July 1, 2025 • 58 mins
What happens when a decorated psychiatric nurse discovers the medications he's been administering for years might be causing more harm than good? David Wayne's world turned upside down in 2017—ironically the same year he won his hospital's Excellence in Nursing Leadership Award—when he read Robert Whitaker's "Anatomy of an Epidemic" and could no longer ignore the troubling evidence about psychiatric medications.
David takes us behind the scenes of hospital psychiatry, revealing how he attempted to create honest educational materials about Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) only to have them rejected because, as his medical director reportedly said, they would "make it too hard to get people on these medications." This stunning admission exposes the prioritization of medication compliance over true informed consent that permeates our mental health system.
The conversation ventures into territory rarely discussed in mainstream mental health circles—how SSRIs not only cause sexual dysfunction but emotional numbing that disconnects people from joy, grief, and intimate relationships. David shares stories of patients who've lost their ability to feel connected to loved ones and even their own life experiences, creating a profound existential harm that goes unacknowledged in medication risk assessments.
Most compelling is David's exploration of metabolic approaches to mental health, including how nutritional interventions have consistently improved both physical and mental health outcomes in ways medication never could. He challenges the simplistic "chemical imbalance" narrative with a more holistic understanding of mental health that encompasses sleep, movement, nutrition, human connection, and purpose—elements systematically overlooked in our quick-fix pharmaceutical culture.
Whether you're a mental health professional questioning conventional practice, someone struggling with medication side effects, or simply curious about alternative approaches to emotional wellbeing, this episode offers a courageous insider's perspective that might just change how you think about psychiatric care. Ready to take back control of your mental health? Listen now and join the growing movement for greater transparency and truly informed consent in psychiatric treatment.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, hey, nurses, you've been gaslit into
believing the foundation of goodmental health is psychiatric
medications, but newsflash it'snot.
We are your whistleblowingshrinks, dr Tara Lynn and
therapist Jen, and you havelanded on the Gaslit Truth
Podcast, and our guest today isDavid Wayne.
Welcome to the show, david.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hey, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Okay, all right, let's talk about who you are,
because your bio is fantastic.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I think you should be a writer, not a nurse.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I love it.
This would make me giggle.
Okay, so David is a registerednurse.
He has a background in hospitalpsychiatry.
He was trained to tell hispatients that their depression
is caused by a chemicalimbalance and that
antidepressants are a safe andeffective way to treat
depression.
Ignorance was bliss.
Now he knows better.
And David screams into the voidin a futile attempt to affect
(00:56):
systematic change inestablishment psychiatry.
According to his critics, davidis a dangerous anti-science
conspiracy therapist withquestionable hygiene.
He is also the obligatory malenurse on Nurses Out Loud podcast
, which we will talk about today.
Welcome to the show, david.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Thank you.
What's up with the questionablehygiene?
That's where.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I want to start oh, I'm seeing it, I'm seeing it.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Go to YouTube.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You can see Dave's questionable hygiene Everybody
when we're talking aboutmaintaining adult daily levels
of functioning.
I can see David does not haveit together, so we might have to
work on that.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
That would be charted in a note somewhere, probably.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Disheveled is there.
So I'm afraid you have apsychiatric disorder.
Likely schizophrenia or bipolar.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I'm glad for sleeping outside.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah, schizoaffective disorder, more like jen right
yeah yeah, okay, shoot, you'reright.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You know what?
Mm-hmm, yeah, that went down.
Look how we did that so quick,so quick look at that.
There you go, there's your,there's your seven minutes with
a mental health provider in theunited states.
Appointment done, labeled David.
We will get you a medicationand move you on.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I appreciate it.
I feel seen, so thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
You feel seen and so much better, so much better
we're happy to have you here,David.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Tell us why you came to this show, why you wanted to
come on here, because we're soexcited to have you.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Well, I had listened to a few of your prior episodes
that really connected with me.
The first one was with KellyFulcred.
That was a great one, and thenyou had Robert Whitaker on the
man Damn it.
Bob.
I've been kind of following himfor years.
I refer to him as that bastard,robert Whitaker, because of how
(02:41):
he completely upended my lifewith his book Anatomy of an
Epidemic, which is just-.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I think offline you said fucked up my life and I'm
like we agree with that 100%.
You can't turn back now, no way.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
You said in you had told us in your Google forum
that everybody feels out right,everyone.
Before you become a guest onthe show, we get a little bit of
information on you and you talkabout this like inability to
even like read research anymore.
Yeah From just like the normalgood old, like I would call it,
like good feel good.
Blind eye of reading research.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Exactly.
Oh, look at that study.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Look how great it is.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, in nursing school we're taught
evidence-based practice.
I mean, it is the mantra it'sjust drilled into us, but we
were not taught anything abouthow rampant fraud was.
So back in my naive days Iwould read a study and it's like
, okay, this is peer-reviewed,published in a reputable journal
, and you could read theconclusions, read the synopsis
(03:44):
and be like, all right, I knowthat now.
Cool.
And now when I read clinicalresearch, it's like okay, who
funded this study?
Was there a ghost author?
Does their data actually matchtheir conclusions?
Is there anonymized patientlevel data even available for
public scrutiny?
Who funds the publisher?
It's like it becomesparalyzingly complex.
(04:04):
You know it's like, well,paralyzingly complex.
You know it's like, well, Idon't even know.
Like, what do I even do withthis now?
Like okay, now I don't trustanything.
How do you even begin to cutthrough when you, when you've
been lied to you, know soprofoundly like how do you even
begin to know what to trustanymore?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
that that's true.
That's true.
I want to touch on a point here, because there are so many
research articles out there thatstart giving you data that
you're thinking, oh, they'regoing to do it, they're going to
go down to this place thatnobody wants to hear, and then
they will backpedal in the endand I'm like, oh, come on, just
(04:43):
do it, just say the thing thatnobody is courageous enough to
say and they probably can't.
Yeah, they can't, because thenthey won't get published Right
or funded, or whatever it isthat they're trying to do.
So how long have you been apsychiatric nurse?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So about 13 years now 13 years.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Is this where you started or is this where you
migrated to?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
It's where I started, but not by my choice.
Basically, when I was innursing school, our senior year
people got to pick which unitthey would do their senior
synthesis on.
And I wanted to be in the ERbecause I had been an EMT, so uh
, but nobody picked the psychunit.
So I kind of drew the shortstraw and got placed on the
(05:28):
psych unit because nobody wantedto be a psych nurse in my class
.
So I got.
I got placed there essentiallyagainst my will and uh, oh, that
sounds like a consumer story,oh yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I was placed under chapter51 and, uh, you know, brought
from the classroom to the psychunit.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
And you've stayed I stayed.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It clicked because I enjoyed the patient population
and I really enjoyed the othernurses who were drawn into that
area of nursing.
They were just some of the bestpeople you could ever hope to
work with.
So yeah, it clicked.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
That's awesome.
So when you think about that,so you were standard nursing
practice right For a long time.
When did you pick up that book?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It was about 2017.
It was about 2017.
And it was kind of multiplethings happening at the same
time that were starting to openmy eyes, and it came at a time
that I was kind of at thepinnacle in my establishment
nursing career because I hadbeen taking on additional
(06:36):
responsibilities.
I'd become a charge nurse, Ijoined just about every
committee that existed on myunits.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
I'd become a committee chair and in that year
, in 2017, I actually won myhospital's Excellence in Nursing
Leadership Award, so I was likeSounds so familiar, jen,
doesn't it?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I know I'm like man.
Why we all did this.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, we all did it.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
We all did this.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
And I was great at my job.
I mean, I feel like I can saythat and have it, not be
arrogant because, hey, they gaveme a huge award.
But Robert Whitaker's book cameinto the picture and started me
down these rabbit holes andstarted to read about other
things that had kind of been onmy radar.
(07:21):
Everybody's kind of familiarwith OxyContin and just the
incredible crimes committedaround that drug and the way
that people were told, you know,by Purdue that's only about 5%
addictive, you know, and theyknew that was a lie.
And there's, we don't have togo too far in that direction
(07:41):
because there's, you know,entire documentaries and things
like that out there.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
You can go as far as you want.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
All right.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Well, everybody's kind of familiar with OxyContin.
But then you read about thingslike Vioxx too.
Vioxx was pulled off the marketright about the same time I
started working at WalgreensPharmacy.
I worked in a pharmacy while Iwas in nursing school and as
years went by, more and morelawsuits happened around Vioxx
(08:12):
and these revelations came outthat were just incredible the
way that Merck had intentionallyhid cardiac side effects.
They knew these cardiac sideeffects were there and were
happening and that they had tohide them in order to maximize
their profits off thesemedications.
So things came out like theseemail chains where they're
(08:33):
talking about boy, it's a shamethat it's a mechanistic harm
that's happening, but man, we'regoing to make a lot of money,
or emails that would.
I mean their vice president ofclinical research was saying
things like hey, I know how todesign a clinical study that's
going to hide these side effects.
And it's just, it crumbles a lotof different worlds at the
(08:55):
exact same time, because a youknow, everybody kind of suspects
that pharma companies are gonnafudge numbers a little bit to
try and get away with stuff, butrealizing it was that bad to
the point where they werewilling to let tens of thousands
of people die for profit likethat, since that's that's pretty
dark.
Not just that they would dothat, but that the FDA you find
(09:18):
out was basically complicit inthat.
And then the justice system wascomplicit as well because, ok,
they fined them a few billiondollars, but it wasn't as much
as their profits and nobody wentto prison, I think it's fair to
say murdered tens of thousandsof people and nobody went to
prison.
They just had a few billiondollar fine that was less than
(09:39):
their profits.
Like, how is this our system?
How is this acceptable?
This is unbelievable.
Unbelievable, but it's rightthere in the court case, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
So is that, when you picked up the book Like I'm
trying to get to the part whereyou're like how did you get that
book in your hands?
Like what was the decidingmoment that you actually even
read that book itself?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
what was the deciding moment that you actually even
read that book itself?
You know, I had had someconversations with people and I
had seen a Joe Rogan podcast andhe had a psychiatrist on there
who was talking about somethings and I started to fact
check some things and it's like,oh, it turns out that that was
true, you were trying to factcheck him things and it's like
oh, it turns out that that wastrue, and then, uh, you were
(10:27):
trying to fact check him to thenegative, trying to fact check
him to the negative, like thatcan't be right.
And then it's like oh, okay ohwait yeah, and then, you know,
get the book.
And even the critics of therobert whitaker book, even the
fact checkers with his book,their criticism is basically
well, he's not wrong, but hejust takes his conclusions too
(10:49):
far, you know, and it's likeyeah, yeah it's.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
it's hard to question .
It's hard to question the truthto that book when pretty much I
mean, everything he pulled outof there came directly out of
their own research.
Yeah, you know, the lines areverbatim out of the studies.
It's hard to go back andquestion that.
I wonder for you so when yougot your hands on that, were
(11:15):
there things that you realizedafter you had read?
And we keep saying that so,guys, we're talking about
Anatomy of an Epidemic, the bookthat Robert Whitaker wrote.
Once you read it, did thingsstart to click?
Did you go back and kind ofstart to go okay, this is why
patients aren't getting better,or these are the lines that I
have been programmed to say topeople that are actually grossly
(11:39):
inaccurate.
Like were there these truthsthat just pop?
And then, all of a sudden,these connections were made once
you got your hands on that?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, that's exactly what happened.
You know, I went back to mypsychiatric nursing textbook and
it says in there that people'sdepression is caused by a
chemical imbalance and they'llneed to be on these safe and
effective medications for therest of their life.
And I even went to myhospital's own patient education
resource vendor where we wouldget our handouts about you know
(12:09):
what is major depressivedisorder or what is this
antidepressant?
And I started looking at those,and those also said depression
is caused by a chemicalimbalance that's treated with
safe and effective medications.
