March 26, 2025 • 61 mins
Kevin Gundersen's story begins at age 12 when a doctor prescribed him Celexa for school anxiety. What followed was a two-decade nightmare of medication side effects, new symptoms, and medical gaslighting that robbed him of his youth and health.
With raw honesty, Kevin recounts the vicious cycle familiar to many psychiatric patients: medication side effects misdiagnosed as worsening mental illness, leading to higher doses or new medications, creating even worse symptoms. His original anxiety transformed into debilitating panic attacks, vertigo, severe blood pressure spikes reaching 260/150, and the torturous movement disorder akathisia after starting psychiatric medications.
Kevin's experience reveals how medical gaslighting extends beyond patients to families. "My parents were also gaslit," he explains, absolving them of blame for decisions made without true informed consent. This crucial insight highlights how psychiatric medication harms ripple through entire families, creating multiple victims from a single prescription.
The podcast takes listeners through Kevin's medical journey, complicated by Graves' disease and Lyme disease, and his repeated attempts to taper off medications. Most powerfully, he describes his December 2023 breaking point: "I am going to do everything in my power to get off these drugs. I don't care if I suffer every day for the rest of my life. I'm not giving any more money to these companies that have fucked me up."
Now slowly tapering and rebuilding his life, Kevin offers a profound insight that challenges psychiatric orthodoxy: "I feel the best I've felt in a long time, and I'm at the lowest dose I've been on since I was 16." His story is both a warning about the dangers of psychiatric medications and a beacon of hope for those seeking their own path to healing.
Follow Kevin's continuing journey on TikTok and YouTube @fightingback203 and share your own experiences with psychiatric medication through our email: thegaslittruthpodcasts@gmail.com.
Are you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at thegaslittruthpodcast@gmail.com
While you are at it, Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @thegaslittruthpodcast.
Be sure to Hit that subscribe button and get alerts for more episodes!
Thanks for listening!
Follow Us individually at
Dr. Teralyn:
Therapist Jenn:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
you've been gaslit into believing that fighting
back from withdrawal and otherthings would be easy.
We are your whistleblowingshrinks, Dr Tara Lynn and
therapist Jen, and this is theGaslit Truth Podcast.
Before we start one moreshameless plug for my book.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Shameless.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
self-promotion Shameless self-promotion, your
best brain.
Yes, and I wanted to point outone of the chapters here,
because I think this is achapter that jazzes me up the
most, because it's all aboutamino acids and
neurotransmitters and thingslike that, and these are the
things that nobody taught you inschool, nobody taught us in
school, but have become sopivotal in our practice period.
(00:47):
So this would be chapter four.
It's called prepare to be mindblown.
The mind is a source of allsuffering and it is also the
source of all happiness.
I love that quote because it isliterally reclaiming your own
agency with your mind.
And then we talk a lot aboutneurotransmitters and amino
acids how to influence yourneurotransmitters without
(01:09):
psychiatric medication.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yay, that's it.
That's the ticket, people.
That's the whole deal.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
If everybody knew that before they started psych
meds, I think the world would bea better place.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh man, if that would have only been the treatment
plan right here, correct.
Go ahead, jen, and I want youto go look at like your
serotonin.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Maybe you need some vitamin D Maybe you need some
5-HTP.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
damn it, let's look at that.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yep, or maybe not.
Maybe you don't need any ofthat stuff.
Maybe you just need to changeyour life.
I don't know.
Maybe you need to change yourlifestyle a little.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Our guests would agree today too that we've got
on the show so we got to bringbring him in.
Can you bring him in from theweight room?
Bringing him in, bring himhello slide him in.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
There he is there's kevin hi, so we've been.
We've been following kevin fora while on over on tiktok um.
His name is kevin gunders.
I was gonna say it's not gufsonsay the name of my financial
advisor but this is not myfinancial advisor, kevin
Gunderson Shout out my financialadvisor watches this.
(02:10):
He's going to get a kick out ofthat.
Anyway we have a special guest,kevin, and he's an advocate for
fighting back and he has a greatstory that I am glad that we've
been wanting to get him on theshow for a long time but because
of mental health conditions andthings like this, it's been
(02:30):
really tough to get him here.
So I'm glad that you're maybefeeling better.
I don't know, maybe you justfelt obligated to be here.
I don't know, but we're goingto find out.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Maybe it was all the emails I keep sending going hey
be a tenacious little shit whenit comes to stuff like this.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
No, it wasn't that at all, like you said it was.
Definitely it's been a struggleto even just function.
So yeah, I'm glad I'm here, I'mglad to finally meet you guys
and to talk about, about talkabout all this stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
That's been a struggle for a long time yeah,
so I think we just need to startfrom the beginning, the
beginning let's jump in kevinall right, well, yeah, um, like
you want me to start from thebeginning, beginning sure?
well, let's start with thecomment that you made off air,
(03:25):
yeah, gas lighting um, becausewe were talking to him about
what the hook for the show wasgoing to be and he mentioned
other ways that he was gas lit,and I said please save that for
the show and we'll, we'll startit off there, and so maybe, if
you can recall what you had saidotherwise, we can prompt your
memory a little bit on this.
But maybe start there with howyou were.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I think I think I mentioned, I think you said
something about being gaslitabout the withdrawal from
psychiatric drugs.
I said well, my, my parentswere also gaslit.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yes, yes it?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
yes, yes.
Um, I know I've been asked manytimes over the years and I've
like do you?
Do you blame your parents?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
because I was put on at such a young age how old were
you?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I was, I was.
I believe I was 12.
I was either 11 or 12, um, andpeople have asked me that and I
I reply with the same answer.
I say I do not.
I do not blame my parents atall.
They were also gaslit,manipulated whatever you want to
call it into believing thatthis was going to help me and
(04:33):
that I needed this medication,and they are also victims.
I truly believe that.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I believe that too.
That hit me where it hurts,actually, when you said that
yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Tell us how it started, Kevin, with that.
What was going on with you inyour life that you and your
parents got to that space ofstarting a psych med that young?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
So the year was 2001.
And I believe it was August ofthat year and I've talked about
some of this on my channel on myvideos, but I believe it was
August 2001, and I had a reallygood friend at the time and his
sister passed away.
(05:21):
His sister passed away and thatwas sort of like the start of
just a bad year, to say theleast.
That was sixth grade for me andI was going off to middle
school for the first time.
I had, you know, learningdisabilities that I was dealing
(05:47):
with over the years, but I wouldsay the start of of her passing
away was that was when thingsstarted to get really rough, and
then I went right off to middleschool and I started to develop
school anxiety.
Um, the teachers there wereawful.
Can I drop f-bombs on here?
Sure.
You can drop whatever bombs youwant.
(06:08):
They were fucking awful.
Yes, yeah, the teachers therewere just awful people, and
there was a certain way that Ineeded to be taught, and I think
I can speak for other peoplewhen I say that, uh, having
learning disability can bedifficult.
(06:28):
It can be hard because noteveryone understands why you
have to learn a certain way and,um, you're made to believe
sometimes that you're stupid oryou know whatever, but it's not
the case and I think that myconfidence, just it just dipped
(06:48):
that year because of the,because of the teachers and, you
know, because of the situationsthat I was in.
So I started to get really badschool anxiety and and then it
was like nine, 11.
And then you, you know, onlylike five months after that, my
aunt passed away.
(07:08):
So you had all these thingshappening that year that were
really difficult, and my parentswere kind of struggling to find
a different school for mebecause they were like I don't
think, you know, public schoolis going well at all for him, so
let's try to find somethingelse.
(07:29):
And they did end up finding theperfect school for me.
It was it's a private school inFairfield, connecticut, but, um
, I would say that year was thestart of everything and at some
point I know I my my memories,kind of I have a great memory,
but sometimes it gets a littlelost At some point during that
(07:52):
year they brought me to a doctorwho my older sisters had both
seen, and I'm not going to dropany names, but it was this
specific doctor who basicallysaid he needs to be on Celexa
and it's going to help him, andyou know, blah, blah, blah.
(08:13):
So I think it was around Marchor April or May, sometime around
there of 2002 is when I startedantidepressants and I believe
that that was the start and Iwent up to about.
(08:35):
I think I started at 10milligrams but then I was up
around 20.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I will say I just read a thing on Celexa I'm
pretty sure it was Celexa asbeing one of the worst.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
For not withdrawal but side effects and things like
that.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
The side effects were brutal.
Yeah, for sure, and I know thatLexapro is like a newer version
, or whatever they want to callit.
Jen knows this.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yes, Newer Lex side effects or whatever they want to
call it.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Jen knows this, yes, and I want to address something.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Well, I said you had mentioned like my memory is a
little sketchy, and yes, mymemory is a little sketchy
during the time that I usedpsychiatric medications too, so
that could have been one of theside effects.
For you just saying, or youwere 11, and I can't remember a
lot about when I was 11 either.
So, from there though, whathappened?
(09:34):
Have you stayed on Celexa orhave you changed something?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah, I mean, how much time do you have?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
uh, yeah, I mean we.
How much time do you have?
Uh, you switched several times,right?
Speaker 3 (09:51):
to.
So you got to to your your drugof choice, my current, my
current, my drug of choice, yeahmy current, my current
medication is is afexor, uh, andI take a low dose of Klonopin
daily.
I don't want to be, but that isthe current situation and that
will not continue to be thesituation as I'm trying to.
(10:14):
It's weird Benzos have neveraffected me the same as the
SSRIs.
And the SNRIs I've had ahistory with.
You know the bet, the benzostoo, but I've always taken them
as needed, never really had aproblem, um.
(10:34):
But yeah, I'm getting off topichere.
Celexa for four years, um, from12 to 16.
And during that time I that wasactually when my panic attacks
got really severe.
(10:54):
When I was on the drug I hadmore anxiety and depression when
I was first put on themedication, but I think that
when I actually started, it iswhen the panic attacks got worse
.
But here's where thegaslighting comes in.
(11:15):
You go to the doctor and youtell them they say okay, well,
that just means you need ahigher dose.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yes, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Or it's the wrong med .
We need you on somethingdifferent, or a booster or so.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So so, kevin, your, your anxiety and your depression
.
You're saying it got worseafter starting a medication, but
the thing that really poppedeven more so was panic attacks,
which you did not have.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
So you're saying you did not have panic attacks prior
to I would say, if you want tocall them panic attacks, I don't
.
I don't know if they were panicattacks, they weren't like
before the medication.
They, they were more.
It was more just bad anxiety,right, um, and it was, and it
was school anxiety and it wasn'tnormal it wasn't debilitating
(12:11):
physical symptoms, which I dealwith now.
