical ways to advocate for yourself without fear and deal with dismissive doctors
- share what to look for in a psychiatrist
- explain why symptoms aren’t meant to be gotten rid of or suppressed and what happens when we start listening
- share how Darcey and I have helped our kids to feel into their bodies, be with uncomfortable sensations, and how to move emotions
- share our perspectives on expansion, symptom “relapses”, and the nervous system
- share why the inclusion of spirituality is important in healing holistically
Transcript
Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of the holistic trauma healing podcast. I am so grateful that you were here. Um, in the last episode, if you listened to episode 73, you will remember that in the intro. I told you about a relapse or resurgence of. Uh, anxiety and insomnia that I’ve been experiencing, um, going on about six weeks now, I wanted to give you an update because I get asked about this a lot on Instagram with people, checking in to see how I’m doing.
And I just really, really appreciate that. Um, it matters to me that you care. So thank you. So I am actually doing better. Um, the anxiety is way, way down the insomnia. Seems to be improving. Um, I did ask my psychiatrist for a refill of some medication that I have used to sleep in the past and he refilled it for me and I’ve taken it a couple or three times.
Um, and I think that taking it reminded those receptor sites in my brain about. Uh, taking it from before. So if you’ve ever done, uh, a benzo taper or have been on a benzo before, it can like permanently alter the GABA receptor sites in your brain. And I mean, this is what makes benzos so effective. It’s also what makes benzos so prone to people becoming dependent upon them.
And it’s also what makes benzos a bitch to get off of. So, anyway, um, whenever I was tapering off of this medication in 2020, uh, I would wake up in the middle of the night and I felt like I was vibrating on the inside of my body. And it was pretty disorient disorienting at first because I. Like I thought my bed was vibrating.
I thought maybe there was like something happening in my house that was vibrating the floor. And the vibration was traveling up through my bed and that’s what made me feel like I was vibrating, but then no one else felt it. And I realized it was just me. . So, um, all that to say in this resurgence of anxiety and insomnia, you, that I’ve experienced over the last six weeks, um, I did take that sleeping medication.
It’s the benzo it’s called temazepam. Um, and. Then I went like a week without taking it. And then I started waking up with the vibrating on the inside of my body. And so I was just kind of like noticing that, noticing how interesting that was, that I’m not tapering that psyched, but it’s like just taking it a couple or three times was enough to like, remind my neurochemistry, um, that this is a thing, right?
I don’t, I don’t know what the thing means, but it’s a thing. And so. I also mentioned in the last episode that I was trying a combination of amino acids and I wasn’t gonna share what that was until I had some more experience with them and actually had the ability to see if they were gonna work for me or not.
I use work there and air quotes. Um, for me, it’s more about supporting my body um, so I have noticed a difference. With the amino acids. Um, and I’m not getting the kind of sleep that I was getting prior to this resurgence of symptoms over the last six weeks, but it is definitely better. Um, and the anxiety is basically like gone now.
So I feel like I rode the wave of anxiety and I’m really proud of the way that I did that. And, um, I feel like that’s pretty much gone and any anxiety that I may have left that’s lingering or whatever, it feels like it’s directly related to just the insomnia, just feeling anxious about not sleeping and also not sleeping.
Like disregulates your nervous system. So. A byproduct of that could be, uh, anxiety. It could also be brain fog, which has been the case for me as well. Um, so there’s a lot of different trickle down effects that insomnia can have in symptoms that insomnia itself can create that feel like something’s wrong with your mind or your body when actually it’s just connected to the lack of sleep because sleep is so to our overall health and wellbeing.
So now I will share, uh, the amino acid cocktail that I’m using. And please know, I am not recommending this. Um, I am not a doctor. Um, I am definitely not your doctor. Um, I am taking these amino acids with, uh, support, um, I’ve educated myself about them. I feel like I’ve read up on them and I feel solid in my decision to take them.
So the combination is touring or athe glycine and El fanning. And then I am rounding that out with melatonin. I’ve been playing with the dosages of each one, and I feel like I have landed at a dosage that has been supportive of my sleep. Again, like supportive being the key there in no way, shape or form in my pretending that these things are healing anything or fixing anything.
But they are supporting my sleep and my sleep is not as great as it was prior to this resurgence of insomnia, but it is way, way, way, way better than it was before I started these amino acids. So with that being said, I will tell you the dosages that are working for me at this time. please again, do not take this as medical advice.
Please educate yourself. Talk to your practitioner. If you have questions, uh, do some research feel if it feels like a yes or a no in your body, all of that is so important. Don’t just take what I’m saying and do it because I’m not trying to give advice. I’m just sharing my own experience. So the dosages of these amino acids and melatonin that I have landed at.
Our 2000 milligrams of Toine 2000 milligrams of glycine, a thousand milligrams of ornathine and 200 milligrams of altheine. And then on top of that, I am adding 10 milligrams of melatonin. So I am gonna link to the supplements that I’m using below. Um, I’m picky when it comes to supplements. Again, I haven’t been on the supplement train for quite some time, so it’s.
Feels a little bit weird to even be sharing with you that this is what I’m doing because. You know, I think I created that binary in my own head about like, if I’m off the health and wellness hamster wheel, then that equals no supplements ever again. And now the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction and I’m seeing that there actually can be a balance and I can, I can support myself with supplements without relying on supplements to fix me.
And that’s what feels like the biggest shift for me. So I’ll link to the amino acids and the melatonin that I’m using. Uh, below in the description box or in the show notes, depending on where you are listening to this episode from. and with that said everything I just said applies to this episode because I am chatting with someone who has really similar experiences with me in terms of psych meds, tapering, um, diagnoses with mental health and all the things.
So I wanna tell you about my friend Darcy Seger Darcy was a public school teacher for five years. She has two daughters. And is a mental health educator, an advocate, a writer, an entrepreneur, a music lover, and enjoys doing all kinds of things outside. In 2016, she was diagnosed with bipolar one. She took psychiatric medication for a year and a half before deciding to taper off of psych meds for good.
She tried 20 different psychiatric medications and was on as many as five at a time time. Darcy got to a point where she was so miserable that she was either going to commit suicide or attempt to get off the psych meds. Her psychiatrist graciously oversaw her tapering experience while allowing her to lead her own taper.
And she learned a lot in that process. She had to, as most psychiatrists are not trained in tapering patients safely off of meds at a tolerable pace. Darcy did an immense amount of research before and during her taper and learned to listen to her body and intuition. When making decision about tapering, it took Darcy around three years to taper off her last cocktail of four psych meds.
And it was by far one of the most. Difficult things she’s ever done in her life Darcy’s road to healing has included immense trauma work using a variety of healing modalities and coping strategies, major lifestyle changes. And the way she shows up in relationships have also been an integral part of her system, of her symptom management and healing process.
Excuse me, Darcy has been free from psychiatric medication for one year and is healthier than she has ever been. As she continues to heal from trauma and serve others with experiences like hers. She has launched liminal mental health mentoring services, where she’s helping clients one on one who needs support.
They may not be finding in the mainstream mental health system. She’s realizes in supporting those who are tapering off of psych meds, but welcomes anyone who wants. Firsthand knowledge about healing from psychiatric diagnoses, trauma, recovery, practical coping skills, and how to transmute painful experiences and ways of being into a revelation and a transformation.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this episode, Darcy and I are discussing the connection between mental quote, unquote illness, diagnoses and family trauma. We share Darcy’s, uh, diagnosis of bipolar one and the symptoms she had that led to her diagnosis. We share about regulating the nervous system and processing trauma and. The very important inclusion of breaks in your healing journey, how you don’t need to be on all the time and always healing.We discussed the importance of researching medications and considering the long term impact. Um, we also talk about the various. Cocktails of psych meds that we were both on. Um, some of our experience with those experiences, with those things, we share some practical ways to talk to your dismissive doctors and advocate for yourself without fear.
Um, we talk about how to find a doctor who is regulated and not threatened by your questions and self advocacy. Um, we, so talk about your body, telling you what your soul is asking you to hear. Um, we also explain why symptoms aren’t meant to be gotten rid of or suppressed. We share how Darcy and I have helped our kids feel the sensations in their bodies and how to be with those sensations and how to work through them and process them and discharge them from their bodies.
We share our perspective on expansion, quote, unquote relapses and the nervous system, and why getting centered in your own. Spirit and spirituality is absolutely a part of holistic healing. So with all of that said, please welcome my guest Darcy Seager. You may know her from Instagram as red river riding hood.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hello, Darcy. Welcome to the holistic trauma healing podcast. I’m glad to finally get you on. Good morning. Yeah. Hey I just read your bio, but I would love it. If you would just share your story and tell us like how you got to where you are today, because you’re like in this amazing place of going from this diagnosis of mental illness, medication taper and now you’re like very openly outspoken against stuff like that, and even help people with your consulting to taper off psych meds.
So I just, I cannot wait because I’m so passionate about this topic. So just tell me your story. Yeah, sure. So I’m 44 now. I believe I was diagnosed around like 38. And people will often ask like, when did everything start and I’m a smart ass about it, but also it’s true that it started when I was born, because our family’s very much.
I have something to do with our diagnosis is my belief our current family origins, and then also just, the family that, that birth, their parents. And yeah, that’s true. And I got pretty fired up the other day because one of my friends does some private coaching sports coaching for kids.
And there’s a child who is is in sixth grade. And the parents were calling my friends saying like, why is this kid is freaking out? And they’re so anxious and they have anxiety. And it’s like during the actual game. And the parent is trying to fix this child and she didn’t ask for my opinion, but we’ve been friends since like sixth grade.
just broke it down, once you’ve been through some of that, you can, it’s not rocket science and it’s not it’s not, a mystic observation. It’s no, this is what happens. I was like that mom needs therapy, that mom needs to chill out. And my friend was like, yeah, the mom’s not chilling out.