And I just started clickingaround and found out that our
vendor was Merck.
It was literally Merck.
It was the pharmaceuticalcompany that killed 60,000
(12:31):
people with, with Vioxx, andthey were writing our patient
education handouts forantidepressants and for
depression and for that sort ofthing.
And so this was all kind of avery painful process as well,
because it's like it's yourwhole worldview is kind of
(12:52):
getting shattered to some extentand you have this idea of
yourself and you have anidentity built around this
career that you have, and all ofa sudden it's like, oh, this
so-called evidence that we'vebeen following is actually a lot
of fraud, and it's not justthat it's fraud around profit.
(13:13):
It's doing a lot of harm topeople because, boy, when you
find out about PSSD too, andyou've been.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Oh, we're going to talk about that today.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Okay, I was hoping you would dive into that a
little bit yeah, yeah, um yeah,it's uh, it's just very
distressing, it's just very uh.
I gosh, you know ignorance is.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
I was much happier yes, because I was gonna ask you
, jen and I talk about this.
We're like I don't know that Icould go back into the system,
knowing now what I know.
I don't know that I canpractice back in the system like
that.
How do know I don't know that Ican practice back in a system
like that?
How do you keep practicing in asystem like that?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
so what I decided was I am obviously not going to be
able to exert systemic change.
I'm just a psych nurse fromWisconsin.
Who the hell am I?
I'm not going to like changehow things are run at the FDA.
Who the hell am I?
I'm not going to like changehow things are run at the FDA or
anything like that.
So, but you know, I I am in aposition on my unit where I have
(14:10):
a lot of respect and I know allthe right people.
I can change things locally.
So that's what I decided I woulddo.
I I decided like, hey, we'regoing to get rid of all this
Merck propaganda and I'm goingto rewrite all our patient
education handouts, becausethat's the sort of thing that I
had done before.
So we're getting rid of allthis nonsense about the chemical
(14:31):
imbalance.
We're going to use the latestresearch.
And the lowest hanging fruit Idecided to start with was about
PSSD, and I was like you knowwhat I'm going to start with
this one?
This is something that ifpatients aren't told about this,
they are not getting informedconsent.
So we're just doing a realshort, quick patient education
(14:51):
handout about the sexual sideeffects of SSRIs, and I decided
to start there.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Can you tell everybody a little bit about
that?
I think some people listeningmay not know what PSSD is.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Sure.
So PSSD is post-SSRI sexualdysfunction, and what this looks
like is it's incredibly commonfor people to have sexual side
effects from antidepressants.
In fact, when you look at thenumber needed to treat,
antidepressants are far moreeffective at causing sexual
dysfunction than they are attreating depression.
(15:24):
So this is a well-known, very,very, very common side effect.
But what many, many peopledon't know is that this side
effect can persist afterdiscontinuation.
And of course, we in the mentalhealth establishment didn't
know about this for a long, longtime, because all the safety
(15:46):
studies are done bypharmaceutical companies that
don't want to find out aboutthings like PSSD, so they're not
studying it.
They're putting blinders ontoit because knowledge of it could
possibly threaten profits.
But there is growing evidence.
We know this is a thing.
We don't know how many peopleit affects, but I've talked to
(16:08):
multiple people at this pointwho have experienced this and it
is just absolutely devastating.
It's just absolutelydevastating.
It's they.
They you take an antidepressantand it numbs you, and for some
people the goal is they'redealing with this distress.
They're incredibly dysphoric.
That numbness is a relief tothe despair that they were
(16:32):
feeling and they can make someprogress in their life, but it
also causes physical numbness.
For a lot of people it causesgenital numbness, and we don't
know exactly what the mechanismis that does this, but for some
people it does not go away.
They stop taking the medicationand they are still physically
numb.
(16:53):
And they're still emotionallynumb too often I mean yes,
exactly, it's not just that, ittakes sometimes it takes a while
to reconnect your head back toyour body.
Yeah, it's it suffers them fromtheir own humanity.
It's, you know, they have thebirth of a child and they don't
experience any joy.
They experience the death of aparent and they don't feel grief
.
They've just been numbedphysically and emotionally.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
It's just, it's horrific, and a lot of them end
up committing suicide,unfortunately, yes, yes, I mean,
I think that's the biggest sideeffect that nobody wants to
talk about, but I, I, we, I wantto talk about that, but first
of all I want to just and Icould be wrong, cause I'm I'm
not that adept with PSSD, but isit kind of like a spectrum?
(17:38):
Um, because I, I think likejust even the thought of sexual
desire goes away.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Is that part of PSSD I'm going to?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
guess Yep Tanking the libido, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Just that Like it's not even on your mind ever at
all and down to you know genitalnumbness and inability to have
sex right or perform Correct.
So there's a wide spectrum ofsymptomology with PSSD.
The weird part is I think I'mgoing to grossly generalize,
(18:13):
because I was a woman whoprobably could have been
diagnosed with PSSD when I wasusing an SSRI.
It practically ruined mymarriage, but not just from sex,
but just from lack ofconnection.
It's not just you don't want tohave sex, it's you don't want
to connect.
There's no who cares at thispoint.
(18:34):
But I think with women and Ithink this is a valid discussion
if a woman goes to a doctor andsays, look, I don't want to
have sex, I don't want toconnect, I don't want to,
whatever, she might get toldthat that's okay because this is
about your depression, notabout your sex life, and your
husband or partner needs to pipedown over there because it's
(18:55):
not about his sex life, it'sabout your mental wellbeing.
Whereas if a man maybe went into the doctor and said, listen,
my penis doesn't work anymore, Ican't get an erection, I can't
do these things, he might be metwith something a completely
different conversation, becausewe look at sexuality very
different with men and women.
(19:17):
You know, men are the bad guyswho always want sex and women
it's optional in their life andthen, like, pleasure and
intimacy are not optional piecesof life, they're actually the
human condition.
So when we strip people of thevery basics of humanity,
connection and socialization andjust intimate relationships,
(19:40):
we've stripped them essentiallyof their humanity.
But I think there's like such adifferent response with men and
women when we come and havethat same complaint.
Right, the complaint about sexdrive or intimacy or functioning
.
Not being able to have anorgasm as a woman is very
different than not being able tohave one as a man.
(20:01):
So do you have?
Have you noticed that?
I know you're, you do moreinpatient psych than you know
the day-to-day stuff, but do younotice that to be any different
?
Like, do we treat men and womendifferent when they present
with PSSD or any other sideeffect?
Do you see a differenceinpatient?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, I think that's a fair observation actually.
Yeah, I do think men and womenare treated a little bit
differently in that regard, andyou know, I have talked to some
people who have said mydepression was so bad any sexual
side effects were worth it.
(20:39):
So, yeah, but it comes down toinformed consent, like you have
to tell people that this is apossibility and you know if
somebody is in an intimaterelationship.
I think that it's somethingthat they need to know.
It's going to impact therelationship, so everybody needs
to be informed.
That's a foundation of ourhealth care system.
(21:03):
Is informed consent foundationof our healthcare system?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
is informed consent.
So, yeah, you know,unfortunately, I wish we could
even, you know, drag thatinformed consent even deeper,
because there are Facebookgroups and things around.
Ssris have destroyed mymarriage and the conversation in
there is a lot about lack ofintimacy and connection to
partner, and I think that couldeven be part of the informed
(21:28):
consent process.
Like you may feel disconnectedfrom yourself and from your
partner and from your childrenand from the world eventually.
Right, that might be whathappens.
But, as we know, reading RobertWhitaker's books and things
like that like not RobertWhitaker, who's the other guy?
Spellbinding guy, spellbind.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Reagan, peter Reagan.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Peter Reagan.
Peter Reagan, when you're inthe throes of all of that, you
don't realize that that's whatit is, and we're willing to
trade it all out for good mentalhealth.
And again, I would argue thatdisconnection from yourself and
from other people is probablynot good mental health.
And again, I would argue thatdisconnection from yourself and
from other people is probablynot good mental health.
Right, we know that from COVID.
Absolutely I mean, that'ssomething that we have learned.
We know that before that, butthat's like a big example of
(22:22):
what isolation does to you andlack of connection with people,
so it's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, well, and we did.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
As I'm sitting over here, are you cutting out?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:34):
you got a glitch, it's fine.
We did an episode on this, dave,and we talked about
antidepressants like ruiningmarriages and I think people
have a hard time wrapping theirbrain around how that could
possibly be.
But then when you start tooffer examples about PSSD, or
when we start to talk about theemotional disconnect that is
there even when you havechildren right and you're, it's
(22:56):
just like another day well, it'sa Tuesday, I had a baby right
or you lose a, have a big lossin your, your life, and you're
the stoic one that has no tearsand is kind of just numbed out,
funeral after funeral.
I think that those exampleshelp put that in a realistic
place for people and I'm glad wetalk about PSSD.
I get quiet over here with myfidgets because I'm pretty damn
(23:19):
certain that that's somethingI'm going through right now
after 20 years of anantidepressant in my body.
But it's a very good thing totalk about because I do believe,
even beyond the sexual sideeffect of this, the disconnect
emotionally and the inability toconnect in that way with
somebody is so numbed out.
(23:41):
And I think people can reallyresonate with that.
I would go so far as to saypeople who are unfaithful in
their marriages or people whocannot be there present with
their children.
We can trace this right back toSSRIs and what they do,
especially for people who have asignificant long-term use of
(24:03):
those SSRIs.
For sure?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, because I think the conversation is just almost
slightly different.
If we just focus on sexual sideeffects, the way words matter,
right?
If we're just talking about sex, well, I don't care about sex
right now, I care about notbeing depressed.
But if we talk about it in alevel of intimate connection and
connection to self or others,that might be a different
(24:27):
conversation.
That is still within PSSD,right?
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well, and pharmaceutical intervention is
very different as well.
So if you're a male who'sstruggling with PSSD and you go
into the doctor to talk to yourdoctor about this, there is a
drug for that, okay, and there'sa drug for it, right.
And so you're starting tomedicate a side effect.
If you're a woman and you go in, you're told well, there is no
(24:54):
drug to fix that and you mightneed to go see a couples
therapist.
That's what I was told, andyou're kind of like so then it's
an internal problem, that'syour problem, right.
It's blame the victim, yeah,and there isn't a solution,
right.
The solution is you've got togo see a therapist because
there's something wrong with you.
Versus the solution that's muchmore acceptable, that doesn't
(25:16):
feel so blaming for a man, whichis well, here, we can give you
something for erectiledysfunction.
There's an answer for that here, there's a drug for it.
So the way the speech around itis very different too.
The solutions are different,which I think is very intriguing
too, because there are no drugsthat exist out there for women
who are struggling with this,like there are for men.
(25:38):
There isn't a drug.
I asked for it for years.
It doesn't exist, right, soit's no, you've got a
psychological problem that needsfixing.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
They're right.
The psychological problem wasnow a neurochemical imbalance
created by the medication thatyou're on.
It's great.
That's not how they werelooking at it.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Provider herself created it for me and here she
is.
She can't come up with asolution, but I'll digress from
that.
But I think it's an importanttopic to talk about, because
something you said to David thatI think is very interesting.
So now there's more researchthat's coming out about this,
but when you think about theetiology and the start of when
PSSD was actually beingresearched, there wasn't a shit
(26:18):
ton of stuff out there on it.
Because it's not as though thedrug companies are going to go
back, and nor did they go back.
They did their 45 to 90 daytrials at the jump and they were
done.
Fda approves the drugs.
Everybody's happy.
We move on.
When you look at PSSD, you haveto retroactively go to the end.
You've got to go to the peoplewho have been on it for a while.
You've got to start to doresearch around that, and that's
(26:41):
not something that they do.
Those drug companies aren'tgoing to do research in that way
.
They research at the beginning,they do their little few months
of it and they kick out whatlooks good after people have
been med washed and restarted onmedications and it looks good
to them.
