The Bossticks - Medicating Minds: The Truth About Antidepressant Withdrawal & Psychological Intervention Ft. Author Brooke Siem

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

On today's episdoe we are joined by Brooke Siem. Brooke Siem was among the first generation of minors to be prescribed antidepressants. Initially diagnosed and treated in the wake of her father's sudden death, this psychiatric intervention sent a message that something was pathologically wrong with her and that the only "fix" was medication. As a teenager, she stepped into the hazy world of antidepressants just at the time when she was forming the foundation of her identity. For the following fifteen years, every situation she faced was seen through the lens of brokenness. Her recent book "May Cause Side Effects" is the gripping story of what happened when, after fifteen years and 32,760 pills, Brooke was faced with a profound choice that plunged her into a year of excruciating antidepressant withdrawal and forced her to rebuild her entire life. To connect with Brooke Siem click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Alo Moves Alo Moves has always been inspired by a single goal: to empower people to live healthier, more fulfilled lives. Alo Moves is the streaming on-demand platform with yoga, fitness, and meditation classes. Go to Alomoves.com and get 30 days free & 60% off of your annual membership with code SKINNY30. This episode is brought to you by AG1 AG1 is way more than greens. It's all of your key multi-vitamins, minerals, pre-and probiotics, and more, working together as one. Go to athleticgreens.com/SKINNY to get a free 1 year supply of vitamin D and 5 free travel packs with your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by Branch Basics The Branch Basics Premium Starter Kit will provide you with everything you need to replace all of your toxic cleaning products in your home. It's really a no-brainer. Go to branchbasics.com and use code SKINNY for 15% off their starter kit. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp If you're thinking of giving therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great option. It's convenient, flexible, affordable, and entirely online. Visit betterhelp.com/skinny to get 10% off your first month. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. This episode is brought to you by Botanic Tonics. Okay. I have been talking about these little tinctures. They're called Feel Free. I was introduced to them by my friend Khalil at Sun Life, and he told me, just take a sip, and it's going to make you feel euphoric.

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I think that it's like if you just want to take like a sip at night when you're out partying, it just kind of opens you up. It's a heart opener, if you will. Anyway, we have a code. Okay, so you're going to go to botanictonics.com, and you're going to search for the feel-free wellness tonic. And then you use code skinny for 25% off. Again, that's botanictonics.com.

Use code skinny for 20% off. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you alone for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

I was so depressed and down that I knew I had to do something radical. There were a couple things that were going on that I think are important to set the stage. The first was that I had gotten this really out of the blue opportunity to travel around the world for a year. I didn't want to carry a suitcase full of prescription drugs with me around the world, and I certainly didn't want to have to figure out how to get them refilled. I wasn't going to London. I was in Cambodia and Croatia and places where I just, couldn't be sure where this stuff was coming from. So I was motivated to get off these drugs and

stay off them just from a logistical perspective. Well, hello, welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her show. Today is such an important episode. We're talking all things antidepressants. Let me give you some background. So the guest that's on the show is named Brooks Sim. She is the author of May Cause Side Effects. Okay. I saw and heard her on my friend Michaela Peterson's podcast, and I immediately was like, I need to get this girl Brooke on our podcast. This is an incredible subject. It was unique. So immediately, I did what I always do.

And I went and researched her. And then I bought her book on Amazon. It's called, like I said, may cause side effects. And I read her book and I was immediately intrigued with her story. So I reached out and got her on the podcast. Thanks to Michaela for showing me her. And I learned so much about all things. antidepressants. I learned about when they're necessary and when they're not. I learned about the

issue of overprescribing antidepressants. This is an important subject, you guys. There's a huge issue of overprescribing that's not being talked about. So Brooke comes on here and she talks about her own personal story and how she realized that antidepressants were actually hurting her and not helping her. And she talks about the withdrawal symptoms that she had, which are so crazy and just going sober from them. And it's a really raw, real episode. Her book is incredible. You have to read it. May cause side effects on Amazon. I was like engaged throughout the whole book. So anyways, you can expect all the things in this episode on antidepressants taking charge of your own healing, why it's important to be your own advocate, and why sometimes antidepressants can cause

more harm than good. On that note, let's welcome Brooke to the skinny confidential him and her show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Brooke, in your book, I highlighted this. And I think that this is a question that a lot of people our age are going to start to ask ourselves, and you had the self-awareness to ask yourself this. You said, I never actually made the choice to go on these drugs in the first place. I was a child, 15 years old, grieving my father's death. I just did what adults told me to do.

Why am I still on the same drugs I was on when I was on? a teenager. For you to ask yourself that, about 15 years later, is that what it was? Yeah. It's pretty self-aware. Some people would just keep taking the drugs because the doctor told, but you were started questioning it. Yeah. So what sort of got you to the point where you started to question it? What were things that led up to that? Because I'm sure it just didn't happen overnight. No, it didn't. You know, it took 15 years of not questioning it at all. So it wasn't like I was quick to a conclusion either. But what was starting to happen is, you know, if you talk to my mom about it and she's all over my book, you know, she was saying that I was starting to go downhill. There was a

downward trajectory that was happening despite the fact that I was on all these antidepressants and that I was, in theory, living a life that should have been fulfilling in some way. But I was going downhill. And so I think a lot of parents probably end up in the situation with their kids where they can see that their child is struggling and they try and communicate maybe something needs to change, but the kid's not ready to hear it, especially the young adult or, you know, 20s. We know everything at that age, right? But for me, the real moment was I lived on the 30th floor in Manhattan, and I had a window and I opened the window and I pushed the screen out and I had the screen dangling in one hand. And I pushed the screen dangling in one hand. And I pushed the my body out and I was looking down and I could see the sidewalk, you know, very small sidewalk from my window and I was watching traffic patterns in on the street because I was trying to figure out, okay, if I jump like, well, I hit anyone. That was the thought. And I, and then a gust of wind came by and I remember it really like pulled, the screen was in my hand and it came out like a flag. And it just dawned on me in this moment that I should not be having.

these thoughts and considering this outlet if my antidepressants were working. And it took 15 years to come to a place that was so severe for me to actually have the true self-awareness, the true light bulb moment that's like, oh, something's not right here. And so I kind of, you know, the little light bulb went off and I pulled myself back in and I just kind of said, huh, like, wait a second, I haven't, I never made the choice to go on these drugs. I was put on them as a child. I have not had had a single unmedicated moment as an adult. So, you know, I think the natural response may have been, well, if I'm this depressed on antidepressants, I'm going to be even more depressed off of them. But I started to say, well, if I'm this depressed on antidepressants, they're clearly not working.