It was more just like um, aconstant state of of just I
don't want to go to school andand you know the social aspect
and being afraid of the teachersand all that stuff.
But now it's just all physicalmanifestations and you know
(12:32):
whatever you want to call itthat have developed over the
years.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Okay, yeah, and I'm thinking, because every time we
have a guest on here like I, youknow you do retrospective
things, especially when you'retalking about kids, and all this
stuff, like the learningdisability, played such a huge
role.
I believe in all of thisbecause it sounds like it wasn't
(12:57):
addressed in a manner that wassuitable for your learning.
So of course, you're going toenter into sixth grade anxious
(13:29):
because I'm going to guess thatyour learning wasn't up to par,
and I say this because that'sexactly what happened to my son.
And so when he entered sixthgrade, everything changes in
sixth grade.
Socially, it changes.
What you're expected to know haschanged, and so when you're
struggling with a learningdisability, there is like
heightened anxiety and thingslike that.
So, knowing what I know, now Ilook at that and I think that
seems expected, that seems likeit would be an anticipated
response, with somebody who'sgoing in with a learning
disability and going into sixthgrade.
(13:52):
Looking back on that now, whatdo you think about that kid's
self going into sixth grade at11 having some anxiety?
What do you think you couldtell him now or what did you
learn about him now?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Well, you know it's such a big jump.
You know, fifth to sixth atleast in Connecticut that just
that jump from elementary tomiddle school and just the way
you go about your day and howyou go from different, you know,
at least here it's like you goto math and you have a different
(14:24):
teacher for science, you know,et cetera.
But yeah, that whole processwas just so different for me and
I just remember being sooverwhelmed by the entire thing
and, just like I said, theteachers were just not nice,
(14:44):
they didn't understand me.
Like, try harder difficultyunderstanding why I was the way
it was.
So having these, these people,basically make everything worse.
Of course I was going todevelop some sort of you know
anxiety, social anxiety, schoolanxiety, do you?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
do you remember did?
Did some of the pressure formedication come from the school,
if you recall?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I don't remember.
I do know that the doctor madethat clear that this will help
in school when he was telling myparents that I needed Celexa.
But, like I said, I stayed onfor four years.
I had really bad panic attacksat the time, those four years,
(15:42):
but I I was functioning.
It would just be like I wouldhave three or four weeks of
severe, debilitating panicattacks and I actually developed
a phobia of vomiting at thetime, which is I don't know
where it came from, but ithappened, and anytime I got it
like any sort of stomach ache, Iwould just go into full-blown
(16:04):
panic attacks.
Uh, when I went off of the drugat 16, it was pretty, pretty
easy to get off then.
I don don't remember why, butmaybe my you know my brain I was
still a kid, maybe my brainjust hadn't been damaged yet,
but, um, I remember going off ofit and feeling the best I'd
(16:28):
felt and since I was like 10, um, you know, tons more energy.
I felt happy.
Uh, and I I clearly didn't needthe drug.
You know hindsight's 2020, butI just uh, I look back at those
years and I'm so many.
Things could have gonedifferently, you know, and it's
(16:50):
it's an unfortunate thing, butso many people have dealt with
this and I'm not the only one.
That's something I keep tellingmyself over the years is you
know, there's tons of people whohave been through this and it's
unfortunate, really.
It's sad.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
It's just a sad situation that we're at this
point in this country that we'reat this point in this country,
especially not especially, but Ido think especially with
children, because there is noinformed consent for a child.
They can't.
You know that goes through theadults who, as you said, are
(17:29):
being gaslit into believing thatif they're a good parent, they
would do this for theirstruggling child.
And that is how it's presented.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
That's how it?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
was presented to me as a parent.
I never did it for my kid.
I'm so thankful that I did not,but the pressure was immense.
The pressure to be a good mom,the pressure for him to learn
differently was so immense.
So I really I feel for your momand your parents having to sit
(17:59):
there and, you know, make thesemassive decisions for their
child on in an adolescent bodyduring that time that was
impacted by these medicationsnegatively.
And you said, you know, whenyou were 16, you got off of it
(18:24):
and it was relatively easy.
And in my mind I'm thinkinglike I wonder if it was easy
because you had hormonal surgesand you know your hormones were
kind of picking up the slackhere, trying to help you get
through all of that.
Plus, you're probably moreactive at 16, like doing.
I remember 16, it was fun.
You know there's a lot ofsports and, yes, all of those
(18:47):
things were happeningsimultaneously to help your
brain get through that time.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, I do remember coming off pretty quickly at the
time, at 16, and I had noproblem, and I've mentioned this
in my fighting back videos thatI felt unbelievable and
unbelievable, you know good.
And I would say, four monthsafter, three or four months
(19:15):
later, I developed throat,throat reflux, and then, about
five months after that, Istarted getting symptoms of
Graves disease.
And I always think back, I'mlike did, did this drug do
something to my brain, to mybody that brought out all of
these, these physical, um,physical problems that have
(19:40):
developed over the years?
I mean, I don't, I don't know,but the throat reflux was, was
bad, but then I got graves about, I would say it was about nine
months to a year after, aboutnine months to a year after,
(20:02):
after I stopped, uh, the Celexaand I had just gone back to
school.
I was up at boarding school atthe time and I started to get,
you know, sweating, like justprofusely sweating, itching all
over my body, migraines.
They tested me for Lyme disease.
It was negative, but then theyended up testing me for thyroid
(20:22):
and it came back positive andboth my sisters had actually
also had graves and both hadalso taken psychiatric drugs.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Both had also taken psychiatric drugs.
Interesting Both my parents didnot have Graves, no history of
thyroid with them, so verystrange.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Very.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
And two months after the Graves diagnosis so now
we're up to December of 2006,diagnosis so now we're up to
December of 2006.
I started to get horrible jointpain all over my body and this
is when I became essentiallyparalyzed, could not move.
(21:06):
I was in excruciating pain andthey told me at the time that it
was probably due to the drug Iwas on for Graves' disease.
But looking back, I think thatwas when I got Lyme disease.
Yeah, there's so many things Iwish I knew then.
(21:27):
But you know you can't lookback and just it'll drive you
crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
You were also a kid and just it'll drive you crazy.
You're also a kid, you know youwere.
You're still a kid, strugglingwith these um, pretty major
disease states too, right?
Yeah, so, and so when we'rekids, we're also reliant on the
adults around us.
That's how it works.
Like we're, we're notinquisitive to our own body.
We leave that up to our parentsand our care providers.
(21:54):
You know so.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
So you're, yeah, I mean we can't go back and hold
our childhood selves accountablefor what we know today as
adults, or to do somethingdifferent it is true, yeah, but
I I did have this severe episodeof of arthritis and my parents
were trying to figure out, thedoctors were trying to figure it
out, the doctors were trying tofigure it out and, of course,
(22:17):
my stupid fucking doctor at thetime psychiatrist said oh, he's
under a lot of stress, we got toput him back on Selexa.
Um, so that was when I was putback on Selexa and I remember
the arthritis got better and ittook maybe four or five weeks.
(22:40):
It just slowly started to fade.
I had issues over the year likeremaining high school years.
I was back on Celexa, still hadpanic attacks, was back on
(23:01):
Celexa, still had panic attacks.
And 2011, I was done with highschool.
It was like summertime.
I still had Graves' disease.
Graves is something that I justdealt with.
It was always there.
It wasn't terrible.
There's worse things to have,obviously and I, I I just dealt
with it.
It was just part of my life atthe time and I was like I
(23:23):
talking to my mom.
It was like summer, 2011.
And I was like I don't want tobe on psychiatric drugs my
entire life.
You know my entire life.
You know I don't know what, how, I don't know how I came to
that realization, but I remembersaying that to her and she.
She agreed, and that was when Istarted trying to taper.
(23:44):
And this is when things gothorrible my, my thyroid levels,
for whatever reason, every timeI try to mess around with
psychiatric drugs, my thyroidlevels go way out of range, my
body gets under intense stressand it is just a horrible cycle
(24:09):
of just bullshit, to say theleast, yep.
Bullshit, to say the least, yep.
But.
But I was kept being told bydoctors that that it was like
fall of 2011 when I was doingthis taper.
You know, you just have anxiety.
It's just anxiety, like anxiety, anxiety, anxiety.
(24:32):
I'm like, well, I, I've beenfine, you know they're like well
, well, you know it's anxietybecause you're coming off the
drug.
Well, I'm like, well, mythyroid levels are way out of
range.
Couldn't that be something?
Couldn't that have something todo with it?
Um, but it was always just no,it's anxiety.
So I get to December of thatyear and my nervous system and
(24:59):
my adrenal glands, everythingjust felt like it failed in my
body.
That was what it felt like.
It was the worst I've probablyever felt in my life and at this
point I became bedridden for afew months, could not move.
The most severe fatigue I'veever felt in my life, the stress
(25:24):
of trying to come off of thisdrug and dealing with graves.
It was just not a goodcombination.
And, um, I I remember my doctorsaying something like you know,
it's not the drug you can.
You know you can, you canalternate, you can alter you
(25:47):
like you can go from.
You know you can take 20milligrams one day and then 10
the next day.
It was something.
It was something ridiculouslike that, like looking back,
like, like that is so bad foryour nervous it's, it's.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I just like.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I can't even understand, like the silence has
been broken right now.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
It's so bad, I'm just sitting here so quiet.
It's so incredibly asinine.
Not only is it disproven inresearch which is out there and
has been out there I mean, it'snot like this was 70 years ago
you're talking about here, kevin, right, okay, but the idea that
(26:30):
it's okay to play with that andto encourage people to play
with that, knowing themechanisms of action, right, the
half-life of these drugs in thebody and what they do, right,
um, how they bind to theserotonin receptor sites, um, oh
my gosh, it just it doesn't.
It's so incredibly illogical.
(26:53):
And it was illogical then.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah, and I think that you know, like I said, the
graves playing a part in thisand potentially Lyme disease.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Oh sure.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
It was too much for my body.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
You're so young, you're 18, right At this point,
point you're about 18, I was.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
I was a little older, I was 20, 21 okay, all right,
still for a 21 year old to haveto go through all of this like,
yeah, talk about being robbed ofyou know yeah, the best times
of your life and your centralnervous system is still not
developed by the way at this age, yet you're still not quite
there so I I went back up to mynormal dose of select.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So when I was became bedridden- they were like, okay,
just just stop.
You know, stop the taper.
So I did that and then mythyroid was so diseased that my
parents took me up to a surgeon,could barely walk into the
place that's how sick I was andthey came to the conclusion that
(28:05):
the thyroid needs to come out.
It is incredibly diseased.
So we did make that decision todo a total thyroidectomy.
