Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - Why So Many People Can't Get Off Their Antidepressants | Laura Delano

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

Millions of Americans take antidepressants, but far fewer are warned about how difficult coming off them can be. Laura Delano spent 14 years inside the psychiatric system before discovering that many of the symptoms she believed were signs of mental illness were actually linked to psychiatric drug withdrawal. We discuss why antidepressant tapering is so often misunderstood, how withdrawal can be mistaken for relapse, and whether a lack of training around safe tapering is quietly contributing to today’s mental health crisis.Thank you to our sponsors!ZEBRA: Use code "ALEX" for 10% off any orderBLDG ACTIVE SKIN REPAIR: Use code “ALEX” for 20% off your orderA'DEL NATURAL COSMETICS: Use code "ALEX" for 25% off first time ordersCROWDHEALTH: Use code “CULTURE” to get your first three months for only $99/monthWILD PASTURES: Get an exclusive discount on your next orderVOTE ONLINEOur Guest:Laura DelanoLaura's Links:WebsiteInstagramYouTubeFacebookInner Compass InstagramInner Compass Initiative Website'Unshrunk' BookXFOLLOW ALEX:Instagram |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @realalexclark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@cultureapothecary⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @yoalexrapz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @RealAlexClark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcast |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to ‘Culture Apothecary’ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. New episodes drop 6pm PST/ 9pm EST every Monday and Thursday.DISCLAIMER: This content is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always talk to a qualified healthcare professional for any health-related questions or decisions.

How much testing has been done for SSRIs with long-term use? The average length of a trial is about six to eight weeks that tests the safety and efficacy. One of the ambient trials that the drug was approved on the basis of was one night. Whatever the drug class is, whether it's SSRI, SNRI, M-A-O-I, tricyclic, antipsychotic, benzodiazepine, Z drug, stimulant. They are all approved on the basis of short-term trials. It is literally an experiment to take these drugs long-term. Imagine if Taylor Swift would have been put on. on an SSRI as a teenager.

If she would have been numbed out by Lexapro, we would not have this level of art that we have from her. Angry teenage girls aren't meant to be sitting in front of their screens in a dark room. On the internet, they're meant to be experimenting with fashion and painting and music. They're meant to be channeling their emotions into art. Laura Delano spent 14 years inside the psychiatric system, diagnosed, medicated, hospitalized, told her brain, was fundamentally broken before realizing the symptoms that she thought proved she was mentally

ill might actually have been caused by the drugs themselves. And once you hear what happened to Laura after trying to get off antidepressants, you start looking at America's so-called mental health crisis very differently. Laura Delano is a speaker, founder of Intercompass Initiative, and author of Unshrunk. But this conversation goes way beyond, are antidepressants bad? What Laura is really challenging as the entire modern identity framework around suffering. You know, this idea that every painful emotion, every season of despair, every uncomfortable human experience must automatically be labeled a disorder and medically managed forever. We talk about what happens when children are taught their brains are defective, why getting

off SSRIs can sometimes take years, whether withdrawal is being mistaken for relapse and how an entire generation may have built identities around diagnoses that they were never meant to to carry for life. Watch this episode on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or Culture Apothecary on Spotify. Whether this is your first time ever listening to my podcast or your 100th, please leave us a five-star review. This helps the show tremendously and takes three seconds to do. Please welcome author of unshrunk Laura Delano to Culture Apothecary. The most common explanation for this rapid decline that we're seeing in society today is that we're in a mental health crisis. But you're actually arguing something even more controversial, which is that millions of Americans may not

actually be mentally ill, millions of Americans may be in drug withdrawal. Yeah, it's a controversial statement to make. And I think it's a combination of long-term medication adverse effects and people trying time after time to come off their medications and feeling horrible, leading them to go back on. I think it's a multifaceted source that's behind this crisis. But it's not what we've been told. It's, you know, and what I realized for myself is, that the treatment itself might be fueling what we're thinking of as a mental health crisis. How could that be mistaken for one another? I mean, drug withdrawal symptoms, that can look like mental illness? Drug withdrawal symptoms can mimic the symptoms of the diagnoses in the DSM,

the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, and also long-term adverse effects can as well. So we're in this situation where our culture has this lens over our eyes, where we see people who are told they have chronic, you know, mental health conditions, month after month, year after year, not getting better or even getting worse. And we're all trained to see that as, you know, their illness is progressing. And what I found in my own experience, and now having been doing this work for 15 years, have heard from thousands and thousands of other people, is that it was actually the long-term polypharmacy regimen that we were on that was fueling what we were being told was our own illness inside of our brains.

You know, you have a chemical imbalance and just unfortunate. This treatment isn't helping. You're getting worse. You know, I eventually realized, oh, my gosh, it's largely the treatment itself. How many people in the U.S. are on antipsychotic meds right now, approximately? Broadly speaking, around 65 million Americans are on some kind of psychiatric medication, according to CDC numbers from 2022. So I would estimate the numbers are actually higher.

That's 61 million adults and 4 million kids around there. You know, tens of millions of people are on antidepressants alone. And, you know, older women have really high rates of antidepressant prescriptions. Obviously, foster kids have really high rates of all kinds of psychiatric prescriptions. You know, more people are on these meds than ever before at the same time as more people than ever before are suffering and struggling and thinking about killing themselves, trying to kill themselves, actually killing themselves. Who's writing the most scripts for these antipsychotic medications? Broadly speaking, it's actually not psychiatrists, interestingly enough. Most psychiatric prescriptions are written by primary care doctors.

And then a lot of APRNs are now writing prescriptions. And so it isn't, you know, a problem with psychiatry itself. It's with this kind of quick fix. Here's a script you're feeling sad about, you know, your stress at work. here's and we're in our annual physical here's a prescription I'll see a next year kind of thing we've just lost touch with how serious these medications are these are powerful psychoactive chemicals that profoundly alter all the functions in our body and yet these prescriptions are thrown around like like they're nothing and I don't blame anyone in particular for that it's really just the the in part it's direct to consumer advertising and this kind of decades decades now of us being desensitize through drug ads and through the infusion into Hollywood and culture that meds are like candy. It just no tradeoffs. The one time that I was prescribed Lexapro, it came from a 10-minute, 15-minute wellness checkup with my general practitioner. She just said, like, how's work going?

And I said, I mean, it's like a really stressful time right now. I don't know. I was working on something, building a show or whatever. And she was just like, oh, well, you know, we have. you just put you on a low dose of Lexa Pro that'll probably really help. And I was like, oh, okay. This is before, obviously, I was doing any of this or knew anything about health and wellness and the side effects of SSRIs. I didn't even know when an SSRI was. She put me on five milligrams. And luckily, it was easy for me to get off of it. I just decided I didn't want to be on this anymore. And I did kind of strategically taper myself, but I didn't work with anyone on doing that. I just did it myself, but did okay. But I know that that is not the case for

millions of Americans. And you've kind of become this basically accidental whistleblower for people who are feeling trapped by psychiatric drugs. So what are the types of stories that people have shared with you? Thousands at this point, all very similar to my own, which is we all found our way onto these medications for a reason. In my case, I was a teenage girl. I was, in retrospect, I see hitting puberty. I was waking up to myself, waking up to my body, to my sexuality, to how I related to other people, to school. And I just, I was really struggling with who, figuring out who I was. And I was in so much pain, you know, feeling like I didn't belong. And what was the point to this life? It's all a performance. I'm just meant to go

to school and play sports and be polite. But who am I? What do I really care about? And like me, I think so many people have some kind of, whether it's a crisis or, you know, a bump in the road or some kind of difficult life chapter that always has a story behind it. You know, we don't suffer, break down or go crazy just out of the blue. There's always a story behind it. But I think because the current mental health industry is set up in such a way that there isn't oftentimes space to explore those stories. Doctors are stressed. They don't have a lot of time. They have a lot of paperwork to do. So you come in, you describe. the so-called symptoms that you're experiencing. And instead of stepping back to say, like, what's the context here? You know, what's happened to you?