I was like get ready for that kid to be medicated or suicidal or whatever. And, I feel like emotion coming up, I say those things like pretty openly and clearly, but I do, still have emotion around all of that, but it’s not like in a common experience.
And so I can see a lot now after my own experience. But yeah, so going back to my story Just, we’ll just say there was some family trauma, developmental and otherwise we can go further into that if you want to welcome to ask questions about that. But yeah, and so I didn’t realize it was trauma until I went to a treatment center in 38 and when I was 38.
And that’s the funny thing is that a lot of people, you and I both talk about trauma a lot. And I think most, if not all quote, mental illness which I hate that term, I think it’s limiting and really quite frankly erroneous, but yeah, I think most people who exhibit, we’ll just say mental illness symptoms like anxiety insomnia, depression et cetera, et cetera.
Normally they have some kind of trauma. And so yeah, I. I looking back, I see that I had that, but I was diagnosed finally by a psychiatrist who I stayed with. And I think the world of did she make all the right decisions? No, but we’re all learning, we’re all learning.
And she was one of those people that was open to learn from me and her patients in general. And, I saw her evolution along the way. But before that I was first. Given psych meds and I’m not like a pill popper. I’m also not anti-medicine when my kids get strep throat, we’re all getting on antibiotics.
I know it’s terrible for your gut. So is death. So it’s literally pick your poison. Yes, if I don’t have to take antibiotics, I won’t, but it if it is a bacterial thing and that’s what, nips it in the bud, let’s do it. And then, we’ll go from there and, take probiotics or eat yogurt or whatever we need to do or not.
And, the body’s tremendous it recouping and I seem to be doing okay, but I’ll take ibuprofen, every now and then, but and my dad is actually a doctor, but growing up, if he got sick, it was like, Orange juice and go to sleep, which isn’t a terrible thing to do.
You get the kind of a placebo effect with the orange juice and then your body does need rest and normally can heal itself. But yeah, so normally that’s my take, but I was at my wit’s end. Didn’t know what to do. I was experiencing anxiety. Depression on and off since probably middle school.
Middle school is probably when I can remember. Now looking back, I see that there was all kinds of anxious behavior that was happening, whether it was creating stories in my mind or, biting my fingernails, which I still do is disgusting. But I went through a phase where I did it and I was like, thank you, Jesus.
And then I started again, I don’t know what was, I was like, I need to go back to that part of my, whatever was happening. Let’s do that. Yeah. The nail biting is that’s a, that’s an enigma. I haven’t been able to solve yet either. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, and I am a big believer in harm reduction. So if it’s I’m not self-harming, but I invited my fingernails.
Okay. That’s okay. We’ll deal with that. Yeah. But yeah. And I was feeling so much anxiety in my body. Like I remember feeling as if I was spinning around inside, and I’m sure there’s some science behind it. I’m usually more interested in the spiritual, emotional metaphor, because that’s where I get more answers, but I’m sure there’s some kind of nervous system, thing going on there.
I talk about all my words, symptoms, because I want people to know that it’s it’s not weird. It’s just like your body. I’m telling you, I think what your soul wants you to hear that, Hey, there’s some things that need to be looked at and for you to live fully and freely we need to make some big changes.
And so my body started speaking pretty loudly. Yeah. So can you remind me, was it bipolar two you were diagnosed with or one? Okay. I got the big one and grateful, gratefully. I did have this psychiatrist, I asked her, if am I bipolar one or bipolar two? And she said it’s a spectrum disorder.
And she said, if I had to, if there was a gun to my head and I had to pick, I would diagnose you with one. And it all depends on who you go to, which psychiatrist doctor will you get one or two or when you get schizophrenia or will you get anxiety and depression, or just PTSD, like it’s all grouped together.
What were some of the symptoms that you were experiencing that led to that diagnosis? Initially, it was insomnia. I couldn’t sleep well and I still have. Some issues with that, but I’ve reframed it. And usually there is something that I need to look at. I need a journal or, there may be, my diet’s pretty good.
It’s not perfect. I do eat sugar. I like it. And I’m not going to stop, and and it’s not an indulgence, but but yeah. And normally when there is a symptom I look at, the root cause what’s behind it and what do I need to change? And do I want to you get to choose that I’m learning that, but yeah.
So insomnia like I said, depression on and off for awhile anxiety with. Started coming out in a way that I thought they were panic attacks in which I have had panic attacks. So I know what that’s like. And I know the difference from these other things that I finally called them freak outs. I was calling them freakouts, which, because nobody really had a name for it.
I just freak out. And then later I met a therapist who would call them regressions and there was, there was a forget aspect. There was a panic aspect, there was a regressive aspect. But I finally got with my current trauma specialist and she calls them body flashbacks and she knew exactly what they were and I felt safe to do them in front of her because normally I would go to my room and just I knew enough to let my body do what it’s doing.
Observe myself in a way. And then also just let that energy do something. Cause I knew it was better than just holding it tight that wasn’t an option anymore. And I did a lot of learning on my own and then taking little tidbits from certain practitioners. But then with my trauma specialist, she through a lot of things, different things, she was able to form a story.
And then also, again, it’s not rocket science, it feels like it to me. And I’m like, she isn’t lightweight, but no she’s really smart. She is very intuitive as well. But once you do any job for a while, you can like talk to somebody one time and. Maybe not for sure, make a diagnosis, but go, okay, there’s a flag, there’s a flag, there’s a flag.
And then you slowly start to form a story and I’m starting to do that with my clients. And and then you can ask questions, dig deeper into those things. And that’s what she does, and then she also would watch me have these freakouts, which they can look all different ways, but it’s almost like a pantomiming ultra trauma sometimes, or trying to guard myself.
And there’s sometimes where I would have just uncontrollable body movements, which I think came from. A few different things. I think it came from being on meds, coming off meds, and then also these flashbacks which that was scary as shit when I was coming off the meds, because I didn’t know why, but once I, regulated my nervous system setback zoomed out, I realized that no matter the reason why the answer’s still the same and it was to pendulate regulating my nervous system and then processing trauma, regulating my nervous system processing trauma, and then taking a damn break and, going to the movies hanging out with friends.
All of that is part of your, or a part of my healing experience. It’s all of that, it’s not just going balls to the wall all day long processing Trump. Yeah. Yeah. I tell that, I tell my clients all the time, like you do not have to be always healing. There is a time to heal and then there is a time to pause and put the car in park and hang out here for a little while and enjoy this view and integrate what you just learned.
And like when the next thing comes up, that’s when, it’s time to put the car back and drive and keep going. But yeah. So you were diagnosed with bipolar one when you were 38. Yeah, I think, yeah, it was 38 and I first got put on psych meds and I’ll do some bullet points in a little bit.
Perfect. Yeah, so I got, I went to my family physician. I’m not real fond of now for a few reasons, but she had me fill out this, eight question questionnaire, are you depressed? All that stuff, those things. I had the same thing. I’ll share my experience with that too, because I had the same experience.
Yes. And so I go in and I’m tripping out, I’m having like this spiritual emergence I’m having this trauma come up. I’m finally expressing emotions that I haven’t for 38 years. That’s what’s happening. But so often these practitioners probably haven’t dealt with their own trauma. And so they’re responding to fear with fear, and we see that with cases like me and the probably like you.
And then also, obviously we’re seeing what that has done in the world with everything going on and we’ve just got to do better. That’s, that’s what would be good. I’m not gonna say change the paradigm. I’m not changing anything. I’m just offering different options is what I’m doing.
But but anyway, and so she gives me maybe Lexapro and Xanax, and I ask about that. Yeah. I asked about the side effects and all she says is Lexapro might have me gain weight. And that’s all she said no. Talk on ’em don’t stop Xanax cold Turkey, which I think that’s absolute negligence.
That’s so unethical. Like how do you not talk about that? Did she say anything about you shouldn’t take this for more than two to four weeks? Like it can cause dependency, anything like that? I don’t remember any talk like that. I definitely know there wasn’t like, here’s what we’re going to do now.
And then this is the next thing we’re going to do because I’m, I do understand why psychiatrists and other doctors give people medicines for an acute situation. I get that. I get that, if somebody is suicidal we want to get them through that phase to the next thing. Now sometimes the psych meds can make you suicidal.
I didn’t have suicidal thoughts like actually planning and intention until I was on psych meds. So there is that. But yeah, so she didn’t really tell me much. So if nobody listens to anything else from this podcast researcher meds, don’t depend on the doctor to do it, if you choose meds fine.
But sometimes there’s a med that you can pick that has less side effects, or it may be more beneficial to you. And when it comes down to it, we’re responsible for our own health and the doctors should be doing better, but they’re not. So we have to do better. Somebody has to. Yeah. And I got worse.
I found a psychotic. God, there’s so many things that, I just want to rant and rave about, but I’m trying to just create new solutions, but I’m the only psychiatrist my doctor was okay. Sending me to in town. And I live in a smaller city. It’s a hundred thousand people, not tiny, but still not a lot of options.
It takes two months to get into him, which it was probably a blessing in disguise not to see him. But I tried another a psychiatrist and she was, I think she had a good heart, but she was the talked to you for 15 minutes and then sending you on her on your way, because she was part of a clinic.
And that’s just, I think doctors are also. They could choose different lead, but they also are victims to the system as well. And I think there’s plenty of good doctors out there. So then from there, I remember there was one day and this is all in the same calendar year. I think it’s 2016, this is probably in a I don’t know, in a period of three, four months.
And I remember taking my kids to summer camp and I had some aggression in some like feelings of violence come up. And I also was having suicidal thoughts and I was with it enough to go, holy crap, these things aren’t good together because I’m having this suicidal thoughts and that energy and normally.