This was March 21st of 2012.
So the whole thyroid came outand I had been back up on my
Selexa dose for a few months andI did start to heal a little
(28:27):
bit and I felt a little better.
I started to actually go outmore and I was able to drive a
little bit.
I started to actually go outmore and I was able to drive a
little bit.
Um, that was sort of the Istill feel like I'm at the
beginning parts of this entirestory.
That's how long the whole storyis and I, uh, that summer I was
(28:51):
like I want to try again.
I want to try to get off Selexaagain.
Same thing happened Thyroidlevels go out of range, become
sick for months, ended upswitching over to Zoloft.
Actually, I tried about three orfour other drugs before Zoloft.
(29:13):
Ended up on Zoloft and it was alittle bit better than all the
other ones I had tried and Ifelt actually pretty good.
But what happens with thesedrugs is you get the poop out
effect, and that startedhappening two or three years
(29:35):
after every drug.
I would start the drug and then, you know, a few years later I
I started feeling horrible againand I started feeling worse
than before I even started thedrug.
And then it's, it's thegaslighting.
It's like this is just youranxiety disorder.
I'm like, well, I didn't feelthis awful before the drug, so
how can you say that?
Speaker 1 (29:57):
That's the whole.
But can I just intervene,because that's the whole thing.
When it's different, like thisisn't the way I felt, the reason
that I got on it.
You know, suddenly I'm worse,suddenly my symptoms are very
different, suddenly, all thesethings.
Oh, it's just the return ofsymptoms, but it's not because
it's.
Those symptoms aren't what Ihad.
(30:19):
So how is that a return?
Speaker 3 (30:21):
I didn't have debilitating physical symptoms.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
No, exactly, I didn't have akathisia.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
I didn't have vertigo , I didn't have all these things
that developed with the drugsRight.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
That doesn't even make logical sense to say that
because we're not evaluatingthen what were the symptoms and
the reasons that you got on thisin the first place are not the
same as what's happening to younow and it's a complete
dismissal of well, that doesn'tseem right.
This seems different, wildlydifferent.
You know, worse thanoriginating symptoms Like I
(31:01):
don't know, like how we can, howwe keep perpetuating that is I
don't know, I can't even cause,I can't even keep perpetuating
that idea because it is soillogical to me.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, I mean, mean.
I mean it's just and it is whatwe do all the time blood money.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
I mean really yeah really like.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
That's what it comes down to, in my opinion.
It's just all about money andit's about it's not about, um
growing as a society.
It's about money and it's aboutpower.
Um, do I think that all doctorsare evil people?
No, I don't.
I think some of them have Idon't know how many, but some of
(31:50):
them do have the rightintentions.
They want to help people.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
But we are definitely not at the right place that we
need to be so.
So here you are now, kevin, onanother titration journey
whatever I don't know what wordyou want to put on it with this
effects, or that you're on andoff air.
Before we started, you and Iwere talking about the start of
that for you, which was Decemberof 23.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yeah, the start of the taper.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Start of the taper.
So what got you to a space thenof going okay, I'm going to try
this again, as I'm assumingthere's more events that
happened in between you knowthis time span Right Um.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
I do want to jump ahead in the story too.
So Zoloft ended up having thatpoop out effect, yep, and I sort
of spent about two or threeyears.
I did have a few years of ofnormalcy.
It was about 23 to 26 where Iactually got my life back and I
(33:12):
I was playing hockey, I was, Iwas working, I was, you know, I
was doing normal things.
Um, and then I would say 2017, Istarted to notice that I could
not catch my breath,debilitating shortness of breath
.
Um, and then it was like brainfog and I had akathisia for so
(33:37):
long and I didn't know what itwas.
Excuse me, I did not know whatit was.
I didn't know what akathisiawas until probably two or three
years ago when I started toactually dive into.
Okay, what the fuck am Iexperiencing?
But I'll get into that more.
(33:58):
But I remember just being likeI don't want to mess around with
with this drug.
I don't.
I was like scared, I w it was apost-traumatic stress response
at this point where I was like Idon't want to taper, I don't
want to try something else, soI'll just, I'll just keep taking
it, even though I feel horrible.
(34:18):
And then we jumped to 2019 andDoctor at the time Said you know
, we got to try something else.
This is like you're clearly the.
The Zoloft is not doing anythinganymore, so I'm switched to
Lexapro, and Lexapro was theworst drug I've ever taken in my
(34:46):
life.
I spent eight months straightin and out of the hospital with
severely high blood pressure, um, severe vertigo, the the most
(35:07):
debil.
I mean.
They were panic attacks, butthis was beyond panic.
This was something is going onin his body, my body, that is
causing my blood pressure toskyrocket, and that's that's
being caused from something thatthat started with the, with the
, the Lexapro and I also.
(35:29):
This is when I discovered thatI did actually have chronic Lyme
disease.
When I discovered that I didactually have chronic Lyme
disease, so I started to take anapproach to handle that and my
microbiome just got completelyshot because I tried antibiotic
treatment, which was a terribleidea and, at the same time,
(35:49):
trying to adjust the Lexapro.
So yeah, to adjust the lexapro.
So yeah, 2019 was a completedisaster sickest I've ever been
in my entire life.
There was one point during thesummer, I think.
I think I know the exact date,because I'm weird like that, but
(36:11):
september, so I think it wasseptember 10 of 2019.
I kept being told this wholesummer by doctors that you were
having these are panic attacks.
And while they were, they'repanic attacks because of the
fucking drug.
They're not panic attacksbecause I have panic disorder
(36:31):
Cause I wasn't having thesesevere episodes before you put
me on like I felt awful on onZoloft, but I wasn't having
these severe episodes before youput me on Like I felt awful on
Zoloft, but I wasn't at thislevel of suffering.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
There's never a but why?
But why am I experiencing theseintense, debilitating panic
attacks In the mental healthworld?
There's never a but why.
It's just well.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Here's the diagnosis, that's why I remember being I.
I was screaming for help.
I was, I was this was a point.
It was september 10th and I wasscreaming, my parent, I was
like something is wrong.
This is, you know, fucked up.
Something's wrong.
I need to go back to thehospital.
I I think I was in the hospitalover 50 times that that summer
(37:18):
and every single time, you know,it's just a panic attack.
Every single, every single timeI went in there, they, they,
started to think of me as justlike the crazy guy who comes in
with panic attacks, yep um so,yeah, my we're on our way to the
hospital for the millionth timeand my mom, I actually couldn't
(37:43):
make it.
I was like mom, you gotta pullover, like I think I'm actually
dying right now, like that's howawful I feel, and we're right
by the firehouse.
So she brings me into the firestation and she, she's talking
to the, the firefighters, andthey have like a blood pressure
cuff.
They call an ambulance, butthey put the cuff on me and my
(38:05):
blood pressure is 260 over 150.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
And I turned to my mom.
I'm like what is going on?
I was like this is absolutelyinsane.
Like that, these doctors aresaying that this is just a panic
disorder, that that is just inmy dna, you know, I just I just
have panic attacks.
(38:36):
I was like what is going on?
Like I was like I can't doanything, I can't drive a car, I
I'm literally confined to oneroom.
Right now, the only the onlyrooms I knew that summer were my
bedroom and in the fuckinghospital rooms that I were in.
And, yeah, thinking back, it'sjust, it's a horrible time to
(39:01):
think back on, but I I am soglad that I eventually I think
it was only about a month laterI switched to Effexor and once I
got onto Effexor, all thishorrible shit went away.
Thank God Still wasn't great onEffexor by any means, but it was
(39:24):
not what I experienced onLexapro at all.
Lexapro was a different levelof suffering that I did not know
existed.
So I was put on Effexor and Idefinitely did gain some of my
life back, but of course, thepoop-out happened again in 2023,
(39:49):
but of course, the poop outhappened again in 2023 and I
developed, uh, severe vestibularmigraines, night sweats, um,
all the side effects that youcan probably have with a fixer I
.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
I had them.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Vexer.
I had them and I was waking upevery morning just drenched in
sweat.
My wife was like what the whatis wrong with you?
I'm like it's the drug Likeit's, you know.
I don't know what's going on,but I'm pretty sure this is a
side effect of Vexer.
And then it stopped working.
I started to get all the sameproblems back.
(40:27):
You know all the physicalsymptoms that I was experiencing
, but this time I had vestibularmigraines, which I never had in
the past, and vertigo, and Iended up bedridden again, and
this was September of 23.
I think this is like the fourthor fifth time I just ended up
(40:48):
in bed over a 12 year period.
Um, I'm trying to remember.
I gained a little bit ofprogress those next few months,
but then December hit.
I tried to go up on effects orI was like maybe I'm not, you
know, maybe the dose isn'tenough.
And then I came to thisrealization.
I was like, maybe I'm not, youknow, maybe the dose isn't
(41:09):
enough.
And then I came to thisrealization.
I was like, all right, I amgoing to do everything in my
power to get off these fuckingtrucks.
And and that was.
That was december 26th of 23,and since that date I have been
working at this for the fifth orsixth time.
I was like enough is enough.
(41:32):
I was like I don't care if Isuffer every day the rest of my
life.
I'm not going to give any morefucking money to these companies
that have fucked me up.
I was like I'm not, I'm notdoing it.
I'm not, I'm not willing togive any more of your life that
(42:19):
I definitely could have beendoing more productive things.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
I'm curious, kevin, so this started for you at age
12 on Celexa?
Okay, fast forward.
Now you're in your 30s 34.
34.
Okay, 34 years old, so you got20 years right of this on and
(42:44):
off.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
In that entire time, which you were a psychiatric
patient for a very, very largechunk of that time.
Right, yeah, Okay, start aconversation that got shot down
(43:08):
on the idea that this could allbe coming from antidepressants
and anti-anxiety meds.
Was that someone whoholistically a practitioner who
goes okay, let's go back to age12 and see where this started?
Was there ever a conversationabout these?
(43:28):
Psychiatric drugs are fuckingwith your health.
They're messing with yourcentral nervous system.
They're creating symptoms younever had?
Was that part of a discussionat any point in this?
Speaker 3 (43:40):
time, Not from doctors, not from any doctors.
My mom hates medication.
She's had a long history of notherself, but witnessing what
these drugs have done to me, toher own mother, who had MS and
(44:04):
was addicted to all these painmeds.
So my mom hates meds and shealways said over the years, like
this is probably, you know, thedrugs are probably causing a
lot of this.
Yeah, she has said it to me andwe've had conversations about
it, but I think, at the sametime, she feels so much guilt,
(44:28):
Sure, but I think at the sametime she feels so much guilt
about about being one.
You know me being put on at 12.