But they don't retroactively goback and go.
Okay, we're going to take 5,000people and we're going to look
(27:04):
at the sexual side effects thathave happened to them after five
years, 10 years, 15 years ofSSRI use.
That doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
No, it doesn't.
So people end up having tocrowdsource everything because
nothing within the establishmentsystem is going to help them.
So they end up hopefullyfinding online communities where
they find other people who arehaving similar experiences and
they can get some support fromthem, some peer support and, you
know, some problem solving,hopefully.
(27:32):
But it's really quite thetravesty that that's where we're
at, that they have to findonline support groups on social
media for some of these things,because we know that this is
affecting.
Yes, I mean we have what 50million people on
antidepressants in the US orsomething something like that 60
.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Yeah 60.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah, that's, that's an insane number, especially
when you look at the numberneeded to treat to even have an
effect above placebo.
It's like in the latest data Ilooked at on UpToDate, which is
the clinician reference tool,where they kind of have a
prescribing algorithm that hasall the latest and greatest
(28:12):
studies and data in it.
Even in that tool it says thatthe efficacy of antidepressants
is about 53% and about 40% ofthat is placebo effect.
So these medications are about13% effective on average, giving
us a number needed to treat ofseven.
So you have to giveantidepressants to seven people
to help one.
And that is according to datathat this is directly from up to
(28:37):
date, which looks at everysingle study in existence.
They say that the data is lowto moderate quality, medium to
high bias and very, very shortterm.
And it's just, it's justincredible.
It's just incredible to me.
(28:58):
I we talked about the one of thefoundations of our entire
healthcare system being informedconsent, but the other one is
evidence-based practice and it'slike you look at the evidence
that's out there forantidepressants and it's like I
cannot believe how many peopleare just on this treadmill
throwing these out at patientsevery day Like this is the
(29:19):
evidence that you're basing iton.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Okay.
So Terry asked you a questionearlier and I'm curious.
I'm curious, so she asked youabout, like, how do you continue
to practice in a field when youknow that there is, like, all
this travesty that's occurring,right?
And so you were talking alittle bit about the things that
you can do to bring informedconsent to patients, right, like
rewriting these manuals andthese learning, training
materials, right?
(29:42):
I love that, by the way, I do.
I do Like I, um, we just hadsomebody that was commenting
online on another episode thatwe had um, I think it was Nicole
Lamerson on, and I had repliedto their comment and I said,
what my pipe, what these pipedream things we have, right,
like these big ideas, and I'malways like I would love to
create a course, a CE course forhealthcare providers, that
(30:02):
talks all about this, right?
Yes, and the idea of that everhappening is probably very meek,
because we're up against a verylarge guild who would never
even allow us to come in andactually, I don't know.
Just talk about real researchand truth for people to know.
Okay, but you just tucked thatone away there, david Wayne,
because maybe that's something,because what you're talking
about is you're rewriting thesematerials.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I'm very interested in that.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Okay, hey, you start taking that on.
You give Terry and I a call.
All right, we'll be on that.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Okay, tag us right in .
We'll be tagging you in, butwhat?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
I want to know for you then, like, can you tell us?
So?
Are you like, how do you dealwith prescribers Because you're
working with prescribers?
How do you deal withprescribers Because you're
working with prescribers?
Who's actually giving thesepatients the informed consent?
So do they come in and theyprescribe their medications, and
then do you swoop in likeBatman later and be like I am
(30:56):
David Wayne fly in, and here'sDavid Wayne, and then and then
here you come and go.
Let me tell you just a littlebit more about these drugs
before you say yes.
Like, just here's everythingyou need to know.
Like, how are you?
Speaker 3 (31:10):
balancing that.
How does that go down?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah.
So it's tough, right, because anurse has way less power than a
psychiatrist, than somebody whoactually has the power to
prescribe, and so, as I wasworking on these educational
materials, the first one to goup to our medical director was
the one I made about PSSD, andit got shot down.
(31:32):
So I was told that it wasoutside of my scope as a nurse
to be working on stuff like this?
not true at all.
I had previously worked onother projects very similar to
that, so that was just a bogusreason.
What I heard through thegrapevine is that he said that
this education handout will makeit too hard to get people on
(31:56):
these medications.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
They're going to read this and they're not going to
start.
They might say no.
They might say no.
Oh, too bad.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
So it's like all right, well, this fight's just
getting started.
And then COVID happened, andthen everything kind of went on
the back burner.
Working in the hospital duringCOVID so I was having those
conversations with patients andtelling them more about the
(32:25):
medications and by the time theywere on the psych unit in the
hospital setting it was prettyrare for them to be starting
medications unless they were onthe adolescent unit.
The adults had already been onmedications for years.
But as I started to haveconversations with people about
things like PSSD and sideeffects like that, like it was
(32:47):
once the blinders were off, Icould I could spot it everywhere
, you know.
And then my hospital came outwith a COVID vaccine mandate and
denied my exemption and firedme a few years after they had
given me an excellence innursing award.
That's a whole differentepisode.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Holy crap.
This is just kind of a that gotme thinking about the people
that come in that are already onmedications and things.
Do you, the people that come inthat are already on medications
and things?
I'm starting to think like thisOkay, so if these medications
are so fantastic and this is thepathway forward for our mental
(33:32):
health care, how come themajority of people who go into
inpatient psych as adults arealready medicated but are so
incredibly sick?
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Well, it's their fault, obviously, because they
have resistant depression.
Oh, yeah, then they get anotherdiagnosis that blames the victim
.
Oh, this horrible medicationwhere the number needed to treat
is one in seven and that'saccording to, like really
garbage data.
Oh, it didn't work for you.
Well, that's obviously yourfault.
So now we're going to give youanother diagnosis, and now we're
(34:03):
going to start playing with youknow, we're going to add an
antipsychotic ring, you're goingto add a mood stabilizer,
because obviously the problemhere is chemical imbalance and
we just need to give you moremedication.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Well, that's true, it is chemical imbalance at that
point.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's so funny.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Funny because it's like you know, the chemical
imbalance theory is likesomebody who's a virgin to all
of this.
Then, once you put everybody onthese medications, now it is a
chemical imbalance problem.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
It's iatrogenic harm.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Yes, iatrogenic harm that we've created.
So this is where people arguewith me.
I'm like well, we're nottalking about virgin users over
here, we're talking about peoplethat have been on, stacked and
all these things.
That is a chemical imbalancethat now needs to be accounted
for, which then I do.
I want to.
I keep thinking about medwashing, because I know that so
(34:56):
many people go inpatient psychand they get med washed and that
becomes their new norm, theirnew baseline, right In a week,
right, or whatever.
Yeah, you're laughing, you knowwhat I mean, so can you speak
to that a little bit?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I'm laughing and it's just really dark, because when
they medwash people, you know oh, you've been on a benzo for 11
years, Well, we're going to do aone month taper and oh look,
there's your new baseline.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
You are in incredible withdrawal.
Or you know same thing withSSRIs.
You were on Prozac for 20 yearsand it's not working anymore.
Well, we're going to taperbaseline for this person.
Oh, you don't need that medanymore.
Now you need this one becausewe've seen your new baseline.
Yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
That happens a lot.
So here's my next question Doyou come in like Batman with
people and are like, just so youknow, this is what's happening
to you right now.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
You're in withdrawal?
Yeah, like you're in withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
And it could I mean like it could take months or
years of that medication beingout of your body to actually put
you at what baseline actuallyis.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
So, yes, back in 2020 , 2021, I was starting to swoop
in like that and I was waitingfor the day where I was going to
be called in for underminingthe prescribers on the unit.
And then we actually got a newpsychiatrist on the unit, a
younger guy who was aware ofprotracted SSRI withdrawal, and
(36:38):
he was actually starting todiagnose patients there with it.
So I felt a lot of validationabout that at that point, like,
see, I told you this is a thingand it's happening to our
patients, and so was starting tomake some progress.
But then again, yeah, covid andvaccine mandates and all that.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
That's an unfortunate thing.
I need to have a whole episodeabout that.
Okay, yeah, yes.
So when you're thinking aboutthis personally, so what do you
think the true root is of mentalhealth?
What do you think it is?
Mental illness, I should saynot mental health, but what do
you think it is?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Well, I think that there's a foundation necessary
for every single person to havegood mental health, and it
starts with you know you've gotto get a good night's sleep.
Your sleep hygiene starts rightaway when you wake up in the
morning, and if you're notsleeping well, you're not going
to have good mental health.
There's also an aspect ofmoving your body and lifting
(37:41):
heavy things.
You need to get some sunlighton your skin.
You need to have good nutrition.
I could probably do a wholeepisode on nutrition, actually
Actually put a pin in that one.
Let's talk about that one alittle bit more.
But you also need some humanconnection and to be part of a
community, you need to have someother human beings around you
(38:03):
that you connect with and youneed to have a purpose, and
those things are missing inmultitudes for so many people in
our modern society.
So many people don't havepurpose, they don't have
connection to other humans.
Their nutrition is just, youknow, ultra processed garbage.
(38:23):
They're not sleeping, they'renot moving their body, they're
not getting sunlight on theirskin, they don't have a
connection to nature.
Like, their problem is not aProzac deficiency, it's all
these other things, but thepeople who prescribe these
medications they're like well,it's too hard to get people to
change those things.
You know, people are stuck intheir behavior patterns and I
(38:50):
can't get somebody to work outand to clean up their eating, so
I just prescribe the Prozac andmove on to the next person.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
I think as long as we keep saying that people can't
and people won't, then we'llstop offering them those actual
solutions, right?
So I think, like a psychiatristcould be a great project
manager of someone's life.
Actually, you know, hookingthem up with a dietician,
hooking them up with, you know,even physical therapy could help
(39:16):
someone get moving, there's allthese things.
He could be a great projectmanager for people.
But instead, well, I can't getanybody.
You're right, you, you can'tjust make somebody do something.
But if you prescribe it, youprescribe, if you get put in a
referral for a dietician,they'll go put in a referral for
PT, people will go Right.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
So so there's like yeah, there, there, there could
be a great project manager forsomeone's life're on the adult
secure unit, it's 2500, maybe3000 a day, and it's we think
(40:06):
about these people who come inand it's just imagine if you
took that money and, instead ofputting them in an inpatient
setting and starting on meds,you had them attend cooking
classes with other people whoare struggling and got them
doing some goat yoga and otherthings where they're, you know,
(40:26):
actually doing things that helptheir mental health, connecting
with other humans, giving themsome structure, giving them some
support and validation, likeimagine how much better the
outcomes would be and it wouldcost way less.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Yeah yeah, healthcare systems, prison systems, all
the above like that.
That would gravely change thegame.
All the money, all of thefunding, the tax, dollar money,
everything.
But that is an idea that, whilewe're getting closer to it,
it's kind of cool.
As time is moving on, theseideas are starting to come, I
(40:58):
think, into the mainstream alittle bit.
I think into the mainstream alittle bit.
It's an idea that I also believethat there's such a level of
ego that gets in the way of evenhaving these discussions with
patients from prescribers.
There are some providers outthere that are really great.
They're open to listening.
(41:18):
They are open to like whenyou're even talking about the
psychiatrist that you workedwith, the younger one who was
like hey, here's what protractedwithdrawal is, and I think that
there's less than more of that,as I think that's the
unfortunate part of this as wellyou can argue with a prescriber
.
There's so many people out thereand a lot of clients that Terry
(41:38):
and I see for deprescribingthat have to go in with this
suit of armor to try to arguewhy it is that how they're
prescribing is causing harm andhow they're trying to get them
off of these meds is causingharm, and there is such a level
of ego, truly, that gets in theway we worked, we worked with
(41:59):
over the years I've worked 15years, worked with so many
psychiatrists in the prisonsystems and of all of the
ones've worked with so manypsychiatrists in the prison
systems, of all of the ones Iworked with, there was one that
was open.