What's happening around you? It's, okay, those symptoms look like this illness. Unfortunately, these illnesses are incurable, but manageable with medications. So, you know, here's my prescription pad and, you know, this is going to help. I don't blame doctors for behaving this way. We have a system, the system itself is for. fundamentally corrupted and is full of perverse incentive structures that lead people, lead doctors and mental health professionals away from taking time and making space. But the thousands of

stories I've heard are all of people who were in pain, turned to the mental health system for help, mostly encountered really well-meaning mental health professionals who were doing the best they could with the toolkit they had at their disposal and then ended up on one, or usually more than one medication with no off-ramp in sight, no end game, no discussion at the outset of, you know, just so you know, these drugs have only been studied for six to eight weeks, you know, prior to getting approved. So if you stay on them longer than that, we don't really have much evidence base for what could happen here. And also just so you know, if you try to get off them one day, you might have a really hard time. So hold on a minute. How much testing has been done for SSRIs with long-term use? The average length of a, trial is about six to eight weeks that tests the safety and efficacy. That's what the FDA reviews are very short-term trials. Sometimes a week long. One of the Ambien trials that the drug was approved on the basis of was one night. One night for Ambien? And they used a normal population who didn't even have sleep problems. And the premise was if they're in a sleep lab, they'll have disturbed sleep.

And they followed them for one night. That was one of the three trials, three total trials that the FDA-based its decision to approve Ambien on. I'm blown away by this. What is the average length that people are on SSRIs? Most people are on them for years. A survey, I think, is something like 70% of people who are like five or more years, if I'm remembering correctly, but it's years. And I have yet to meet a person who has been on these medications for years who was told they were taking a drug that was only ever looked at over a matter of a week. I have no one I've ever met knew that up front. I certainly didn't. The other thing, too, that has never been studied ever is polypharmacy taking multiple psych meds at the same time. I assumed when I was prescribed five medications by one prescriber, not multiple, that there must be an evidence base for this. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. And now I, you know, have long since known that these drugs have never been studied in combination with each other for their safety or effectiveness. So we basically are conducting. a massive societal experiment on a population of people who are in pain who do often need help.

And none of us have been told this. I think now our culture is waking up to this and realizing something isn't working here, something isn't right. Maybe this isn't actually the, you know, one-size-fits-all answer for all people to just put you on a prescription that you'll be on potentially for the rest of your life with zero evidence base. So some of these. So some of these people that are experiencing horrific adverse side effects from long-term use of antipsychotic meds or SSRIs or what have you. What are the types of things that they're telling you? Well, people, I mean, depending on the drug class, common adverse effects that often mimic the diagnoses themselves are, you know, brain fog, memory issues, fatigue. You know, for certain drug classes, people often get ramped up

anxiety, panic, you know, stress responses to things, sleep problems, obviously metabolic problems, especially antipsychotics. When I was on antipsychotics, I mean, my multi-drug regimen always had at least one antipsychotic on it. I eventually, my weight fluctuated 70 pounds. For years, I was almost 200 pounds. And I remember being told basically that I was shallow and, like, and vein for caring about weight gain when, you know, my life was at stake. I was like, right now, I'm like, that's just so wild to me. And the realities I took that in as feedback to actually in court, I was like, maybe I am. Maybe I am being shallow.

You know, I do have the serious illness. So people experience all kinds of adverse effects that mimic the diagnoses. And when they try to come off their meds, because they don't know how to taper, slowly because their doctors don't know, because there are literally zero safe tapering protocols that now is changing, of course, with Secretary Kennedy, people think how they feel when they come off their meds is their so-called baseline, is, you know, their untreated condition and basically how they would feel for the rest of their lives, which is why they so often go up, go back on, because they're told, see, you don't want to live this way. It was a mistake to come off and they go

back on and they feel better because they're not in withdrawal anymore. And then they think, oh, wow, my med really helps me because I would feel so much worse if I wasn't on it. When you were 13 years old, doctors were basically telling you there was something wrong with your brain. Your brain was defective. What exactly were they telling you was wrong with you? At 13, I was sent to a therapist. The therapist eventually sent me to a psychiatrist. At 14, I saw my first MD, my first psychiatrist. And in one session, first appointment with her, after I poured out my heart and just how angry I was and I was cutting myself and I was thinking about death and I was acting out at home and I was, you know, my thoughts wouldn't stop, you know, spinning around in my head about how

meaningless life was. She said to me, you know, this all sounds like something called bipolar disorder and it's an incurable illness that can be managed with meds. She didn't look in my brain. She didn't conduct any tests. She didn't, you know, scan anything. Nor did it occur to me as a 14-year-old girl to ask her. Like, how do you know? I just took this in and heard, you know, yeah, your brain's defective and will be for the rest of your life. And it profoundly impacted my sense of self and really began what ended up becoming this decade and a half odyssey through the mental health system that I talk about in my book on trunk.

and thank God I eventually found my way out of it because a lot of people don't. I have many, many friends who feel stuck or who aren't even here anymore because they gave up hope and trying to get off these meds that they were on for years. And doctors are routinely telling people, you know, antidepressants are totally safe for long-term use. They're totally safe. But if that was true, why does it take people years to get off? of these drugs. Yeah, I mean, it's a similar playbook to the opiate crisis that we are still, you know, reckoning with as a country. I think we've been taught to view these drugs as,

you know, benevolent, gentle tools that really have limited tradeoffs, you know, maybe some headaches, maybe some digestive issues, but they should wear off in a few weeks. And in reality, these are psychoactive chemicals that our brains become dependent on. And so I don't think it's necessarily a nefarious, I don't think there have been nefarious motives here, at least among the doctors themselves. I think there certainly is corrupt industry influence, you know, at play here. And drug companies knew from the beginning that these were dependents forming

and their whistleblower, there have been documents leaked that show that internally they knew. of these drugs caused discontinuation, quote unquote, when you, you know, symptoms when you stop them. So there are nefarious actors. But most people in this crisis here, I think, just haven't had good information. Doctors too. We've all been kind of betrayed here, I think, by by corrupt motives and incentives that haven't given us good information. We've known for years that teenage girls are moody. You've got hormone fluctuations. It seems like every single big, emotion, they're trying to medicalize it. What do you think happens to a generation of girls where every single intense emotion they experience gets framed as pathology? I was the beginning of this

phenomenon that is now, you know, I'm an elder millennial, so I was in therapy as a teen in the 90s, and this was just taking off, you know, what is now just everywhere where your diagnosis is your identity. It's how you feel seen and heard and understood. It's how you feel like your pain can be validated. I remember what that felt like. I remember I was just, I was so desperate to feel like I belonged somewhere and like I understood myself and other people around me understood me. And eventually that that diagnostic framework came, became the kind of single meaning making apparatus that I had for myself. And it helped me feel like I was understood. And I think now young girls and young women in our culture have grown up infused in that message.

that to feel valid in this world, you need to have your pain recognized. You need to have something wrong with you that, you know, you can pursue treatment to manage. Like, that's your purpose. It's how you're going to find your tribe. You know, oh, look, we all have the same diagnosis. Oh, look, we're all on the same med. I think just symbolically, the mental health industry has really kind of laid claim to the way we make sense of what it means to be human, especially for girls and young women.

