The first thing we want to mention, from our perspective, to anyone who hasn’t thought much about tapering from medication, is that your lack of knowledge might be laughable from the point of view of tapering experts. So much of our media has been funded by pharmaceutical companies for the past 40 years, and they have they have had their choice about what narratives are presented. The narrative of a lifelong biochemical illness that is incurable but manageable with medication (that they are not obligated to long-term studies) is, from a money-minded corporate perspective, a wet dream. As part of this narrative’s functioning, lived experiences tapering and withdrawal effects from medication must not be presented in meaningful ways. Rather than the accurate narrative of withdrawal, profits depend on patients trusting beyond doubt their psychiatrists when they are told that it isn’t withdrawal, the perfect drugs cannot result in withdrawal effects — rather it is always further proof positive of the severity (often growing severity) of some underlying biochemical condition for which the misdiagnosed person’s misdiagnosis has no biomarker.
It is laughable.
It is important to keep a sense of humor.
It is also important to keep in mind the seriousness of the tapering process.
We believe media and corporate interests have done their best focus our attention on the seriousness of making the choice to take psychotropics.
What happens when we devote that same energy of seriousness to tapering from them?
Taper slowly, consciously, deliberate. Going down from 60mg to 10mg is fast. Going down from 10mg to 0mg is faster. Tapering fast is dangerous and when you experience withdrawal affects try not to make fast assumptions. Tapering slowly is better, the slower the better. The more gentle you can be with yourself, the better. Drugs that have been in your system for a long time have been causing your biochemistry to become dependent on them, and if you weren’t biochemically or neurologically or biochemically different from the average human before taking them on a regular basis, you might be now. Meditation, nutrition, and exercise or whatever connects you with you are strongly advised. As serious a subject as tapering from psychotropic medication is, more serious even than that is you. You matter. Your autonomy and sense of self matter. Your capacity for living a full life is of primary importance.
It’s often repeated in conversations on the subject of tapering that one should consult with your psychiatrist. This works if your psychiatrist is not retraumatizing you or gaslighting you, and if you trust your psychiatrist. Many psychiatrists have what they believe are good intentions, but consider it from their point of view for a minute: Your job is dealing with the craziest people on the planet, and despite how you are trained to speak, of course you are afraid that some of their randomly or unpredictable violent. During your training you have been fed the information that their disease are all lifelong and they should never go off medication. Why? Because they never should. But why? They just never should. If you questioned this further, there’s a good chance you didn’t end up actually becoming accredited as a psychiatrist. Chances are you’ve sublimated your fear of your patients into a sense of certainty that their diseases are very real and that you are very good in your willingness to sit in proximity to them in your office. When a psychotic patient asks you to taper down from their medication, are you able to see the whole patient? Perhaps, thought we can imagine that is a truly rare, brave, and thoughtful psychiatrist. More often it will simply be easier for a person sitting in that role and with that training to view their pyschotic patient as psychosis itself asking to not be treated, no matter how they may deny this is how they view the patient.
And yet, there are some psychiatrists working today who have more than just good intention, but also practice good psychiatry.
One shining example is quite prolific and exists on the internet, and you can view his videos here.
There are others as well, and the desire to consult with one in your area is understandable.
We would like to create a searchable index of such professionals. If you are one or know of one who wouldn’t like to be included in our index, please send an email to misdiagnosedanonymous.taperproindex@gmail.com
Misdiagnosed Anonymous 