The anger was directed to me, it was directed back to me. And I was like, this isn’t good. And finally decided to go to a treatment center which was not cheap. And we had to make sacrifices. We didn’t have enough money to pay for it. We had to ask for family to pay and all of that. And I am grateful that I had the ability to do that.
I know not everybody does. But yeah, I we were paying it off for a while. It’s not we’re just like, oh yeah, it was go to the Vinci treatment center. And it was one of the nicer ones and they were trauma informed and did neurofeedback and all kinds of so somatic stuff. They also did give me a shit ton of meds, but they didn’t allow benzos.
And so by that time I was on, oh Lord Jesus. What was I on? I think Zoloft, I was on Seroquel lithium, maybe I think. And I can’t believe I remember all of this and Klonopin, which I was taking three times a day, but I also had a little Xani left. And so like when I was having these panic attacks, I would do both.
And my psychiatrist was like I don’t know if that’s the greatest thing was she should have been like, bitch. No, like my second psychiatrist was like, I was like do you prescribe people benzos? Because by that time I was like this blooming advocate. And I was like, because you shouldn’t, but she was like, I do prescribe benzos, just not to you.
Cause she was also an addiction doctor. And I, I wasn’t the worst addict ever, but I was definitely had some of those inclinations they came out in different ways, but yeah, so I went to this treatment center. A lot of things got kicked up. I was not able to sit in group settings like the, I was with a lot of military men, which I loved it.
It was like the perfect place for me. But also they were talking about like childhood sexual trauma. And when that would happen, I was just, I wasn’t aware of mine yet. And I was just like, Ooh. And I would just it was a joke. They were, they would laugh because later because I would run, like literally run away and go hide somewhere.
I’m having like all like the trauma responses, like flight Hyde. Finally they got me to it was a big deal to build really their resiliency to get me to sit and stay in the the meetings. But then I would have these like freak outs, but I would just be like, like this and I think it was a good thing because then I had somebody witnessing it.
I didn’t realize that at the time. And my therapist, my group therapist was okay with it. She was just like, it’s fine. And so that was a huge part of my healing. Somebody witnessing my pain and saying, however it’s coming out. It’s okay. It’s okay. And so I did that when I got out of it, there, there was a shit show.
I was probably I’d say I was like 60 pounds heavier than I am right now. It was probably due to all the ice cream made at the treatment center. And there was nothing really to do. So we ate like a ton and they had good food. So that was probably my, my coping mechanism.
Cause they took everything else away. But all the mechanisms anyway, not the skills, but yeah. And so I was. That off that way. A lot of what some people call mania was showing up, which I hate that term too, because I think it’s a nervous system dysregulation, plus some ego stuff, plus our mind making up stories to cope with what’s going on all of that stuff.
So I don’t like mania. Cause most of the time people see that as just being crazy. Yeah. I don’t agree with that. I think there’s a reason behind all symptoms, hallucinations, psychosis, all of that, and nothing’s wrong with this. But yeah. And so yeah, got it got out of, there was doing really poorly. I was trying to go to 12 step meetings.
I was probably alcohol dependent or they would like ebb and flow. Can I ask how long you were in the treatment facility? Yeah, 40, 44, 45 days. Wow. Wow. It was a minute. Yeah, but it was good. I would like to see someday facilities where people can have their full-blown spiritual, emotional emergence there, there used to be a place like that.
Like in the 60 seventies it’s since turned into a resort, but yeah, that’s, my dream actually is to open a facility like that. That has, it has like psychiatrists and nursing staff on staff, but also like meditation classes, yoga classes, therapists on site like a holistic trauma healing facility.
I don’t believe anyone should be a billionaire, but I’m like, this is a really big dream and I’m probably gonna need a billion dollars to pull it off. But I also want it to be free to people in my community. Cause we live, I live in a really underserved area for mental health when there’s like a mental health provider crisis here, like for therapists and psychiatrists and psychologists.
So my big dream is to open a facility like that in my community that is like free or low cost to local people. They need it so badly. Totally. And the one that I’m thinking about is called. Excellent. And I don’t know if you’re familiar with that in California. And I originally got my aunt who is not my blood and is married to my uncle.
She was married to her late husband was one of the co-founders and he has an interesting story where he was like, forcibly put into a mental hospital. A lot of, he had family trauma, all that very similar story to mine and, he created this thing. And it was a place like people would come and they would have to help too, which I think that, that helps those of us struggling to have some structure, you can help grow the food or whatever, there’s all kinds of ways to make it a little bit cheaper for people.
But yeah, I think there needs to be a place where people can be seen, be heard be taken care of can be taken off of psych meds if that. There inclination, be given other options. And there is a center that I tell people about it’s called oh, alternative to med center and somebody I know did go there.
And so it wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be, but it is an option that people can look into if you’re looking at getting off meds. But but yeah, and I’m trying to think where I was, yeah. Got out of the treatment center. Just, there was a shit show, I had to drive two hours to the new psychiatrist I found, which she was a hundred percent worth it.
She also didn’t take insurance. Okay. She didn’t want to be restricted. And so it was like $300 a pop and I went for four years for at least once a month, sometimes more. And like it does take money and it’s, it can be tough on financial situations, but it was worth it for me, and so were you on this cocktail the whole time? No. They like add the treatment center, if I was having symptoms, then they would adjust my meds and all of that, which, that’s just such a very around, it’s such a shit show and I don’t know how much science is really involved.
I can’t tell you when I did go to a psych hospital, which was in, I think 2017 February I admitted myself because I didn’t know what else to do. I was hoping to go and get my meds. But I wasn’t sleeping well when they adjusted my meds. And so I did go in to my psychiatrist and I go and this is not my personal psychiatrist is the one at the psych hospital, but I go by that time I knew a lot about psych meds.
And so I said can I exchange this for this? Can I drop this? And can I add. And he goes, yeah. And so I was like, I’m glad I did that, but I also should have asked for the really good stuff that but I was a zombie and I wanted to be there because I was like, I need to sleep.
It was too noisy, it was just out of my element and struggling, but I was also this should not be that easy. And how, it’s a Testament to the fact that we can become our own experts, but also I’m like, I shouldn’t have been able to do that. And your job, I shouldn’t be able to do your job.
That’s what I was thinking. But yeah, so I went to the psych hospital still, I was, when I got out of there, I was with a certain therapist and got some good things from her, but didn’t really start. Kick it into gear with the healing until I found one of my therapists here in town and she did a lot of like inner child work was trauma informed, not quite as well as the one I’m with now.
But she helped me build up a lot of emotional resilience. And that’s one thing I work with clients around is that she was familiar with the nervous system and, had read the body, keeps the score and all of that stuff. And so I really started to heal. With her. And then she also got me ready for the really tough shit with this current trauma specialist.
And so now I look back and go, oh my God. Like even the shitty therapists, which I’m on number 11. Because you got not count the ones that I call up and I grill them. I’m like, sweetie, do you do this? Do you know about this? And if they like stumble or I know more than them. Yeah, no, get outta here.
No, I feel the same way. I feel the same way. Yeah. I have a really similar experience not with asking for specific meds, but I never went to a treatment facility for the length of time that you went to one, but I did check myself into the hospital after a suicide attempt. And I actually was feeling an ideating suicide prior to being on medications.
And actually the suicide attempt was really my cry for help with I’m finally done. Like I’m ready to take whatever, and I’m really grateful that I did it. So I know we have like opposite experiences that way, which is really interesting. But I also had the luxury, which I advocate for this for people so much now, but I had the luxury of having had genetic testing done prior to all of that happening, was it for the medication specific or for something else?
It was not medication specific, but the person that I worked with who interpreted the data and gave me this. 10 page long report that had all these different genetic mutations and things that I had. One of the interesting things that we discovered was that I have multiple, like a lot of cytochrome, P four, 15 mutations, and the CYP they’re called CYP pathways.
Those are the pathways by which like 80% of them. All substances are processed. So alcohol pharmaceuticals also herbs, like you’re all processed on those. And so I’m so grateful that I had that because I had like actual proof that showed that I was a, what’s called a fast metabolizer, that numerous CYP pathways like
I’m a fast metabolizer. And having that information going into the hospital was invaluable because they knew we cannot prescribe her an SSRI. Like it will not work because my body would burn it off before it had a chance to have a therapeutic effect. So I’m really grateful that I was able to avoid that merry-go-round that you were talking about of like on and off meds adjusting the dose coming back off.
I’m really grateful that I was able to avoid that. So anytime somebody is asking you about meds, now, I’m like, go get some pharmacogenetic testing done, like skip that whole merry-go-round process and get that done. So I was on, when I left the hospital, I was on a hundred milligrams of Seroquel per day 45 milligrams of Mirtazepine per day.
And up to two milligrams of Klonopin as needed. I never took the full two milligrams. I only, I stuck it at one milligram, but yeah, that was my cocktail. And Like it, and it worked really well for me, it was like extremely therapeutic and beneficial, and I never had suicidal thoughts again after that.
So it’s just really interesting how our experiences yeah. It is at the treatment center. They did do it. Why don’t, I don’t think it was in depth in his broad of genetic testing, but I did do like a medication specific one. It was pretty, pretty lengthy. And so like when I, when I went to see my new psychiatrist, she’s you have one of those packets.
And I was like, yeah, here it is. And so she based a lot of things on that and that I think that maybe helped a little bit, but I still had like I, I was very symptomatic, with anxiety, depression, hypomania, mania, all of that insomnia I was on like, gosh, I think the most.
Like at a time on a usual basis with Seroquel was like 400 milligrams. I was on that. I was on a lot. And then I’d also take all I think 75, 2 times a day as well. So I was on a ton, and then I was on my, my final cocktail that I had to taper off of was that much of Seroquel.