The rest were.
There was this hierarchy.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
How dare you?
They were at the top.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
You are out of your scope of practice.
Oh my God, if we had a dollarfor every time, we'd be fucking
millionaires.
We wouldn't be sitting here inthis big shit office.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
I don't even understand that.
Are you practicing medicine byrewriting something?
Speaker 2 (42:29):
or by sharing research.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Right.
There's this level of anaccolade that I have reached,
and you cannot threaten that youwill never be at that level,
and I think that part is reallydangerous.
Um, I think psychologists arevery much so.
There's a huge group of them aswell that are very much so like
(42:52):
that.
Um, I find much less of thatwithin, like the social work
realm, the therapist realm.
I'm not saying that they're notthere, but but there's such a
level of ego and how do you getpast that?
It's almost impossible.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
David.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Wayne RN, with bad hygiene and two first names.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Who are you yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
exactly.
Well, it's very ego protective,right?
And it's also very distressingto acknowledge that this way
you've been trained is actuallydoing a lot of harm and that
these power structures youbelieve in, you know like, are
actually kind of lot of harm andthat these power structures you
believe in, you know like, areactually kind of full of shit
and rife with fraud.
That's very distressing, thatshatters your whole worldview
(43:31):
and that's very painful and partof me understands why people
avoid going through that.
But it's no, it's no validexcuse.
I mean, I get it, but it's novalid excuse because, okay,
what's the alternative?
You're just going to plot alongin your career with the
blinders on willfully and hurtperson after person after person
, ruin their lives.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
That you can actually visibly see that this person is
injured.
Yes, when I see a client who isinjured, I can hear it in their
voice.
I don't even need to see theperson, I can hear it in their
voice.
When I see them, I can visiblysee that they are sick, to the
point where I feel like I canwalk down the street and know
(44:15):
who is on a long-term SSRI justby their flat affect and the
circles are under their eyes andall this stuff.
And how can you, how can you notsee we were assessing people
the way they look all the timein practice, and how can you not
see that they are visibly sickand not connect the idea that
(44:36):
these meds are probably thething doing it?
You know, I, I, I guess I Ihave such a disconnect with that
that you and I are in the sameroom and we see the same person
here and they're very sick.
Your answer is give them more.
My answer is feed them somegood food and get them moving
(44:56):
around, right?
I don't.
How can we see the same thing,right?
Speaker 1 (45:02):
This is where David's going to come in with the
metabolic mental health.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Well first of all, it's amazing, the people trained
to spot cognitive dissonanceare completely unable to apply
that lens to them.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
That's not a deliverable.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Metabolic mental health though.
Yeah, if you guys want to talkabout that, I'm we've got a few
minutes left, let's go, yep allright.
So, uh, my wife has anautoimmune disease called
ankylosing spondylitis.
It causes a lot of arthriticpain, especially in the back,
and has been on every medicationyou can imagine for it,
(45:43):
including Vioxx back in the dayactually, which spiked her blood
pressure and almost caused herto stroke out if it hadn't been
caught.
But anyway, fast forward acouple decades into that
diagnosis and there were no realeffective treatments.
And she saw somebody talkingabout how the carnivore diet is
good for autoimmune disease and,yes, decided what the heck,
(46:08):
I've tried everything else,what's the harm in just giving
it a try?
And so that was five years ago.
Now.
She hasn't eaten fruit orvegetable or grains in the last
five years and she is off allher meds.
She's lost about 40 pounds.
Her symptoms are in completeremission and we've started to
(46:29):
attend conferences and talk toall sorts of other people who
have had similar experiences.
They have autoimmune diseasethat they put in full remission
on some sort of low carb, ketoor carnivore diet, and their
stories are amazing, unreal, andone of the things that comes up
over and over it always makesmy ears perk up as a psych nurse
(46:53):
is.
They say you know, I hadCrohn's.
It was horrible.
I started carnivore.
All my symptoms went intoremission.
I'm off all my meds, oh, and mydepression and anxiety went
away as well, and it alwaysmakes me, you know, pop up like
a meerkat, like wait what?
And I've, I've heard that fromso many people at this point.
It's, it's, it's unreal,they're.
(47:14):
None of them are changing theway that they're eating because
they want to address theirmental health.
It's always for some autoimmunedisease, so there is no placebo
effect here.
But they notice like, oh, andmy mental health has improved
incredibly from changing my dietand getting away from sugars
and ultra processed foods andall the chemicals and food dyes
(47:37):
and that sort of thing.
It's just been, it's just beenmind blowing to me.
So then you know that sends medown the path of reading books
like Brain Energy by ChrisPalmer or Change your Diet,
change your Mind by GeorgiaEadie, and I really think that
the future of good mental healthcare is going to have a very
large metabolic component to it.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
You know and you know what sucks about this and I
hope it changes.
I really hope this changes.
David is people like Terry andI.
Okay, we are told you're not anutritionist.
We are told you're not anutritionist, you don't get to
talk about this.
Now we are lucky in the statethat we are in because some of
the regulations for Wisconsinand what we can talk about
(48:20):
within our scope of practice isa little bit better than some of
the other states.
Because Terry and I had to talkabout this, because I'm always
like nutrition, nutrition,nutrition, let's go.
She's like, okay, well, if youwere in a Southern state, these
would be off limits for you.
You can't talk about this shitas a therapist, right.
Which is ridiculous because thatis so interconnected, like all
of these autoimmune diseases.
(48:40):
Let's start talking nutrition,and a lot of times when we get
people, we'll talk about themental health part of it.
It will go hand in hand.
It's very rare that we havepeople that have these
autoimmune problems that don'talso struggle with anxiety and
depression.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Because that's where it comes from Physical pain,
anything Physical pain.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
That's why they come to us and then you're going
through their laundry list ofhistory and there's the medical
conditions.
Boom, boom.
There it is, it pops right.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
And there's the Crohn's and all the different
things that are there.
They just pop right in thereand it's like, okay, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
I was going to say, well, if serotonin is the happy
chemical, like all thosecommercials told us.
Why is 90% of it in our gut?
Okay, so this is how I startedthinking about all of this.
What 10, 12 years ago or so ithad to be.
I lose track of time, butanyway I kept thinking like,
okay, so if serotonin is theproblem, I was Google searching
when the internet wasn't veryrobust.
(49:42):
How do you make serotonin?
How does a body make serotonin?
Because we weren't taught thatin school.
We were not taught how you makeserotonin.
How does your body do this?
Oh wait, newsflash.
You know protein is one of thebiggest things that you need.
And so when you talk aboutcarnivore diet, yeah, no shit.
(50:03):
Right, Like, yeah, Go toinpatient psych once.
Are they high protein?
Are they feeling the highprotein?
No, they're not.
Go to an addiction rehab centeronce.
Are they feeding anybody highprotein?
No, it's high sugar.
So I think, like this makes,why do we just not tell people
serotonin and dopamine and allthe other neurotransmitters you
need are basically made throughprotein sources, high protein.
(50:25):
So just that alone can changesomeone's life who is eating a
low or no protein diet?
Right, and we don't have to bea nutritionist to know that Like
that should be common knowledge.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
It's fat too.
Fat has been so demonized,demonized.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
I'm a 90s girl.
Fat was like no fat, no fat, nofat.
That'll change your life, youknow.
So the other, the other part Iwanted to say about this real
quick is that you said nutritionisn't brought in for, um,
pretty much anything.
It are for mental health, andyou're right, because I'll get
people that come in and on theirintakes will be like, what is
(51:07):
your number one goal in workingwith me?
And they'll say to lose weight.
I'm like well, nutrition isalways paired with weight loss
and it's never the idea of mynutrition can change my mental
health status.
Well, if I lose weight I willfeel better, but maybe it's
because you're changing yournutritional status as well.
(51:29):
Right, so nutrition is viewedfor it's so hard, especially
with women, viewed in a weightloss culture, not a mental
health culture, and it certainlyhasn't caught up Like nutrition
somewhat.
For, like heart disease,diabetes, cholesterol, like a
lot of times.
(51:49):
You know your providers will saywell, change your diet.
And that'll be the extent ofthe advice.
But I never hear that in apsychiatrist's office or in a
therapist's office or even aninpatient psych, change your
diet.
Because even in inpatient psychthey're not starting to change
their diet Like you said, ifthey had cooking classes or
starting to change their diet,like you said, if they had
(52:11):
cooking classes or smoothie.
I knew, I knew a lady who ran arehab uh, addiction rehab and
part of their program wasteaching them how to create
nutrient dense smoothies.
That was it, because theyweren't cooking.
So they're like, well, we'll donutrient dense smoothies, and
so that's what they taught themto do and it was great and they
all felt better.
It was weird, right, that'sweird.
Weird that you would feelbetter.
(52:38):
So I think if we could get themessage out that nutrition is
partnered with mental healthcare and it should be the first
thing you look at when someonecomes in what's your nutritional
status?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yeah, you talk about low hanging fruit where?
That's the lowest risk benefitanalysis is just a grand slam
compared to starting somebody onProzac.
Yeah, it's their nutrition, butyou know you mentioned
dietitians and how you knowrecognize your scope of practice
.
The dietitians are trained bythe big ag companies.
(53:06):
You know like their textbooksare written by the people who
are selling the Cheerios andthat sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
Well, not to mention talk about scope of practice for
a minute.
Do you know how many dieticiansdo counseling for eating
disorders?
They can do that, but I can'tyou know.
Teach someone how to make asmoothie.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
I mean, it's silly.
It is.
It's all very silly, it's verysilly, but I don't know why.
Why do you guys think thatpeople want to believe that
mental health is so complicated?
This is my conundrum of today.
Why is mental health socomplicated?
The solution is so complicatedthat nobody wants to do it.
(53:51):
I don't view it as complicated,but people do.
I don't know.
It's less complex to make it amedical disorder than it is to
make it a person thing.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
In that complexity, there's plausible deniability
for the predators out there whoare making bank off of selling
people things likeantidepressants or you know
complex combinations ofmedications.
So, uh, yeah, if you givepeople that simple message, uh,
and you give them ownership oftheir own mental health by
(54:26):
empowering them to do all thesedifferent changes in their life
life instead of making themdependent on getting refills.
That's why I think this systemis the way it is.
It's the establishment system,protecting its own validity and
shareholder value.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
I'm at a point where every time we have a guest, I
need to write the word agency onsomething and just hold it like
this and every person we haveon hits that
Speaker 3 (54:56):
mark.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
Somebody, every person on the show has talked
about that exact thing and thatinner sense of agency and
finding that empowerment andwhat that is, and that's where I
think the change really happensfor people.
I think the change reallyhappens for people Once you find
that voice, that understanding,it's almost like this energy
that you're given to get curiousto question things, to make a
(55:20):
change, to do somethingdifferent, even if it's
something small.
It's almost like once you findit, it's there and it's
recognizable and you can neverunknow it.
It's just one of those things.
So I'm like I got to write thatword and every time I guess I'm
just going to hold it up.
Speaker 3 (55:38):
Cause.
Don't give it away.
Yes, do not give your agencyaway.
Yes, all right.
Well, I think we need to wrapup today's episode.
What do you think, jen?
Yeah, I think we're in a goodspot, everybody.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
So we are the Gaslit Truth Podcast, and you know that
you can find us anywhere thatyou listen to podcasts.
We do have a little plug thatwe need to put in here at the
end.
For those of you that have beenharmed by SSRIs or SNRI
withdrawal, there is a call toaction that's happening
submitting responses to theFDA's MedWatch, everybody.
So there's a MedWatch systemand we need you to do that.
(56:11):
So to make this possible allright, so that they're not
ignoring us, I'm going to giveyou guys a website, okay, and
you can submit your story.
I have done this, you can joinus doing this.