So maybe I need to get off of them in order to figure out my baseline. Looking back on your journey, do you think that the antidepressants actually ended up making it worse? Or is that hard for you to sort of gauge? I can't say for sure with any of this stuff, right? I mean, there's no way to go live an alternate timeline and see what would have been different. What I do know for sure is that when I was put on these drugs, it was 2001, I was 15, it was a bit of a different time in the world of mental health. And so there was little to know monitoring. You know, I went to a child psychiatrist first. I was, you know, we found the right combination of drugs that didn't have immediate negative side effects. And then I just would go back every once in a while and, you know, he'd refill it. And then the next thing, you know, I'm 18. I'm going off to college. I'm in charge of my own medical decisions. I went to a small college where I think there was one psychiatrist in town. She saw me once a year. Then I went to New York. I tried to find a psychiatrist there. That was hell. So I ended up getting all my prescriptions from my GP. Why in New York hell?

Why was New York hell? Because, well, one, I was extremely poor. So, like, I had insurance because I was still working on insurance through, you know, my parents at the time. But to find someone in my network who was a reasonable distance, who was taking new patients, all of that was just hard to find. And I had a crap insurance within New York. So I remember there was maybe like four or five options of people who were actually taking new patients. And the first one I went to, she was, I think she was German or Eastern European. It was very like, it was like a modern day female Freud. And she literally, really had me sit and watch a videotape for 45 minutes and fill out a form. And at the end of that, it was like, it was literally an are you bipolar videotape with a form that would say things like,

you know, have you experienced periods of intense joy and then periods of intense sadness? Or do you have trouble sleeping? And you would fill out. Yes, no, sometimes. And then at the end of that, I sat in her office for five minutes. She looked at the paper, said, well, this might be a little concerning. I want you to come back and, like, we're not going to change your meds. I mean, she literally tried to diagnose me from a videotape. When you look back at being prescribed at 15 years old, if you could wave a wand, would you edit that? Would you go back? Oh, yeah.

So you would say, do not put me on anything. And before you edit that, for people that are just tuning in and aren't familiar with your story, I want to go back a little bit. Sure. What was your childhood like? And do you feel you, as you were a young adult or a young child, do you feel like you had depression? Or do you feel like there was an event that kicked it, that triggered it? Or was this something that, as you think back to your earliest memories, was always there? I was always a very intense kid.

I was an only child. I liked to play by myself. And, you know, I don't remember. I was just very driven, very competitive and gymnastics and ballet. And so I was a very driven, intense kid. But the thing that put me in the psychiatrist's office was that my father suddenly passed away. So I was 15, and it was kind of a there one minute gone the next situation. And so.

And can you share the circumstances or have you? Yeah. No. So he died of pancreatic cancer, but we didn't know he had it. So he had started to get, feel ill and he had gone through, you know, some GI tests. And they thought he had an ulcer. So they actually took him into surgery for ulcer surgery. And they discovered a huge pancreatic mass while he was in surgery.

And he never came out of surgery. Oh, sorry to hear that. Yeah, it wasn't great. My mom and I were, we were actually a broad visiting family at the time. And so we got a call pretty much like in the middle of the night and had to be. you know, like 36 hours on the plane to get home to say goodbye. And so, you know, that was a obviously traumatic experience. And I was, like I said, I was an only child and I was a ballet dancer at the time, pretty serious one. So I definitely started to use food as, you know, a coping

mechanism. I started to exhibit some signs of what I would call like a, you know, minor eating disorder. It wasn't, it certainly wasn't full, full blown in the way that I would have needed to be hospitalized or anything like that. It was also the early 2000s. We had a very skinny Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. It was just the world, right? And so that scared my mom, which makes sense because her family of three was now only two.

And so she was grieving herself. And her friends recommended, okay, maybe we need to get her some professional help. And, you know, through a series of events, I just ended up in this child psychiatrist's office. And so for me, at that point, it was maybe six months after my dad had died. I was really more in shock, I think, than anything else. I kind of, my strategy was just shut down. So I wasn't very emotive. My grades weren't really

slipping. Like, I was just kind of doing okay. I think, like, given the circumstances, but it just still was so concerning. And I think there was so much fear over that things were going to get worse. And so that's when it was just a very casual, why don't we just put on one of these antidepressants? It'll be, you know, it'll be fine. I think the problem that I have with that age being put on it is what's the end game? Like, I wish that they would give you an end game to the strategy. Yeah, they still don't do that. Can I ask you maybe a stupid question too within that?

And, you know, this is a foreign subject to me personally learning more about it. But prior to them saying put you on this medication, was there any kind of consideration to any other tactics? So yes and no. So I did start with a child psychologist in town. Again, this was Reno, Nevada, 2001. Maybe there was four or five child psychologists. I mean, there weren't a lot. As far as we knew, we just had this one recommendation.

And I did go to her, and I did, I went there with a somewhat open mind. And I told her, I said, in our first meeting, she asked why I was here. And I said, well, no, I think I might have an eating disorder. And I explained some of my symptoms. and she looked at me and I just, I remember this so clearly and she said, I have a client who only eats white things, white potatoes, white bread, white rice. That's a real eating disorder. And she said that to me and I completely shut down because she disregarded.

She completely disregarded it. It sounds like from the book though that a lot of psychologists and psychiatrists disregarded you. It seems like almost a theme. Like it seems like the psychiatrist that you went to. immediately wanted to prescribe drugs and then the psychologist in the book and I'm not saying everyone's like this I'm just saying from your experience

it seems like a lot of a lot of your feelings were just disregarded no but this is why like sometimes I personally get pushed back on the show because I'll take say the medical community and I'll just pick on them for a second or I'll take the media I'll pick on them too and I will say there are either bad actors or people that maybe shouldn't be in those professions

in these professions right and the problem is is that so many people in this country in particular, take many of these voices as gospel, right? It's like if you have a credential or you went to a school, you must be the expert, you must be authority. But just like any other job, like, that's just a business community. There's bad entrepreneurs.