And I think what's happened as a result of this is that we've really surrendered our power in many ways. I think now about the emotional pain I was feeling that got me diagnosed as so-called mentally ill. It was wise. I was waking up to the intense pressures in my all-girls private school that were just not sustainable. And I was waking up to how, destructive it is to have to have your sense of self tied up in performance and if I had had the chance to listen to that pain and actually make sense of what it was trying to tell me, which is that who you are has nothing to do with how you look and how you perform. I think I could have avoided all the psychiatrization to follow, but I didn't have that space. And I don't think

girls today have that space. But I do think something's changing. I think women are waking up to the ways they've been betrayed by medical authority, whether it's with psychiatric drugs or oral contraception, we're realizing we've surrendered like an understanding of our bodies and how they work, an understanding of our emotions and how wise they are and how much we need to use them to change the world to grow and evolve as people. I feel optimistic that we're going to start trending away from a medicalized culture. We might be at the tipping point right now. Do you remember when Furbies came out and people were convinced they were possessed?

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Okay. Hobbies. Now are they kind of finding their friend groups and tribes based on all being prescribed the same medication? I think so. And I think that in combination with the performative nature of their lives now on social media. you know, thinking, I can't imagine how hard it is to grow up thinking about every action you're taking as, you know, is this going to be something I can make a video out of or how will people receive this? I think, I think it's a combination of having this awareness that you're constantly

being perceived and judged and analyzed in combination with this dominant medicalized framework for communication. And no wonder where we are right now where, you know, one in three high school girls like seriously thinks about killing herself. We're not designed as human beings to live this way. You know, we're designed to be in tribes. We're designed to move our bodies. We're designed to make art, use our hands, help each other, especially as women, I think, are, our hearts are called to to serve especially vulnerable people, children, people in pain. And we're taking all that energy now and bringing it to a therapist office and, you know, learning to just think about, like, I grew up so narcissistic, so focused on myself

because I just sat in therapy week after week and talked about my pain all the time and how anxious I was and how depressed I was. Just ruminating on yourself. Totally. Totally. And my therapist, you know, God bless them, they're really nice people, but they, you know, they weren't incentivized to help me realize I didn't actually need them. So it's just years, years of focusing on myself. I hear that a lot too, is that especially women in their 20s, they're like, oh, I love my therapist. I've been there.

I've been going to her for six years. I mean, to me, that's a huge red flag. Like, I am just throwing this out there. In my opinion, therapy should be for like the most severe cases you've gone through a sexual assault or like, you know, some sort of actual trauma. Not how we label trauma today, which I just, I don't even think it's trauma. I think it's like any sense of being uncomfortable. They're like, that was trauma. If you have gone through something significant, okay, the loss of a loved one or whatever, a short-term stint in therapy seems healthy to me.

But continuing to go to a therapist for years and years and years, is that a red flag? that you're not getting better. And two, shouldn't a therapist, like, fire you basically as a client? Like, you need to get out there and get on your own and I can't just be holding your hand your whole life. Yeah, I mean, but they're not incentivized because they'll lose a client. Right. But nobody thinks about that. Nobody's considering that they're getting this regular, very expensive paycheck monthly from you continually going. Like, why would they get you better? Totally. And I don't even think they're consciously thinking this. I think it's, the norm has become indefinite therapy for many people, just like the norm has become indefinite meds.

I'm not saying it's always like this. I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions, but it never once crossed my mind as a young woman in once to twice weekly therapy that I might one day not need to be in therapy. I just took it as a given. I'm on meds for the rest of my life and I'm in therapy for the rest of my life. And I think the reason why that has become the norm is because medicalizing our culture doesn't just mean turning suffering and pain into, you know, a list of symptoms of a diagnosis needing pills. It also means viewing help as something that you can only find from someone with letters after their name, like a trained professional. The number of times I've heard people say, you know, oh, so and so came to me and they were in this intense crisis. And I said, I'm not a

mental health professional. Like maybe you should go find someone who knows what they're doing. to me that speaks to how profoundly disconnected we are from the power we each have as humans to be with each other through dark nights of the soul. So I think the professionalization of help has also become this monolithic, you know, taken on this monolithic force in our culture where, you know, here I am as a former patient. My expertise is the experiences that I've had navigating all this stuff. And, you know, I can sit with someone in suicidal despair and not be afraid of it because I've been there and I can walk next to someone

who's trying to figure out something in their life and because I've had to do that in my own life, it feels organic and innate to be able to do that for someone else. But a lot of people out there would say, that's dangerous. She's not qualified. And that to me is,

at the heart of this medicalization crisis, is like we have to take back that power to help ourselves. and each other. Not to say no one should ever go to therapist again, but we've like forgotten that that's just one way of getting help. If you think about who you were at 13 when all of this was going on and the emotional turmoil that you were in and what so many teenage girls are experiencing, I think to them, they hear this conversation and then they're like, well, if suffering is an automatic pathology, then what is suffering for? Even more tragic, I think a lot of girls and

young women would hear, you know, this idea of suffering as not pathology as an insult. Like, how dare you tell me I'm not sick? Like, I would have, 16 years ago, if you had said, you know, Laura, like, maybe this intense pain you're in is because you're, like, awake and sensitive and you've been through hard stuff. I'd have been like, how dare you invalidate me? Like, my brain is sick. Do you not understand Alex? The road ahead is going to require us, not just girls and women, but all of us to sit with mystery and uncertainty because what I have found the most helpful for me in my journey away from being a professional psychiatric patient, as I like to say, is trying to have an answer to and an explanation for everything about who I am and why I feel

the way I feel has actually, it's a prison. And there's a lot of freedom and letting go of needing to know why all the time and needing to have a box that you can fit yourself in. and needing to have an answer to every question. Sometimes it's just, you know, just being with the uncertainty and the mystery and the discomfort in that, that actually enables you to, like, find what you're meant to do next. Right now, I think for so many people who are on meds and who are in, you know, kind of, you know, week after week, month after month, year after year of therapy, they've lost this opportunity to just not need to figure it out all the time and fix the pain and stop the discomfort.

And to me, the more we wake up to this and realize, like, wait, I can be with myself in this pain. Like that, to me, is the biggest threat to the mental health industry. You've said that coming off of meds made you feel life again, even the painful parts. is there a danger that modern culture has become obsessed with emotional comfort at all costs? Totally. We are so, and it's so much bigger than just the mental health industry, I think consumerism more broadly, just this, we're just bombarded constantly with messages about, you know, if you don't feel good, something's wrong with you. Like, buy this, take this, do this. And I think it's so embedded in us that pain and discomfort is a problem to fix that we've lost literacy in being with pain.

