Freeze trauma response

It seems that a lot of peoples most common trauma response is *freeze*. Americans feel helpless. Learned helplessness might also be considered a trauma freeze response. The first action one must take is to become aware of the potential for freezing. Once you recognize it you can start listening to the freeze and responding to your own body and how it wants/needs to unfreeze. It's critical that we all learn to unfreeze now. Look/feel within and follow your heart. Your heart knows the way out of freeze. Your journey out of freeze will be your own. Trust/feel your body and respond. Get creative. It's within us all. The body is the only way back to humanity.

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Continuous healing

~ Continuous healing ~ someone said: "I hope healing finds you." response: Healing is here. It's a misconception that healing is ever over.

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How to use the site

This is how to use the site Many people still ask me for my “protocols.” The message I communicate for healing is that we are all different and our paths are also, therefore, going to be endlessly diverse. I share my experience, not so that it may be copied, but so that the reader can get a sense of process.

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Mourning, loss and vision

Does the mourning ever end? Of course not silly, one loses more and more before the end of life. Mourning and loss are the natural order of things. I suffered from delusional optimism for many years in order to survive. There is no shame in that and I did it elegantly at times.

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Mad Spiritual musings on diversity and inclusivity

Update 2026: This project never came to be. Tragically my friend Ian Scheffel died before we could manifest our vision. Still as a piece of history on this path I've found myself in, I am keeping this all of this in the archives. The below video was a favorite of mine. I took it down for a few years along with all my other videos. This one I did put back up. I still have dreams for sucha world in which community would include all of us. We want to create community and support for all of us who've experienced madness as having significant spiritual significance. Whether we've been psychiatrized or not and whether we've considered madness in terms of the psychiatric labeling or not. That would include anyone labeled with psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar, schizoaffective, or psychotic NOS. That would also include anyone who has had experience with altered states that have not been pathologized by psychiatry, by self or others.

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OM tone — healing, soothing (end migraines)

om-symbol-on-a-fiery-orange-background for OM tone

Listening to this ancient sound while in meditation seems to assist in the grounding and revelatory experience both. … [click on title for the rest of the post]

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Myths about Depression and PsychoPharma

a-large-green-leaf-with-the-word-myth-in-darker green for myths about depression and psychopharm

Myth 1: Your disease is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain Myth 2: It’s no problem to stop treatment with antidepressants Myth 3: Psychotropic Drugs for Mental Illness are like Insulin for Diabetes Myth 4: Psychotropic drugs reduce the number of chronically ill patients Myth 5: Happy pills do not cause suicide in children and adolescents … [click for the rest of the post]

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Rethinking “Psychosis”: Integrating Spirituality and Medicine as holistic beings

Jung art from the Red Book for Integrating Spirituality and Medicine

There is no reason to assume that the medical and the spiritual causes are mutually exclusive. As deeply holistic beings they are almost always intertwined. The spiritual experience often needing support and attention from a physical/medical stance as well.

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Healing via nourishing cooking: a story

close up photo of fresh produce vegetables for nourishing cooking

About a week ago Jenny, the blog’s author shared a personal story of healing in her family. Her husband had been diagnosed bipolar. A large part of his and her journey, just like mine, was learning how to eat well, or really better than before we struggled to get healthy and free of drugs.

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Grief It’s complicated

One of the many normal human experiences for which it is currently the fashion to pathologize is grief. I was surprised to find a very reasonable article onPsychology Today's website, which in general tows the party line and generally makes me groan whenever I read their work. The study they report on today shows that "complicated grief" does not respond to antidepressants. Unfortunately, most people who come up against difficult grief responses are routinely handed antidepressants, which as in all other instances of over-medicating the public at large often ends up with people getting sucked into the psychiatric system.

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Steven Morgan: friend, colleague and super human being

photo of Steven Morgan against a tree...