There's bad businessmen. There's bad businessmen. You can't, not everyone is good. And so I always say you have to be your own advocate. And so I want to acknowledge that there's phenomenal doctors and there's phenomenal, you know, psychiatrists, obviously. But there's people out there that maybe are not suited to this profession that are in this profession. And if you're not your own advocate, you can get in a lot of trouble, especially if

you're ignorant and you're just like, I'm going to, this guy must know what they're talking about. They're the expert. Or if you're 15. Right. And I think the tricky part as well, especially because, I mean, it was a different role in 2001 than it is now, but it's still happening today. I mean, the stories I hear today from people are stupidly identical. You'd think we would have made some progress, but, you know, as a whole, I don't think we have. But medicine has really changed and what it means to be a doctor has changed so much in the past, you know, five, ten years that I have plenty of friends who are doctors and we have open conversations all the time. And when I hear what they have to deal with, I mean, the amount of billing and, you know, a lot of them work in hospitals and hospitals

are kind of, you know, they're more like, you can't get funding unless you get good ratings or you cycle people through at a fast rate. I mean, the doctors that I know are basically incapable of giving the care they want to give because of the system that we are now. working in. Yeah, a lot of these, a lot of these people go to private practices, right? Because they're just, they don't want to deal with the system anymore. Right. But even then, I mean, like, if you think of the amount of drugs that are being produced now and the amount of knowledge that just one person can physically keep in their body, we can't expect, you know, doctors to have expert knowledge on every single drug that exists and especially the combination of drugs in an individual patient, it's just impossible.

It's too much for one person to handle. And so because of that, And that has changed, right? That's not how it used to be to practice medicine, you know, 50 years ago or whatever. And so what I've realized is that, yes, 100 percent, there are really bad doctors out there. I've had a few of them. I've also had a couple good ones just they just didn't happen to be in the psychiatric field. But if you are working with a psychiatrist and hopefully you really like them, you still have to bring your end of the work to the table because at the end of the day, you know you better than anybody else. And if you're you're getting pushed back from then, that's one of my, like, big red flags is that, you know, when I went to go see my psychiatrist at 30 and said, this is what's happening to be, I need to get, I need to get off of these drugs. She sat back in her chair and said, I don't recommend it. Like, what kind of response is that? You know, I'm paying you. If that's what I think is best for me, you need to, like, help me get there. And so I didn't have the wherewithal all the time to, you know, bring research and understand what I needed to her and say, let's create a plan.

maybe it would have gone better if I had done that. But instead, again, I just got shut down. I guess my question is, from her perspective, and listen, whether she was right or wrong, you obviously have a certain feeling, how did she come to that conclusion? Like, what is there, like, there's got to be some kind of reasoning that she gives her? She says, no, I don't think it's a good. Like, I guess what I'm asking is when she says, no, I don't think that's a good idea, does she then say because of X, Y, and Z?

Or just, no, it's not a good idea. She didn't say because of X, Y, and Z to me. I mean, I also didn't know her. She was someone I had been getting my. prescriptions from a GP for eight years. So I said, okay, if I'm going to change my psychiatric drugs, I need to go find a psychiatrist. So I did what I thought I was supposed to do, right? And so I found her in my network, same thing. And, you know, this was within our one half hour long conversation we had. She just said, I don't recommend that people change their medication when they're under

stress and change. And in my head, I'm just like, well, for God's sakes, like, I'm living in New York city. I own a business here. My life is not going to become less stressful. So if not now, when was kind of my response. I couldn't believe when you said, and we talked about this off air, but when you're talking to Dr. Chin and you say in your book that she says, okay, we're going to get you off these meds, but I'm going to prescribe you Prozac to get off the meds. So now you're on all these meds. So now you're on all these medications. It's not just one. She's on a lot of medications. And they say to get you off, we're going to prescribe you pro-zac. Is that because there's some kind of, again, I'm ignorant to this? Is it like a withdrawal period or something that you need to supplement for?

There's a theory or a strategy that all these drugs, these psychiatric drugs, have what's called a half-life, which is the amount of time it stays in your body. So drugs with a short half-life, it's like you get all the drug all at once, and then it's out of your body really fast. Those ones tend to produce greater withdrawal symptoms than drugs with slow. half-lifes because they stay in your body longer and kind of titrate out, right? And so the theory is that for the drug like I was on, which was FXR, it is a very short half-life and is known to create withdrawal symptoms. Now, the withdrawal symptoms I experienced were far more horrific than anything that I could find on the internet at the time and what she had told me. But her theory was,

well, if we give Prozac, then it's like a, they say it's like a bridge. It's called bridging, because you have one drug that is going to stay in your body longer. It's supposed to, in theory, keep you less likely to have withdrawal symptoms because it's going to stay in your body longer. But my intuition went off like crazy when she said that because my father had been on Prozac. He had a horrible time on it. He hated it. And I said if there was any kind of genetic component here to how I processed these drugs, this is not a good sign that this is a good choice for me. So I said, and I didn't want to have to then get off.

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You're going to go to athletic greens.com slash skinny. That's athletic greens.com slash skinny. Check it out. After I had my first baby, and this is on a very different scale than you, I had super intrusive thoughts. And I didn't know what was going on. Like thoughts that I've never had before, it would come in. And I was like, what is that?

And you really went into that into your book. I mean, you write in your book how you wanted to hurt people. You wanted to hurt your dog, who you're obsessed with. Well, that was the thought. That was the thought. Yeah. The thought. Yeah.

Just so everyone knows that she didn't act on it. It's the thought. And or you wanted to hurt people out, like thoughts that you had never had. And then you say you called your mom's friend who's a psychiatrist. Psychologist. Psychologist. And she said, it's good that we're having this call and that you're talking about it because you have the foresight that something's wrong. If you didn't have the foresight, that's a different situation.