But I could also take up to eight, 800 milligrams a day. That’s like the dose, they give people that are like literally putting their heads, their walls when they get to a hospital. And yeah, and that, that leads me to the point is that, I did not the same testing. I don’t think that you did, but I did do some testing.
And, the way one of my therapist said is sometimes your symptoms and your soul’s cry, or I added the soul’s cry, but your symptoms can like bypass these medications. It’s just unless I am absolutely knocked the F out, like my symptoms wanted to be heard, which isn’t a bad thing.
And now I’ve reframed that, and you talk about the, some of the stuff too, but yeah, it’s just that’s what I work with clients is like the whole, the mindset behind symptoms is yeah. Sometimes, you need to be on a medication, so you can do the work in order to reduce the symptoms so that you can reduce the medication.
So you can reduce the symptoms or the side effects or whatever. Like it’s not just this cut and dry thing, but yeah. And I was on a ton of Depakote, I think. Gosh, I can’t remember. I went through it with my psychiatrist the other day to, to, I don’t see her anymore, but she she knew I was doing some of this work and writing a book.
Helped me with remembering, I’m going to say I was on like 2,500 of Depakote. And then I was also on what was I on a Welbutrin, which, it was more of a stimulant. And that was also a naltrexone with the intention of helping me with the self harm type of stuff.
Because sometimes they use nail traction with people who were had an eating disorder or a drug addiction, alcohol addiction, all of that stuff. And that wasn’t too hard to get off of. Sarah Cole was the hardest two like three years And I was getting off Seroquel and Wellbutrin at the same time.
Cause there is no really playbook for it. So it made sense. I had already gotten off the Depakote. I just made that post about losing my hair. And so you know, I started to lose my hair and started getting off Depakote because that was the culprit and that to me about eight months. And so altogether, it probably took, I don’t know, I would say it probably took three years altogether to get off everything.
Yeah. How did you do a separate benzo tape? I did that was actually done at the treatment center because they didn’t allow it. So it ended up being a blessing in disguise. But I, when I went there and they were like, were you can’t be on clonic vineyard? I was like, I freaked out. And so it was a blessing because I had 24 hour care.
I didn’t have any, child rearing responsibilities or job or anything I could just rest or freak out or cry or whatever I needed to do. And so that, that was nice that I knocked that out there. So you got off to two milligrams of Klonopin and like less than 40 days? Yeah. I can’t remember what I was on by that time.
And they did, and I can’t remember. I know I took it like three times a day. But I don’t remember what, I don’t know if it was like 0.5, three times a day or one through to, I don’t remember what it was. That was, I might have it in my notes, but but yeah. And so I want to say maybe they did a slow taper, slow I just quotation marks.
Nobody can see them. Yeah. Major air quotes, because FYI, for people who don’t know about because of tapers 40 days to come up with benzo, no matter what dosage you’re on is a very short amount of time when I did it in less crazy to me. Yeah. Probably I think three weeks, maybe at 24 hour care and like no kids and no responsibilities, like, all you had to do is focus on yourself.
Like you, you probably couldn’t have done it that fast otherwise. No, I don’t think I could have, and I didn’t realize at the time probably trauma was getting kicked up, so I don’t know what was trauma. And then what. Benzos, I, I don’t know. It’s hard to know. But I do know it was a very scary time.
I thought I was going insane. And yeah, most tapers should be way slower on everything than the doctors tell you they should be. But yeah, so probably went way too fast, but I was also, it probably helped that I was on a ton of other medications. I tried 20 different meds.
I won’t go through all of them, but I tried 20 different meds. Yeah. That is bananas. Wow. I’m curious since you were on such a high dose of Seroquel for so long Sarah call was actually the medication I quit first and I only took it for about six weeks, a hundred milligrams. Because I started having like a letdown sensation in my breasts.
Yeah. I remember you talking about. Like four or five, six times a day, like just randomly, my boobs would just feel like they would have that tingle. I If you breastfeed the baby, you know what I’m talking about? It’s a feeling you’d never forget. So my boobs would just feel like they had that Tingley let down feeling nothing ever came out.
My, my boobs didn’t change size. Like they wouldn’t nothing came out. For some reason, even though I hadn’t really done any research on it, I was like, I know this is the Seroquel like something. And he was just like, I know that’s what it is. And I asked my psychiatrist at that time, who was the psychiatrist I had in the hospital.
Because I don’t know if they have this where you live, but my first attempt at getting psychic. It was in January of 2019. I went to my primary care doctor, just like you did. And she gave me the stupid fucking questionnaire. That was like the eight questions that was all about depression. And I had a feeling that was going to happen.
So I asked my husband to come to the appointment with me to help me advocate for myself. And so the whole time I was filling out that stupid questionnaire. I was able to answer like, no to pretty much everything. I was able to circle like zero or one. It was nearly not depression, but of course the first thing she tried to do when she got me back there was to start telling me I needed to be on an SSRI.
And I was like, okay, but here’s this DNA info that I have. So sorry, can’t do that. And also I’m not depressed. Like I’m anxious as fuck. I’m having panic attacks all the time. I can’t sleep to save my life. And my husband totally backed me up. And he was like, look, I’ve known her. We’ve been together for 18 years.
Like she’s not depressed. She is going crazy with anxiety and insomnia. So that doctor prescribed me. This is like the most unethical thing that she prescribed me. 15 1, 5, half milligram out of eight. So that’s the brand name for lorazepam, which has been 15, one half 0.5 milligrams and said, this is all I’m going to give you.
Don’t come ask me for more. Here’s a referral to a psychiatrist, by the way, they can’t get you until September. This was January. Yeah. So somehow I was supposed to make 15 half milligram out of vans last for nine months. So I had this medication that I knew would help, but then I wouldn’t let myself take it because I was terrified of getting out.
Because what if the next panic attack is worse? So is the most like unethical I could probably Sue her for malpractice at this point, but yeah, it was just crazy. And so then I wouldn’t take it. So then I was just in this place of I can’t take the SSRI and that’s all she’s willing to give me.
And I know they won’t help me. So I can’t do that. I have these 15 pills that actually do help me, but I won’t take them either because I’m afraid I’m going to run out and I can’t get into an actual psychiatrist for nine fucking months. So that made the anxiety and the panic and the insomnia, it turned the volume up even more.
And yeah, finally on March 7th which was yesterday, it was my three year anniversary for suicide. March 7th, like I was like, I can’t do it anymore. And for me, suicide was it was actually, for me, it was the most merciful thing I could do for myself. It wasn’t because I hated my life or there was a lot of problems or my family or whatever.
It was literally just I feel so bad and I don’t ever see there being a way out of this. And this is the most loving, merciful thing I can do for myself. Yeah. Yeah, that’s just, that’s my other flip side of like Sarah called that you had, did you have, I didn’t I did not have to let down feeling.
I think it contributed to a lot of my weight gain because it can cause metabolic disorders lots of anesthetic psychotics can which can lead to heart disease and diabetes, all those things. And so those things have to be taken in consideration when you’re choosing, what you’re gonna do.
And then also, I didn’t like being, I was fat. I didn’t like being fat and it wasn’t just because of the way I look, but, the way I felt, and I had always been an athlete and a person who plays outside and I just couldn’t do all the things I like to do and just felt with Hardrick.
So all of that, when I started Coming off of Seroquel or I was about to, I was having some twitching of my mouth and my tongue which I was terrified that it was turned off tardive dyskinesia, which is an uncontrollable muscle movement disorder, which I’m sure but just for those listening and it’s common with an, a psychotics.
Most doctors don’t tell you that as they put you on it. And so that may have been what it was. I don’t know. It could have been, trauma comes up and out of our bodies and weird ways. But I don’t think that part was trauma. It just felt different and it’s hard to explain, but it just felt different.
It was like this electrical, like pulsing and TD it can be forever. It can not go away. And so I was terrified, I was afraid I was going to be like, some person I see on the street with their mouth moving and wild ways and, and it just was terrified. And that was one reason I got off of that and I tried to go see like this holistic psychiatrist that my family wanted me to see.
And they were like he gets you off of psych meds and replaces it with supplements. And, sure enough, when I went there, he certainly tried to sell me some supplements. But he also sent me with two new psych med prescriptions. And one of those was another Inessa Kotick. And I told him my concern about tardive dyskinesia.
And so he gives me this new med and I can’t remember the name of it, but it’s a newer med and it’s in a psychotic. And he sends me home with that. It says it’ll, it’s less likely to cause this, but I went to home, of course it did my research and there was an actual side-by-side comparison of Seroquel and this other med and Seroquel was the much better choice.
And I was just, I remember like laying on the ground was like in tears with my dog, just I don’t know what to do. And so I stayed with my other psychiatrist. And like I said, she didn’t take insurance and she was not the kind that saw me for 15 minutes and sent me on my way. Each of our meetings were at least an hour long.
And towards, when I started tapering, she almost ended up being like a concierge doctor with boundaries because I had her phone number and I could text her and I realized that, I could text her and then she got to choose whether it was an needed, an immediate response or it could wait.
And so we had, respectful boundaries that way. But that was very helpful and helped me during my psych med process. And yeah, and I got to the point where I remember I was taking a walk and I was on all these psych meds and I was just miserable. And I was like, either I’m going to get off these meds.
Because I just felt like numb. I’m a pretty creative person like full of life, like to do things. Yeah, I wasn’t that way then. And I was just so miserable and I was like, my soul wants to be free. So it’s either going to be a death or I’m going to get off these meds. And I wasn’t manic at all.