Literacy isn't the exact right word for it. But in some ways it is because the language of pain, pain is telling us something about our lives that sometimes requires action and sometimes just requires listening. But quick fix consumerist culture, quick fix mental health culture, you know, rock. you have that opportunity to actually listen. And so I know for me, coming off the meds, which I did way too fast, and I'm sure we'll talk more about tapering and all of that, but I had no idea what I was doing. I put myself through a lot of unnecessary pain because of how quickly I came off. But as I navigated withdrawal, like then the real work began because the drugs were out of my system now. And now I had to actually learn how to be with myself and be with my mind and be with my pain after running

from it for like half my life at that at that point i feel like we have an entire generation of people that do not even feel real emotions like they aren't experiencing high highs but they're also not experiencing low lows and and sadness and anger and joy joy is you know so important as an emotion all of this is part of the human experience and we've just kind of kneecapped people so they're not experiencing this at all. And I think that's why you have this epidemic of young people, especially going, I don't know, I'm not passionate about anything. I don't really know what I'm good at. I don't know what I love to do. I don't know what I want to do with my life. I just feel like I don't have a calling. I don't know how to find my calling. It's like, how many medications

are you on? That's like the one thing that I wonder is I think a lot of that feeling of like listlessness, I guess through life is coming from being overly medicated from a young age. I think so. And I think we are in a disembodying culture. So between the meds and the screens and the processed food, we are all set up by default to basically disconnect from our bodies, from our senses, from our full capacities as vital human beings. And it takes effort to, you know, like opt out of the default setting to not start that med, to not, you know, go for that box of processed food. because you feel too tired to cook yourself and meal.

I think is weird. People actually get pissed off when you tell them, just change your food. Get morning sun. Don't use your phone for a couple hours or try to wear blue light glasses or whatever, but try to avoid blue light a couple hours before you go to bed. People get mad. Like, well, it can't be that simple. Like, it has to be something that's complex. It has to be a drug that you're prescribed. Or else they don't think that it's real helpful advice. It's such an astute observation. and I would have been that person, you know, way back. Like, I think it's weird. People, and this is not about medication, but, like, people have been genuinely, like, violently

angry with me online when I've talked about, you know, my skin or different things improving. And I'm like, I just changed my food. I stopped drinking five Dr. Peppers a day. They're like, well, it can't be that. Like, it can't be that easy. It's like, what if it is? What the real story is here, because this is a symptom, what you're describing is a, not to use a medicalized word, but, like, a symptom of a much deeper crisis that we're in.

And that is modern industrialized society is like not sustainable for human thriving. And I think we are all from a young age in so much discomfort and pain and and alienation. We aren't designed to sit in desks under, you know, fluorescent lights, hour after hour, after hour, day after day after day. And so I think we are all in so much pain and we're tired and we're depleted. And so you hear that kind of invitation, like, well, maybe if you just get out for a morning walk and it feels impossible. And so I think it's important to see what the root of source is of this crisis that we're in where people are offended by the thought of getting sunlight. And it's not about those people being like lazy or bad people in any way. It's just we are living in a culture that makes it nearly impossible to thrive.

you have to like really muster the will and the energy and have resources too you have to have the resources to do these things and so it's I see the same kind of polarized conversation that that it sounds like you're you're having to where people are it's like this us and them thing and if you're not you know on board with the lifestyle changes then you're the then you're the enemy or vice versa To me, we have to like find a way to meet in the middle and recognize like we're all struggling in this, in this, you know, alienating modern world that we live in. We have to come together and like step into each other's shoes and see the world through each other's eyes if we're actually going to figure out how to like find our way out of this again so that it is, we can go back to how, you know, I think about my childhood in the 80s and 90s, no internet, let alone, you know, like, no cell phones, none of it. I didn't know anything besides like just being in the woods after school for hours every day. Like that was my norm. I have to think it's possible that even with all this

technology and screens and all of it that we can help, especially our kids, help that become innate to them again. We have to believe it's possible. But we're only going to get there, I think, if we just really understand the pain and the wounds at the heart of why people are so angry when you when you say these things. It's not going to be an easy road to meet each other, but we have to. One thing I always keep on hand, especially this time of year, is active skin repair. Actually, it became a staple for me after one of those days where you think, I'm fine, I don't really need to reapply sunscreen, and then you get home and you realize you're absolutely cooked. You know, that really like hot, tight, angry feeling that your skin gets after too much sun. So I sprayed active

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ability to have an orgasm, no, you know, sensory activation, really, of any kind. And thank God, I got that back. A lot of people haven't been so lucky. And PSSD post-SSI sexual dysfunction is a serious issue. I think I grieved that more than anything because who we are as sexual beings is about so much more than sex. It's about, you know, your creativity and your friendships and your appreciation of beauty. And so grief, I think, is perhaps the most important emotion to reckon with when you're trying to leave behind, you know, psych meds and diagnoses and all of it. And it brings anger with it, and it brings shock and denial, like the whole thing. Now I wouldn't change, when I look back, I wouldn't change a minute of it because it's given me my life's purpose and

And it's filled my life with such joy and meaning because I know intimately what a life not worth living feels like. But it took me a while to get to that place. I think PSSD is one of the most complex, shocking medication side effects I've ever heard just because of how it can completely ruin like any ability to feel anything sexual. That's horrific. I just saw this video of this girl on a panel. and she was talking about how she feels no sensation in her clitoris. She's like 23 years old. She doesn't feel anything when she listens to music.

And she doesn't feel anything when her mother hugs her. Yeah. Her name's Lauren Friedman and my organization Intercompass Initiative helped organize that summit. It's the May 4th, 2026 summit that you're referring to. That testimony was so powerful. I get Tiri just thinking about seeing her up there on that stage. It took so much courage to put herself out there in such a vulnerable way. And I think the community of PSSD people are just so steadfast in getting the word out about this and in trying to make changes happen, you know, starting with updating drug labels to even warn that this is a thing, which literally right now there are no warnings about it on American drug labels.

There are in other countries. It's such a profound betrayal of what it means to be human to have this taken from you. And I think it happens to far more people. I think a lot of people don't even realize that their lack of desire, you know, that's a symptom of depression, for example. So a lot of people just don't even link the dots. This is a hot take. You may or may not agree, which is fine. My hot take is anyone, any young person who claims to be asexual is experiencing drug side effects.

I don't even, I don't think that's humanly possible to be asexual. I think it's completely false, which you can disagree. I think it's false. I think it's a mind trick from medications or you've been completely numbed out by medications. And so you think I'm not capable of feeling a sexual attraction towards anyone. I just think there's no way. I think the med piece is a huge part of it, for sure. I definitely agree.

I think also there's a social contagion phenomenon too. And also like the food that is disconnecting people from their bodies and all the hormonal disruption from toxins. and of course the cultural cachet now at being, because it's a new identity box to put yourself in because people are just desperate to stand out. Being normal is uncool. Totally. Like if you are not some form of minority group or whatever,

you know, if you're not LGBT, if you don't have some sort of like serious mental illness, it's like you're not cool because you've got to have something wrong with you. Yeah, it's a power. I mean, I fell prey to it myself and I think it speaks to, again, again, like this deep existential spiritual crisis that our culture is in where young people grow up adrift. And without, you know, we've lost, I think, American culture, you know, we don't grow up with rituals, with, you know, when you're entering transitions in, like, I think about my puberty, you know, I had no opportunity to learn from, you know, I was embarrassed to talk about it with my mom,

let alone, you know, be surrounded and embrace and celebrated for, you know, reaching Menarch. And I think about how so many, there's so many missing rituals, especially like intergenerational rituals in American culture now, that I think leave young people, especially adrift and searching for that sense of belonging. Hence why these identity boxes feel so tantalizing because you just want to know who you are and how you fit in here. Oh, and here? Oh, I can be bipolar. Awesome. Or like, I can be asexual. Awesome. Or whatever the box is. And I love it. It's like we need to make like normal, boring, just ordinariness. You know what it is? We need to bring emo back because this is a thing. Every teenage girl wants to feel unique and special and stand out. Right. Avrilavine, I mean, I'm a millennial too. I'm a little younger than you. But Avrilavine came out with her losing my grip album and she had that song, anything but ordinary. And I was. in fourth grade listening to that like, oh my gosh, this is me. I want to be anything but ordinary. Like, that's like the worst thing that could ever happen is to just be boring and bland and like everyone else. And it's like usually you would see teenagers would go into these bouts of self-expression with how they dress and cool haircuts and makeup and things like that.