When you're having these thoughts, are you freaking out? At this point, she's coming off the medication. The intrusive thoughts for me, the violent one started about six, seven days after I stopped my effectsor, which, again, I was under the care of a psychiatrist at the time, and this still happened. So I can only describe it like, and I hear people, I think, I think this happens so much more than we ever really talk about. And because the content of those thoughts is so socially unacceptable, people keep it in. It scares the shit out of them. And you have a really violent thought. Oh, yeah.

Like, I'm going to drive off the cliff for whatever. You're one of the only people I've ever heard the way she talked about it. She was very honest about it in the book. No, I think you're 100% right. I think everybody at one point in your life, and this has happened with me, you have this. you have this thought and you're almost in shock that you have the thought. You sit by like, how could my mind go to such a dark place? And I think people don't talk about it because you feel a little bit of shame because you're like,

wow, it's something wrong with me. Why would I ever think something like that? Especially if it's towards other people or creatures. And especially if you add drugs or pharmaceuticals and you're coming off of it or for my case, postpartum hormones, all that. There's things that make it even worse. You've had the thought. Imagine coming off drugs or imagine having your hormones.

bones out of whack. It's a whole different thing. But to your point of the friend that you called, I think a healthy person in mind, I don't even know if I want to use the word healthy, but someone maybe in a better state of mind recognizes that that thought is not a good thought and they're able to stop and recalibrate. But maybe somebody who goes too far, they can't recalibrate and they stay on those thoughts. What you said is that if you didn't have the thought that this is crazy, that's like a psychopath. Right. So crazy people don't know they're crazy is what my psychologist said to me. Yeah, it's like those thoughts are just there and they think, okay.

Right. They think it's normal or they think that they are a normal somehow. Like in this case, you know, shame is a great response to this because that should tell you that there's okay, there's, you know, my, my heart, who I am is not lining up with what's going on in my brain and there's a struggle there. And so that's when I said, this is just so, so scary. because what I thought was that, okay, I stopped taking one of these drugs. The big question was, who am I without antidepressants, right? Well, if who I am is someone who's having violent intrusive thoughts,

I thought, oh, shit, like, I really need to be, like, I am actually a legitimately unbalanced person. Apparently, I need a lot. But it's like the chicken and the egg. How do we know that the thoughts didn't come from the withdrawal of the drug? Well, that's the thing, and they did. Oh, yeah, and they did. So this is a very common side effect of withdrawal. And, I mean, happens all the time when women have babies and postpartum depression. It's just a biological thing. And they don't know why this happens.

I mean, I've heard things that it's like, oh, it's like associated with OCD. And it's, I just don't buy it. I think we don't have a way to explain this because there's something happening biologically and emotionally and psychologically that it happens in times of great change. when the self is somehow threatened. To me, that's very interesting. And so I knew that this was withdrawal once I had this conversation that with the psychologist who kind of explained a little bit more of the situation.

And once I had the understanding, okay, this is not me, this is withdrawal. It did make it easier to deal with. It's still an awful thing to experience because you kind of never feel fully home. Like, the only way I can describe it is, again, like sometimes you're driving in a car and you just have that really weird thought, like, what if I just drive into the media? And like, I know people have had that before, but it's kind of this weird film, like over your experience, almost like your brain is telling you an alternate story that could happen in some world. And it's usually a flash, right? And it's usually, it's a flash.

And you're like there, but you're not. And when you were withdrawing, there's like that quote, Michael always says that if you're going through hell, keep going. Yeah. I didn't say that. Winston Churchill. I know, but you always quote him. You always quote him. I mean, I know you want to compare me to old Winston, Lord.

But those are some big shoes to fill. Did you have that insight and foresight to be like, I'm going through hell. I need to keep going. I need to go through this. It sounds like you did, but I just would love to know more on a micro level. So I did have that insight, but there were a couple things that were going on that I think are important to set the stage. The first was that I had gotten this really out of the blue opportunity to travel around the world for a year, which is like, came so randomly. It was with this program that was basically helping digital nomads before the whole world was on Zoom.

And you could live in 12 countries around the world and work. And I applied. Like, I was drunk one night. I was bored. I hated my life. I applied. And I got it. And my life wasn't set up to be a digital nomad.

But I was like, I'll figure it out. So I was so depressed and down that I knew I had to do something radical. So I had made the commitment to do this. And just from a logistical perspective, like, I didn't want to care. a suitcase full of prescription drugs with me around the world. And I certainly didn't want to have to figure out how to get them refilled in a variety of different countries. And I wasn't going to London. I was in like Cambodia and Croatia in places where I just couldn't be sure where the stuff was coming from. So I was motivated to get off these drugs and stay off them just from a logistical perspective.

I had also been having memory problems for a few years that I was starting to think had to do with the long-term use of antidepressants. And so I didn't want to take this trip and forget it because there were just huge chunks of my life that were gone. So I had those two motivations. But that often went out the window like in the middle of a really bad withdrawal wave because it was so difficult to actually physically be in withdrawal. But during those moments, what I would remember and what I would keep in mind is that, you know, I mean, my book and a lot of the talk about antidepressant withdrawal is about all the bad stuff that happens because it's natural to talk about that. But there was also just this like huge amount of beauty and literal color and feeling and and these little pinpricks of joy that I was feeling that I had not felt in, in so long. And I was so deeply curious about what that was because I mean literally the color,

my colors changed. Like the world got more colorful and brighter when I came off the drugs. It's almost like it doles your senses. Oh, it does. But in that lane, so do you remember, because we all say like maybe there is a place at some point for this kind of medication, do you remember when you first got them the change you may have felt? Like was it, do you feel when you first started it was a relief or do you even remember or was it just like, if you were so young, it's just like that was your natural until now? I would say mostly the latter. I mean, I think the tricky, one of the big tricky parts about antidepressants, too, is that when people are put on them, they're put on them when they're in a state of despair most of the time, right?

