Abstinence from treatment, especially treatment that contains a risk of being toxic, can be a form of treatment itself. This rule applies equally to physical and pharmacological, emotional and spiritual, moral and relational forms of treatment. Even abstaining from treatments that have some benefits can ultimately prove to help a person heal.
By abstaining and introspecting, a person can discover the effects of a treatment for themselves — and we believe personal this kind of knowledge is the kind that matters most in our healing journey. By abstaining from treatment, we recover interoception: knowing when we are hungry or not, knowing when we are thirsty or not, knowing when we are tired or not, knowing when we are sick or not.
Abstention is not necessarily for the purpose of removing a form of treatment from a person’s life entirely, but can actually result in a more knowledge-based, from inside to outside direction in their enthusiasm and positive feelings toward treatment and healing overall. Or, in selection of better forms of treatment. Or, in the permanent abstention from certain forms of treatment.
Karen Horney writes of neurosis, a prevailing diagnosis of her day:
At the core of this alienation from the actual self is a phenomenon that is less tangible although more crucial. It is the remoteness of the neurotic from his own feelings, wishes, beliefs, and energies. It is the loss of the feeling of being an active determining force in his own life. It is the loss of feeling himself as an organic whole. These in turn indicate an alienation from that most alive center of ourselves which I have suggested calling the real self. To present more fully its propensities in the terms of William James: it provides the “palpitating inward life”; it engenders the spontaneity of feelings, whether these be joy, yearning, love, anger, fear, despair. It also is the source of spontaneous interest and energies, “the source of effort and attention from which emanate the fiats of will”; the capacity to wish and to will; it is the part of ourselves that wants to expand and grow and to fulfill itself. It produces the “reactions of spontaneity” to our feelings or thoughts, “welcoming or opposing, appropriating or disowning, striving with or against, saying yes or no.” All this indicates that our real self, when strong and active, enables us to make decisions and assume responsibility for them. It therefore leads to genuine integration and a sound sense of wholeness, oneness. Not merely are body and mind, deed and thought or feeling, consonant and harmonious, but they function without serious inner conflict. In contrast to those artificial means of holding ourselves together, which gain in importance as the real self is weakened, there is little or no attendant strain.
Fake or inauthentic feelings can be constructed for a sense of safety within a paradigm of traumatic misdiagnosis just as they can be within a traumatic maturational environment. By giving ourselves permission to accept the terrible reality of misdiagnosis and mistreatment, and by allowing ourselves to abstain from treatment, we create space for authentic reality to become known to us and for our real selves to shine.
It is a trope that in abstaining from drugs, there can be serious withdrawal effects. But the same might be observed when abstaining from any form of treatment. Likewise, withdrawal effects can be and should be managed properly including through a slow tapering off from toxic or inappropriate treatment which may include small dosages in the interest of relief as the body, nervous system, mind, and soul are given time to adjust to a new way of relating and sensing. Often, process of abstaining from psychotropic drugs is misrepresented in media by those without first-hand experience of psychotropic drug withdrawal or misdiagnosis.
No level of abstinence from any form of treatment is required for membership in Misdiagnosed Anonymous. We welcome all those who seek understanding of the issue of misdiagnosis, and all those who seek peer support in improving their lives.
However, abstinence from treatment may be encouraged in the form of hearing the stories of others who have found that abstaining from forced or false treatment has been an effective source of healing or knowledge.
Misdiagnosed Anonymous 