You would see that. But now the way that they're finding this uniqueness about them is through perceived mental illnesses. And so my question for you is you said it yourself that if somebody would have came to you and said, you need to change your diet. What are you eating? How are we sleeping at night? How much outside time? How much sunlight are we getting? Things like that. As a teenager, when you were going through all of these different emotional changes and hormonal fluctuations, you would have totally rejected that and been like, how dare you not see me and understand what I'm going through? So for other parents listening who know that if they were to come to their teenager, be like, we're going to be tapering you off these drugs. You don't need this. There's other things that we could do, like exercise, what have you. they know that they're going to have an absolute connoption. So like, how should parents be handling this with teenagers, especially girls? Yeah, I think it's all about the connection and as much as possible sinking deeper than the words that are being exchanged. And like, what's the emotion here? It's fear.

It's insecurity. It's a sense of inadequacy. It's a sense of feeling invisible. like as I when parents reach out for help I'll often say you know the the real communication isn't in the words your kid is saying to you it's it's something deeper so I think it requires the parent to first themselves get make sure they're connected to their own emotional capacities because I think a lot of you know parents God bless them grow up themselves you know compartmentalizing the full spectrum. of their emotions. So I think it starts with, am I as a parent actually in touch with my own emotions? Am I actually listening to what my instincts are telling me? And am I taking care of myself? Am I eating? You know, it's really starting there so that you can get yourself as centered as possible to then be able to really listen past the noise and pass the arguments with your kid to like hear

what they're actually saying, which is I don't feel like I belong here. I don't know who I am. I don't know how to navigate this life. And that's where the connection needs to be forged and maintained. Good point about the parent needs to have their stuff together because the first person who's going to call you out for being hypocritical is going to be your 16-year-old daughter. Oh, yeah. Because I was that. I was a nightmare teenager.

And I would have immediately been like, uh-uh, you know, you don't get to tell me that like with you doing the X, Y, Z. So I would have not. I would have been so resistant. Yeah. Oh, my, me too. First fault. And, and yeah, I think the other thing.

that parents can do because, you know, I'm a parent. I have a stepson and a son, 12 and 5. I mess up all the time, especially the past year. My book came out. I'm working really hard. I'm stressed. I'm depleted. I'm not doing the things that I need. I know I need all the time. But in the very least, I own it and I model, you know, what it looks like to say, like, I messed up here and I'm going to do better next time. So I think as parents, you know, we're all doing the best we can. It's really hard to juggle, you know, if you're working full-time with kids, it's hard to juggle at all. So it's also about modeling how you move through making mistakes and, and like, owning, owning that. I think for parents who have kids who are already on meds, one thing to keep in mind, and this is also for, you know, any family member who has a loved one on a psych med, and the family member is seeing, you know, these meds aren't serving this person I love.

I think it's important to remember how powerful the stories that we get taught as psychiatric patients are about our, you know, so-called broken brains and, you know, this medicine is like, you know, someone with diabetes needs insulin, I need this for my, and recognizing that the last thing you want to do is, is give off a coercive energy, as much as you can make peace with the fact that this might take a while to help your, if it's a kid, you obviously, like an under 18 kid, you can. do whatever you want as a parent, obviously. But if it's an adult, this is about staying by the person's side, helping them in as gentle a way as you can connect with information that maybe they weren't given about the meds, like the whole six to eight week, you know, trials. Yet, you know, Tom, you've been on this for seven years, just planting seeds, sharing resources, reminding them that you're there by their side, and also helping them recognize that, you know, I think a lot of of the reason why people stay on these meds for years is because every time they try to stop, they feel horrible. So they're really afraid of trying again. I gave it a shot getting off my Lex Pro

a couple years ago. It didn't go well. When you're supporting someone in that place, reminding them, well, maybe you didn't have good information about how to taper safely. But you know what? Now we can get access to that. So this time might look different because I think a lot of people stay on these meds because they're afraid. Oh, yeah. So how do you help them realize this has been an information problem? We didn't have good information before about how to taper. Now we do. It might well look very different.

What are some other lesser known side effects when it comes to antidepressants that people don't talk about enough? I think one of the craziest, it's like, hello, is that one of the main side effects of antidepressants are depression and anxiety. An increased risk of suicide. Yes. Also. If you've been on these drugs and you're not getting better and you still feel depressed and anxious, it could be the side effect of the medication. Yep. I also saw something recently about hearing loss.

You could be experiencing hearing loss from long-term SSRI use. For anyone not familiar, SSRI, selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. And that's just one of multiple different kinds of antidepressants or SNRIs or M-A-O-Is or, you know, tricyclical. They're all different kinds of antidepressants. the serotonin system is, you know, we've been taught this BS mythology that, oh, serotonin is a happy chemical. And people just, oh, the little Zoloft bubble. Serotonin is responsible for like basic human functioning, you know, especially in your, starting in utero through your life, it, it controls all kinds of like essential functions of the body. So when you're interfering with that by taking a

drug that basically disables how your serotonergic system is functioning. Like, they're going to be systemic effects. So I don't think it gets talked about enough. Something like 95% of our serotonin receptors are in the gut. So when you're taking an SSRI, it's not just like going straight to your brain. It's literally interfering with your entire like metabolic system. So a lot of people who think they have irritable bowel syndrome, you know, or who have leaky gut syndrome. You know, or who have leaky gut syndrome or who have all kinds of digestive issues, you know, if they're on antidepressants, it's worth considering like maybe that's not a coincidence. I had years and years and years of what I thought was IBS. Got off my five psych meds gave my body like a couple years to really

recover and realize like, wow, I never had IBS actually. It was like totally just the metabolic effects of these drugs. What I would say to anyone listening right now is, you know, don't Don't take our word for any of this because I could imagine someone saying neither of these women are doctors. Google it. Oh, that's their favorite thing is. The peer-reviewed literature, you can find, you know, psych drugs can lead to autoimmune conditions. They can lead to heart issues, kidney issues, liver issues, vision issues. Like, the list goes on and on and on because these neurotransmitter systems are essential to like basic human function. Speaking of how hard it is to get off these drugs, you've got women. that are on these since teenagers, sometimes even earlier. And then, you know, they're in their mid, late 20s, early 30s. They get married.

They want to get pregnant. It's like impossible. You can't just stop taking the drug. Oh, I'm pregnant. So I'm just not going to take my lexapro anymore. No, no, no, that's not how it works. So they're getting pregnant on SSRIs. And what do we know about babies who are developing in the womb while their mother is taking any type of antidepressant or anti-anxiety med?

There are well-documented, um, effects on postpartum outcomes on developmental issues and kids. It's serotonin, these drugs cross the blood brain barrier. They cross the placental wall. They infuse every part of us. And when you have a delicate little baby growing and is who's so susceptible to the environment around them in the mother's womb, you know, any, this idea that a synthetic pharmaceutical, produced in a lab would have no effect on that. It's just, it's just illogical. And what's wild is, you know, the medical profession, they know that this is not new. But I think because the psychiatric drug conversation has become so politicized in our culture, there's now this, like,

knee-jerk reaction to any kind of questioning of a pharmaceutical product. Like, it's suddenly a political issue. Why have we taken it here? Because it It shouldn't be. Right. And this is nothing new. Are SNRIs any safer for long-term use? Whatever the drug class is, whether it's SSRI, SNRI, M-A-O-I, tricyclic, antipsychotic, you know, antacinvolsin, benzodiazepine, Z drug, stimulant.