So, like, if you're, you know, swimming around in the muck and you take an antidepressant and you feel a little bit of relief, you might only be getting a little bit out of the muck, but you're not necessarily thriving, right? So for me, I was already grieving when I was put on these drugs. And so I kind of felt like maybe it took the edge off the grief, but that didn't mean that I was like, good. But it sounds like the way that they think about, I mean, again, this is a foreign subject to me and I'm learning as I go here. But it sounds like, okay, somebody's in distress. They need some help. Maybe medication is the best way to get them into the state of mind where they can help themselves.

But then there's no real plan to have them exit that medication. It's just like, okay, now this is your new way of life for however long. forever. I mean, there's literally not been a single long-term study of antidepressants. Not a single one. So there's a plan to get them on, but there's no plan to get people off. No plan to get them off. Which is insane because if you think about that in any kind of other aspect of life, like, you know. Yeah, you don't. I mean, unless you have like diabetes or something with that's like a chronic, like, lack of insulin. But like this is, and what's even crazy is this isn't something you can measure, right? We can't take a blood test and say like, okay, it's cured, right?

So it's all self-reported, which means there's also like, I just always think about, well, what is the marker of these things? What means we have succeeded here? And we don't have that. People just stay on these drugs forever. That's not success. When I was 18, I was put on antidepressants. I've actually never told this story for about probably eight months.

I don't think I even knew that. Yeah, I was put on antidepressants. My mom passed away. It's a very similar story to yours. My mom passed away, and they said, here, and put me on antidepressants. Okay. They did not tell me that you could not drink alcohol, which should be, I was 18, so maybe they thought, oh, she's not drinking. They did not tell me that. So what I would do is when I was 18, we would drink. And I remember in those eight months, I would black out all the time. And I would wake up and I wouldn't remember. And I didn't realize it until about month four that what was making me black out was the antidepressant. And there was no education around that. It was just like, oh, your mom passed away. Here's the prescription. And I remember. I remember. about month eight I thought what is the the long-term strategy here I don't want to be on this the rest of my life and I also I like wine like I don't know if this is a good strategy and I

stopped but there's a lot of people that one are never told hey you can't drink and they're probably blacking out and two they maybe don't get off and maybe they maybe they want to get off or they could have gotten off but you're you're right there is no long-term strategy about what to do And listen, I'm not shitting on the antidepressants. I know there's a lot of good things that come from them. But I think it's case by case. And I think when someone's 18 and they get prescribed, there should be education that you can't drink.

Here's what drives me nuts about a lot of this stuff. It sounds like I think 100% there is a place for this type of medication, right? There's a use for it, especially if somebody really needs it. But to hear that there's not really a plan to talk about how long, when, how. Just to think like, okay, you're 15 and you're going to do this for forever, that seems absolutely nuts to me. Yeah, I think it is. It's almost like, hey, we've been, we've diagnosed that for the rest of your life, you are just going to be depressed forever. We don't, we have no solution for you besides being on medicine for the rest of your life. Like there's, I just can't believe

that. Well, it's especially tricky for kids and for teens because there's, you're so malleable at that age. I mean, like, the message that was given to me at that age was that I was not strong enough and I did not have the wherewithal to get through this very awful thing that had happened to me on my own without intervention. Well, listen, you had a terrible awful thing happened to you, but tell me a teenager all over through high school who hasn't had about a depression, right? Like, they're all drugged up. Yeah, well, but I'm saying like everybody, myself included gets these moments when you're in your adolescence, when you're in puberty, you get sad, right? Like, if the blanket solution is like, oh my God, intervene, intervene medicine, medicine, like, that,

It robs people, especially young people, of their ability to create resilience, which is such an important thing that you need throughout your life. And I think the problem is, like, these drugs are never going away. I don't think it's a productive conversation to even say, like, they shouldn't be, we're just going to ban them. Like, it's not, it's never going to happen. It's not a way to do it. But there does need to be a greater acknowledgement that, one, these drugs are designed for short-term,

not long term and they've not been studied long term. So when you get, when you have a conversation about going on them, at the same time, you need to have a conversation about how you're going to come off. I also think you really have to be your own guru with this. And every situation's different and you got to constantly ask questions and you got to talk to different people and you got to try different wellness practices. Because what I've realized with this conversation is no one's going to do it for you. You have to do it for yourself. And I think that that's a tough pill to swallow, literally and because we're so used to being able to go to the doctor and here's a prescription. Well, this is why I think there's a generational disconnect. Like my dad, for example, was born in

1944. When I came to him when I was a kid and was like, oh, dad, I'm sad. I'd be like smack up the back of the head. Like, get your shit together. Go outside. Play in the yard. Like, you'll be fine, right? Because that was like, that was their medicine, right? Now, I don't think that that is the right medicine for forever. Not in all cases. Not in all cases. But to your point, there was some real like, okay, like, go build some resilience. I think. that there's a disconnect from some of the previous generations because we're so quick now to medicate as a society and so quick to be like, oh, you don't feel good. You're feeling, you know, feeling a little sad or like, you know, someone was mean to you or like you didn't get what you wanted.

Like here, you know, that's not fair. Let's make it fair. Let's make you feel better. Like you got to feel good all the time. Like, no, like sometimes it's okay to sit in your misery for a bit and get out of it. Yeah. You know, right. You know, right. You know, right. I think that's very smart what you just said about resilience. I think you're right. You don't want to get to the point where it's like, you know, obviously somebody's in a real tough spot and they can't get out of it. That's maybe when you intervene. But I think we're so quick to intervene with a little bit of discomfort these days that it's like we're robbing people of resilience that helps them later in life. Yeah, there's a difference between active crisis and the fear of a potential crisis.

Sure. And I think we're training more what you're saying. Well, it's one thing if you've got, you know, someone or kids who are in, you know, actively suicidal, right? Which is unfortunately a thing now. And there's a lot of kids who are really, really in serious active crisis. It's a different thing entirely, like my situation where I was not thriving. I wasn't, you know, I clearly wasn't, you know, myself. But there were a lot of steps and a lot of time that I think would have needed to happen before we got to where I was and before I was in active crisis mode. And I think there's just this level of prevention that parents, you know, they really want to surround their kids in a bubble.

and if they can stop them from ever, you know, falling and hurting themselves emotionally or physically, they're going to try and do that. But I think kids and teens really actually need to struggle a little bit. They really need to learn how to find that inner resilience, that inner ability to soothe themselves, pick themselves up, and start changing their behavior so their world better reflects what they want. And I just don't think I was given the opportunity to do that. I mean, you asked earlier about the magic wand I would ask for. I would just ask for time.