Going to antidepressantinfoorgokay, so that is where you're
going to want to go, and thenthere's a backslash for FDA
slash reporting slash program.
But if you hitantidepressantinfoorg and you
(56:33):
make a couple more clicks, youwill get to the FDA reporting
program.
Go ahead and fill it out.
It takes a little bit, but Ithink that this is another
movement that we can all be apart of for those of us who have
been directly impacted orindirectly impacted by SSRI or
SNRI withdrawal, and actually itdoesn't have to be just for
withdrawal If you've beennegatively impacted period you
(56:54):
can go to.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
MedWatch and submit your story.
So make sure you do that.
I believe the deadline on thatis October October of 2025.
So we've got to get as manypeople on there as we possibly
can.
So, yeah, all right.
Well, thank you everyone forjoining us and thank you, david
Wayne Batman, my pleasure.
Well, hey, nurses, you've been gaslit into
believing the foundation of goodmental health is psychiatric
medications, but newsflash it'snot.
We are your whistleblowingshrinks, dr Tara Lynn and
therapist Jen, and you havelanded on the Gaslit Truth
Podcast, and our guest today isDavid Wayne.
Welcome to the show, david.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hey, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Okay, all right, let's talk about who you are,
because your bio is fantastic.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I think you should be a writer, not a nurse.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I love it.
This would make me giggle.
Okay, so David is a registerednurse.
He has a background in hospitalpsychiatry.
He was trained to tell hispatients that their depression
is caused by a chemicalimbalance and that
antidepressants are a safe andeffective way to treat
depression.
Ignorance was bliss.
Now he knows better.
And David screams into the voidin a futile attempt to affect
(00:56):
systematic change inestablishment psychiatry.
According to his critics, davidis a dangerous anti-science
conspiracy therapist withquestionable hygiene.
He is also the obligatory malenurse on Nurses Out Loud podcast
, which we will talk about today.
Welcome to the show, david.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Thank you.
What's up with the questionablehygiene?
That's where.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I want to start oh, I'm seeing it, I'm seeing it.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Go to YouTube.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You can see Dave's questionable hygiene Everybody
when we're talking aboutmaintaining adult daily levels
of functioning.
I can see David does not haveit together, so we might have to
work on that.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
That would be charted in a note somewhere, probably.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Disheveled is there.
So I'm afraid you have apsychiatric disorder.
Likely schizophrenia or bipolar.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I'm glad for sleeping outside.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah, schizoaffective disorder, more like jen right
yeah yeah, okay, shoot, you'reright.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You know what?
Mm-hmm, yeah, that went down.
Look how we did that so quick,so quick look at that.
There you go, there's your,there's your seven minutes with
a mental health provider in theunited states.
Appointment done, labeled David.
We will get you a medicationand move you on.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I appreciate it.
I feel seen, so thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
You feel seen and so much better, so much better
we're happy to have you here,David.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Tell us why you came to this show, why you wanted to
come on here, because we're soexcited to have you.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Well, I had listened to a few of your prior episodes
that really connected with me.
The first one was with KellyFulcred.
That was a great one, and thenyou had Robert Whitaker on the
man Damn it.
Bob.
I've been kind of following himfor years.
I refer to him as that bastard,robert Whitaker, because of how
(02:41):
he completely upended my lifewith his book Anatomy of an
Epidemic, which is just-.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I think offline you said fucked up my life and I'm
like we agree with that 100%.
You can't turn back now, no way.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
You said in you had told us in your Google forum
that everybody feels out right,everyone.
Before you become a guest onthe show, we get a little bit of
information on you and you talkabout this like inability to
even like read research anymore.
Yeah From just like the normalgood old, like I would call it,
like good feel good.
Blind eye of reading research.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Exactly.
Oh, look at that study.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Look how great it is.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, in nursing school we're taught
evidence-based practice.
I mean, it is the mantra it'sjust drilled into us, but we
were not taught anything abouthow rampant fraud was.
So back in my naive days Iwould read a study and it's like
, okay, this is peer-reviewed,published in a reputable journal
, and you could read theconclusions, read the synopsis
(03:44):
and be like, all right, I knowthat now.
Cool.
And now when I read clinicalresearch, it's like okay, who
funded this study?
Was there a ghost author?
Does their data actually matchtheir conclusions?
Is there anonymized patientlevel data even available for
public scrutiny?
Who funds the publisher?
It's like it becomesparalyzingly complex.
(04:04):
You know it's like, well,paralyzingly complex.
You know it's like, well, Idon't even know.
Like, what do I even do withthis now?
Like okay, now I don't trustanything.
How do you even begin to cutthrough when you, when you've
been lied to you, know soprofoundly like how do you even
begin to know what to trustanymore?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
that that's true.
That's true.
I want to touch on a point here, because there are so many
research articles out there thatstart giving you data that
you're thinking, oh, they'regoing to do it, they're going to
go down to this place thatnobody wants to hear, and then
they will backpedal in the endand I'm like, oh, come on, just
(04:43):
do it, just say the thing thatnobody is courageous enough to
say and they probably can't.
Yeah, they can't, because thenthey won't get published Right
or funded, or whatever it isthat they're trying to do.
So how long have you been apsychiatric nurse?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So about 13 years now 13 years.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Is this where you started or is this where you
migrated to?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
It's where I started, but not by my choice.
Basically, when I was innursing school, our senior year
people got to pick which unitthey would do their senior
synthesis on.
And I wanted to be in the ERbecause I had been an EMT, so uh
, but nobody picked the psychunit.
So I kind of drew the shortstraw and got placed on the
(05:28):
psych unit because nobody wantedto be a psych nurse in my class
.
So I got.
I got placed there essentiallyagainst my will and uh, oh, that
sounds like a consumer story,oh yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I was placed under chapter51 and, uh, you know, brought
from the classroom to the psychunit.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
And you've stayed I stayed.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
It clicked because I enjoyed the patient population
and I really enjoyed the othernurses who were drawn into that
area of nursing.
They were just some of the bestpeople you could ever hope to
work with.
So yeah, it clicked.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
That's awesome.
So when you think about that,so you were standard nursing
practice right For a long time.
When did you pick up that book?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It was about 2017.
It was about 2017.
And it was kind of multiplethings happening at the same
time that were starting to openmy eyes, and it came at a time
that I was kind of at thepinnacle in my establishment
nursing career because I hadbeen taking on additional
(06:36):
responsibilities.
I'd become a charge nurse, Ijoined just about every
committee that existed on myunits.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
I'd become a committee chair and in that year
, in 2017, I actually won myhospital's Excellence in Nursing
Leadership Award, so I was likeSounds so familiar, jen,
doesn't it?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I know I'm like man.
Why we all did this.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, we all did it.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
We all did this.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
And I was great at my job.
I mean, I feel like I can saythat and have it, not be
arrogant because, hey, they gaveme a huge award.
But Robert Whitaker's book cameinto the picture and started me
down these rabbit holes andstarted to read about other
things that had kind of been onmy radar.
(07:21):
Everybody's kind of familiarwith OxyContin and just the
incredible crimes committedaround that drug and the way
that people were told, you know,by Purdue that's only about 5%
addictive, you know, and theyknew that was a lie.
And there's, we don't have togo too far in that direction
(07:41):
because there's, you know,entire documentaries and things
like that out there.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
You can go as far as you want.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
All right.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Well, everybody's kind of familiar with OxyContin.
But then you read about thingslike Vioxx too.
Vioxx was pulled off the marketright about the same time I
started working at WalgreensPharmacy.
I worked in a pharmacy while Iwas in nursing school and as
years went by, more and morelawsuits happened around Vioxx
(08:12):
and these revelations came outthat were just incredible the
way that Merck had intentionallyhid cardiac side effects.
They knew these cardiac sideeffects were there and were
happening and that they had tohide them in order to maximize
their profits off thesemedications.
So things came out like theseemail chains where they're
(08:33):
talking about boy, it's a shamethat it's a mechanistic harm
that's happening, but man, we'regoing to make a lot of money,
or emails that would.
I mean their vice president ofclinical research was saying
things like hey, I know how todesign a clinical study that's
going to hide these side effects.
And it's just, it crumbles a lotof different worlds at the
(08:55):
exact same time, because a youknow, everybody kind of suspects
that pharma companies are gonnafudge numbers a little bit to
try and get away with stuff, butrealizing it was that bad to
the point where they werewilling to let tens of thousands
of people die for profit likethat, since that's that's pretty
dark.
Not just that they would dothat, but that the FDA you find
(09:18):
out was basically complicit inthat.
And then the justice system wascomplicit as well because, ok,
they fined them a few billiondollars, but it wasn't as much
as their profits and nobody wentto prison, I think it's fair to
say murdered tens of thousandsof people and nobody went to
prison.
They just had a few billiondollar fine that was less than
(09:39):
their profits.
Like, how is this our system?
How is this acceptable?
This is unbelievable.
Unbelievable, but it's rightthere in the court case, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
So is that, when you picked up the book Like I'm
trying to get to the part whereyou're like how did you get that
book in your hands?
Like what was the decidingmoment that you actually even
read that book itself?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
what was the deciding moment that you actually even
read that book itself?
You know, I had had someconversations with people and I
had seen a Joe Rogan podcast andhe had a psychiatrist on there
who was talking about somethings and I started to fact
check some things and it's like,oh, it turns out that that was
true, you were trying to factcheck him things and it's like
oh, it turns out that that wastrue, and then, uh, you were
(10:27):
trying to fact check him to thenegative, trying to fact check
him to the negative, like thatcan't be right.
And then it's like oh, okay ohwait yeah, and then, you know,
get the book.
And even the critics of therobert whitaker book, even the
fact checkers with his book,their criticism is basically
well, he's not wrong, but hejust takes his conclusions too
(10:49):
far, you know, and it's likeyeah, yeah it's.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
it's hard to question .
It's hard to question the truthto that book when pretty much I
mean, everything he pulled outof there came directly out of
their own research.
Yeah, you know, the lines areverbatim out of the studies.
It's hard to go back andquestion that.
I wonder for you so when yougot your hands on that, were
(11:15):
there things that you realizedafter you had read?
And we keep saying that so,guys, we're talking about
Anatomy of an Epidemic, the bookthat Robert Whitaker wrote.
Once you read it, did thingsstart to click?
Did you go back and kind ofstart to go okay, this is why
patients aren't getting better,or these are the lines that I
have been programmed to say topeople that are actually grossly
(11:39):
inaccurate.
Like were there these truthsthat just pop?
And then, all of a sudden,these connections were made once
you got your hands on that?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, that's exactly what happened.
You know, I went back to mypsychiatric nursing textbook and
it says in there that people'sdepression is caused by a
chemical imbalance and they'llneed to be on these safe and
effective medications for therest of their life.
And I even went to myhospital's own patient education
resource vendor where we wouldget our handouts about you know
(12:09):
what is major depressivedisorder or what is this
antidepressant?
And I started looking at those,and those also said depression
is caused by a chemicalimbalance that's treated with
safe and effective medications.
And I just started clickingaround and found out that our
vendor was Merck.
It was literally Merck.
It was the pharmaceuticalcompany that killed 60,000
(12:31):
people with, with Vioxx, andthey were writing our patient
education handouts forantidepressants and for
depression and for that sort ofthing.
And so this was all kind of avery painful process as well,
because it's like it's yourwhole worldview is kind of
(12:52):
getting shattered to some extentand you have this idea of
yourself and you have anidentity built around this
career that you have, and all ofa sudden it's like, oh, this
so-called evidence that we'vebeen following is actually a lot
of fraud, and it's not justthat it's fraud around profit.
(13:13):
It's doing a lot of harm topeople because, boy, when you
find out about PSSD too, andyou've been.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Oh, we're going to talk about that today.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Okay, I was hoping you would dive into that a
little bit yeah, yeah, um yeah,it's uh, it's just very
distressing, it's just very uh.