They are all approved on the basis of short-term trials. So it is literally an experiment to take these drugs long-term. And our SNRIs just as hard to get off of. as SSRIs? I would say roughly speaking, they're all as difficult, the antidepressants. I mean, the drug class that seems to be the least hard with the caveat that some people have a really hard time getting off them are stimulants, like Adderall, Ritalin, Vivans. Every single college kid I know is on Adderall. What do you know about Adderall? Anything? Proved on the basis of short-term trials. It's, I mean, these, these drugs,

that are given for so-called ADD, ADHD, they're largely amphetamines, methamphetamine, you know, they're speed. They're very, they're basically speed. If you give any human being speed, they're going to be able to focus on mundane, monotonous tasks that they're not interested in, at least for a short period of time. So one of the things that happens often with people on stimulants, especially for people who grew up on stimulants, is that they first of all, become dependent on them fast, so they develop tolerance. So the drug that, you know, the dosage that they were previously on stops working. So they're steadily increasing doses over years or adding a second stimulant. That happens often. But the tragedy here is, and there needs to be,

there will be a reckoning around this, I think, soon. I feel it coming is that you now have, you know, 30-somethings, 40-somethings who've been on stimulants since high. And I think, school since college. They've built careers based on their prescriptions, you know, and the terror they must feel, my God, I'm a lawyer. I've built this career for myself based on getting my, my Adderall. Like, I can't ever come off it because what if I can't do my job? I think we have a serious, like, professional crisis here, especially for men, too. My husband, Cooper, this was his story. He was put on stimulants as a teenager and in his 20s became a journey. And in his 20s became a journey. And journalist, he's not the kind of guy who can handle like deadlines and stress and pressure. He's like more expansive. He's an artist. He's a creative. Totally. Yeah. And he hate deadlines. I freaking hate deadlines too. They're brutal. And he was on speed, prescribed speed doing his job. When he quit, when he realized he didn't need to get off this stuff, he stopped. He couldn't be a journalist anymore. So like it's serious here what we're talking about when it comes to stimulants.

But that drug class I would say I hear the least issue, relatively speaking, the least issues getting off of it. That being said, it's still really hard to get off. I saw a story recently about a woman who gave birth and then got hit with a bill because her insurance company denied part of her maternity stay years later, years later. Imagine bringing a baby into the world, thinking you're covered, and then finding out that you're on your own. And honestly, stories like that make you wonder, if health insurance can leave families fighting over childbirth bills, what exactly are we sending all that money to insurance companies for? We have been taught that health insurance is our safety net. But every year, hundreds of thousands of families

face medical bankruptcy despite having health insurance. And health insurers deny a significant number of claims. That's why more people are rethinking the entire system, opting out of health insurance, and switching to crowd health. Crowd health is not insurance. It's a community of more than 30,000 members helping each other handle major medical expensive. 30,000 people, guys. So for the routine stuff, many members will pay cash and then they'll find dramatically lower prices by cutting out the middleman. And for the big stuff like cancer, major accidents, unexpected diagnoses, the crowd will step in. And what I love is that you get to choose your doctor. Crowd Health even supports functional medicine providers, birthing centers, and homebirths.

Plus, you get a dedicated care advocate, a prescription discount, help negotiating bills, and $300 available annually for wellness support. It's healthcare built around people instead of corporations. Like they're literally doing this the most maha way I've ever heard. Join CrowdHealth today. Get started for only $99 for your first three months with CodeCulture at JoinCrowdealth.com. That's join CrowdHealth.com code culture. CrowdHealth is not insurance.

Opt out. Take your power back. If you have additional questions about like the logistics of switching, they have the most amazing customer service. Call them up, email them up and ask whatever you need to ask and they will be able to answer for you. Being an adult is basically just finding out that everything important requires follow-up. You think that you've handled something once and then five years later someone's like, no, that expired, that change, that was never processed, good luck.

That's voter registration. People assume that they're fine because they registered once in college or because they voted a few years ago or because they have this touching faith in administrative competence. Meanwhile, all it takes is moving homes, even within the same state, changing your name, not voting in a while or some random outdated info and said, you've got a problem. Here's what's wild. Tens of millions of eligible Americans either aren't registered or aren't even sure if they are. So let's not do the thing where we find out too late and then act shocked. Let's just be adults for 30 seconds. Go to real Alexclarc.com slash vote.

I made it really simple. You can check your registration status. That's all it does. Just tells you if you're registered to vote or not. And if you're not, register you to vote. Not even telling you who to vote for. Real Alexclerc.com slash vote. I saw Roger McPhillan post another side effect that they're finding with anti-exhaven. is that they reduce your ability to feel the suffering of others. That brain scans confirmed it. You can see pain in somebody else, but you just stop feeling it. Like, I guess you don't feel bad for them. You don't feel anything. And I've been wondering why lately, it seems like nobody has empathy for others. I mean, look, I look at Turning Point USA. This isn't a secret. Like, I see how,

you know, people online are treating and talking about Erica Kirk. I'm like, what is happening? You know, How do you not feel pain for somebody else anyway? You know, there's a whole thing. But was that shocking to you to hear this? I mean, experientially, that was certainly what happened for me. And I was just interpreting it as, you know, I'm just so mentally ill that I, like, can't bond with people and I can't feel connected. And I think when you put that in combination with a mediated, you know, with the screen and this virtual realm that. we spend so much of our time in, I think it is no surprise that people treat each other

in the way you're describing. You know, just look at the broader like polarization of our, our, this cultural moment that we're in. And I can't help but wonder how much of it is being fueled by the fact that basically one and four of us are on psych meds. Dude, I'm telling you, I'm telling you it. I think this contributes to so many different issues that we're seeing in society. Where are we on getting a black box warning on SSRIs? The FCAA is a aware of the five active petition citizen petitions that have been filed in recent years around various issues tied to antidepressants, you know, between PSSD, dependence and withdrawal, pregnancy risks. And I know that they recently had a listening session with the authors of

these petitions to really hear, you know, what what it is that they're concerned about and what they think needs to change. I hope that the FDA, you know, is able to update the labels because I think there's a robust evidence base for PSSD and certainly for dependence and withdrawal. You know, it remains to be seen, but I'm optimistic that HHS more broadly is really taking this issue seriously and working hard to take action. The Secretary Kennedy really cares about this. He cares about it a lot. And I think the media and, you know, X, et cetera, often, whether deliberately or accidentally, Oh, it's deliberate.

It's deliberate. Right. So for those of you who don't know, because I know a lot of my audience are millennial moms, and so they are not on X, which I always tell them they need to be because, I mean, maybe you don't because it'll ruin your life. But also it's like, I don't know how you keep up with breaking news. But anyway, on X right now, it's like every single headline is like, Secretary Kennedy wants to ban SSRI.

He wants to take SSRIs away from people. What is the truth? The truth couldn't be any further different from that completely ridiculous claim. Secretary Kennedy has zero interest in removing access or, you know, stripping people of meds that they want to take. This is all about informed choice, and this is all about providing safe, reliable information and resources for whatever percentage of people end up deciding they don't want to take. take these anymore. I was saying the other day, you know, talking about the importance of giving people good information about how to safely taper off psych meds when that's what they want is not the same as saying you should taper off antidepressants. Also, like, use your freaking brain. I guess you must be

on an SSRI so you can't because the point is, is that Secretary Kennedy knows how damaging they are and how hard it is to taper off. So he's not going to rip them away from you because you know that's going to send to everybody. Like, I mean, oh my gosh, can you imagine what would happen to us as a culture if overnight SSRIs were banned? I mean, it's a really good point. Literally, we would see like homicidal maniacs, like crazy stuff would happen. And so nobody's going to do that. That's the whole point is he knows how dangerous it is and how tough it is to get off of them. So he wants to help people have that option in a safe way if they want it and just give people information. What is the correct way to taper off antidepressants?