Like, what if we just waited? Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's hard. I also have empathy for the parents. Yeah. I have extreme empathy for parents. And, you know, something that I've done with both my parents is I've thought of my parents,

this is a Louise Hay thing. I've thought of my parents as little kids. Little kids. And they were little too. And they experienced, like, whatever, generational trauma. There's all different kinds of things. when you think of your parents as little kids, and then when you become a parent,

I want my kids to have resilience. That's so important. But at the same time, I also don't want him to get hurt, and I want them to, like, avoid getting, it's a very fucked situation. It's very tricky. It's very tricky because how do you balance both as parents?

You never quite feel like you're doing it right. Someone articulated it, well, to me, they're because we're young parents. And they say, in a way, and this is going to sound extreme to some people, but it is a form of abuse to protect your children so much from the world. Because what happens is we all grow up, we all become adults, we all become independent. The world doesn't get nicer. It actually gets meaner as you grow up. It's true.

People don't like to hear it. But less support. You're more on your own. You've got to figure it out yourself. Your parents eventually pass. Like the world, you know, it's not designed to be this comfort bubble. And what he was saying is if you don't teach your kids how to fall down and get up on their own or you don't teach them that the world's not always fair, that later in life when they

discover these things to be truths, which they are, they're not equipped then to deal with it, right? If you don't discipline your children and they get out and they're just a total shithead in society and they fuck off and piss everybody out, like the parents have a responsibility to prepare the children for the real world, not for the bubble that they hope exists, which doesn't. Michelle Pfeiffer's episode about fragrances and cleaning supplies and dry cleaning totally changed the game for me. And I'm sure it did with you too. And a lot of you have been D-E-N- me and asking me what cleaning products should I use. I have done my research here, and I can tell you the best non-toxic, hypoallergenic, free of fragrance, hormone disruptors, and harmful preservatives

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month. That's better help, help.com slash skinny. That's better help help.com slash skinny. So I get a lot of parents who reach out to me because their kids are suffering and they always say, what can I do for my kid? Like, they always want to put all the energy on very often the act of crisis. And they say, what can I do? And I think that the single biggest, thing parents can do for their kids is get help for themselves. So, that's, that's Alonon vibes. Alonon. Oh, it's, um, right. Alcoholxonymous. Yeah, yeah, that's Alonon vibes. You know what, though, that's taking extreme accountability for the situation that you're in and actually owning that the fact that you're part of the problem. Yes. And that's really hard. It's really hard.

That you're enabling the problem. Yes. And it's, but it's so important because, I mean, we really need to get out of, we need to be able to have this conversation without it immediately going into like mommy shaming because the reality as kids come into this world, you know, they're, they're, preset with their personality and all the, you know, the little genetic things that they haven't received. But for the most part, they're, they're a blank canvas, right? They're going to learn. They are going to absorb. They are going to, they're a byproduct of the experience they live in. And so if a child, if a six-year-old is having behavior problems, I would say the first question is not what's wrong with the child. It's what's wrong with the child's environment. No, I think that's

really smart advice if you're worried about your child to definitely look at yourself. I actually think that's brilliant advice that all apply to my own life if I ever have trouble with my kids. Michael says that Michael tells me every day that I baby my six-month-old too much and that he likes to lay on mommy, but he is a baby. He literally will be like, you can't act like this. I'm like, he's six months old. He's like, get off mommy's bosom. I'm like, oh my God, he's six. I'm like, throw that kid on the bench press. Get him going. No, I'm just kidding.

So, I mean, obviously your message here is not that there's not a place for this stuff. Highlighting overall, especially with your experience, like what is the general message to people? Because I think it's a touchy subject. And, you know, obviously having a platform like this, I want to point out that obviously we're not doctors and that every case is unique. But it sounds like the approach that society has been taking. I mean, just look at the numbers is just it's not working to the degree that it should be. Well, right. So that's the first thing, right? Is if we now have 50 years of evidence of modern antidepressants being used,

we are not better off than we were when this started, right? I mean, suicide rates are way up. Loneliness is way up, depression, anxiety, all that stuff. So from just a general perspective, if these drugs were working as advertised, for the general collective, we wouldn't be in this really dire place. You're saying we would be in a better place. We would be in a better place, right? I mean, like, can you think if, like, physical illnesses were treated with one drug for 50 years and it only got worse if people would, we wouldn't keep doing that.

But that said, I think the biggest thing for me personally and my message out there is, look, there are, there are so many use cases for these drugs. People get on them for different reasons. And I don't really have too much investment in why people get on them. What I really am care about a lot and I'm trying to impart on people is how we can safely bring people off. because there are plenty of people who, you know, who are doing well and they want to stay on these drugs forever. There's also tons of people who are not and don't want to stay on these drugs forever. And for those people, we do not have a clear, safe, well-researched and educated way

of pulling people off these drugs safely in a way where they don't have to go through what I went through. And we deserve that. Like, that's just dignity to not have to go through what I went through. And so my message is my work is to just help create one more awareness around antidepressant withdrawal and the signs and symptoms and also just to help doctors understand what it looks like so they don't confuse withdrawal with perhaps the onset of a new psychiatric illness or a reemergence of the old one. And also like I would like to see legislation change. I mean, one of the biggest problems here is that you can't get small enough doses to do small tapers from a pharmaceutical company.