She has so much guilt about itand I'm like mom, it's not your,
it's not your fault, You're avictim in this too.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
But no, not from doctors, not from any doctors.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Cause there's a common denominator that just
floats throughout your entirehistory.
Yeah, and it's the presence ofsome form of an SSRI, snri.
You've got a benzo on there now, right Like it exists.
It's always been there for themost part.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
On and off, Different drugs, different trials.
Then you got medical piecesthat float in right.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
And the medical stuff , like the physical stuff, just
makes it all worse the lime, the, you know thyroid, trying to
regulate my levels and yeah,that's definitely something that
is just added to it.
It's just I gotta figure it out, you know, I gotta figure out a
way to to handle it the best Ican what was?
Speaker 1 (45:25):
when did you put the pieces together entirely that.
My truth is this it's not whateveryone else is saying.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
That's a very good question.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
He's going to know the date, aren't you?
You're going to know the date.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
I know a lot of dates .
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I know you do.
I'm very jealous for this rightnow because I can't remember
shit from the last 20 years ofmy venues.
So I'm sitting here going damngood for you.
It's almost, I'm glad you havethat, Kevin, Of all the other
shit in your life.
I'm glad you have the abilityto retroactive.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
It is a nice thing to have, it's also kind of a curse
, because it's like I rememberevery little detail and that
just contributes to this PTSD.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
It's true, it's true detail, and that just
contributes to to this ptsd.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
It's true, it's true, that's probably why I don't
have as much of that because Ican't remember anything.
Yeah, yeah, the, therealization I, I don't, I don't
have a date but, I.
I think that there there weremany times over the years that I
thought, you know, you know,maybe this is just I.
I need to like, really jump thegun and just try to figure out
(46:33):
a way to really get off of thesedrugs.
But I think it was.
It was this last flare up in2023 with the vertigo and the
migraines and the effects arehaving the poop out effect.
I think that was probably it,especially December when I tried
to go up and I felt like I wason fucking speed.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
And that was when I was really like, okay, what am I
doing here?
Like this is ridiculous.
And and I've said it to youknow, the past six months, eight
months, whatever, whatever I'vegained a lot of my life back.
Um, that's, you know, that'sanother story that we can get
(47:21):
into, but I've gained a lot ofmy life back over the past six
to eight months because Ihaven't touched my dose of
effects here since April of lastyear I'm down to 37.5.
I went way too fast in thebeginning, had debilitating
panic attacks, akathisia, youknow, but right now I'm at a
(47:44):
point where I'm still suffering,but I'm functioning, if that
makes sense.
Yep, um, the suffering has comedown, but there are still days
where I suffer horribly.
Two, two days ago I had myfirst panic attack since
December or November and it was.
(48:05):
It was debilitating, and youknow my nervous system, my
limbic system is just injured,so it comes debilitating, and
you know my nervous system, mylimbic system is just injured.
So what it comes down to that Imean that is that is the
realization that I've come to isthat I have drug injury, you
know from from years and yearsand years of just different
(48:27):
drugs and the length of timethat I was on these drugs and,
um, and and I'm not saying theLyme isn't a part, I'm sure Lyme
is a part of it too Um, I'msure that there's other things
at play and but I do think thatthe main problem for for me
(48:47):
personally, the main problem hasbeen the drugs and I'm still
healing.
I'm every day I'm trying tofigure out, figure out a way to
just heal.
You know, how can I get throughtoday, feeling the best that I
can possibly feel, um, some day,like I said, some days are a
(49:07):
lot worse than other days, butthe, the functioning part has
gotten better.
I'm able to function, um, youknow, got back into some working
and finally got my own houseand you know my family's
obviously thrilled about that.
(49:28):
Um, cause I was was living inmy, I was literally in my
parents basement a year agosuffering, you know, like just
debilitating, debilitatingsymptoms.
I mean, this was obviously theacute withdrawal phase, but it
(49:49):
was also just, you know, I think, just like I said, limbic
system injury.
You, know?
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, how do you, Kevin?
How do you know when you'reready to go down again?
How will you know when you'rein that spot?
Speaker 3 (50:03):
You know, I've, I've been asked that uh, many times
from family members, from peopleon social media.
It's, it's, it's tough to know,cause it's like is what I'm
feeling now Cause I'm still onthe drug, or is it because I
went too fast and my nervoussystem is still healing?
(50:26):
Yep, or is it both?
You know, is it a little bit ofboth?
Um, I think I'll just know inmy gut, in my heart, when it's
time to make that jump and I Ido not, I do not feel that yet.
could it happen in the nextmonth, two months, six months?
(50:47):
Yeah, I think it could, butwhen I do start the rest,
because going from 187.5 to 37.5in two or three months is
completely insane.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
I think we can all agree.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
As deprescribers.
We would say yes, kevin.
I think Dr Mark Horowitz wouldprobably.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Mark's pissed at you.
Let's just bet He'd be like didshe read my book?
Damn it Right.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
I actually talked to him about a year ago actually.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
He's in his own struggle with this.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
He is he is, but he's got the right approach and he
knows exactly what he's doing.
And I, I do think that you knowhe would probably be like wait,
no, why did you do that?
I think I do think that at thetime I was just pissed off and I
was like I was like I'm goingto just start jumping down
(51:45):
really quick Cause I don't wantto take this shit anymore.
Gonna just start jumping downreally quick because I don't
want to take this shit anymore.
Um, that that was my mentalityat the time.
It was not the right mentalityto have it by any means.
But a lot of, like you said, alot of us, I think, have done
that or they're just they'repissed off and they're like I
just want off of this shit Ifeel that to my soul and when I
(52:08):
got the 37.5, I was like this isprobably a good point to just
stop for a while and to letmyself start to heal again.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:18):
But yeah, that is my story and currently I deal with
akathisia every single day.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
Could you describe that just a little bit for
people who might be new to theterm?
I know we talked about how it'sso difficult to put words to it
, but I think we need to havediscussion about it a little bit
.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
So for me personally, akathisia is a constant urge to
move parts of my body and applypressure to parts of my body.
I get it really bad right here.
I get it in my gut area and Iit's a lot of doing, this,
(53:00):
tapping, I, and it's just this,this urge.
I can't really describe itother than this intense urge to
I have to put pressure there andthen at nighttime it's the
pacing I have to pace and I pace, I pace back and forth,
sometimes for hours at night.
(53:21):
Um, some nights are worse thanothers, some days are worse than
others.
Like I said, it's.
It said it's very up and downright now, but that's better
than just being down.
So, yeah, the agathesia is.
It can get so bad that I'm like, you know I'm doing this while
(53:45):
I'm walking and I'm like I can'tstop Yep, I cannot stop what.
I'm doing, this while I'mwalking, and I'm like I can't
stop Yep, I cannot stop what I'mdoing right now.
And you know, my wife tries tohelp.
She'll do anything to try tolike calm my nervous system,
just like rub my back or likejust anything to try to just
(54:06):
calm myself.
But at the end of the day, it'slike akathisia is so terrible
because it doesn't seem to havemany Right Um, what's the right
word?
There doesn't seem to be manythings that help akathisia, um,
and that's why so many peoplehave suffered from it, and
(54:27):
there's been what seems like apretty high suicide rate with
akathisia, which is a terrible,terrible thing.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
I want to point out one quick thing about akathisia,
because it was historicallyonly talked about with
antipsychotics and possibly likebenzodiazepines, and we're
talking about it with SSRIs andSNRIs like the typical things
that most people are prescribed.
So I think this is helpful inthis conversation because it can
(55:03):
happen in any class ofmedication.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Any psychiatric drug Any psychiatric drug.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
this can happen to, and so when we just isolate it
into one, then people who aresuffering with it are like that
can't be that, because this isonly for this classification or
that.
But we're here to say it doesnot discriminate.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yeah, not at all.
It's an equal opportunityemployer across any class of
drug, which a lot of peopledon't like to believe.
Um, yeah, but we're here totell you it's, it's a thing
absolutely had it on on just thessris and oh yeah, you talk
about it all the time on yourchannels.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, yeah, I I do take.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Like I said, I take a low dose of klonopin right now
but I've seemed to come.
I I come off and on benzo's.
Fine, it's very strange becauseI have all these problems with
the ssris, but I think maybethat's just because the the
length of of use has not beenthe same sure, and you didn't
(56:04):
start it when you were 11exactly, exactly.
That's a key point in all ofthis.
Um, I did develop also I don'tknow if you're familiar with
mass cell activation syndrome,but that is another thing that
I've developed over the pastyear or two uh, histamine
intolerance.
I I believe that all of thesethings are are from the drugs.
(56:28):
I 100 believe that and I don'tneed a doctor to tell me
otherwise or tell me that I'mwrong, because I know better
than then the doc.
I mean, I know what I'm feelingyeah, you've lived in your body
for a very long time you can'tgo to a doctor and say, hey,
this is what I'm feeling, andthen he, he knows you better.
(56:49):
In what 20 minutes?
He knows you better than youknow yourself.
That's not how life works.
You know.
You got to trust yourself andyou got to be your own doctor.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
Your intuition is big , started this when you were so
young.
Again, you know outsourcing,you know your information to
other people that when you gotto a space where you're tapping
into your own intuition, right,you're like connecting dots and
you know putting it all together.
That's an interesting timebecause that's when you're like
I want off of this and I wantoff of it.
(57:25):
Yesterday I got to that space.
I remember that and I thinkthis is where people then start
gaslighting you more.
Well, if you feel better, whatwould it be like for you if you
were off of it?
You know what I mean.
Like what?
All these, all thesegaslighting conversations that
we have about reasons to stay on.
Well, in your case, you weren'tfeeling better.
(57:47):
You weren't.
I wasn't either.
I was feeling like a numbed outrock.
That's what I was feeling.
But it's interesting because Ithink when people, we come out
of the fog and we tap into ourintuition again and we make
these connections, and that'swhen we're like enough, I have
had it Enough, had it enough andone last thing I want to
(58:08):
mention is that I feel right now.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
I feel the best I've felt in a long time and I'm at
the lowest dose I've been insince I was 16 years old.
So I mean, what does that tellyou?
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (58:26):
I feel the best.
I've felt as awful as some daysare and as awful as that
cathesia is, and as awful as allthese things are still.
I do feel the best I've felt inthat long.
I have, like I said, I've hadyears where I've been okay, but
there's always that poop outeffect with these drugs and
that's how they get you.
(58:47):
It's like you know you'll feelgood for those two years, You'll
feel decent, and then you feelworse than before you even
started.
Speaker 2 (58:55):
Forever consumer.