I mean, there is no one answer to that question because it totally depends on how you're feeling as you're coming off. Some people can come off psych meds faster and have minimal problems, but others can't. And the challenges that right now, there's no way to know, because there's no research that's been done on this yet, there's no way to know up front if you are one of the lucky ones who can stop quickly. And just to paint a picture of what slow actually means, people think that slow usually means, you know, cut your dose in half for a couple of weeks or, you know, cut it, you know, by a quarter every week for a month. That's basically cool turkey. What we have found in the layperson withdrawal community, which I should say right now is the world's leading expert on this, those of us who've had to figure this out for ourselves because we had no safe guidance from our, from our doctors, what we found is that making increasingly smaller cuts that are around 5 to 10% of your dose each month is generally the rate that minimizes the risk that you'll have disabling withdrawal symptoms. So to paint a picture of that, if you're on 100 milligrams of a

drug and you want to come off at a rate of 10% a month. Is that what people are on, 100 milligrams of antidepressants? Well, all the different drugs have different dose. Like some, for some drugs, you're on one milligram. For others, you're on 1 milligram. For others, you're on 1,000 milligrams. It all, it all varies depending on which drug it is. Okay. But some, some antidepressants, 100 would be totally standard, like not for lexapro like you were on. So let's say you're on 100 milligrams and you've decided, you know what, I want to come off at 10% per month. So in month one, you would cut 10 milligrams, 10% of 100. In month 2, you would cut 10% of 90. So you'd cut 9mm. So you're down to 81.

And then in month three, you'd cut 8.1%, 10% of 81. So you end up making reductions that get progressively smaller over time. So it has what's called a hyperbolic curve. This is a critical distinction between how most of conventional psychiatrists who do deprescribing, most of them don't do it hyperbolicly. They do it in a linear way. So you would just cut 10, 10, 10, 10. The problem with this is that what research is now starting to reveal is that the way these drugs

interfere with your neurotransmitter receptors, it doesn't happen in a linear fashion. So the impact of a drug on your brain is not directly correlated with the amount of drugs. So if you're on, like, the five milligrams of lexapro that you were put on, which any doctor would say is like sub-therapeutic. That's like a tiny dose. It's barely doing anything. is having a dramatic effect on receptor function. The higher the dose you go up on, the less of an effect over time. So people find when they're on higher doses, they can taper down faster, but the lower the dose, the harder it gets to come off,

which if you say that to a standard prescriber, they'll say that's all in your head. You know, like you're on a low dose. You should be able to jump off. But it's actually the opposite. it. So this hyperbolic tapering is what helps minimize those increasing disruptions that happen when you're getting to lower and lower dosages. I know that sounds dense and technical, but basically like 5 to 10 percent a month based on whatever dose you were on the previous month is generally

the rate that people find leads to the least disruptive withdrawal symptoms. When you're like trying to taper off and you're taking down 10 percent, 10 percent, is this something that you can just do in your kitchen with a knife? That's a really good question. Okay. Right now you have no choice, basically, but to do it in your kitchen, whether it's with a knife or you're making a liquid mixture with water and using syringes, because currently these drugs are not manufactured in dosed sizes that enable you to taper safely. So people have had no choice but to become basically their own pharmacists at home doing like kitchen experiments. What I hope will, you know, one of the reform efforts underway at HHS, I think what would be really helpful to the American public is to find a way to

ensure these drugs are manufactured as liquids so that you can make reductions, you know, with a liquid, which is much easier to do than with a solid tablet. Exactly. Yeah. Or making them available in tablets in like a wide range of dosed sizes. Currently, you cannot taper safely unless you pay for a compounded prescription or use a liquid. And that needs to change because as more people wake up to the fact that they don't necessarily want to take these drugs for the long haul, if they don't have the ability to do it safely, it will be a public health crisis. And somebody listening that's like, I just want to be done with this. I just want to stop taking it. What's your message to them? I hear you. And that was me in 2010. And what I often say to people is

the fastest way to come off and stay off a psychiatric medication is to go very, very, very slowly. As slow as your body needs to avoid disabling withdrawal symptoms. So it might feel like it's going to take a lot longer. If you come off too fast, a lot of people end up back on meds or even on more meds and then it ends up taking even longer than if they had just done it slowly out the gates. So let's say somebody's been, I'm just going to throw this out there, on an antidepressant for eight years. I mean, on average, if you were just going to guess, and everybody's different, I know, and it depends on the drug. But if you were going to guess, how long should that tapering process probably take them?

Yeah, like you said, bearing in mind that everyone's different, I would say if it took 18 to 30, 18 to 36 months would probably be what I imagine would, you know, it would need. Maybe faster, but like I was saying before, there's no way to know up front. And so the best way to minimize risk is to start out going slowly and just slowly build up the speed until you start to feel problematic withdrawal symptoms. And then that's your body saying this is the fastest you can do this at instead of starting faster and then getting yourself destabilized and then you have to wait until you restabilize and then you've lost all this time. People talk about how hard it is to get off an SSRI and that you might experience withdrawal. symptoms. What I don't think they talk about is that those withdrawal symptoms are not necessarily immediate after getting off an SSRI, that they could appear, what, years later? Possibly years, but what I've seen is months later. And it's, again, because there's no research into this,

we don't really understand why this is the case. Like, I've heard some. Maybe it's just still in your body. The drug leaves your body. You know, these drugs are usually have half lives that are, you know, anywhere from like eight hours to I don't know I'm going to guess like 30 hours they're they're out of your the drug is out of your bloodstream in a short matter of time but that's actually not even relevant for the issue of withdrawal because withdrawal is the byproduct of physical dependence and physical dependence is basically what happens when your body has changed itself to accommodate this this drug so like anyone who drinks you know coffee every day and quits it cold turkey you know you know that migraine. So I think because we don't understand the full extent of what these drugs are doing to the

nervous system, there's some theories that the delayed withdrawal symptoms people have are, you know, maybe tied into there's some kind of, maybe there's some kind of sensitization that happens to neurotransmitter function when you're off these drugs. And so you're more susceptible to stress. So it's just a black box of understanding. But people not infrequently report being basically fine. after coming off their meds abruptly for weeks or even months, and then they get walloped like three months in. And of course, they're going to be told, that has nothing to do.

That's not withdrawal. You're having a relapse. This conflation of withdrawal and relapse is like a massive, distorting variable here that we have to help our culture tease apart. How you feel when you stop your medication is not necessarily you or your baseline or your so-called illness. Like it may well be withdrawal. And once you make that switch and you see it that way, you're like, whoa, whoa.

And then you just see it everywhere. Like all the stories of your friends and family, you know, who tried to get off. And then they had the horrible crisis. And they ended up in the hospital. You're like, oh, my gosh. It's all withdrawal. That horrific story of that New England mother. You know what I'm talking about?

What she put on 12 different, like, psych meds? Yeah. She was at the same hospital that I was a patient at to. Oh, really? Yeah. And it's, you know, McLean Hospital, it's like one of the country's most prestigious private psychiatric institutions. She killed her, what, three kids?