So you have to go, if you're lucky, you have a compact. pharmacy, which is a pharmacy who can create a custom dose that is, you know, like, I'm making up numbers here, but like if you're on 30 milligrams and that's the smallest amount and you need to come down to 25 milligrams, you can't get that from your regular pharmacy. You have to go to a special pharmacy. Well, that's cost prohibitive. That's location prohibitive. And so what happens is you have people who are really having trouble getting off these drugs and they're literally being their own drug dealers at home with scales and tweezers and razor blades opening up pills and counting bees. and making titrations that are, like, it's insane that someone has to do that just to get off

some drug that is supposed to be a therapeutic dose. I think it's so smart that you're bringing to light the importance of having some kind of withdrawal program. I also think that a lot of people don't, something that's personal to me is that I've experienced, you know, in my family, is that some of these drugs, like a X, actually end up causing depression. Like a benz-o. Like a benz-o. And I think that that is something that's not told up front.

And it's one of the hardest things to get off and withdrawal perspective. Yep. They said it's even harder than heroin. We have a close friend of ours named Khalil Hiclio. And openly recovering addict, been on the show a few times, crazy story. But we were asking him the other day, we took a trip with him and said, what is the hardest, what do you see the hardest thing to get people off of in the recovery centers? And he said, benzos. More than heroin, more than crack, more than any of, more than meth, because.

The benzos, they just, they alter your mind and the chemical imbalance so bad that it's just, it's like impossible. I'm speaking from a personal case that was close to me. It's literally caused the depression. So something that's supposed to help your anxiety is causing the depression. Now I'm not talking about for everyone. I'm just talking about my own experience. I think that that's something too that needs to be talked about. Also, not a lot of people, not a lot of doctors are saying don't drink on these.

Yep. You drink on a benzo. I mean, you black out. Okay, so I want to go back. We also have a friend that was very close to us when we were younger that was on benzose and adderol and antidepressants. And then he went out and partied one night and ODED. You didn't even know it. Everyone later painted him as an addict, but he was just a guy that was on this medication and just didn't know and just was.

We were young. We were in college. Well, people want to make it make sense to them. Yeah. And these drugs are very often fast acting. And so we expect that they will be fast acting in the sense of, you know, like that the withdrawal is fast or you can get off of them fast, but it takes a lot longer for the brain and body to catch up with the changes that have been created. Before you move to the next subject, the learned, so is the double-edged sword here, though, that somebody at some point in time may need this medication to help them get through whatever they're going through and they're really in crisis.

But then the other side of that sword is you don't want to let that person or a doctor doesn't want to let that person off it because they might go back into crisis or might cause a withdrawal or might cause a problem. So it's like, basically you make the tough decision of like, okay, I have to put them on this, but then after I put them on this, I can't take them off this. Meaning like, okay, somebody needs these, but then they know the dangers of getting them off, whether it's a withdrawal symptom, whether that maybe they think if they get off, they're going to go back into crisis. So there's this kind of moral decision that they have to make where it's like, okay, do I leave them on or take them off? I think there's nuance to each situation. There's nuance and also a big problem. And again, we're talking so generally here, but a big problem is that when people take them, when people take antidepressants, especially if they feel a little relief, they then stop doing the emotional work or processing the reason why they were put on them. And so it kind of puts you in this state of suspension.

And so when nothing's been done, I mean, okay, you've stopped the bleeding, but you haven't taken the bullet out, right? So I think that that's the bigger key is if we're going to kind of change the way we do this and say, okay, if antidepressants are last resort and but someone does decide they need them, well, then we're going to be on, you know, maybe like a maximum three month long time that we're going to be on them. During that time, we're doing a lot of talk therapy or doing yoga or getting outside or going for swims in the ocean, whatever it is. We're actually working on the reasons. and then we, if anything, we build up confidence. So when it's time to start pulling off these drugs, then you know, you don't get plunged back down. It's using it as a tool in the toolbox

instead of making it the whole toolbox. Yeah. So I want to go back. You get on chopped at the same time you're simultaneously going through your antidepressant withdrawal. Yeah, that was fun. What is this like you're trying out for this television show? You say in the book that you didn't think you were going to make it. You didn't give it any energy. So what is it like when you get this moment? Yeah. And you're also withdrawing. Okay. So I guess the context is that, you know, for my life and I was a chef and I owned a bakery. And so that's how I, you know, made money. By the way, hold on. A bakery. Name the three cupcakes. We had prohibition. It was called prohibition bakery. It's closed now. But we did boozy cupcakes. Okay. Say the names. He'll die.

Oh, like a white Russian, old-fashioned, margarita. I mean, we did... Cupcakes? An old... No, it's closed. It's closed. But we have a cookbook that still exists called Pro-Mission Baker. You can get it wherever.

A white Russian cupcake. She had an old-fashioned cupcake. There was something else you said that I was like, oh, my God. How dare you show up here without an old-fashioned cupcake? Mold wine. Yeah, that's really cute. All of them. Sorry, go on.

I just think that's so cute. So, yes, I was running my boozy, my boozy bakery. And I met the casting director for Chapp at a party. This was such a New York story, right? I met her at a party. This was before, like, getting off antidepressants was even part of my thought process. And she was like, oh, chopped always needs local women because they don't actually pay for your travel. So the closer you are, the better for everyone.

And she's like, you should apply. And I was like, no, I'm not going to. I made cupcakes. I'm not going to, you know, do well with a basket full of fish or whatever it is. Just like with the company that I ended up going around the world with, I was, I had a hat. it back in the day I would also drink a lot of wine because I was sad and then I would like apply at all these moonshots because I was like oh if something if one of these things lands I can like get out of my life in my situation so I applied to be like a goat sitter in the Alps

and to cook at McMurdo station in our in Arta Cove. Where does one go to figure out how to become a goat sitter in the Alps because honestly the internet is full of opportunity I can use a break go apply I'll apply for you I can use this morning my wife woke up and was in such a mood like that goat sitting in the Alps Sounds pretty good. Go, it's it. Get the, out. Doesn't sound great. Yeah, I didn't get that one. I'm still kind of bummed about. But I did. So one night I just said, fine, I'll fill out the chopped application.

And I just started making it through all the rounds. But it was so far apart that, like, I think it was in October that I first applied. It was in December that I realized I needed to get off the antidepressants. I didn't even see my psychiatrist until March. I started going into withdrawal very shortly after. And but then I got like an email saying, you've been selected for chopped in June. And so at that point, I was just like, I was, I was deep in the worst part of withdrawal at that point. I literally broke down and started sobbing at my kitchen table when I got that email because

I just, I didn't want to back out because I didn't want to be that person. But I was also just like in no shape to be able to handle the show itself. And what was the show like? Well, so my strategy for the situation was to just like overstudy. So I stopped sleeping during withdrawal. so I had a lot of extra time. So I just sat and I read. I made flashcards.