Speaker 1 (58:56):
Forever consumer.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
Yeah Well, this is a good spot I think for for us to
wrap up, because we've got likeabout a minute left before we,
the whole world implodes and weneed to do way too much editing
that that, terry, just does notwant to do, because you know
she's tasked with that, so weare gonna.
Let's wrap up here.
Kevin, thank you for coming onthe show and telling the world
your story yeah, um we are theguest truth podcast and um.
(59:22):
Make sure now, kevin, we willtag all of your.
We'll get your socials in our.
You've got a youtube channeland you're on t fightingback203.
Is your TikTok handle?
I don't know what your YouTubeone is.
Speaker 3 (59:34):
I think it's the same , I don't know.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
I was watching on TikTok except for that, like 12
hours where we didn't haveTikTok and then it was back, but
you can find us anywhere thatyou listen to podcasts.
We are the Gaslit Truth.
If you want to send us yourGaslit Truths, you can email us
at thegaslittruthpodcasts atgmailcom.
And please make sure you rateus.
Tell us how you feel.
(59:57):
Give us all the stars.
you've been gaslit into believing that fighting
back from withdrawal and otherthings would be easy.
We are your whistleblowingshrinks, Dr Tara Lynn and
therapist Jen, and this is theGaslit Truth Podcast.
Before we start one moreshameless plug for my book.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Shameless.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
self-promotion Shameless self-promotion, your
best brain.
Yes, and I wanted to point outone of the chapters here,
because I think this is achapter that jazzes me up the
most, because it's all aboutamino acids and
neurotransmitters and thingslike that, and these are the
things that nobody taught you inschool, nobody taught us in
school, but have become sopivotal in our practice period.
(00:47):
So this would be chapter four.
It's called prepare to be mindblown.
The mind is a source of allsuffering and it is also the
source of all happiness.
I love that quote because it isliterally reclaiming your own
agency with your mind.
And then we talk a lot aboutneurotransmitters and amino
acids how to influence yourneurotransmitters without
(01:09):
psychiatric medication.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yay, that's it.
That's the ticket, people.
That's the whole deal.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
If everybody knew that before they started psych
meds, I think the world would bea better place.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh man, if that would have only been the treatment
plan right here, correct.
Go ahead, jen, and I want youto go look at like your
serotonin.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Maybe you need some vitamin D Maybe you need some
5-HTP.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
damn it, let's look at that.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yep, or maybe not.
Maybe you don't need any ofthat stuff.
Maybe you just need to changeyour life.
I don't know.
Maybe you need to change yourlifestyle a little.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Our guests would agree today too that we've got
on the show so we got to bringbring him in.
Can you bring him in from theweight room?
Bringing him in, bring himhello slide him in.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
There he is there's kevin hi, so we've been.
We've been following kevin fora while on over on tiktok um.
His name is kevin gunders.
I was gonna say it's not gufsonsay the name of my financial
advisor but this is not myfinancial advisor, kevin
Gunderson Shout out my financialadvisor watches this.
(02:10):
He's going to get a kick out ofthat.
Anyway we have a special guest,kevin, and he's an advocate for
fighting back and he has a greatstory that I am glad that we've
been wanting to get him on theshow for a long time but because
of mental health conditions andthings like this, it's been
(02:30):
really tough to get him here.
So I'm glad that you're maybefeeling better.
I don't know, maybe you justfelt obligated to be here.
I don't know, but we're goingto find out.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Maybe it was all the emails I keep sending going hey
be a tenacious little shit whenit comes to stuff like this.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
No, it wasn't that at all, like you said it was.
Definitely it's been a struggleto even just function.
So yeah, I'm glad I'm here, I'mglad to finally meet you guys
and to talk about, about talkabout all this stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
That's been a struggle for a long time yeah,
so I think we just need to startfrom the beginning, the
beginning let's jump in kevinall right, well, yeah, um, like
you want me to start from thebeginning, beginning sure?
well, let's start with thecomment that you made off air,
(03:25):
yeah, gas lighting um, becausewe were talking to him about
what the hook for the show wasgoing to be and he mentioned
other ways that he was gas lit,and I said please save that for
the show and we'll, we'll startit off there, and so maybe, if
you can recall what you had saidotherwise, we can prompt your
memory a little bit on this.
But maybe start there with howyou were.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I think I think I mentioned, I think you said
something about being gaslitabout the withdrawal from
psychiatric drugs.
I said well, my, my parentswere also gaslit.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yes, yes it?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
yes, yes.
Um, I know I've been asked manytimes over the years and I've
like do you?
Do you blame your parents?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
because I was put on at such a young age how old were
you?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I was, I was.
I believe I was 12.
I was either 11 or 12, um, andpeople have asked me that and I
I reply with the same answer.
I say I do not.
I do not blame my parents atall.
They were also gaslit,manipulated whatever you want to
call it into believing thatthis was going to help me and
(04:33):
that I needed this medication,and they are also victims.
I truly believe that.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I believe that too.
That hit me where it hurts,actually, when you said that
yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Tell us how it started, Kevin, with that.
What was going on with you inyour life that you and your
parents got to that space ofstarting a psych med that young?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
So the year was 2001.
And I believe it was August ofthat year and I've talked about
some of this on my channel on myvideos, but I believe it was
August 2001, and I had a reallygood friend at the time and his
sister passed away.
(05:21):
His sister passed away and thatwas sort of like the start of
just a bad year, to say theleast.
That was sixth grade for me andI was going off to middle
school for the first time.
I had, you know, learningdisabilities that I was dealing
(05:47):
with over the years, but I wouldsay the start of of her passing
away was that was when thingsstarted to get really rough, and
then I went right off to middleschool and I started to develop
school anxiety.
Um, the teachers there wereawful.
Can I drop f-bombs on here?
Sure.
You can drop whatever bombs youwant.
(06:08):
They were fucking awful.
Yes, yeah, the teachers therewere just awful people, and
there was a certain way that Ineeded to be taught, and I think
I can speak for other peoplewhen I say that, uh, having
learning disability can bedifficult.
(06:28):
It can be hard because noteveryone understands why you
have to learn a certain way and,um, you're made to believe
sometimes that you're stupid oryou know whatever, but it's not
the case and I think that myconfidence, just it just dipped
(06:48):
that year because of the,because of the teachers and, you
know, because of the situationsthat I was in.
So I started to get really badschool anxiety and and then it
was like nine, 11.
And then you, you know, onlylike five months after that, my
aunt passed away.
(07:08):
So you had all these thingshappening that year that were
really difficult, and my parentswere kind of struggling to find
a different school for mebecause they were like I don't
think, you know, public schoolis going well at all for him, so
let's try to find somethingelse.
(07:29):
And they did end up finding theperfect school for me.
It was it's a private school inFairfield, connecticut, but, um
, I would say that year was thestart of everything and at some
point I know I my my memories,kind of I have a great memory,
but sometimes it gets a littlelost At some point during that
(07:52):
year they brought me to a doctorwho my older sisters had both
seen, and I'm not going to dropany names, but it was this
specific doctor who basicallysaid he needs to be on Celexa
and it's going to help him, andyou know, blah, blah, blah.
(08:13):
So I think it was around Marchor April or May, sometime around
there of 2002 is when I startedantidepressants and I believe
that that was the start and Iwent up to about.
(08:35):
I think I started at 10milligrams but then I was up
around 20.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I will say I just read a thing on Celexa I'm
pretty sure it was Celexa asbeing one of the worst.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
For not withdrawal but side effects and things like
that.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
The side effects were brutal.
Yeah, for sure, and I know thatLexapro is like a newer version
, or whatever they want to callit.
Jen knows this.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yes, Newer Lex side effects or whatever they want to
call it.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Jen knows this, yes, and I want to address something.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Well, I said you had mentioned like my memory is a
little sketchy, and yes, mymemory is a little sketchy
during the time that I usedpsychiatric medications too, so
that could have been one of theside effects.
For you just saying, or youwere 11, and I can't remember a
lot about when I was 11 either.
So, from there though, whathappened?
(09:34):
Have you stayed on Celexa orhave you changed something?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah, I mean, how much time do you have?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
uh, yeah, I mean we.
How much time do you have?
Uh, you switched several times,right?
Speaker 3 (09:51):
to.
So you got to to your your drugof choice, my current, my
current, my drug of choice, yeahmy current, my current
medication is is afexor, uh, andI take a low dose of Klonopin
daily.
I don't want to be, but that isthe current situation and that
will not continue to be thesituation as I'm trying to.
(10:14):
It's weird Benzos have neveraffected me the same as the
SSRIs.
And the SNRIs I've had ahistory with.
You know the bet, the benzostoo, but I've always taken them
as needed, never really had aproblem, um.
(10:34):
But yeah, I'm getting off topichere.
Celexa for four years, um, from12 to 16.
And during that time I that wasactually when my panic attacks
got really severe.
(10:54):
When I was on the drug I hadmore anxiety and depression when
I was first put on themedication, but I think that
when I actually started, it iswhen the panic attacks got worse
.
But here's where thegaslighting comes in.
(11:15):
You go to the doctor and youtell them they say okay, well,
that just means you need ahigher dose.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yes, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Or it's the wrong med .
We need you on somethingdifferent, or a booster or so.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So so, kevin, your, your anxiety and your depression
.
You're saying it got worseafter starting a medication, but
the thing that really poppedeven more so was panic attacks,
which you did not have.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
So you're saying you did not have panic attacks prior
to I would say, if you want tocall them panic attacks, I don't
.
I don't know if they were panicattacks, they weren't like
before the medication.
They, they were more.
It was more just bad anxiety,right, um, and it was, and it
was school anxiety and it wasn'tnormal it wasn't debilitating
(12:11):
physical symptoms, which I dealwith now.
It was more just like um, aconstant state of of just I
don't want to go to school andand you know the social aspect
and being afraid of the teachersand all that stuff.
But now it's just all physicalmanifestations and you know
(12:32):
whatever you want to call itthat have developed over the
years.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Okay, yeah, and I'm thinking, because every time we
have a guest on here like I, youknow you do retrospective
things, especially when you'retalking about kids, and all this
stuff, like the learningdisability, played such a huge
role.
I believe in all of thisbecause it sounds like it wasn't
(12:57):
addressed in a manner that wassuitable for your learning.
So of course, you're going toenter into sixth grade anxious
(13:29):
because I'm going to guess thatyour learning wasn't up to par,
and I say this because that'sexactly what happened to my son.
And so when he entered sixthgrade, everything changes in
sixth grade.
Socially, it changes.
What you're expected to know haschanged, and so when you're
struggling with a learningdisability, there is like
heightened anxiety and thingslike that.
So, knowing what I know, now Ilook at that and I think that
seems expected, that seems likeit would be an anticipated
response, with somebody who'sgoing in with a learning
disability and going into sixthgrade.