I gosh, you know ignorance is.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
I was much happier yes, because I was gonna ask you
, jen and I talk about this.
We're like I don't know that Icould go back into the system,
knowing now what I know.
I don't know that I canpractice back in the system like
that.
How do know I don't know that Ican practice back in a system
like that?
How do you keep practicing in asystem like that?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
so what I decided was I am obviously not going to be
able to exert systemic change.
I'm just a psych nurse fromWisconsin.
Who the hell am I?
I'm not going to like changehow things are run at the FDA.
Who the hell am I?
I'm not going to like changehow things are run at the FDA or
anything like that.
So, but you know, I I am in aposition on my unit where I have
(14:10):
a lot of respect and I know allthe right people.
I can change things locally.
So that's what I decided I woulddo.
I I decided like, hey, we'regoing to get rid of all this
Merck propaganda and I'm goingto rewrite all our patient
education handouts, becausethat's the sort of thing that I
had done before.
So we're getting rid of allthis nonsense about the chemical
(14:31):
imbalance.
We're going to use the latestresearch.
And the lowest hanging fruit Idecided to start with was about
PSSD, and I was like you knowwhat I'm going to start with
this one?
This is something that ifpatients aren't told about this,
they are not getting informedconsent.
So we're just doing a realshort, quick patient education
(14:51):
handout about the sexual sideeffects of SSRIs, and I decided
to start there.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Can you tell everybody a little bit about
that?
I think some people listeningmay not know what PSSD is.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Sure.
So PSSD is post-SSRI sexualdysfunction, and what this looks
like is it's incredibly commonfor people to have sexual side
effects from antidepressants.
In fact, when you look at thenumber needed to treat,
antidepressants are far moreeffective at causing sexual
dysfunction than they are attreating depression.
(15:24):
So this is a well-known, very,very, very common side effect.
But what many, many peopledon't know is that this side
effect can persist afterdiscontinuation.
And of course, we in the mentalhealth establishment didn't
know about this for a long, longtime, because all the safety
(15:46):
studies are done bypharmaceutical companies that
don't want to find out aboutthings like PSSD, so they're not
studying it.
They're putting blinders ontoit because knowledge of it could
possibly threaten profits.
But there is growing evidence.
We know this is a thing.
We don't know how many peopleit affects, but I've talked to
(16:08):
multiple people at this pointwho have experienced this and it
is just absolutely devastating.
It's just absolutelydevastating.
It's they.
They you take an antidepressantand it numbs you, and for some
people the goal is they'redealing with this distress.
They're incredibly dysphoric.
That numbness is a relief tothe despair that they were
(16:32):
feeling and they can make someprogress in their life, but it
also causes physical numbness.
For a lot of people it causesgenital numbness, and we don't
know exactly what the mechanismis that does this, but for some
people it does not go away.
They stop taking the medicationand they are still physically
numb.
(16:53):
And they're still emotionallynumb too often I mean yes,
exactly, it's not just that, ittakes sometimes it takes a while
to reconnect your head back toyour body.
Yeah, it's it suffers them fromtheir own humanity.
It's, you know, they have thebirth of a child and they don't
experience any joy.
They experience the death of aparent and they don't feel grief
.
They've just been numbedphysically and emotionally.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
It's just, it's horrific, and a lot of them end
up committing suicide,unfortunately, yes, yes, I mean,
I think that's the biggest sideeffect that nobody wants to
talk about, but I, I, we, I wantto talk about that, but first
of all I want to just and Icould be wrong, cause I'm I'm
not that adept with PSSD, but isit kind of like a spectrum?
(17:38):
Um, because I, I think likejust even the thought of sexual
desire goes away.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Is that part of PSSD I'm going to?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
guess Yep Tanking the libido, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Just that Like it's not even on your mind ever at
all and down to you know genitalnumbness and inability to have
sex right or perform Correct.
So there's a wide spectrum ofsymptomology with PSSD.
The weird part is I think I'mgoing to grossly generalize,
(18:13):
because I was a woman whoprobably could have been
diagnosed with PSSD when I wasusing an SSRI.
It practically ruined mymarriage, but not just from sex,
but just from lack ofconnection.
It's not just you don't want tohave sex, it's you don't want
to connect.
There's no who cares at thispoint.
(18:34):
But I think with women and Ithink this is a valid discussion
if a woman goes to a doctor andsays, look, I don't want to
have sex, I don't want toconnect, I don't want to,
whatever, she might get toldthat that's okay because this is
about your depression, notabout your sex life, and your
husband or partner needs to pipedown over there because it's
(18:55):
not about his sex life, it'sabout your mental wellbeing.
Whereas if a man maybe went into the doctor and said, listen,
my penis doesn't work anymore, Ican't get an erection, I can't
do these things, he might be metwith something a completely
different conversation, becausewe look at sexuality very
different with men and women.
(19:17):
You know, men are the bad guyswho always want sex and women
it's optional in their life andthen, like, pleasure and
intimacy are not optional piecesof life, they're actually the
human condition.
So when we strip people of thevery basics of humanity,
connection and socialization andjust intimate relationships,
(19:40):
we've stripped them essentiallyof their humanity.
But I think there's like such adifferent response with men and
women when we come and havethat same complaint.
Right, the complaint about sexdrive or intimacy or functioning
.
Not being able to have anorgasm as a woman is very
different than not being able tohave one as a man.
(20:01):
So do you have?
Have you noticed that?
I know you're, you do moreinpatient psych than you know
the day-to-day stuff, but do younotice that to be any different
?
Like, do we treat men and womendifferent when they present
with PSSD or any other sideeffect?
Do you see a differenceinpatient?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, I think that's a fair observation actually.
Yeah, I do think men and womenare treated a little bit
differently in that regard, andyou know, I have talked to some
people who have said mydepression was so bad any sexual
side effects were worth it.
(20:39):
So, yeah, but it comes down toinformed consent, like you have
to tell people that this is apossibility and you know if
somebody is in an intimaterelationship.
I think that it's somethingthat they need to know.
It's going to impact therelationship, so everybody needs
to be informed.
That's a foundation of ourhealth care system.
(21:03):
Is informed consent foundationof our healthcare system?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
is informed consent.
So, yeah, you know,unfortunately, I wish we could
even, you know, drag thatinformed consent even deeper,
because there are Facebookgroups and things around.
Ssris have destroyed mymarriage and the conversation in
there is a lot about lack ofintimacy and connection to
partner, and I think that couldeven be part of the informed
(21:28):
consent process.
Like you may feel disconnectedfrom yourself and from your
partner and from your childrenand from the world eventually.
Right, that might be whathappens.
But, as we know, reading RobertWhitaker's books and things
like that like not RobertWhitaker, who's the other guy?
Spellbinding guy, spellbind.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Reagan, peter Reagan.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Peter Reagan.
Peter Reagan, when you're inthe throes of all of that, you
don't realize that that's whatit is, and we're willing to
trade it all out for good mentalhealth.
And again, I would argue thatdisconnection from yourself and
from other people is probablynot good mental health.
And again, I would argue thatdisconnection from yourself and
from other people is probablynot good mental health.
Right, we know that from COVID.
Absolutely I mean, that'ssomething that we have learned.
We know that before that, butthat's like a big example of
(22:22):
what isolation does to you andlack of connection with people,
so it's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, well, and we did.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
As I'm sitting over here, are you cutting out?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:34):
you got a glitch, it's fine.
We did an episode on this, dave,and we talked about
antidepressants like ruiningmarriages and I think people
have a hard time wrapping theirbrain around how that could
possibly be.
But then when you start tooffer examples about PSSD, or
when we start to talk about theemotional disconnect that is
there even when you havechildren right and you're, it's
(22:56):
just like another day well, it'sa Tuesday, I had a baby right
or you lose a, have a big lossin your, your life, and you're
the stoic one that has no tearsand is kind of just numbed out,
funeral after funeral.
I think that those exampleshelp put that in a realistic
place for people and I'm glad wetalk about PSSD.
I get quiet over here with myfidgets because I'm pretty damn
(23:19):
certain that that's somethingI'm going through right now
after 20 years of anantidepressant in my body.
But it's a very good thing totalk about because I do believe,
even beyond the sexual sideeffect of this, the disconnect
emotionally and the inability toconnect in that way with
somebody is so numbed out.
(23:41):
And I think people can reallyresonate with that.
I would go so far as to saypeople who are unfaithful in
their marriages or people whocannot be there present with
their children.
We can trace this right back toSSRIs and what they do,
especially for people who have asignificant long-term use of
(24:03):
those SSRIs.
For sure?
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, because I think the conversation is just almost
slightly different.
If we just focus on sexual sideeffects, the way words matter,
right?
If we're just talking about sex, well, I don't care about sex
right now, I care about notbeing depressed.
But if we talk about it in alevel of intimate connection and
connection to self or others,that might be a different
(24:27):
conversation.
That is still within PSSD,right?
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well, and pharmaceutical intervention is
very different as well.
So if you're a male who'sstruggling with PSSD and you go
into the doctor to talk to yourdoctor about this, there is a
drug for that, okay, and there'sa drug for it, right.
And so you're starting tomedicate a side effect.
If you're a woman and you go in, you're told well, there is no
(24:54):
drug to fix that and you mightneed to go see a couples
therapist.
That's what I was told, andyou're kind of like so then it's
an internal problem, that'syour problem, right.
It's blame the victim, yeah,and there isn't a solution,
right.
The solution is you've got togo see a therapist because
there's something wrong with you.
Versus the solution that's muchmore acceptable, that doesn't
(25:16):
feel so blaming for a man, whichis well, here, we can give you
something for erectiledysfunction.
There's an answer for that here, there's a drug for it.
So the way the speech around itis very different too.
The solutions are different,which I think is very intriguing
too, because there are no drugsthat exist out there for women
who are struggling with this,like there are for men.
(25:38):
There isn't a drug.
I asked for it for years.
It doesn't exist, right, soit's no, you've got a
psychological problem that needsfixing.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
They're right.
The psychological problem wasnow a neurochemical imbalance
created by the medication thatyou're on.
It's great.
That's not how they werelooking at it.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Provider herself created it for me and here she
is.
She can't come up with asolution, but I'll digress from
that.
But I think it's an importanttopic to talk about, because
something you said to David thatI think is very interesting.
So now there's more researchthat's coming out about this,
but when you think about theetiology and the start of when
PSSD was actually beingresearched, there wasn't a shit
(26:18):
ton of stuff out there on it.
Because it's not as though thedrug companies are going to go
back, and nor did they go back.
They did their 45 to 90 daytrials at the jump and they were
done.
Fda approves the drugs.
Everybody's happy.
We move on.
When you look at PSSD, you haveto retroactively go to the end.
You've got to go to the peoplewho have been on it for a while.
You've got to start to doresearch around that, and that's
(26:41):
not something that they do.
Those drug companies aren'tgoing to do research in that way
.
They research at the beginning,they do their little few months
of it and they kick out whatlooks good after people have
been med washed and restarted onmedications and it looks good
to them.
But they don't retroactively goback and go.
Okay, we're going to take 5,000people and we're going to look
(27:04):
at the sexual side effects thathave happened to them after five
years, 10 years, 15 years ofSSRI use.
That doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
No, it doesn't.
So people end up having tocrowdsource everything because
nothing within the establishmentsystem is going to help them.
So they end up hopefullyfinding online communities where
they find other people who arehaving similar experiences and
they can get some support fromthem, some peer support and, you
know, some problem solving,hopefully.
(27:32):
But it's really quite thetravesty that that's where we're
at, that they have to findonline support groups on social
media for some of these things,because we know that this is
affecting.
Yes, I mean we have what 50million people on
antidepressants in the US orsomething something like that 60
.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Yeah 60.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah, that's, that's an insane number, especially
when you look at the numberneeded to treat to even have an
effect above placebo.