I was very reflective and almost meditative and I was taking a walk and I was like, this is happening. And my psychiatrist at the time was just like, she didn’t dissuade me, but she also was not like, Hey, let’s do this. Until four months into it. And she saw that, I was doing it. I was doing it.
And she had seen me get off of Depakote, which wasn’t necessarily pretty. Cause I remember having issues and I would like I wanna fix this. And she was like maybe we should go up and Depakote. And I was like, no, cause I don’t want to lose my hair. And I just remember her just going.
Like signing over the phone. Cause I was like, no, I’m not doing that. Let’s find another way. And yeah, so eventually she became like one of my biggest cheerleaders. And then one of our last sessions, she just got so choked up. She was just about to say I never thought that you would be here.
And by that time, all I was doing was posting a few of my poems on Instagram, on my private account. But I had been in a really bad place, but I was showing like some vulnerability with posting the poems and starting to talk about my mental illness in quotes, everybody listening. But yeah, so she was just like, I didn’t think I would see you here.
And she just broke down crying was she had never cried in one of our sessions. And yeah. And so I still check in with her every now and then, and just say, Hey, this is what I’m doing. This is what’s going on. And because she had a lot to do with where I’m at as did a couple of other therapists and practitioners.
So yeah. No replacement for a really good understanding, compassionate psychiatrist. Who’s willing to listen to you and hear you advocate for yourself and respect what you want. And I have that with my psychiatrist now. So it took me my psychiatrist in the hospital because there’s a mental health provider crisis where I live.
Like I still had to wait to be in outpatient psychiatry. So she became, what’s called my bridge provider, which is she was the bridge between the hospital and outpatient. And I still couldn’t get into the outpatient psychiatrist until September and so of 2019. I knew it was the Sarah call that was causing me to have this let down reflex to my breasts.
And so I asked her about it and I was. I feel like my meds are working great, but I really feel like this specific medication has helped is having me experience this letdown sensation. And she was like, no, that’s not one of the side effects of Seroquel. Like absolutely not. That’s what it is.
Just it’s gotta be something else. Maybe you should get your hormones checked or, go to the gynecologist or something like that. And me, I’m like a tenacious bulldog, right? Flash bloodhound. If there’s a mystery, I’m gonna fight and I’m gonna find it. So I went down the rabbit hole of studies and I found this one study that was done in 18 minutes.
And their prolactin hormone levels were elevated after taking Seroquel for 16 weeks. Okay. And I shared that study with her and she was just like, okay fine, stop taking it. It was just like, I called her on it, so then I got into my psychiatrist that I have now, and I had already started tapering Klabin before I got into him and my psychiatrist from the hospital who was my bridge provider.
I let her know that I was tapering Klonopin, and she wanted me to do the cut it in eights and taper an eight every week or something. And it should take to eight weeks or whatever. And I had read the Ashton manual and I had done a lot of research on like benzo groups on Facebook and stuff.
And I learned that was just way too fast to taper. And so I told her what I wanted to do. And she said I’m not going to write you. I’m not going to refill it if you run out. So I was just like, what the fuck? I’m trying to take myself off of this medication and you’re now like creating scarcity around it.
Yeah. And that man, that is a again, I was so blessed to have this particular doctor I’m trying not to say her name. Cause I didn’t ask her if it was okay. But and like she always made sure I had medication that she was so good and that, that takes at least a little bit of anxiety around the patient’s experience for sure.
As far as like tapering, I know that she thought it was ridiculous, probably how small it was. I was cutting the little 25 tablets of Seroquel, but she let me do it, and it was fine. It was fine. And she would provide me with information if I was on it, the extended version of Cirque you’re not supposed to cook those.
Like she would help me walk through this. And if I had needed to get a mixture at a pharmacy, get a compound cause some people do that. She would have helped with that. And so I, again I know that’s not everybody’s experience. Yeah. And I’m sure you do some of this with your clients, just helping people advocate for themselves, coming up with a plan and.
Maybe even having to work the psychiatrist a little bit, like whatever, what are going to do. Yeah. Thankfully I wasn’t supposed to get into my current psychiatrist until September, but I had called and put myself on their wait list if they had a cancellation and that he ended up having a cancellation in early August.
So I was actually able to get in to see him like a month and a half before my original thing. And by that point I was already. I want to say I was probably already like 12% down on my dosage of Klonopin. And so whenever I got into his office, like I came with like my notebooks and my stack of questions and all my studies and it, because I was prepared to do battle for myself, like I had just gotten used to having to go into doctors with white coats who believe that they know more than me and they know my body better than me. And they’re gonna give me some magic pill or magic fix or whatever. Like I had just learned that there, they try to push you over. And so I came in prepared to do battle and I sat down and he was like, I can tell you came in here.
To fight with me today, but I just want you to tell me your story and what I didn’t know until then was he was double board certified in psychology and psychiatry. So it was like the psychologist in him came out and just wanted to hear my story. And so I was immediately like, as I started telling my story and he just listened, he never interrupted.
And I could feel my body relaxing and I felt like trust with him. And then by the time I was done telling my story, he was like, so what do you need for me? Wow. My mind was just blown. And I was like, I believe that I can heal. I went through 30 plus years of my life without psychiatric medication.
I believe I can do it again, but I’m trying to excavate what got to the point of needing it to begin with right. And I just need you to keep refilling this medication it’s on off of it. And just trust me to take myself off of it. I’ve already read the Ashton manual. I already knew how to dilute their crush, the pill, mix it with water and take out milliliters of water every day, a micro water taper and he was so impressed with me.
He was just like, I’ve never met anyone like you ever most people come in here with their handout and they just want me to give them a pill. And he’s I’ve never met someone like you. And in 2020 he actually left Minnesota and went, he lives in Texas actually. So he went back to Texas to be with his aging parents.
And I went through all the hoops to re-establish care with him in Texas. So I still saw him across state lines tele-health now. And I don’t need him for medications anymore, but. For me, I had a positive experience with psychiatric medications that worked, and I do believe that they helped me from killing myself.
And so for me, having him as my psychiatrist in my back pocket is like something I always want to have. So the question I want to ask you after I shared that, because it sounds like you found an amazing psychiatrist who was willing to let you be in the driver’s seat. And I think that’s the most important thing is they’re willing to let us be in the driver’s seat and there a passenger who’s there to help read the map or like type in the Google map destination to help us get where we’re going.
But like how would you tell people what are some things people could look for when they’re trying to find a psychiatrist that they like? What are some red flags to watch out for? And how would you tell people to really learn, to start advocating for themselves? When it comes to talking with these doctors in white coats, you only want to see 15.
Yeah. And it’s hard when you’re first, if you’re just going by yourself, it does help sometimes to bring somebody to advocate for you. But if you’re able to, really observe the psychiatrist one, I think it would be like, do they listen to you? Are they listening to you? Do they ask good questions?
Are they good? A good question, asker, because my doctor very much was, and I had my freak outs in her office and she just sat there. She just sat there and let me have them. Didn’t try to stop them. And still this is so heartwarming still. Cause I remember like I was freaking out and I did feel like I was a child and she would sit in this big leather chair and I was just tripping, and she would try to bring me back and ground me.
But she wasn’t quite doing what I needed her to do. And so I remember at one point I just went and sat on the floor by her chair and I grounded myself by sitting up close to her chair. And I finally was like, a lot of times I go mute during these times I’m not able to speak. And but I was able to say, can you just hold my hand?
And I held her hand and we car-related. And that’s so helpful and not all psychiatrists, will be open to do that. But she and I had been together for three, almost four years by that time. And, she knew I wasn’t going to go insane psych patient on her and whatever.
And so she was willing to do that. And so that leads me to say, look for a psychiatrist who. Is regulated, who, if a psychiatrist is threatened by you asking questions by you advocating for yourself and they try, their ego comes out and they try to control you, they’re not regulated.
And so they’re not going to know how to regulate you. They probably don’t know much about the nervous system. They probably have not done much trauma work on their own, which is hard to detect at the very beginning of, getting to know a psychiatrist. But I think you and I both could go in and sit with anybody for 15 minutes and see just, by observing them, are they regulated person?
Are they a grounded person? Are they willing to serve like your psychiatrist was are they, are they wanting to empower the patient? Like my psychiatrist was I don’t think it’s a bad question. I don’t think it’s like an overreach to ask the psychiatrist, had you gone to therapy?
Have you done some work? You don’t have to ask an, are they going to therapy? That might be a little bit intrusive, but I don’t think it should be because if there’s any kind of shame around therapy with your psychiatrist, then I’d probably go somewhere else. Yeah. When are they looking at you as a whole person and not just a brain chemistry thing?
Cause the chemical imbalance theory is just a theory is, is what is called mental illness? Does that involve brain chemistry? Yeah, but so does eating and so does sex. Everything we do in our life, affects our brain chemistry. And most psychiatrists will be probably coming at treating you at least a little bit.
In that way, because that’s how they’ve been trained. That’s not how I see mental illness, but that’s how they’ve been trained. But do they take in to account addiction? Do they take into account relationships and they asking you about your family history? Yes, family history, which a lot of times they do, but it’s so they can diagnose you with say bipolar disorder because that’s one of the things, but if they will, and that I feel probe a little more if instead of it being like okay, if your grandmother was schizophrenic and your great aunt was anxious and your great uncle had major depressive disorder or whatever okay.
Yeah. It’s pretty likely that you have something here, but if it’s more tell me about your childhood, tell me about what you experienced. So that they’re getting a sense for like potentially the attachment that you may or may not had the co-regulation you may not, or may not have had all that kind of stuff.
And that was what impressed me about my psychiatrist is it wasn’t like I had to check the boxes on my intake form of all the different things that my mom and my dad and my brothers and my grandparents had been diagnosed with. But it was more about he understood at least enough to know that.
