EP 69: When Labels Replace Lives: Reclaiming Choice, Curiosity, and Consent with Jenn Schmitz, MS, LPC

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 5 (00:00):
Prescribers know how to prescribe.
They have no idea how tode-prescribe.
And I will take that battle onwith any psychiatrist, any
family medicine doctor.
I'll take it on with anybodybecause you weren't taught that.
The curriculums today do notteach that.
It's not in there.

(00:20):
You're taught how to give thismedication to people, but you're
not taught when is it that westart to question, okay, well,
when is it time to maybe comeoff?
You are smarter than yourprescriber.
You know more than the personthat is handing you those
medications because the personhanding you those medications is
not taking into accountsubjectively what's going on

(00:43):
with you and your whole story,nor is there science behind that
prescription.
There is not.

Speaker (01:42):
Holding a master's of science in clinical psychology
and having spent over a decadeas a traditional therapist, Jen
took a bold step beyond theconventional boundaries of
Western medicine.
Her personal struggle, markedby the dark process of tapering
off psychiatric medication,revealed insights that reshaped
her approach to mental health.
Today, as a nationallyacclaimed certified neurohealth

(02:04):
coach specializing in mentalhealth and addiction nutrition,
she empowers others as aholistic de-prescribing
consultant.
By integrating physicalwellness, nutrition, and
mindfulness, Jen guides clientssafely through the intricate
process of tapering offpsychiatric medication.
Driven by a mission to exposethe hidden harm of psychiatric
treatments and ignite curiosity,she hosts the internationally

(02:27):
acclaimed The Gaslit Truthpodcast.
I am so excited you're here.
Thank you so much for joiningus today.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
And you were on the show, and that was great.
My goodness.
Yeah, and that's how weconnected, right?
Yes, absolutely.
This is how what it's about.

Speaker (02:42):
I know, I know.
So we need to hear your story.
You have such an incrediblestory to tell.
So let's start there.

Speaker 5 (02:48):
Yeah, I I do have one hell of a story.
So I guess it makes sense tostart from the beginning and
talk about something that Ithink happens to a lot of
people.
And they go into a prescriberwhen they're younger.
I was a teenager.
I thought, Michelle, I thoughtI was about 18 years old when I
started having um SSRIs in thepicture for me.

(03:10):
I had broken up with myboyfriend in college and was
having a very, very hard time.
And so went into the doctor,was telling them about the
symptoms that I was having.
I was having going throughdepression.
I was having grief.
All you know, all the thingsthat you should have when you're
uh, you know, going through abreakup as a teenager.

(03:31):
Yeah, he's the love of my life,blah, blah, blah, all that
stuff, right?
Well, turns out that um about ayear or so ago, I got a hold of
all of my medical records.
And it turns out that that wasnot the beginning of my story as
I thought it had been for thelast 24, 25 years of my life.
I actually had started on SSRIseven younger than that.
I was 16 years old.

(03:51):
I didn't know that because one,I have no memory of it.
Uh, and two, it was medicalrecords that cleared that up for
me.
And I went, shit, I was 16.
Oh, I don't know if I can swearon this podcast.
I'm sorry, I better I keep myP's and Q's together here.
Um, like I was 16 years old.
And so I recently discoveredthat.
Um, that that was actually thestart of my story.
Why I went on psychiatricmedications at 16, I cannot tell

(04:15):
you.
The um dictation that is inthose notes from the prescriber
who was my pediatrician at thetime, I could not tell you.
Um, it's it's very vague,doesn't give a lot of
information.
So um, so that was the start, Iguess.

Speaker 4 (04:28):
I guess when I was 16.

Speaker 5 (04:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So um the the pieces that weremissing that I wasn't asked more
so about, I think, that couldhave changed some of this was
asking me some more questionsabout, well, what's going on in
your life as a teenager in highschool?
I really struggled withself-esteem issues on the
inside, even though on theoutside it wouldn't appear like

(04:51):
that at all.
Um, I actually had an eatingdisorder that probably between
16 and 18 years old was rampingup that nobody knew about.
It was very super squirrelsecret.
Um, that was absolutelycontributing to my mood and how
I handled a life stressor thathappened here when I was later
in college.
So by 18, I had already been onthat medication.