It's like in the latest data Ilooked at on UpToDate, which is
the clinician reference tool,where they kind of have a
prescribing algorithm that hasall the latest and greatest
(28:12):
studies and data in it.
Even in that tool it says thatthe efficacy of antidepressants
is about 53% and about 40% ofthat is placebo effect.
So these medications are about13% effective on average, giving
us a number needed to treat ofseven.
So you have to giveantidepressants to seven people
to help one.
And that is according to datathat this is directly from up to
(28:37):
date, which looks at everysingle study in existence.
They say that the data is lowto moderate quality, medium to
high bias and very, very shortterm.
And it's just, it's justincredible.
It's just incredible to me.
(28:58):
I we talked about the one of thefoundations of our entire
healthcare system being informedconsent, but the other one is
evidence-based practice and it'slike you look at the evidence
that's out there forantidepressants and it's like I
cannot believe how many peopleare just on this treadmill
throwing these out at patientsevery day Like this is the
(29:19):
evidence that you're basing iton.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Okay.
So Terry asked you a questionearlier and I'm curious.
I'm curious, so she asked youabout, like, how do you continue
to practice in a field when youknow that there is, like, all
this travesty that's occurring,right?
And so you were talking alittle bit about the things that
you can do to bring informedconsent to patients, right, like
rewriting these manuals andthese learning, training
materials, right?
(29:42):
I love that, by the way, I do.
I do Like I, um, we just hadsomebody that was commenting
online on another episode thatwe had um, I think it was Nicole
Lamerson on, and I had repliedto their comment and I said,
what my pipe, what these pipedream things we have, right,
like these big ideas, and I'malways like I would love to
create a course, a CE course forhealthcare providers, that
(30:02):
talks all about this, right?
Yes, and the idea of that everhappening is probably very meek,
because we're up against a verylarge guild who would never
even allow us to come in andactually, I don't know.
Just talk about real researchand truth for people to know.
Okay, but you just tucked thatone away there, david Wayne,
because maybe that's something,because what you're talking
about is you're rewriting thesematerials.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I'm very interested in that.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Okay, hey, you start taking that on.
You give Terry and I a call.
All right, we'll be on that.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Okay, tag us right in .
We'll be tagging you in, butwhat?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
I want to know for you then, like, can you tell us?
So?
Are you like, how do you dealwith prescribers Because you're
working with prescribers?
How do you deal withprescribers Because you're
working with prescribers?
Who's actually giving thesepatients the informed consent?
So do they come in and theyprescribe their medications, and
then do you swoop in likeBatman later and be like I am
(30:56):
David Wayne fly in, and here'sDavid Wayne, and then and then
here you come and go.
Let me tell you just a littlebit more about these drugs
before you say yes.
Like, just here's everythingyou need to know.
Like, how are you?
Speaker 3 (31:10):
balancing that.
How does that go down?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah.
So it's tough, right, because anurse has way less power than a
psychiatrist, than somebody whoactually has the power to
prescribe, and so, as I wasworking on these educational
materials, the first one to goup to our medical director was
the one I made about PSSD, andit got shot down.
(31:32):
So I was told that it wasoutside of my scope as a nurse
to be working on stuff like this?
not true at all.
I had previously worked onother projects very similar to
that, so that was just a bogusreason.
What I heard through thegrapevine is that he said that
this education handout will makeit too hard to get people on
(31:56):
these medications.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
They're going to read this and they're not going to
start.
They might say no.
They might say no.
Oh, too bad.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
So it's like all right, well, this fight's just
getting started.
And then COVID happened, andthen everything kind of went on
the back burner.
Working in the hospital duringCOVID so I was having those
conversations with patients andtelling them more about the
(32:25):
medications and by the time theywere on the psych unit in the
hospital setting it was prettyrare for them to be starting
medications unless they were onthe adolescent unit.
The adults had already been onmedications for years.
But as I started to haveconversations with people about
things like PSSD and sideeffects like that, like it was
(32:47):
once the blinders were off, Icould I could spot it everywhere
, you know.
And then my hospital came outwith a COVID vaccine mandate and
denied my exemption and firedme a few years after they had
given me an excellence innursing award.
That's a whole differentepisode.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Holy crap.
This is just kind of a that gotme thinking about the people
that come in that are already onmedications and things.
Do you, the people that come inthat are already on medications
and things?
I'm starting to think like thisOkay, so if these medications
are so fantastic and this is thepathway forward for our mental
(33:32):
health care, how come themajority of people who go into
inpatient psych as adults arealready medicated but are so
incredibly sick?
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Well, it's their fault, obviously, because they
have resistant depression.
Oh, yeah, then they get anotherdiagnosis that blames the victim
.
Oh, this horrible medicationwhere the number needed to treat
is one in seven and that'saccording to, like really
garbage data.
Oh, it didn't work for you.
Well, that's obviously yourfault.
So now we're going to give youanother diagnosis, and now we're
(34:03):
going to start playing with youknow, we're going to add an
antipsychotic ring, you're goingto add a mood stabilizer,
because obviously the problemhere is chemical imbalance and
we just need to give you moremedication.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Well, that's true, it is chemical imbalance at that
point.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's so funny.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Funny because it's like you know, the chemical
imbalance theory is likesomebody who's a virgin to all
of this.
Then, once you put everybody onthese medications, now it is a
chemical imbalance problem.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
It's iatrogenic harm.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Yes, iatrogenic harm that we've created.
So this is where people arguewith me.
I'm like well, we're nottalking about virgin users over
here, we're talking about peoplethat have been on, stacked and
all these things.
That is a chemical imbalancethat now needs to be accounted
for, which then I do.
I want to.
I keep thinking about medwashing, because I know that so
(34:56):
many people go inpatient psychand they get med washed and that
becomes their new norm, theirnew baseline, right In a week,
right, or whatever.
Yeah, you're laughing, you knowwhat I mean, so can you speak
to that a little bit?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I'm laughing and it's just really dark, because when
they medwash people, you know oh, you've been on a benzo for 11
years, Well, we're going to do aone month taper and oh look,
there's your new baseline.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
You are in incredible withdrawal.
Or you know same thing withSSRIs.
You were on Prozac for 20 yearsand it's not working anymore.
Well, we're going to taperbaseline for this person.
Oh, you don't need that medanymore.
Now you need this one becausewe've seen your new baseline.
Yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
That happens a lot.
So here's my next question Doyou come in like Batman with
people and are like, just so youknow, this is what's happening
to you right now.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
You're in withdrawal?
Yeah, like you're in withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
And it could I mean like it could take months or
years of that medication beingout of your body to actually put
you at what baseline actuallyis.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
So, yes, back in 2020 , 2021, I was starting to swoop
in like that and I was waitingfor the day where I was going to
be called in for underminingthe prescribers on the unit.
And then we actually got a newpsychiatrist on the unit, a
younger guy who was aware ofprotracted SSRI withdrawal, and
(36:38):
he was actually starting todiagnose patients there with it.
So I felt a lot of validationabout that at that point, like,
see, I told you this is a thingand it's happening to our
patients, and so was starting tomake some progress.
But then again, yeah, covid andvaccine mandates and all that.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
That's an unfortunate thing.
I need to have a whole episodeabout that.
Okay, yeah, yes.
So when you're thinking aboutthis personally, so what do you
think the true root is of mentalhealth?
What do you think it is?
Mental illness, I should saynot mental health, but what do
you think it is?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Well, I think that there's a foundation necessary
for every single person to havegood mental health, and it
starts with you know you've gotto get a good night's sleep.
Your sleep hygiene starts rightaway when you wake up in the
morning, and if you're notsleeping well, you're not going
to have good mental health.
There's also an aspect ofmoving your body and lifting
(37:41):
heavy things.
You need to get some sunlighton your skin.
You need to have good nutrition.
I could probably do a wholeepisode on nutrition, actually
Actually put a pin in that one.
Let's talk about that one alittle bit more.
But you also need some humanconnection and to be part of a
community, you need to have someother human beings around you
(38:03):
that you connect with and youneed to have a purpose, and
those things are missing inmultitudes for so many people in
our modern society.
So many people don't havepurpose, they don't have
connection to other humans.
Their nutrition is just, youknow, ultra processed garbage.
(38:23):
They're not sleeping, they'renot moving their body, they're
not getting sunlight on theirskin, they don't have a
connection to nature.
Like, their problem is not aProzac deficiency, it's all
these other things, but thepeople who prescribe these
medications they're like well,it's too hard to get people to
change those things.
You know, people are stuck intheir behavior patterns and I
(38:50):
can't get somebody to work outand to clean up their eating, so
I just prescribe the Prozac andmove on to the next person.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
I think as long as we keep saying that people can't
and people won't, then we'llstop offering them those actual
solutions, right?
So I think, like a psychiatristcould be a great project
manager of someone's life.
Actually, you know, hookingthem up with a dietician,
hooking them up with, you know,even physical therapy could help
(39:16):
someone get moving, there's allthese things.
He could be a great projectmanager for people.
But instead, well, I can't getanybody.
You're right, you, you can'tjust make somebody do something.
But if you prescribe it, youprescribe, if you get put in a
referral for a dietician,they'll go put in a referral for
PT, people will go Right.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
So so there's like yeah, there, there, there could
be a great project manager forsomeone's life're on the adult
secure unit, it's 2500, maybe3000 a day, and it's we think
(40:06):
about these people who come inand it's just imagine if you
took that money and, instead ofputting them in an inpatient
setting and starting on meds,you had them attend cooking
classes with other people whoare struggling and got them
doing some goat yoga and otherthings where they're, you know,
(40:26):
actually doing things that helptheir mental health, connecting
with other humans, giving themsome structure, giving them some
support and validation, likeimagine how much better the
outcomes would be and it wouldcost way less.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Yeah yeah, healthcare systems, prison systems, all
the above like that.
That would gravely change thegame.
All the money, all of thefunding, the tax, dollar money,
everything.
But that is an idea that, whilewe're getting closer to it,
it's kind of cool.
As time is moving on, theseideas are starting to come, I
(40:58):
think, into the mainstream alittle bit.
I think into the mainstream alittle bit.
It's an idea that I also believethat there's such a level of
ego that gets in the way of evenhaving these discussions with
patients from prescribers.
There are some providers outthere that are really great.
They're open to listening.
(41:18):
They are open to like whenyou're even talking about the
psychiatrist that you workedwith, the younger one who was
like hey, here's what protractedwithdrawal is, and I think that
there's less than more of that,as I think that's the
unfortunate part of this as wellyou can argue with a prescriber
.
There's so many people out thereand a lot of clients that Terry
(41:38):
and I see for deprescribingthat have to go in with this
suit of armor to try to arguewhy it is that how they're
prescribing is causing harm andhow they're trying to get them
off of these meds is causingharm, and there is such a level
of ego, truly, that gets in theway we worked, we worked with
(41:59):
over the years I've worked 15years, worked with so many
psychiatrists in the prisonsystems and of all of the
ones've worked with so manypsychiatrists in the prison
systems, of all of the ones Iworked with, there was one that
was open.
The rest were.
There was this hierarchy.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
How dare you?
They were at the top.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
You are out of your scope of practice.
Oh my God, if we had a dollarfor every time, we'd be fucking
millionaires.
We wouldn't be sitting here inthis big shit office.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
I don't even understand that.
Are you practicing medicine byrewriting something?
Speaker 2 (42:29):
or by sharing research.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Right.
There's this level of anaccolade that I have reached,
and you cannot threaten that youwill never be at that level,
and I think that part is reallydangerous.
Um, I think psychologists arevery much so.
There's a huge group of them aswell that are very much so like
(42:52):
that.
Um, I find much less of thatwithin, like the social work
realm, the therapist realm.
I'm not saying that they're notthere, but but there's such a
level of ego and how do you getpast that?