(13:52):
Looking back on that now, whatdo you think about that kid's
self going into sixth grade at11 having some anxiety?
What do you think you couldtell him now or what did you
learn about him now?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Well, you know it's such a big jump.
You know, fifth to sixth atleast in Connecticut that just
that jump from elementary tomiddle school and just the way
you go about your day and howyou go from different, you know,
at least here it's like you goto math and you have a different
(14:24):
teacher for science, you know,et cetera.
But yeah, that whole processwas just so different for me and
I just remember being sooverwhelmed by the entire thing
and, just like I said, theteachers were just not nice,
(14:44):
they didn't understand me.
Like, try harder difficultyunderstanding why I was the way
it was.
So having these, these people,basically make everything worse.
Of course I was going todevelop some sort of you know
anxiety, social anxiety, schoolanxiety, do you?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
do you remember did?
Did some of the pressure formedication come from the school,
if you recall?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I don't remember.
I do know that the doctor madethat clear that this will help
in school when he was telling myparents that I needed Celexa.
But, like I said, I stayed onfor four years.
I had really bad panic attacksat the time, those four years,
(15:42):
but I I was functioning.
It would just be like I wouldhave three or four weeks of
severe, debilitating panicattacks and I actually developed
a phobia of vomiting at thetime, which is I don't know
where it came from, but ithappened, and anytime I got it
like any sort of stomach ache, Iwould just go into full-blown
(16:04):
panic attacks.
Uh, when I went off of the drugat 16, it was pretty, pretty
easy to get off then.
I don don't remember why, butmaybe my you know my brain I was
still a kid, maybe my brainjust hadn't been damaged yet,
but, um, I remember going off ofit and feeling the best I'd
(16:28):
felt and since I was like 10, um, you know, tons more energy.
I felt happy.
Uh, and I I clearly didn't needthe drug.
You know hindsight's 2020, butI just uh, I look back at those
years and I'm so many.
Things could have gonedifferently, you know, and it's
(16:50):
it's an unfortunate thing, butso many people have dealt with
this and I'm not the only one.
That's something I keep tellingmyself over the years is you
know, there's tons of people whohave been through this and it's
unfortunate, really.
It's sad.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
It's just a sad situation that we're at this
point in this country that we'reat this point in this country,
especially not especially, but Ido think especially with
children, because there is noinformed consent for a child.
They can't.
You know that goes through theadults who, as you said, are
(17:29):
being gaslit into believing thatif they're a good parent, they
would do this for theirstruggling child.
And that is how it's presented.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
That's how it?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
was presented to me as a parent.
I never did it for my kid.
I'm so thankful that I did not,but the pressure was immense.
The pressure to be a good mom,the pressure for him to learn
differently was so immense.
So I really I feel for your momand your parents having to sit
(17:59):
there and, you know, make thesemassive decisions for their
child on in an adolescent bodyduring that time that was
impacted by these medicationsnegatively.
And you said, you know, whenyou were 16, you got off of it
(18:24):
and it was relatively easy.
And in my mind I'm thinkinglike I wonder if it was easy
because you had hormonal surgesand you know your hormones were
kind of picking up the slackhere, trying to help you get
through all of that.
Plus, you're probably moreactive at 16, like doing.
I remember 16, it was fun.
You know there's a lot ofsports and, yes, all of those
(18:47):
things were happeningsimultaneously to help your
brain get through that time.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, I do remember coming off pretty quickly at the
time, at 16, and I had noproblem, and I've mentioned this
in my fighting back videos thatI felt unbelievable and
unbelievable, you know good.
And I would say, four monthsafter, three or four months
(19:15):
later, I developed throat,throat reflux, and then, about
five months after that, Istarted getting symptoms of
Graves disease.
And I always think back, I'mlike did, did this drug do
something to my brain, to mybody that brought out all of
these, these physical, um,physical problems that have
(19:40):
developed over the years?
I mean, I don't, I don't know,but the throat reflux was, was
bad, but then I got graves about, I would say it was about nine
months to a year after, aboutnine months to a year after,
(20:02):
after I stopped, uh, the Celexaand I had just gone back to
school.
I was up at boarding school atthe time and I started to get,
you know, sweating, like justprofusely sweating, itching all
over my body, migraines.
They tested me for Lyme disease.
It was negative, but then theyended up testing me for thyroid
(20:22):
and it came back positive andboth my sisters had actually
also had graves and both hadalso taken psychiatric drugs.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Both had also taken psychiatric drugs.
Interesting Both my parents didnot have Graves, no history of
thyroid with them, so verystrange.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Very.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
And two months after the Graves diagnosis so now
we're up to December of 2006,diagnosis so now we're up to
December of 2006.
I started to get horrible jointpain all over my body and this
is when I became essentiallyparalyzed, could not move.
(21:06):
I was in excruciating pain andthey told me at the time that it
was probably due to the drug Iwas on for Graves' disease.
But looking back, I think thatwas when I got Lyme disease.
Yeah, there's so many things Iwish I knew then.
(21:27):
But you know you can't lookback and just it'll drive you
crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
You were also a kid and just it'll drive you crazy.
You're also a kid, you know youwere.
You're still a kid, strugglingwith these um, pretty major
disease states too, right?
Yeah, so, and so when we'rekids, we're also reliant on the
adults around us.
That's how it works.
Like we're, we're notinquisitive to our own body.
We leave that up to our parentsand our care providers.
(21:54):
You know so.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
So you're, yeah, I mean we can't go back and hold
our childhood selves accountablefor what we know today as
adults, or to do somethingdifferent it is true, yeah, but
I I did have this severe episodeof of arthritis and my parents
were trying to figure out, thedoctors were trying to figure it
out, the doctors were trying tofigure it out and, of course,
(22:17):
my stupid fucking doctor at thetime psychiatrist said oh, he's
under a lot of stress, we got toput him back on Selexa.
Um, so that was when I was putback on Selexa and I remember
the arthritis got better and ittook maybe four or five weeks.
(22:40):
It just slowly started to fade.
I had issues over the year likeremaining high school years.
I was back on Celexa, still hadpanic attacks, was back on
(23:01):
Celexa, still had panic attacks.
And 2011, I was done with highschool.
It was like summertime.
I still had Graves' disease.
Graves is something that I justdealt with.
It was always there.
It wasn't terrible.
There's worse things to have,obviously and I, I I just dealt
with it.
It was just part of my life atthe time and I was like I
(23:23):
talking to my mom.
It was like summer, 2011.
And I was like I don't want tobe on psychiatric drugs my
entire life.
You know my entire life.
You know I don't know what, how, I don't know how I came to
that realization, but I remembersaying that to her and she.
She agreed, and that was when Istarted trying to taper.
(23:44):
And this is when things gothorrible my, my thyroid levels,
for whatever reason, every timeI try to mess around with
psychiatric drugs, my thyroidlevels go way out of range, my
body gets under intense stressand it is just a horrible cycle
(24:09):
of just bullshit, to say theleast, yep.
Bullshit, to say the least, yep.
But.
But I was kept being told bydoctors that that it was like
fall of 2011 when I was doingthis taper.
You know, you just have anxiety.
It's just anxiety, like anxiety, anxiety, anxiety.
(24:32):
I'm like, well, I, I've beenfine, you know they're like well
, well, you know it's anxietybecause you're coming off the
drug.
Well, I'm like, well, mythyroid levels are way out of
range.
Couldn't that be something?
Couldn't that have something todo with it?
Um, but it was always just no,it's anxiety.
So I get to December of thatyear and my nervous system and
(24:59):
my adrenal glands, everythingjust felt like it failed in my
body.
That was what it felt like.
It was the worst I've probablyever felt in my life and at this
point I became bedridden for afew months, could not move.
The most severe fatigue I'veever felt in my life, the stress
(25:24):
of trying to come off of thisdrug and dealing with graves.
It was just not a goodcombination.
And, um, I I remember my doctorsaying something like you know,
it's not the drug you can.
You know you can, you canalternate, you can alter you
(25:47):
like you can go from.
You know you can take 20milligrams one day and then 10
the next day.
It was something.
It was something ridiculouslike that, like looking back,
like, like that is so bad foryour nervous it's, it's.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I just like.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I can't even understand, like the silence has
been broken right now.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
It's so bad, I'm just sitting here so quiet.
It's so incredibly asinine.
Not only is it disproven inresearch which is out there and
has been out there I mean, it'snot like this was 70 years ago
you're talking about here, kevin, right, okay, but the idea that
(26:30):
it's okay to play with that andto encourage people to play
with that, knowing themechanisms of action, right, the
half-life of these drugs in thebody and what they do, right,
um, how they bind to theserotonin receptor sites, um, oh
my gosh, it just it doesn't.
It's so incredibly illogical.
(26:53):
And it was illogical then.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah, and I think that you know, like I said, the
graves playing a part in thisand potentially Lyme disease.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Oh sure.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
It was too much for my body.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
You're so young, you're 18, right At this point,
point you're about 18, I was.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
I was a little older, I was 20, 21 okay, all right,
still for a 21 year old to haveto go through all of this like,
yeah, talk about being robbed ofyou know yeah, the best times
of your life and your centralnervous system is still not
developed by the way at this age, yet you're still not quite
there so I I went back up to mynormal dose of select.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So when I was became bedridden- they were like, okay,
just just stop.
You know, stop the taper.
So I did that and then mythyroid was so diseased that my
parents took me up to a surgeon,could barely walk into the
place that's how sick I was andthey came to the conclusion that
(28:05):
the thyroid needs to come out.
It is incredibly diseased.
So we did make that decision todo a total thyroidectomy.
This was March 21st of 2012.
So the whole thyroid came outand I had been back up on my
Selexa dose for a few months andI did start to heal a little
(28:27):
bit and I felt a little better.
I started to actually go outmore and I was able to drive a
little bit.
I started to actually go outmore and I was able to drive a
little bit.
Um, that was sort of the Istill feel like I'm at the
beginning parts of this entirestory.
That's how long the whole storyis and I, uh, that summer I was
(28:51):
like I want to try again.
I want to try to get off Selexaagain.
Same thing happened Thyroidlevels go out of range, become
sick for months, ended upswitching over to Zoloft.
Actually, I tried about three orfour other drugs before Zoloft.
(29:13):
Ended up on Zoloft and it was alittle bit better than all the
other ones I had tried and Ifelt actually pretty good.
But what happens with thesedrugs is you get the poop out
effect, and that startedhappening two or three years
(29:35):
after every drug.
I would start the drug and then, you know, a few years later I
I started feeling horrible againand I started feeling worse
than before I even started thedrug.