I didn’t get to this place, the suicidal place, because my mom had depression and my dad has anxiety. That’s not how I got there. And he at least understood that enough. And I don’t feel like I don’t feel like definitely that first primary care doctor I went to. She was also like probably 26 and fresh out of medical school.
And I was just, she just wanted to like prescribe, this fancy new SSRI that had just come on the market, that she had a bunch of samples for her. Cause the pharmaceutical rep had just been in our office that week. Like it was a totally different vibe. I guess another question I would ask is it sounds like you and I have a pretty healthy mobilization of our nervous system to have a healthy fight response whenever we go into these appointments and that helps us advocate for ourselves.
What would you say to people who feel more of a flight or an immobilization risks? If they’re seeking help from a psychiatrist and are just like literally frozen or just want to run away when they think about advocating for themselves I would say, ask for support because we all deal with stress in different ways and, and fighting has its place.
Hiding has its place at one point and so no shame and however you’re dealing with it, but I would ask for help come see someone like me or someone like Lindsay, like we can like actually formulate you like a plan, like step, we can ride it out. If the doctor says this, cause we can probably guess what they might say.
And I, even before I started my business I’d have people in my DMS and I had one person who was like, yeah, I really want to get off meds, but I’m pretty, my doctor’s gonna say no, and so I said, okay, Do you want to give it a try? And she said, yeah. And so we’ve formulated a plan, like some talking points.
And then she asked him and he said fine. And he was totally on board and she was so excited. And so maybe start small with your requests. I don’t know if you’re on 50 milligrams and that seems to be a lot, is it activating to you to ask for 25 milligrams, is that doable?
So do something that’s doable. That’s not the best example, but ask for something small because these Behavior changes that we try to make they’re attached to belief systems and if you make even a little teeny tiny behavior change, then that means that you’re making big changes with your belief system and it gets easier.
And then also, bring in, you can bring in a family member who is on your side. That’s an option. So usually that will tell you, like maybe what you need to work on if you are afraid to ask for things, because if you’re afraid of people saying, no, then look at go, okay.
Yeah. That’s an area that I need help with. So if you are seeing a therapist talk to that therapist about that thing, if that therapist is, on your side about tapering meds, if that’s your goal or whatever and if they’re not helping you empower yourself, then go find somebody else who will if your coach your mentor, your therapist, your guide, if they’re not.
I’m leading you back to you and go find somebody else, find somebody who wants to empower you. That was when you have a 7,000 thousand percent, you said something earlier and I made a note of it and I want to come back to it. Cause you talked about being on that super, super high dose Seroquel and even then like sometimes your symptoms could bypass that because they really wanted to be heard.
And that’s something that I believe in my work as well, is Western medicine especially has really demonized symptoms and like we’ve made symptoms, these things that we need to get rid of. And that’s why we have all of this pharmaceutical medication, not just psychiatric medication, but like acid blockers and blood pressure pills and, diabetes medication and like migraine medication.
Like we have it all exists. Not because it heals, but because it suppresses symptoms. And when I was able to change my paradigm about symptoms and I went from seeing symptoms as these like very inconvenient, uncomfortable, annoying painful things that I wanted to get rid of to seeing them at. The way that my body was talking to me because my body doesn’t talk to me.
In words, the language of my body is sensations. And sometimes those sensations can be described as symptoms. Then I had a whole new appreciation for symptoms, and I actually began to have gratitude for them because it was like my symptoms, my sensations in my body were leading me exactly where I needed to go.
And if I had continued to suppress because it was inconvenient or because they were annoying or painful, then I don’t believe I would have gotten where I am right now because I allowed them to express. So I’m curious if you could share like what it was like for you whenever your symptoms would bypass the medication and be like, Nope, we’re talking anyway.
At the time I was just like I’m really fucked up, and that’s the message I got. But when I was working with my former therapist she had me do little exercises that would have me notice my body. Like I would come in and she’d ask me, how are you doing?
And I would say, I feel anxious. She’s like, where in your body do you feel anxious? Which that is like, when you’re first learning, you’re like, I don’t want to feel anxious everywhere. Oh my God. Yeah, I don’t know. But usually there is a place where it, you can feel it the most. And I remember one time she had me I said, I feel it in my legs.
And she took me through these steps and. After I noticed it’s like these thoughts just started coming up and what was causing the anxiety. The trigger came up and then from that trigger, we went back to childhood where that wound was that first abuse or stress or whatever happened.
And so by listening to my body, we went there and if one of the tips I give people, I have done this with my kids. If it’s too overwhelming to find the anxiety in your body, I asked my kids first to calm them down. I’m like, is there anywhere in your body? You’re not feeling the anxiety. And they’re like, no, I’m like, how about in your hair?
Playful or in your pinky toenail? Yeah. Yeah. No, hair’s good. And and go from there and I, I’m not above doing that with clients as well, that’s I like to be playful. I think that helps regulate the nervous system. And then we can move from there.
But I think the body is an excellent storyteller. That’s where we hold our stress. That’s where we have our symptoms that as you expressed they tell us what’s going on. They and one big thing I’m realizing now is that, so I think that the body it’s, it experiences and it speaks like holistically, our brain analyzes our body synthesizes.
And when I and struggling, and I don’t know what it is, a good thing to do is move your body. Whether it’s in it’s dance or like primal screaming or whatever. Cause you don’t have to know what it is in your brain. You just express with your body and maybe you never even need to know with your brain things, some things we do know about our traumatic past and then somethings we never know, but you can still heal.
And I think that’s probably why a lot of times, you do so much work with the nervous system. And so yeah, listen to the body. When I was coming off psych meds, it was a terrifying experience and it was really rewarding because I had to listen to my body on how fast to go. How fast did it decrease these medications?
I had to honor my body honor its wisdom. And surrender to it. Like it was scary because I wanted to research everything and I did, I know a lot more than a lot of doctors do about that’ll at least to taper myself off same. And yeah, and so I did all that research and I wanted to know okay, this is how you do it, but that’s not how I did it.
I did do some research and that’s how I started, I got some numbers, but then I once I got into the taper into the heat of things, I really had to listen to my body and briefly my psychiatrist understood what I was doing, and I had this app where I would like, I would there was a place to.
No record what medication you are we’re on and how quickly you were coming off of that. And also I would take notes what was going on in my life because a lot of it, we want to say this is happening because I’m coming off too fast, right? Maybe it’s maybe your anxiety increased because you went to that family reunion and you shouldn’t have and so that’s helpful too, because I think a lot of times when we were coming off these meds, we want to get hyper-focused on that.
And I did, I had to, I did have to, it was like my job, but also you’ve got to look at what’s going on in your life. Maybe there’s a relationship you need to get out of. There’s some people who are like, I’m so anxious and then you find out they’re being abused by their spouse or something.
And. That’s going on. It’s you don’t need to be on anti-psychotics. You need to get out of this relationship. And if you can’t, then that’s where the work is. What is keeping you there? Why are you staying in the abuse? And I talk about medications a lot because there not many people do.
And so I feel like I need to but the whole experience is a whole experience and you have to look at all parts of you, your body, your spirit, your mind, also your relationships your ancestry, like. All the things. Yeah. Cause it all makes up you as a whole person.
Like these your thoughts don’t exist in a vacuum, separate from your body, your sin, your sensations, and your symptoms don’t exist in a vacuum, separate from your soul. Like it’s just right then. That’s the paradigm that most people are accustomed to looking through is if you have a heart problem, you go to the heart doctor.
If you have a lung problem, you go to the lung doctor. If you have a brain problem, you go to the head doctor. But like your head doctor and your heart doctor, aren’t talking to each other, they’re not exchanging notes, and none of your organs or systems in your body exists in a vacuum either.
I love what you shared about your kids. And that inspired me to briefly share like something that I’d done with my kids. And I’ve done this with clients as well, but like when I’m talking with a client and I’m sure you’ve had this experience too, where as the client begins to tell their story, they get really worked up and emotional just telling their story.
And obviously just the telling of the story has activated something in the body that’s moving and wants to come up. So I, and I’ve done this with my kids as well, where like, when they’re talking to me and they’re getting really worked up about something I try not to be rude about it, but I try to just be like, okay, time out for just a second let’s take a timeout.
Where are you feeling this in your body? And for clients who are unfamiliar with feeling, in their body you’re feeling anxious because you have a sensation that you, I your brain is able to take that sensation, which is the language of your body. And your brain can translate it into words.
And you can say, I feel anxious, same with like fear. How do you know you feel fear? Because you had a sensation in your body, your brain hears that translates it, and you can say, I feel here. But so when my clients are like, I just feel anxious all over. I just feel oh, I just can’t handle that.
And I’m like no. How do you know you feel anxious? Like how do you know what you’re describing as anxiety and not disappointment? Because I feel anxious, but yes, but how it’s always like this like circular line of questioning until they finally can drop in and say, Oh, I feel like my heart is racing really fast and I’m sweaty and my armpits and I have a pit in my stomach and oh, okay.
Now we’re hearing the language of the body. And I do that with my kids as well. And I, one example is coming out, like shining out really strongly right now. And that’s my daughter was, she was talking about something to me and she was getting super worked up about it. And I could tell she was about to cry, but she was like pulling the tears back.
And I was just like, honey, just time out for a sec. Yeah. Where are you feeling this on your body? And she was just like, I just feel anxious all over. I just feel so anxious. I’m like, how do you know it’s anxiety? Where do you feel it in your body? And she was able to identify, it was like a knot in her throat and like a sick feeling in her stomach.
And so I was like, okay, can you sit there and put your focus on that sensation? Are you able to be with it? And then she was like, yeah. Okay. And I was like, all right, now ask it, how do you want to move? What do you want to do? How do you want to move? If there was a dance, what would it be? If that sensation had a movement, what would it be?