It's almost impossible.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
David.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Wayne RN, with bad hygiene and two first names.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Who are you yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
exactly.
Well, it's very ego protective,right?
And it's also very distressingto acknowledge that this way
you've been trained is actuallydoing a lot of harm and that
these power structures youbelieve in, you know like, are
actually kind of lot of harm andthat these power structures you
believe in, you know like, areactually kind of full of shit
and rife with fraud.
That's very distressing, thatshatters your whole worldview
(43:31):
and that's very painful and partof me understands why people
avoid going through that.
But it's no, it's no validexcuse.
I mean, I get it, but it's novalid excuse because, okay,
what's the alternative?
You're just going to plot alongin your career with the
blinders on willfully and hurtperson after person after person
, ruin their lives.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
That you can actually visibly see that this person is
injured.
Yes, when I see a client who isinjured, I can hear it in their
voice.
I don't even need to see theperson, I can hear it in their
voice.
When I see them, I can visiblysee that they are sick, to the
point where I feel like I canwalk down the street and know
(44:15):
who is on a long-term SSRI justby their flat affect and the
circles are under their eyes andall this stuff.
And how can you, how can you notsee we were assessing people
the way they look all the timein practice, and how can you not
see that they are visibly sickand not connect the idea that
(44:36):
these meds are probably thething doing it?
You know, I, I, I guess I Ihave such a disconnect with that
that you and I are in the sameroom and we see the same person
here and they're very sick.
Your answer is give them more.
My answer is feed them somegood food and get them moving
(44:56):
around, right?
I don't.
How can we see the same thing,right?
Speaker 1 (45:02):
This is where David's going to come in with the
metabolic mental health.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Well first of all, it's amazing, the people trained
to spot cognitive dissonanceare completely unable to apply
that lens to them.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
That's not a deliverable.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Metabolic mental health though.
Yeah, if you guys want to talkabout that, I'm we've got a few
minutes left, let's go, yep allright.
So, uh, my wife has anautoimmune disease called
ankylosing spondylitis.
It causes a lot of arthriticpain, especially in the back,
and has been on every medicationyou can imagine for it,
(45:43):
including Vioxx back in the dayactually, which spiked her blood
pressure and almost caused herto stroke out if it hadn't been
caught.
But anyway, fast forward acouple decades into that
diagnosis and there were no realeffective treatments.
And she saw somebody talkingabout how the carnivore diet is
good for autoimmune disease and,yes, decided what the heck,
(46:08):
I've tried everything else,what's the harm in just giving
it a try?
And so that was five years ago.
Now.
She hasn't eaten fruit orvegetable or grains in the last
five years and she is off allher meds.
She's lost about 40 pounds.
Her symptoms are in completeremission and we've started to
(46:29):
attend conferences and talk toall sorts of other people who
have had similar experiences.
They have autoimmune diseasethat they put in full remission
on some sort of low carb, ketoor carnivore diet, and their
stories are amazing, unreal, andone of the things that comes up
over and over it always makesmy ears perk up as a psych nurse
(46:53):
is.
They say you know, I hadCrohn's.
It was horrible.
I started carnivore.
All my symptoms went intoremission.
I'm off all my meds, oh, and mydepression and anxiety went
away as well, and it alwaysmakes me, you know, pop up like
a meerkat, like wait what?
And I've, I've heard that fromso many people at this point.
It's, it's, it's unreal,they're.
(47:14):
None of them are changing theway that they're eating because
they want to address theirmental health.
It's always for some autoimmunedisease, so there is no placebo
effect here.
But they notice like, oh, andmy mental health has improved
incredibly from changing my dietand getting away from sugars
and ultra processed foods andall the chemicals and food dyes
(47:37):
and that sort of thing.
It's just been, it's just beenmind blowing to me.
So then you know that sends medown the path of reading books
like Brain Energy by ChrisPalmer or Change your Diet,
change your Mind by GeorgiaEadie, and I really think that
the future of good mental healthcare is going to have a very
large metabolic component to it.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
You know and you know what sucks about this and I
hope it changes.
I really hope this changes.
David is people like Terry andI.
Okay, we are told you're not anutritionist.
We are told you're not anutritionist, you don't get to
talk about this.
Now we are lucky in the statethat we are in because some of
the regulations for Wisconsinand what we can talk about
(48:20):
within our scope of practice isa little bit better than some of
the other states.
Because Terry and I had to talkabout this, because I'm always
like nutrition, nutrition,nutrition, let's go.
She's like, okay, well, if youwere in a Southern state, these
would be off limits for you.
You can't talk about this shitas a therapist, right.
Which is ridiculous because thatis so interconnected, like all
of these autoimmune diseases.
(48:40):
Let's start talking nutrition,and a lot of times when we get
people, we'll talk about themental health part of it.
It will go hand in hand.
It's very rare that we havepeople that have these
autoimmune problems that don'talso struggle with anxiety and
depression.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Because that's where it comes from Physical pain,
anything Physical pain.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
That's why they come to us and then you're going
through their laundry list ofhistory and there's the medical
conditions.
Boom, boom.
There it is, it pops right.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
And there's the Crohn's and all the different
things that are there.
They just pop right in thereand it's like, okay, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
I was going to say, well, if serotonin is the happy
chemical, like all thosecommercials told us.
Why is 90% of it in our gut?
Okay, so this is how I startedthinking about all of this.
What 10, 12 years ago or so ithad to be.
I lose track of time, butanyway I kept thinking like,
okay, so if serotonin is theproblem, I was Google searching
when the internet wasn't veryrobust.
(49:42):
How do you make serotonin?
How does a body make serotonin?
Because we weren't taught thatin school.
We were not taught how you makeserotonin.
How does your body do this?
Oh wait, newsflash.
You know protein is one of thebiggest things that you need.
And so when you talk aboutcarnivore diet, yeah, no shit.
(50:03):
Right, Like, yeah, Go toinpatient psych once.
Are they high protein?
Are they feeling the highprotein?
No, they're not.
Go to an addiction rehab centeronce.
Are they feeding anybody highprotein?
No, it's high sugar.
So I think, like this makes,why do we just not tell people
serotonin and dopamine and allthe other neurotransmitters you
need are basically made throughprotein sources, high protein.
(50:25):
So just that alone can changesomeone's life who is eating a
low or no protein diet?
Right, and we don't have to bea nutritionist to know that Like
that should be common knowledge.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
It's fat too.
Fat has been so demonized,demonized.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
I'm a 90s girl.
Fat was like no fat, no fat, nofat.
That'll change your life, youknow.
So the other, the other part Iwanted to say about this real
quick is that you said nutritionisn't brought in for, um,
pretty much anything.
It are for mental health, andyou're right, because I'll get
people that come in and on theirintakes will be like, what is
(51:07):
your number one goal in workingwith me?
And they'll say to lose weight.
I'm like well, nutrition isalways paired with weight loss
and it's never the idea of mynutrition can change my mental
health status.
Well, if I lose weight I willfeel better, but maybe it's
because you're changing yournutritional status as well.
(51:29):
Right, so nutrition is viewedfor it's so hard, especially
with women, viewed in a weightloss culture, not a mental
health culture, and it certainlyhasn't caught up Like nutrition
somewhat.
For, like heart disease,diabetes, cholesterol, like a
lot of times.
(51:49):
You know your providers will saywell, change your diet.
And that'll be the extent ofthe advice.
But I never hear that in apsychiatrist's office or in a
therapist's office or even aninpatient psych, change your
diet.
Because even in inpatient psychthey're not starting to change
their diet Like you said, ifthey had cooking classes or
starting to change their diet,like you said, if they had
(52:11):
cooking classes or smoothie.
I knew, I knew a lady who ran arehab uh, addiction rehab and
part of their program wasteaching them how to create
nutrient dense smoothies.
That was it, because theyweren't cooking.
So they're like, well, we'll donutrient dense smoothies, and
so that's what they taught themto do and it was great and they
all felt better.
It was weird, right, that'sweird.
Weird that you would feelbetter.
(52:38):
So I think if we could get themessage out that nutrition is
partnered with mental healthcare and it should be the first
thing you look at when someonecomes in what's your nutritional
status?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yeah, you talk about low hanging fruit where?
That's the lowest risk benefitanalysis is just a grand slam
compared to starting somebody onProzac.
Yeah, it's their nutrition, butyou know you mentioned
dietitians and how you knowrecognize your scope of practice
.
The dietitians are trained bythe big ag companies.
(53:06):
You know like their textbooksare written by the people who
are selling the Cheerios andthat sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
Well, not to mention talk about scope of practice for
a minute.
Do you know how many dieticiansdo counseling for eating
disorders?
They can do that, but I can'tyou know.
Teach someone how to make asmoothie.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
I mean, it's silly.
It is.
It's all very silly, it's verysilly, but I don't know why.
Why do you guys think thatpeople want to believe that
mental health is so complicated?
This is my conundrum of today.
Why is mental health socomplicated?
The solution is so complicatedthat nobody wants to do it.
(53:51):
I don't view it as complicated,but people do.
I don't know.
It's less complex to make it amedical disorder than it is to
make it a person thing.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
In that complexity, there's plausible deniability
for the predators out there whoare making bank off of selling
people things likeantidepressants or you know
complex combinations ofmedications.
So, uh, yeah, if you givepeople that simple message, uh,
and you give them ownership oftheir own mental health by
(54:26):
empowering them to do all thesedifferent changes in their life
life instead of making themdependent on getting refills.
That's why I think this systemis the way it is.
It's the establishment system,protecting its own validity and
shareholder value.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
I'm at a point where every time we have a guest, I
need to write the word agency onsomething and just hold it like
this and every person we haveon hits that
Speaker 3 (54:56):
mark.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
Somebody, every person on the show has talked
about that exact thing and thatinner sense of agency and
finding that empowerment andwhat that is, and that's where I
think the change really happensfor people.
I think the change reallyhappens for people Once you find
that voice, that understanding,it's almost like this energy
that you're given to get curiousto question things, to make a
(55:20):
change, to do somethingdifferent, even if it's
something small.
It's almost like once you findit, it's there and it's
recognizable and you can neverunknow it.
It's just one of those things.
So I'm like I got to write thatword and every time I guess I'm
just going to hold it up.
Speaker 3 (55:38):
Cause.
Don't give it away.
Yes, do not give your agencyaway.
Yes, all right.
Well, I think we need to wrapup today's episode.
What do you think, jen?
Yeah, I think we're in a goodspot, everybody.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
So we are the Gaslit Truth Podcast, and you know that
you can find us anywhere thatyou listen to podcasts.
We do have a little plug thatwe need to put in here at the
end.
For those of you that have beenharmed by SSRIs or SNRI
withdrawal, there is a call toaction that's happening
submitting responses to theFDA's MedWatch, everybody.
So there's a MedWatch systemand we need you to do that.
(56:11):
So to make this possible allright, so that they're not
ignoring us, I'm going to giveyou guys a website, okay, and
you can submit your story.
I have done this, you can joinus doing this.
Going to antidepressantinfoorgokay, so that is where you're
going to want to go, and thenthere's a backslash for FDA
slash reporting slash program.
But if you hitantidepressantinfoorg and you
(56:33):
make a couple more clicks, youwill get to the FDA reporting
program.
Go ahead and fill it out.
It takes a little bit, but Ithink that this is another
movement that we can all be apart of for those of us who have
been directly impacted orindirectly impacted by SSRI or
SNRI withdrawal, and actually itdoesn't have to be just for
withdrawal If you've beennegatively impacted period you
(56:54):
can go to.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
MedWatch and submit your story.
So make sure you do that.
I believe the deadline on thatis October October of 2025.
So we've got to get as manypeople on there as we possibly
can.
So, yeah, all right.
Well, thank you everyone forjoining us and thank you, david
Wayne Batman, my pleasure.
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