And then it's, it's thegaslighting.
It's like this is just youranxiety disorder.
I'm like, well, I didn't feelthis awful before the drug, so
how can you say that?
Speaker 1 (29:57):
That's the whole.
But can I just intervene,because that's the whole thing.
When it's different, like thisisn't the way I felt, the reason
that I got on it.
You know, suddenly I'm worse,suddenly my symptoms are very
different, suddenly, all thesethings.
Oh, it's just the return ofsymptoms, but it's not because
it's.
Those symptoms aren't what Ihad.
(30:19):
So how is that a return?
Speaker 3 (30:21):
I didn't have debilitating physical symptoms.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
No, exactly, I didn't have akathisia.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
I didn't have vertigo , I didn't have all these things
that developed with the drugsRight.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
That doesn't even make logical sense to say that
because we're not evaluatingthen what were the symptoms and
the reasons that you got on thisin the first place are not the
same as what's happening to younow and it's a complete
dismissal of well, that doesn'tseem right.
This seems different, wildlydifferent.
You know, worse thanoriginating symptoms Like I
(31:01):
don't know, like how we can, howwe keep perpetuating that is I
don't know, I can't even cause,I can't even keep perpetuating
that idea because it is soillogical to me.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, I mean, mean.
I mean it's just and it is whatwe do all the time blood money.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
I mean really yeah really like.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
That's what it comes down to, in my opinion.
It's just all about money andit's about it's not about, um
growing as a society.
It's about money and it's aboutpower.
Um, do I think that all doctorsare evil people?
No, I don't.
I think some of them have Idon't know how many, but some of
(31:50):
them do have the rightintentions.
They want to help people.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
But we are definitely not at the right place that we
need to be so.
So here you are now, kevin, onanother titration journey
whatever I don't know what wordyou want to put on it with this
effects, or that you're on andoff air.
Before we started, you and Iwere talking about the start of
that for you, which was Decemberof 23.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yeah, the start of the taper.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Start of the taper.
So what got you to a space thenof going okay, I'm going to try
this again, as I'm assumingthere's more events that
happened in between you knowthis time span Right Um.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
I do want to jump ahead in the story too.
So Zoloft ended up having thatpoop out effect, yep, and I sort
of spent about two or threeyears.
I did have a few years of ofnormalcy.
It was about 23 to 26 where Iactually got my life back and I
(33:12):
I was playing hockey, I was, Iwas working, I was, you know, I
was doing normal things.
Um, and then I would say 2017, Istarted to notice that I could
not catch my breath,debilitating shortness of breath
.
Um, and then it was like brainfog and I had akathisia for so
(33:37):
long and I didn't know what itwas.
Excuse me, I did not know whatit was.
I didn't know what akathisiawas until probably two or three
years ago when I started toactually dive into.
Okay, what the fuck am Iexperiencing?
But I'll get into that more.
(33:58):
But I remember just being likeI don't want to mess around with
with this drug.
I don't.
I was like scared, I w it was apost-traumatic stress response
at this point where I was like Idon't want to taper, I don't
want to try something else, soI'll just, I'll just keep taking
it, even though I feel horrible.
(34:18):
And then we jumped to 2019 andDoctor at the time Said you know
, we got to try something else.
This is like you're clearly the.
The Zoloft is not doing anythinganymore, so I'm switched to
Lexapro, and Lexapro was theworst drug I've ever taken in my
(34:46):
life.
I spent eight months straightin and out of the hospital with
severely high blood pressure, um, severe vertigo, the the most
(35:07):
debil.
I mean.
They were panic attacks, butthis was beyond panic.
This was something is going onin his body, my body, that is
causing my blood pressure toskyrocket, and that's that's
being caused from something thatthat started with the, with the
, the Lexapro and I also.
(35:29):
This is when I discovered thatI did actually have chronic Lyme
disease.
When I discovered that I didactually have chronic Lyme
disease, so I started to take anapproach to handle that and my
microbiome just got completelyshot because I tried antibiotic
treatment, which was a terribleidea and, at the same time,
(35:49):
trying to adjust the Lexapro.
So yeah, to adjust the lexapro.
So yeah, 2019 was a completedisaster sickest I've ever been
in my entire life.
There was one point during thesummer, I think.
I think I know the exact date,because I'm weird like that, but
(36:11):
september, so I think it wasseptember 10 of 2019.
I kept being told this wholesummer by doctors that you were
having these are panic attacks.
And while they were, they'repanic attacks because of the
fucking drug.
They're not panic attacksbecause I have panic disorder
(36:31):
Cause I wasn't having thesesevere episodes before you put
me on like I felt awful on onZoloft, but I wasn't having
these severe episodes before youput me on Like I felt awful on
Zoloft, but I wasn't at thislevel of suffering.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
There's never a but why?
But why am I experiencing theseintense, debilitating panic
attacks In the mental healthworld?
There's never a but why.
It's just well.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Here's the diagnosis, that's why I remember being I.
I was screaming for help.
I was, I was this was a point.
It was september 10th and I wasscreaming, my parent, I was
like something is wrong.
This is, you know, fucked up.
Something's wrong.
I need to go back to thehospital.
I I think I was in the hospitalover 50 times that that summer
(37:18):
and every single time, you know,it's just a panic attack.
Every single, every single timeI went in there, they, they,
started to think of me as justlike the crazy guy who comes in
with panic attacks, yep um so,yeah, my we're on our way to the
hospital for the millionth timeand my mom, I actually couldn't
(37:43):
make it.
I was like mom, you gotta pullover, like I think I'm actually
dying right now, like that's howawful I feel, and we're right
by the firehouse.
So she brings me into the firestation and she, she's talking
to the, the firefighters, andthey have like a blood pressure
cuff.
They call an ambulance, butthey put the cuff on me and my
(38:05):
blood pressure is 260 over 150.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
And I turned to my mom.
I'm like what is going on?
I was like this is absolutelyinsane.
Like that, these doctors aresaying that this is just a panic
disorder, that that is just inmy dna, you know, I just I just
have panic attacks.
(38:36):
I was like what is going on?
Like I was like I can't doanything, I can't drive a car, I
I'm literally confined to oneroom.
Right now, the only the onlyrooms I knew that summer were my
bedroom and in the fuckinghospital rooms that I were in.
And, yeah, thinking back, it'sjust, it's a horrible time to
(39:01):
think back on, but I I am soglad that I eventually I think
it was only about a month laterI switched to Effexor and once I
got onto Effexor, all thishorrible shit went away.
Thank God Still wasn't great onEffexor by any means, but it was
(39:24):
not what I experienced onLexapro at all.
Lexapro was a different levelof suffering that I did not know
existed.
So I was put on Effexor and Idefinitely did gain some of my
life back, but of course, thepoop-out happened again in 2023,
(39:49):
but of course, the poop outhappened again in 2023 and I
developed, uh, severe vestibularmigraines, night sweats, um,
all the side effects that youcan probably have with a fixer I
.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
I had them.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Vexer.
I had them and I was waking upevery morning just drenched in
sweat.
My wife was like what the whatis wrong with you?
I'm like it's the drug Likeit's, you know.
I don't know what's going on,but I'm pretty sure this is a
side effect of Vexer.
And then it stopped working.
I started to get all the sameproblems back.
(40:27):
You know all the physicalsymptoms that I was experiencing
, but this time I had vestibularmigraines, which I never had in
the past, and vertigo, and Iended up bedridden again, and
this was September of 23.
I think this is like the fourthor fifth time I just ended up
(40:48):
in bed over a 12 year period.
Um, I'm trying to remember.
I gained a little bit ofprogress those next few months,
but then December hit.
I tried to go up on effects orI was like maybe I'm not, you
know, maybe the dose isn'tenough.
And then I came to thisrealization.
I was like, maybe I'm not, youknow, maybe the dose isn't
(41:09):
enough.
And then I came to thisrealization.
I was like, all right, I amgoing to do everything in my
power to get off these fuckingtrucks.
And and that was.
That was december 26th of 23,and since that date I have been
working at this for the fifth orsixth time.
I was like enough is enough.
(41:32):
I was like I don't care if Isuffer every day the rest of my
life.
I'm not going to give any morefucking money to these companies
that have fucked me up.
I was like I'm not, I'm notdoing it.
I'm not, I'm not willing togive any more of your life that
(42:19):
I definitely could have beendoing more productive things.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
I'm curious, kevin, so this started for you at age
12 on Celexa?
Okay, fast forward.
Now you're in your 30s 34.
34.
Okay, 34 years old, so you got20 years right of this on and
(42:44):
off.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
In that entire time, which you were a psychiatric
patient for a very, very largechunk of that time.
Right, yeah, Okay, start aconversation that got shot down
(43:08):
on the idea that this could allbe coming from antidepressants
and anti-anxiety meds.
Was that someone whoholistically a practitioner who
goes okay, let's go back to age12 and see where this started?
Was there ever a conversationabout these?
(43:28):
Psychiatric drugs are fuckingwith your health.
They're messing with yourcentral nervous system.
They're creating symptoms younever had?
Was that part of a discussionat any point in this?
Speaker 3 (43:40):
time, Not from doctors, not from any doctors.
My mom hates medication.
She's had a long history of notherself, but witnessing what
these drugs have done to me, toher own mother, who had MS and
(44:04):
was addicted to all these painmeds.
So my mom hates meds and shealways said over the years, like
this is probably, you know, thedrugs are probably causing a
lot of this.
Yeah, she has said it to me andwe've had conversations about
it, but I think, at the sametime, she feels so much guilt,
(44:28):
Sure, but I think at the sametime she feels so much guilt
about about being one.
You know me being put on at 12.
She has so much guilt about itand I'm like mom, it's not your,
it's not your fault, You're avictim in this too.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
But no, not from doctors, not from any doctors.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Cause there's a common denominator that just
floats throughout your entirehistory.
Yeah, and it's the presence ofsome form of an SSRI, snri.
You've got a benzo on there now, right Like it exists.
It's always been there for themost part.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
On and off, Different drugs, different trials.
Then you got medical piecesthat float in right.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
And the medical stuff , like the physical stuff, just
makes it all worse the lime, the, you know thyroid, trying to
regulate my levels and yeah,that's definitely something that
is just added to it.
It's just I gotta figure it out, you know, I gotta figure out a
way to to handle it the best Ican what was?
Speaker 1 (45:25):
when did you put the pieces together entirely that.
My truth is this it's not whateveryone else is saying.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
That's a very good question.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
He's going to know the date, aren't you?
You're going to know the date.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
I know a lot of dates .
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I know you do.
I'm very jealous for this rightnow because I can't remember
shit from the last 20 years ofmy venues.