And she was like I want to walk around and swing my arms, look, okay. Do it. So she like walked and paced back and forth from the living room to the kitchen and was swinging her arms like really big. And she did that for a couple minutes and then she was like, whoa, like I felt it move out of me when I was like, maybe you have access to that all the time for three, if you can have the awareness of the sensations of your body and then an intuitive, how does this want to move?
How does it want to express? And then do that thing. You are literally moving energy in and out of your body and processing your emotions in a way that most adults have no idea how to do. Totally. Totally. And I had a therapist cause I remember, when you get diagnosed with bipolar, you try to.
Bring your weird end because you’re like I don’t want to be going to the psych hospital. And now that I’m have healed, am healing, I’m letting my weird out more, my family thinks I’ve gone nuts. It’s really funny. That sounds. And then, other people are like, you’re helping us so much.
And I’m like, it’s only going to get weirder guys cause I’m more comfortable with myself. Yeah. But yeah. And so I had this I was feeling anxiety in my legs and I was like, I feel like I need to just go run sprints, and that was my proof for feeling manic. Cause I probably said I feel manic and aggravated irritated, all the words they like to use.
And probably told that to my therapist. And she was like, okay, what does that mean? And then I said, I feel like I need to go run sprints and. Go on sprints. They’re like, yeah, that might look weird for a 40 year old to be running sprints, but the fuck who cares? And, and I had one client who showed up and he, he was telling his story and he was very self-aware and all of this, but he was like rocking back and forth.
And sometimes, that in the movies and that’s what the crazy person is doing, quote crazy. But that’s regulating your nervous system rocking back and forth. I do a lot of that. When I have, I don’t have as many flashbacks buddy flashbacks as I used to, but when I did I’ll did a lot, like I’d be curled up in the fetal position.
I’d be rocking back and forth and it’s okay. The problem is when we keep, we stay still, or when we don’t speak. Going back to the paradigm, the mainstream mental health paradigm is one that when you express through body through your words, truthfully, what is going on, it’s understood.
And there’s these symptoms and we need to squash them. It’s no, it’s, there’s the symptoms and they need to be expressed through the body. We need to tell our stories. It doesn’t mean we have to go back and remember every little traumatic thing. Sometimes we do sometimes parts of ourselves, want to tell other parts of ourselves what happened.
And that’s the way I look at it. I don’t need to go and dig. I just need to be open and aware to what my inner child wants to tell me. And I don’t need to cover it up. And so it’s not like a it’s somewhere in the middle it’s or in an, probably an entirely different place, you don’t try to shake your kid, your inner child and say, you’ve got to tell me, but you also don’t want to lock your inner child in the closet is a way to look at it and you just sit there and whenever, if they want to speak, listen, that’s it.
And a lot of times the inner child and the body in my opinion, can go hand in hand a lot of ways. Absolutely. Yeah. So do you ever experience even slight relapses in symptoms? I don’t look at them as relapses because I do look at them as I look at them as symptoms and I felt. Really disoriented yesterday in a way I haven’t in a while.
And and I remember some paranoia coming up oh my gosh, I can’t. And it’s funny because we’re having this conversation, but I was just like, I don’t want to look to where I don’t want to cry when I’m taking a walk because I don’t want somebody to see me and then think I’m going crazy. And somebody to the hospital, or like all of that old stuff was coming up.
And when old stuff comes up, there’s something to be looked at. And a lot of times it’s cycles again and again, and it doesn’t mean that you didn’t heal the first time it came up. It just means that you’re going to like another. Level of healing. And so it’s just our triggers, our teachers our symptoms, our teachers, and I know so many very wise grounded people who still feel like they’re going crazy sometimes.
And it felt kinda like that yesterday, but I think, sometimes we just get jostled a little bit so that our, our consciousness can expand, it can grow in new ways, new things can come in. And so I just have the way I look at it is that I am a new container. And so now whatever flows through, I can deal with it.
And does it remind me of those times where I was like, oh my God, I’m in like, I’m crazy. Something’s wrong with me? It does sometimes. And I have to ground myself and say, no, Darcy, these are symptoms of. I, And I reached out to her friend yesterday who happens to be a therapist and had plenty of time for me to just ramble stream of consciousness style.
And as I did that, I started drawing all these lines. Oh, that’s what’s happening. I journaled about that yesterday. And this happened with my kid and then it’s I’m not crazy. I’m noticing things that could make me crazy. Like in the past, when I was a kid, if I would’ve not dissociated and would have just been with the reality of what was going on, I might’ve gone crazy.
And that’s why much it would’ve been too much and I’m going to kill myself or I might have who knows what would have happened. Or I might’ve expressed them. In a household that wasn’t safe to express symptoms and, emotions, whatever. But now I’ve gone through all this work. I have a container in my friends and chosen family and a couple of family members that can be a container for me, my therapist, who I’m never afraid that she’s going to send me to the psych hospital.
I tell her some really weird stuff. And she’s a weirdo too. And so she gets it. And it’s all good. And I’ve from watching how other people are safe. Places where I can be held. They’ve been a container where I can fall apart. I’m learning that to do that for myself. And so I don’t look at it as a relapse.
I’m like, what is the current stressor that is, is reminding me of a past stressor or wound or trauma. And. Go from there and it’s another opportunity to heal, to grow and then to live like fully and express myself as a full human being. I’ve felt led to ask you that question, cause I don’t really like the word relapse either, but I couldn’t really, cause sometimes you can do like for me, for example, I, right now I’m experiencing a bit of a resurgence of anxiety and insomnia, not anything I’m freaking out about, not anything I’m feeling like I need to medicate or get helpful or although I did just I did just start with a somatic experiencing therapist this past week.
So I’m really excited about that. I am having a little bit of an uptick and anxiety and insomnia lately. I pulled Instagram and got the most answers I’ve ever had before that a lot of people are feeling this right now. So I don’t know. Is there something going on with the planets and astrology?
Like I have no idea maybe. And some of us are just like way more sensitive to stuff like that, right? Yeah. I guess I asked the question because I want people to understand that you, I had a solid fucking 14 months of no anxiety whatsoever feeling super chill, super calm in my life, super present.
My, my brain fog felt way reduced. My thoughts were much more clear. My sleep was amazing. And then like right around the middle of February, it was like, I’ve no idea what happened. Honestly, I don’t, I have no idea, but I’ve had this like uptick and more brain fog and not sleeping as great. And my thoughts are a little bit more jumbled and I feel the sensations of anxiety in my body, which for me, is sometimes it’s like a buzzing throughout my whole body.
And then sometimes it’s like a sick sort of like thing that waves between my throat and my heart and my solar plexus. It just goes up and down and radiates in and out. So yeah, it’s interesting to be going through this after having experienced the true benefits of doing nervous system works as long as I’ve done it.
And I cannot deny that, I am in a way better place if I’m going to have a rebounder of quote-unquote relapse, like I am in a better place, but that I also, if this had happened a year ago, I probably would have felt like. Oh, shit. I got it wrong. I was wrong. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t my nervous system.
Shit. I’ve been wrong this whole time, and now I’m more of a grounded-ness of I’m like a surfer, I’m riding the wave, this wave, maybe lasting a few weeks, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I also changed my mindset about sleep, where I was like, I chose to go from a scarcity mindset about sleep, to an abundance mindset where it was just okay, if that’s as much sleep as I got last night, then that’s how much my body needed.
Like I trust my body to get as much sleep as it needs. So yeah. Curious about your perspective on that. And I think sometimes it happens to someone’s we, we we might work with somebody and we are, we can do some of the work ourselves through journaling or whatever. And we can find out what it is, it may be that, let’s see if I can explain this in a good way, but for awhile, cause my ex-husband is an amazing guy and a lot of people are like, that’s one reason when people think I’m crazy because they’re like, he’s so amazing.
Why are you getting a divorce from him? There’s a lot of reasons. One, a lot of my family doesn’t, they don’t know that I’m like Uber gay and getting geared by the day. And so they don’t know that they don’t see that. And he’s, we talked last night and we’re like, he’s I like you a lot more better now than I did a year ago.
And we’re just, we get along well and we’re like creating a new relationship like friendship. I forgot where I was going. Cause I went on that. That’s okay. What was the question about the resurgence of some research? Yeah. So at one point he was like, I thought that’s what I needed. Like I thought he was who I needed and it’s not just, that I’m gay.
There’s other things that we were there just as I got well, and I healed and evolved, we didn’t align anymore. And it’s not just because of my healing. It could be other things who knows, but we didn’t align anymore. And sometimes things in life, like it’s okay for a little while, but then whether we grow or expand or consciousness changes, whatever, when that happened.
I think some part of us goes, oh, that’s not okay anymore. And we’re like, my life hasn’t changed. Nope. But you have, and so it doesn’t like, I don’t want to use my hands so much, but I know we’re doing a podcast. And so it’s it’s hard to explain this without painting a picture.
I’m trying to think of a good metaphor. Yes. Darcy is, she’s just stipulating, wildly, want to make noises. But yeah. And so it’s like at one point we’re, we were fine because I was a different person, but now I’m a new person. And that thing that was okay is not okay anymore. And it’s not that my life changed, but I did.
And so yes, now I may be anxious, but it doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with me or necessarily like that say my ex-husband is a bad guy. It’s just it doesn’t fit with what, who I am and where I’m going. And so that’s one example. It could be a lot of things that, when we get older things change and we may need to be more careful, like to cut out social media before bed or read by candle light or whatever it is you need to do.
You may just be biologically more sensitive because you’re older. There’s so many things to look at and to be open and curious about things. But I just reject that there’s something wrong with us because I do think it’s very And then we can make better decisions in our life.
