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.
Food as art form in the moment. My internal Kitchen Witch and muse at work. About I started sharing recipes when I started cooking “healing” food after becoming critically ill and disabled for years. I always have loved to cook so that part wasn’t new.
free download! Ecstatic movement has been a critical part of my healing. Ecstatic dance practiced with intent is movement meditation. Below is compilation from my favorite “wave” ever. You don’t need to read anything about it…just start moving to the music.
We're all selfish human beings in training to become the lovers we are as well. The surviving animal must be "selfish." As we come out of pure survival, the species depends on us becoming lover. Love madly, passionately, indiscriminately. Start with your own selfish self.
2020 ~ Thoughts from the road... the last few months have been hellish and difficult. As you may have noticed I stopped posting altogether for a while. I've moved to a new state and am now starting a new life with my partner, Paul Woodward and our three four-leggeds. I am blessed on this planet that includes heaven and hell in equal measure. Below are some musings that arose during the time away.
I use many methods for relief of the pain at once...including yoga and meditation and supplements and diet and epsom salt baths...like all aspects of health I've learned, that pain too is a deeply holistic experience. Everything matters. I don't imagine the combination of what works for me is going to be exactly applicable to anyone else. It's more important to learn to listen to ones particular body and that process will never be exactly the same. I list as many things here as possible so that one might start to piece together what might work for their situation.
Jazz is an old blogging buddy. She published the below story on her blog, “In Pieces” to mark its end about a year ago as she’d recovered and no longer needed to think about such things she’d covered on the blog. At the time I wasn’t posting as I’ve taken many breaks in the last couple of years. I corresponded with her the other day that I might share her story now as it’s really a great commentary on how so many people end up on psychiatric drugs needlessly. They end up on drugs for very dubious reasons and then are told that they need them for the rest of their lives. This is most often a bold-faced lie. It may be that the psychiatrist who utters such fallacy believes their lies, but it’s nonetheless a damaging and damning pronouncement to all too many patients. Some people like Jazz figure this out and are able to free themselves. In our communication I’ve learned that Jazz continued to heal and is now writing fluently again, something she’d lost to the medications. She remains stable and healthy while she mothers her children and writes her books.
(I've been visiting early posts from this site. A lot are diary-like and there is more involvement from readers since this predates social media getting really big.) Something that comes up quite often in discussions with my friends and readers who have been on meds and have come off of them is how many of the "psychiatric" symptoms they were being "treated" for disappear upon discontinuation of the medications. This is widely known and experienced among those of us who have decided to stop medicating ourselves. For me there are two most astonishing details. The first was when I discoveredI was being given more and more Risperdal to medicate away the akathisia that the Risperdal was causing! Once off the Risperdal the akathisia was gone and so was most of what we'd called anxiety which led me to take massive doses of benzos. This is tragic and disgusting.
Update 2026: This post predates my learning more about the importance of slow, methodical withdrawal. I started withdrawing when the online scene was just learning what was possible! It's hard to believe how many voices are out there now. This was first posted in 2008. The internet was brand new , really and totally different than it is now, both. This site was where people went for withdrawal info. Here and a few forums and/or email groups that are mostly all gone now. Given that I didn't yet know how protracted my situation would be I was still looking for professionals to work with. I did find a few gems but ultimately learned that my journey would be one of learning to trust mself and listen to my body. Nature would be my primary guide. So what's happening in my journey lately?
So I tried to go off Lamictal at 2.5 mg a couple of weeks ago and had some sleepless nights like I wrote about. So I went back on half of it I've cut the 1.25 mg in half 3 times now and am truly off all of it now. (just to remind you---I was on 400 mg) So I have only 2.5 my of Klonopin to go.
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:
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.
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 →
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.
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! ...
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.
The immediate met with integrity takes care of all one can do. ....
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:
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.
2025 smelling like 1984: It's been a while since I've done one of these posts with snippets of thoughts as they arise. Many get posted on social media first. Given the current political reality I've mostly been adjusting and hoping the contemplation comes to some fruition as I allow the acclimation process. So, really, I've... Continue Reading →
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