I can't remember if it was two or three. Yeah. And then tried to kill herself, jumped out of a window and is now paralyzed. And so now she's going, she's in the middle of trial for murder for her children. You know, her husband's left her or whatever, of course. But this is such an interesting case. I mean, it's obviously horrific. But just knowing what we know about these drugs, I just think this is such an interesting case where I almost feel like she has a massive lawsuit, you know, herself.

How much blame do you put on a person in that type of situation where, again, they've never studied how these drugs interact with each other. She's put on like a dozen of them at once. I mean, what is your take on that story? In the drug labels themselves, adverse events can include increased risk of suicidal and homicidal ideation. So I think there's enough evidence that these drug companies are required to put these risks on the label. I think, you know, there are previous cases, you know, a man in Canada named David Carmichael was put on. I can't remember what it was an antidepressant of some kind. I think for work stress.

and he ended up killing his son because the drug made him completely psychotic. He had no history of psychosis. He ended up winning, I don't know enough about the case, but whether they settled or he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. I don't remember if they actually linked it to the drug, but I know he tried to make a really strong case

that it was a drug. And I think it clearly was. What is the correlation we see between antidepressants and mass shootings? We need to take a closer look. We need to be foying medical records. We need to pass laws that require any mass shooting in the autopsy to drug tests for all pharmaceuticals. I think it's completely within the realm of possibility that these drugs play a role. I think it's obviously like more complicated and because if it, you know, not everyone is a mass shooter.

who's on polypharmacies. So I think it's an issue that needs more research and attention, but I also think it's an issue that isn't necessarily the most important one to be focusing the cultural conversation on because it's so polarizing and because it's relative to how many people are on these drugs, like such a small, it's obviously a significant issue, of course. But to me, the issue of dependence and withdrawal is like the most obvious no-brainer, like, this is a neutral this should be a neutral issue. Talking about the fact that these drugs are dependence forming and we don't have safe tapering protocols is not saying anything about whether people should or shouldn't take these drugs. Like we should just have safe off ramps.

Like who can disagree with that? All the facets of the psychiatric drug issue need attention. Yeah. But to me the least polarizing one to start with is this dependence and tapering issue. You use the phrase rehumanized future. What does that mean? Between the medicalization. of every facet of our emotional selves and the professionalization of help and just how disembodied

and disconnected so many of us are to our bodies through these medications or through screens or through whatever, you know, other kind of toxic aspects of our culture. To me, the future is about just like, how do we come back to what it means to be human? How do we remember that suffering isn't a symptom of an illness to drug away. Suffering has meaning and purpose. It's what, like you were saying, it's what you're meant to make art out of. And angry teenage girls aren't meant to be sing in front of their screens in a dark room on the internet. They're meant to be, you know, experimenting with fashion and painting and music and musicals. Like, they're meant to be channeling their emotions into art and into creative expression and into construction of beauty. And to me,

that's what it means to be human. This psychiatric medication issue is is a linchpin in this broader crisis that we're in where we've lost touch with ourselves and each other and just the power of of like a neighborhood to help to help you know people in need. Like I have friends who will come and stay if they're in a crisis, they'll come and stay with us and you know your average person might say that's you're responsible you're not a you know they should go to a hospital. No. It's the opposite. They need to be with, they just, they need to be enveloped with love and, and a safe home and a respite from the storm of life. Asylum in the true sense of the word asylum, which is refuge. It's a safe haven. That to me is what it means to be human. And we've lost touch with that. And it's simple, but it's not easy to rebuild it. But I'm very optimistic, especially with Secretary Kennedy at the helm of HHS. Right. now that our country is like ready to finally have this conversation and do something about it. Imagine if Taylor Swift would have been put on an SSRI as a teenager. And you know, Taylor Swift

has talked about how she's never been to a therapist. And people were like, well, why not? She's like, because I don't need to. Wow. I didn't know that. Amazing. So she's talked about how, and I've never been to therapy, you know, her art is her therapy. That is how she's therapeutic. But imagine a 15, 16-year-old Taylor Swift, who wrote Love Story and 15 and all of these incredible coming-of-age songs about girlhood, if she would have been numbed out by Lexapro, we would not have this level of art that we have from her. And her just navigating life and the ups and downs. The reason her music is so good is because you feel her intense lows and her super high highs, the best moments of a relationship and the worst moments of a relationship. and the worst moments of a relationship completely splitting apart. We would not have Taylor Swift

if she would have been medicalized. And I think that is a powerful antidote to share with your teenage daughter who's on an SSRI or wants to get on an SSRI. Is that, again, the spectrum of human emotion that makes someone like her so phenomenal, so relatable, so talented,

we can't get rid of that because, yeah, we lose human. Oh, so beautiful, Alex. Yeah, I mean, when I wrote my book on Shrunk, like, I knew I had to take everything that was coming alive inside of me and all the grief and all the anger and outrage and the regret and the shame because, of course, there's all of that. And just I had to take all of it and turn it into something that I could offer to the world. And I think that message while right now, like we've talked about, there may be young people who are offended by this idea of taking your pain and building something with it. I think it's a message that

more and more people are waking up to. And I hear from more and more people every day who say, I'm realizing that like true freedom isn't the absence of pain or even like being happy. it's about having a sense of meaning and purpose and feeling connected to myself, to my body, to nature, to God, to my family, to my pets. You know, I just, I want to feel. And I hear more and more people every day kind of tapping into this.

And I've never felt more optimistic that we're actually finally, like, reaching some kind of awakening might be too dramatic of a word, but at least reckoning with just, just how far out of touch and disconnected we've been and how the only way forward is to come back into ourselves and to not be afraid of our emotions. Your life story is in your book Unshrunk, a story of psychiatric treatment resistance. Phenomenal book, by the way.

Oh, thank you. Absolutely. I'm so proud of you. It is so well done. It is truly the story of our age right now, of this just medicated time that we're in. You are really like the warning sign. and you're just sounding it out there, and I think it will absolutely save lives and all the work that you're doing is saving lives. Just kudos to you, and everybody needs to read Unshrunk.

Where can people follow more of your work and find you on social media? You can find me on X at Laura Delano. On my website, lauradalino.com. And then the nonprofit organization that I founded, Intercompass Initiative, you can find at theintercompass.org. We have a free step-by-step tapering manual.

We have a community of people who are supporting each other through this process. We have tons of free information and resources. So that's a great starting point if you want to learn more. And yeah, if you read my book, let me know what you think. I ask every guest this on the show when they come on. If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would that remedy be? Make time to just be with yourself, to just be, to not do. just sit with yourself on a couch,

10 minutes and just fully feel. Yeah, we're not feeling. We have to distract all the time with things. Yeah. I think that's important. That's the muscle to build. The more you can be with yourself, the more you see what needs to be done in the world,

the more you click with what you are meant to do, what your part in it is meant to be. But if you're running, running, running, trying to get relief, you'll never know what you're meant to actually do to help heal the world. So beautifully said, Laura, thank you for coming on Culture Apothecary. Thanks for having me, Alex.

So good to be here. If you're currently on psychiatric medication, this episode is not telling you that you need to stop taking anything. The point of this conversation is informed consent, asking better questions and realizing how much nuance has been missing from this entire cultural conversation. New episodes come out every Monday and Thursday at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, anywhere you get your podcast. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify and let my team know what episode has. has been your favorite. It also just takes two seconds to leave that five-star review, so there's really no excuse. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be taken as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional regarding any questions or decisions

related to your health or medical care. I'm Alex Clark, and this is Culture Apothecary.