Maybe eat better or cut out sugar or whatever we think we need to do. But I think some level of what we call depression and anxiety is very normal. And if you’re in a very stressful situation, then you probably should be stressed. If a tiger is chasing you, you should be running and you’re a drunk.
Your adrenaline should be sky high. Like your body’s doing exactly what it needs to do. And so it’s work with the body instead of suppressing the body. I could go on and on because there’s not just one thing to look at and that’s why it helps you to maybe have a guide. Yeah, no you’re absolutely right.
And you actually gave the answer that I’ve given myself. So it’s that nothing bad air quotes, nothing bad happened or change, but over the last three, four weeks I have been going through a really expansive time in my life and that’s the word I was about to say. Yeah. And and I noticed this last year in 2021, actually I had my first five figure income month last year in 2021.
I’ve never experienced that before. And you would think that I would just be like over the moon and oh, I’m doing it. And I was like that, but at the same time, I noticed an uptick in anxiety and not sleeping. Super great. And I was talking with my coach about it and she was like, Expansion as scary as fuck to a nervous system that’s been constructed for the majority of your life.
And so we did some coaching around that, around. Letting my nervous system expand and recalibrate and response to the expansion of my business. Then I had a three month break and that thing, the car was in park and that felt really good for a while. And then middle of February, I put the car back in drive and I started going forward again, and it’s not related to my business, but it’s another very expansive thing that I’m going through now.
And again, my nervous system is responding accordingly and it’s we’re really familiar with the constricted state and the expansive state doesn’t feel so safe. So even though intellectually, it’s great. Yeah. The body is not gotten the memo and now we’re going to have to put the car in park again and hang out here for a little while, recalibrate integrate, go back to our more frequent, nervous system hygiene, taking care of our nervous system more.
Yeah, your answer is like totally in line with that, with whatever. And this is validating for me, and this is I talked to my friend yesterday and then she sent me a post this morning. And I’m feeling like emotional because this is just beautiful. How. Work, cause I was like yesterday I was a shit show.
Like I felt crazy in my head. And I was like, God damn it. I have this podcast tomorrow. Hope I can get it together. And I always do, even if I’m like struggling or getting your shit together for me, I know. I know. But like today it feels really natural and good. Like I did yoga and I took it easy and drink coffee and read before this and didn’t schedule anything before and did that for myself.
Sometimes we need to do those things and not push ourselves so freaking hard, but I wasn’t going to go into the spiritual part of it, but I do think that like sometimes, there is a bigger plan down the road for us and we are getting, we’re choosing expansion, but it’s also, we’re being expanded for something that is going to happen that we don’t know about.
I think sometimes the universe doesn’t give us a choice. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s oh. Yeah. And like I was actually, I had thought about writing a post about it’s similar to this and the post was gonna read. Don’t be able to, there don’t be afraid to create a life that you have to grow into.
And then I was going to talk about expanding. And so like some of the stuff, this happening for you, and then some of the stuff you don’t even know about, but you may have a vague intention about, or whatever may just be in your heart space. And your brain is trying to like, make sense of what is going on and, and that’s where we have to come back to faith and trust and.
Kind of hunkered down into our soul and go, okay, what are the important things here and life? And get, I call it spiritually centered and that’s something I work with clients as well. And it’s not like in regard to any particular religion, it’s more, with your spirit, your own spirit.
And not many people talk about that. A lot of therapists wanting to go into spirituality, but I’m not afraid to, because I’m not trying to, push anybody into anything. It’s more what do you want, what do you need? What’s going on? We do need to take spirituality into, into the conversation perspective, if we are considering spirituality.
That’s right. That’s right. Said. And yeah, I think sometimes there’s we’re getting made, ready to. Do the next thing, and it may not even be about this project, this thing, and maybe the real goal is the expansion of you. And that’s really what’s going on. Yes. You are going to get to co-create.
I’ll speak for myself. I get to co-create with God with some of the things that I’ve been given and it’s scary as fuck. And I love that. It’s not all on me. It’s I’m giving you this thing and you get to walk into it and you get to take part. And it’s huge. Cause I, I do feel like whatever it is I’m doing.
Is going to be bigger and I can’t even see it. Like I can see it with like my faith eyes. And I know a lot of intention around it, but I don’t know what it’s actually the structure of it. And that’s okay. That’s how you know, that’s like a dream that only the universe can give, and it’s beautiful because I’ve told people like with me starting this business with liminal, and right now it’s just me offering mentorship, but I have a lot of things that I can add to it.
But I think there’s, it’s going to be something entirely different in a year probably, or it’s there, there’s going to be additions to it. But I told somebody like, if for whatever reason, I had a close shot tomorrow, I’m still satisfied. Like my soul is satisfied because I walked this path and it was beautiful and it was exactly what my soul wanted to do.
And if it doesn’t bring me success, whatever that is, then. I don’t care. Like I am so happy for the path that I’ve walked. And that’s how I know that’s what I have. I’ve been doing what I’ve supposed to be doing, we’ve got to wrap this up, dude. Cause I got an automatic experiencing we’ve been going for almost two hours.
It’s crazy now. So can you tell our listeners where can they find you and how can they work with you and benefit from your right now? It’s. I didn’t plan to have any kind of presence on social media, but here I am. And and so right now it’s Instagram, my main page is red river riding hood with no punctuation.
I have a backup account that does, you’ll find nothing there. So go to red river riding hood. And then I also have another account that I just started. And it’s liminal mental health. I really don’t like the term mental health, but I have to give some kind of description of kind of what I do.
Liberal mental health is another place you can go. And I’m working on a website and that should be up hopefully by April 1st. But yeah, so I’m in the works there and the liminal mental health is mentoring and consulting for helping people. It’s mentoring anybody who’s symptomatic.
And or diagnosed that, maybe feel stuck in mainstream mental health wants to know what a med taper experience it looks like. I can work with people with their nervous system and emotional resilience, all of those things, some of that spiritual centering as well as coming up with some resources for various things.
It’s as with you we’ve been there, done that and we, we know a lot of options. And so it’s me laying out your options, whether you come to me for some resources or come to me to work, one-on-one, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. You can come once you can come and work with me for a year right now, it’s this like concierge boutique experience, where, what do you need, I’ll help you.
And then also I had people ask caregivers of people Family members who are freaking out. So I’ll help them with some of their mental health. And then also we’ll come up with solutions like what’s next? Okay. Your family member has, or is in a psych hospital. You want to know what to do next.
We’ll come up with a plan and options. And then also my first client was actually a natural path. Consulting me about options for a polypharmacy case. And she didn’t know. She knew a lot of things to do, but it was like, Hey, I had an intuitive hit to ask you you know what’s your take?
And so we, we talked. Just talk it through. And she got some bits and pieces about what she could do with this patient. And I’m not a doctor, I’m not a therapist. I feel like I’m helping to fill a gap that is there. And right now I do all of those things, consultancy and mentorships, and then there’s going to be more to come.
I love you. I love your work. You are feeling of how aid and you can I forgot to say this is probably important to. You can make an appointment by clicking the link in my bio. Ah, because that’s important because I was like, you can find me on Instagram, but how do you get a it’s real simple to do.
Soon you’ll be able to do it. I will this episode is probably going to publish towards the end of March. Okay. So we can just add all this to the show notes and then whenever your website goes live, just let me know. And then I’ll add that into the show notes after the fact. So thank you so much.
This is this is phenomenal. I might have to break this into two episodes actually, cause it’s so long, but this is so great. And I think it’s gonna help so many people and it’s just been incredible to talk to you today. I knew we would have a really juicy conversation. I can talk to you forever and I love it.
That we’ve had. Some similarities in our experiences and some differences. And it’s, it’s, for me, it’s not take meds, don’t take meds or whatever. It’s just know that you get to choose. And so the more all of us can talk about our mental health and our experience with the medical system and all of that.
Just listen to all the stories and know that you get to choose. And then, we can all help each other. It’s not really about right or wrong. It’s. Yeah. And one thing I want to add to that, cause it’s you’re speaking. My language is I got a lot of information from like the benzo taper support groups on Facebook.
I got a lot of info, but there was also a lot of fear in those spaces. A lot of victim hood, a lot of identification with illness or with the taper process or whatever. And so I was really grateful for the information that I got there, but. If I was going to go down my own path and be successful at that for myself, like I had to get out of those spaces.
Once I got the information I needed and a mantra that I had, which I think allows us to hold space for multiple different realities to exist at once is I hold space for them and that’s their story, but it doesn’t have to be my story. And that was a way to be like, okay, that’s what their experience is.
It’s valid for them. It’s real. I feel sorry for them. Like I certainly hope that’s not my experience, but if I get so fearful of that, then my thoughts are going to be aligned with that. And then that is going to be my reality. So I hold space for them in their experience. That doesn’t have to be my story.
And so I think that us sharing two pretty starkly different stories and our experiences with psych meds is a Testament to how you really do get to write your own story like you really do. So thank you so much for being here. I’ll definitely be happy to rack. It was fun. Yeah. It was talk to you soon.
Okay. What did you think? Really really incredible episode. I hope that it was supportive of you, whether you were on psych meds yourself, if you’re tapering psych meds, or if you are a support person for someone who is on psych meds or tapering, psych meds. Um, we could probably have a whole other conversation about what our partners have gone through. As we have gone through this process of psych meds and diagnoses and all the things. So i hope that episode was helpful and i’m going to have links to how you can find darcy and work with her through her liminal mental health services as well as some of the resources that we mentioned in the episode you can find show notes@lindsaylocket.com forward slash podcast this is episode 74, and there’s also links below if you’re listening on apple podcast spotify anchor or any other podcasting platform and i just thank you so much for being here and i’ll talk to you next week