So I'm sitting here going damngood for you.
It's almost, I'm glad you havethat, Kevin, Of all the other
shit in your life.
I'm glad you have the abilityto retroactive.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
It is a nice thing to have, it's also kind of a curse
, because it's like I rememberevery little detail and that
just contributes to this PTSD.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
It's true, it's true detail, and that just
contributes to to this ptsd.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
It's true, it's true, that's probably why I don't
have as much of that because Ican't remember anything.
Yeah, yeah, the, therealization I, I don't, I don't
have a date but, I.
I think that there there weremany times over the years that I
thought, you know, you know,maybe this is just I.
I need to like, really jump thegun and just try to figure out
(46:33):
a way to really get off of thesedrugs.
But I think it was.
It was this last flare up in2023 with the vertigo and the
migraines and the effects arehaving the poop out effect.
I think that was probably it,especially December when I tried
to go up and I felt like I wason fucking speed.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
And that was when I was really like, okay, what am I
doing here?
Like this is ridiculous.
And and I've said it to youknow, the past six months, eight
months, whatever, whatever I'vegained a lot of my life back.
Um, that's, you know, that'sanother story that we can get
(47:21):
into, but I've gained a lot ofmy life back over the past six
to eight months because Ihaven't touched my dose of
effects here since April of lastyear I'm down to 37.5.
I went way too fast in thebeginning, had debilitating
panic attacks, akathisia, youknow, but right now I'm at a
(47:44):
point where I'm still suffering,but I'm functioning, if that
makes sense.
Yep, um, the suffering has comedown, but there are still days
where I suffer horribly.
Two, two days ago I had myfirst panic attack since
December or November and it was.
(48:05):
It was debilitating, and youknow my nervous system, my
limbic system is just injured,so it comes debilitating, and
you know my nervous system, mylimbic system is just injured.
So what it comes down to that Imean that is that is the
realization that I've come to isthat I have drug injury, you
know from from years and yearsand years of just different
(48:27):
drugs and the length of timethat I was on these drugs and,
um, and and I'm not saying theLyme isn't a part, I'm sure Lyme
is a part of it too Um, I'msure that there's other things
at play and but I do think thatthe main problem for for me
(48:47):
personally, the main problem hasbeen the drugs and I'm still
healing.
I'm every day I'm trying tofigure out, figure out a way to
just heal.
You know, how can I get throughtoday, feeling the best that I
can possibly feel, um, some day,like I said, some days are a
(49:07):
lot worse than other days, butthe, the functioning part has
gotten better.
I'm able to function, um, youknow, got back into some working
and finally got my own houseand you know my family's
obviously thrilled about that.
(49:28):
Um, cause I was was living inmy, I was literally in my
parents basement a year agosuffering, you know, like just
debilitating, debilitatingsymptoms.
I mean, this was obviously theacute withdrawal phase, but it
(49:49):
was also just, you know, I think, just like I said, limbic
system injury.
You, know?
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, how do you, Kevin?
How do you know when you'reready to go down again?
How will you know when you'rein that spot?
Speaker 3 (50:03):
You know, I've, I've been asked that uh, many times
from family members, from peopleon social media.
It's, it's, it's tough to know,cause it's like is what I'm
feeling now Cause I'm still onthe drug, or is it because I
went too fast and my nervoussystem is still healing?
(50:26):
Yep, or is it both?
You know, is it a little bit ofboth?
Um, I think I'll just know inmy gut, in my heart, when it's
time to make that jump and I Ido not, I do not feel that yet.
could it happen in the nextmonth, two months, six months?
(50:47):
Yeah, I think it could, butwhen I do start the rest,
because going from 187.5 to 37.5in two or three months is
completely insane.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
I think we can all agree.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
As deprescribers.
We would say yes, kevin.
I think Dr Mark Horowitz wouldprobably.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Mark's pissed at you.
Let's just bet He'd be like didshe read my book?
Damn it Right.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
I actually talked to him about a year ago actually.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
He's in his own struggle with this.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
He is he is, but he's got the right approach and he
knows exactly what he's doing.
And I, I do think that you knowhe would probably be like wait,
no, why did you do that?
I think I do think that at thetime I was just pissed off and I
was like I was like I'm goingto just start jumping down
(51:45):
really quick Cause I don't wantto take this shit anymore.
Gonna just start jumping downreally quick because I don't
want to take this shit anymore.
Um, that that was my mentalityat the time.
It was not the right mentalityto have it by any means.
But a lot of, like you said, alot of us, I think, have done
that or they're just they'repissed off and they're like I
just want off of this shit Ifeel that to my soul and when I
(52:08):
got the 37.5, I was like this isprobably a good point to just
stop for a while and to letmyself start to heal again.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:18):
But yeah, that is my story and currently I deal with
akathisia every single day.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
Could you describe that just a little bit for
people who might be new to theterm?
I know we talked about how it'sso difficult to put words to it
, but I think we need to havediscussion about it a little bit
.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
So for me personally, akathisia is a constant urge to
move parts of my body and applypressure to parts of my body.
I get it really bad right here.
I get it in my gut area and Iit's a lot of doing, this,
(53:00):
tapping, I, and it's just this,this urge.
I can't really describe itother than this intense urge to
I have to put pressure there andthen at nighttime it's the
pacing I have to pace and I pace, I pace back and forth,
sometimes for hours at night.
(53:21):
Um, some nights are worse thanothers, some days are worse than
others.
Like I said, it's.
It said it's very up and downright now, but that's better
than just being down.
So, yeah, the agathesia is.
It can get so bad that I'm like, you know I'm doing this while
(53:45):
I'm walking and I'm like I can'tstop Yep, I cannot stop what.
I'm doing, this while I'mwalking, and I'm like I can't
stop Yep, I cannot stop what I'mdoing right now.
And you know, my wife tries tohelp.
She'll do anything to try tolike calm my nervous system,
just like rub my back or likejust anything to try to just
(54:06):
calm myself.
But at the end of the day, it'slike akathisia is so terrible
because it doesn't seem to havemany Right Um, what's the right
word?
There doesn't seem to be manythings that help akathisia, um,
and that's why so many peoplehave suffered from it, and
(54:27):
there's been what seems like apretty high suicide rate with
akathisia, which is a terrible,terrible thing.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
I want to point out one quick thing about akathisia,
because it was historicallyonly talked about with
antipsychotics and possibly likebenzodiazepines, and we're
talking about it with SSRIs andSNRIs like the typical things
that most people are prescribed.
So I think this is helpful inthis conversation because it can
(55:03):
happen in any class ofmedication.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Any psychiatric drug Any psychiatric drug.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
this can happen to, and so when we just isolate it
into one, then people who aresuffering with it are like that
can't be that, because this isonly for this classification or
that.
But we're here to say it doesnot discriminate.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yeah, not at all.
It's an equal opportunityemployer across any class of
drug, which a lot of peopledon't like to believe.
Um, yeah, but we're here totell you it's, it's a thing
absolutely had it on on just thessris and oh yeah, you talk
about it all the time on yourchannels.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
Yeah, yeah, I I do take.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Like I said, I take a low dose of klonopin right now
but I've seemed to come.
I I come off and on benzo's.
Fine, it's very strange becauseI have all these problems with
the ssris, but I think maybethat's just because the the
length of of use has not beenthe same sure, and you didn't
(56:04):
start it when you were 11exactly, exactly.
That's a key point in all ofthis.
Um, I did develop also I don'tknow if you're familiar with
mass cell activation syndrome,but that is another thing that
I've developed over the pastyear or two uh, histamine
intolerance.
I I believe that all of thesethings are are from the drugs.
(56:28):
I 100 believe that and I don'tneed a doctor to tell me
otherwise or tell me that I'mwrong, because I know better
than then the doc.
I mean, I know what I'm feelingyeah, you've lived in your body
for a very long time you can'tgo to a doctor and say, hey,
this is what I'm feeling, andthen he, he knows you better.
(56:49):
In what 20 minutes?
He knows you better than youknow yourself.
That's not how life works.
You know.
You got to trust yourself andyou got to be your own doctor.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
Your intuition is big , started this when you were so
young.
Again, you know outsourcing,you know your information to
other people that when you gotto a space where you're tapping
into your own intuition, right,you're like connecting dots and
you know putting it all together.
That's an interesting timebecause that's when you're like
I want off of this and I wantoff of it.
(57:25):
Yesterday I got to that space.
I remember that and I thinkthis is where people then start
gaslighting you more.
Well, if you feel better, whatwould it be like for you if you
were off of it?
You know what I mean.
Like what?
All these, all thesegaslighting conversations that
we have about reasons to stay on.
Well, in your case, you weren'tfeeling better.
(57:47):
You weren't.
I wasn't either.
I was feeling like a numbed outrock.
That's what I was feeling.
But it's interesting because Ithink when people, we come out
of the fog and we tap into ourintuition again and we make
these connections, and that'swhen we're like enough, I have
had it Enough, had it enough andone last thing I want to
(58:08):
mention is that I feel right now.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
I feel the best I've felt in a long time and I'm at
the lowest dose I've been insince I was 16 years old.
So I mean, what does that tellyou?
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (58:26):
I feel the best.
I've felt as awful as some daysare and as awful as that
cathesia is, and as awful as allthese things are still.
I do feel the best I've felt inthat long.
I have, like I said, I've hadyears where I've been okay, but
there's always that poop outeffect with these drugs and
that's how they get you.
(58:47):
It's like you know you'll feelgood for those two years, You'll
feel decent, and then you feelworse than before you even
started.
Speaker 2 (58:55):
Forever consumer.
Speaker 1 (58:56):
Forever consumer.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
Yeah Well, this is a good spot I think for for us to
wrap up, because we've got likeabout a minute left before we,
the whole world implodes and weneed to do way too much editing
that that, terry, just does notwant to do, because you know
she's tasked with that, so weare gonna.
Let's wrap up here.
Kevin, thank you for coming onthe show and telling the world
your story yeah, um we are theguest truth podcast and um.
(59:22):
Make sure now, kevin, we willtag all of your.
We'll get your socials in our.
You've got a youtube channeland you're on t fightingback203.
Is your TikTok handle?
I don't know what your YouTubeone is.
Speaker 3 (59:34):
I think it's the same , I don't know.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
I was watching on TikTok except for that, like 12
hours where we didn't haveTikTok and then it was back, but
you can find us anywhere thatyou listen to podcasts.
We are the Gaslit Truth.
If you want to send us yourGaslit Truths, you can email us
at thegaslittruthpodcasts atgmailcom.
And please make sure you rateus.
Tell us how you feel.
(59:57):
Give us all the stars.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.