I even would invite friends over and we would do like chopped run-throughs where they would bring ingredients from the grocery store and we'd set a timer and I would cook. And so I felt like I had at least prepared on some level to try and mentally be able to do it. And then I worked with my, I had a counselor at that point. So I did a lot of work on just getting through the day and not. Because I was so scared of having like a bad withdrawal reaction or an emotional break. down on national TV. So I did a lot of actually counseling work around that. But the day itself, I mean, it was just very long. It was from like 5 a.m. and I think I got home around 1130 a night.

I cried a lot. And to this day, I'm still extremely grateful for the editors who chose not to edit me into a complete hot mess. Because if you watch the show, I look pretty together. I mean, I certainly looked frazzled, but like it wasn't, I mean, I was like literally being taken aside by producers who were giving me tissues and telling me to calm down. And they did. didn't show all that and just thank God. If you could go back and right now, you, and tell yourself when you were standing over that ledge in New York City, and you could literally walk yourself off the ledge,

what would you tell yourself? You know, I don't think I would have done a single thing different. I think that I did exactly what I needed to do. And I think I just, I finally listened to the little voice inside me that said something about this isn't right. And I was finally ready. And I just, I don't think any amount of knowledge before I was ready would have helped. I think I needed to be at that point and needed to get very extreme.

But from there, I'm really proud of everything I've done because I've just learned to follow my own compass. I mean, you should be proud to write a book about this. And she's a very good writer. Thank you. I would love for you to leave our audience with, I don't want to say tips, but What would you tell someone who's maybe on antidepressants that wants to explore another avenue? Where should they start? I would say the first thing would be, I mean, you need to have some sort of prescriber who really believes you and is on your side and is going to be your champion.

So if you have a prescriber, and I'm using the word prescriber because most antidepressants aren't even prescribed by psychiatrists. So you've got to have someone who's at least willing to, you know, get in the research with you. and listen to you if you say, this is not feeling right from me, I want to come off. We need to do it safely. We need to do it the best way for me. You need to have someone who's really going to listen and not just say, not just dismiss you. So that's the first one. And if you don't have that person in your life, you need to go, you need to keep shopping around, you know, pretend you're dating on Bumble looking for a new prescriber. The second thing is, is that the best way we know how right now to safely get people off of these drugs

is through something called hyperbolic tapering. And so I just would encourage people to Google it and read about it. You know, I think that, you know, my book and a lot of the conversations, I'm not trying to drum up fear here. I'm just trying to make sure people are aware of what can happen. So if it does happen, they can recognize it. There are about half the people who try and get off the antidepressants have no problem, right? They can get off them pretty easily, especially if you've been on them for a shorter period of time.

So there are a lot of people who might be unnecessarily freaked out. And so just know that that that's a very real possibility to just totally not have an issue at all. But for people who do feel like maybe, like, if you've, a good example might be is if you've been on antidepressants for a while and you accidentally miss one because, you know, you ran out or your pharmacy was closed or it was a holiday and you feel really weird and you feel really different, that's a good sign that maybe you need to be kind of, you know, on top of a tapering program because your body is clearly having a reaction right away. And that's when hyperbolic tapering can be really useful. It brings people down on a much more graduated curve. So you don't go from like 200 to 100 to 50 to 25. And no, you're done in four days. That's not how it works.

It's much slower. It very often requires the compound pharmacy that we talked about earlier and a prescriber who really knows what they're talking about. Or at least is willing to do the reading on it. So it's not a perfect system. It doesn't work for everyone, but it seems to be more successful. So I would just say Google that. There's research on it out there. Just learn about it. And that should help at least patients go in feeling a little bit more armed to get off safely. And then the last thing really is just to learn, maybe learn a little bit about neuroplasticity and understand that the brain is fully capable of healing and that perspective changes in therapy and all these things that we talk about and hear about on Instagram. It's all about neuroplasticity and getting the brain to change. So you can actually go live a fully recovered, happy, healthy life. Like, I can't think of anything else that we really just tell, on such a large scale,

we tell people they will never recover for this and it's something they have to cope with. And I think it's just so defeatist from the beginning. And so if you can find a little bit of hope that, hey, maybe I don't have to be, live with depression for my whole life or anxiety for my whole life, then that has got to remain your North Star. And that will that will drive you through if you just can really understand and start to believe. that does not have to be your whole life, but it takes crap ton of work and a good team and lots of support. May cause side effects. You guys go buy her book. It's so good. It's on Amazon. I'm assuming. I highly recommend it. Where can everyone find you, pimp yourself out your book, all the things.

Yes. So the book is May Cause Side Effects. It's available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indigo and Canada. Really, wherever books are sold, you can get it. It's also, there's an audio book that you can get wherever you like to listen to your audiobooks. You can find me at Brooks Seam all over the internet, B-R-O-O-O-K-E-S-I-E-M, B-R-O-O-K-E-S-I-M-R-SIM. Instagram is where I spend the most of my time on the social medias, but I technically exist everywhere else. Brooke, I think your story's very inspiring. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. Shout out to Michaela Peterson for showing me all of your things. Michaela, thanks. Thanks, Michaela.

Wait, don't go. Do you want to win a copy of Brooks book may cause side effects? We are going to send some of you a signed copy. This book is so good. You're going to love it. I am obsessed with it. I read it on my Kindle. I'm jealous that you guys get the book. All you have to do is tell us your best takeaway from this episode with Brooke on my latest post at Lauren Bostic. Thank you guys so much for listening. And with that, we'll see you on Monday. This episode was brought to you by Feel Free. You have to try. They're euphoric kava drinks. They contain kava and ancient plants and they just kind of make you open your heart, if you will. You're going to go to botanictonics.com and use code skinny for 25% off. That's botanictonics.com. Use code skinny for 25% off.