Stephen Morgan has died. Here is the Facebook Announcement from Intentional Peer Support He was a rare individual, loved by everyone who knew him. A beautiful light gone from this plane too soon I've never forgotten the first time I met him. He came to my home in Asheville at the beginning of all the beautiful connections made among those in the mad movement online. He was 26. He literally shone like a light. His face is etched in my memory when I opened the door and saw him for the first time and he felt like my brother. He shared eight articles that he wrote here on Beyond Meds. In his memory I ask that if you've not read them before, please do. And if you have read them, you might just find that they're wonderful a second time around. I felt honored at the time that he would want me to share his work. And now I'm so glad that I have this small body of his beauty kept here in the archives. the collection is below:

November 12, 2025 0

Recover loudly

when we recover loughly we keep others from dying quietly. for

that's right. I also wouldn't be alive if I hadn't been the voice of Beyond Meds...an early, now prototype, of all the relentless chatter out there. It's weird because it brought so much chaos as well. And I've had many tell me the words I shared altered their lives for the better. My entire life is paradoxical and I also know without my incessant need to **speak it** I would not be alive.

October 26, 2025 4

Engaging desire

gold and red tones with the words "contemplating desire"

There’s nothing wrong with desire. It is however a form of seeking. In acceptance of the eternal now there’s only what is happening. *** When in flow nothing need be pursued. *** Honest and clear desire pursued is not just about self gratification but more importantly the fulfillment of physiological need. We are a well... Continue Reading →

October 16, 2025 0

Criminalizing Resistance

By Vanessa Krasinski (short video included) Did you know that wanting freedom used to be classified as a mental disorder? In 1851, Samuel Cartwright, US physician and slave owner, coined the term Drapetomania, a so-called mental disorder known as ‘runaway slave syndrome.’ It wasn’t a mental illness. This diagnosis was a tool to codify in criminalized resistance. While Drapetomania is no longer a medical diagnosis, the underlying pattern hasn’t changed. The pattern: control through language — erase context, deny legitimacy, protect the oppressor. Yesterday it was “disease”, today it’s “domestic terrorism.” Today, those who dissent risk being pathologist and criminalized by those in power. But they’ve always tried to rename resistance. Don’t let them define your terms. Resistance — actions big and small — are a courageous path toward freedom. Keep going.

October 1, 2025 0

Responses to chaos: swimming in the muck

the last thing to come when one is healing from trauma is a thick skin...it does, finally come, however. it does. really it's not thick at all. it's porous and everything becomes clear and thus it's easier to move around the chaos and muck. clarity doesn't get rid of the muck! ...

September 19, 2025 0

Tardive Dyskinesia: the Biofilm Connection

multicolored abstract painting for Tardive Dyskinesia: the Complex Connection with Biofilm

I am healing the tardive dyskinesia, which for me, as a result of sustained, long-term mindful attention is clearly an infestation of muliple micro-organisms acting in concert via a highly complex biofilm. ... To call this monster within me a biofilm is highly problematic since most people don’t know what biofilm is and those who do imagine that anything referred to as a film must not be particularly significant. Instead, in truth, it is “biofilm” of some sort that is at the root of all illness. In my experience the TD colonizes every cell in the body, however and is far more complex than what anyone seems to understand. In tardive dyskinesia, these systems of micro-organism architecture that are being organized becomes a snaking, moving, morphing entity that slowly takes over the entire body. It defies the laws of physics as we currently understand them.

September 18, 2025 0

Kick back. Watch the show.

The immediate met with integrity takes care of all one can do. ....

August 24, 2025 0

everything that frightens us

In these times feel good stuff from brilliant poets really need to be challenged. I mean I love Rilke and agree with him in an absolute way, but when you get into a fascist reality controlling your government and world you need to consider all contexts.... I saw this on someone's timeline:

August 24, 2025 0

Decolonizing mental health

I'm starting to share responses to general trends I'm reading in social media. I don't partake much in social media anymore. Not like I used to, but I am still ghosting around and seeing what is happening on the front lines of thought in critical psych and social justice. Below are some of the responses I've had to common themes that I felt like sharing.

August 9, 2025 0

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