(05:13):
And so broke up with myboyfriend.
Do recall having severalmeetings with my prescriber.
I was switched between uhSelexa and Lexapro a couple
times.
And per the notes, it wasbecause of finances and cost.
Um, I'm assuming uh maybeinsurance for my parents, not
really sure.

(05:33):
Yeah, so went through a coupleof different SSRIs in that time.
Um, and broke up with uh myboyfriend, came back home from
college, and fast forward 25years later, and I'm still on
this medication.
Okay.
And I have a dear colleague andfriend who said to me, Well,

(05:56):
are you are you stillbrokenhearted?
And I went, no, it's 25 years.
I'm married, have a family,like I don't even know where
that guy is.
Well, then why are you stilltaking this medication?
I'm like, well, I don't I don'tknow.
Nobody has ever asked me thatquestion.

(06:17):
Um, and so part of my storyincludes many, many, many years
of um seeing prescribers.
I was always prescribed uh mySSRI from a OBGYN or a family
practice doctor.
So just a little informationfor people, it's always like,
well, what did your psychiatristsay?

(06:38):
Which I've never seen apsychiatrist a day in my life.
Uh I I transferred from seeingum my pediatrician, who right
around 16, 17, was like, it'stime for you to um to see a
different physician.
Um, I went and saw an OB.
The OB continued thatprescription.
Um, and now it is continued bya primary care doctor, uh
family, family medicine doctorthat I have.

(06:59):
Yeah.

Speaker (07:00):
That was so crazy.

Speaker 5 (07:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's not like gotta see apsychiatrist.
What's the psychiatrist?
Like anybody can prescribe,guys, right?
You've got NPs, APs, familydocs, p my pediatrician started,
right?
Um, OBGYNs, it it's the gamut,the psychiatrists.

Speaker (07:18):
Well, and it there's there's like this idea that if
you're seeing a psychiatrist,you're getting better advice,
you know, that they know better,that they know the science,
that they're the, you know, andso I I think, you know, I think
that they're all in the samebag, honestly.
Because the the psychiatricmedication, like the stuff that
you're getting, one of thethings that I found interesting

(07:38):
in your story was was the adviceyou received when you decided
to get off the medication.
So can you talk a little bitabout that?
Because that's very common.
People that are listening, I'msure, will have had a similar
experience or have heard ofsomebody having a similar
experience.
So, what did they say when youdecided to get off of this
stuff?
What did they tell you?

Speaker 5 (07:55):
I've had a couple times in the history where I
decided to get curious aboutwhat it could be to not have
this in my life.
The first time came when I wasready to have children.
I had been on uh psychiatricmedication, right, since I was
about 16 years old, um, stayedin the SSRI category.
So for me, that's the categoryof medications, classification

(08:16):
of medications that I was alwaystaking.
Okay.
I was ready to have kids and Iwanted to have kids.
And um, the conversation thenwent naturally to my OB.
And my OB, remind you, was alsomy prescriber, right, since I
was younger.
And there was not aconversation about risks and
benefits and alternatives.

(08:36):
Um, the informed consent ideawas not something that had been
given to me, nor had it beengiven to me for, you know, the
10 years, 15 years almost I wason it before I decided that I
wanted to start to have kids.
And the conversation was verymuch so around my mental health
and what kind of mom would I beonce I started to have children.

(09:01):
And we need to, you know,whether or not the risks and the
benefits were, I don't thinkthat conversation happened
verbally.
That conversation was had inthe head of the prescriber.
It wasn't something that was anopen conversation with me.
It was more so it is a risk foryou to go off of these
medications because there isthis lengthy history of

(09:24):
depression, Jen, which mind you,was not the case.
Yeah, yeah.
Over the years of prescribing,I would have symptoms that would
pop that would that would, youknow, ebb and flow.
I'd have times where I'd go inand I'd say I'm doing really
great.
I'd have times where I would goin and say, things are actually
worse, we need to up it.

(09:45):
Yeah.
I don't want to discountseasonal affective disorder,
everybody, but I'm gonna tellyou right now, the second you
tell a prescriber, like Ireally, really do bad in the
winter months, which many of usdo.
Instead of us looking atnutrition and vitamin D and
light therapies and all thesethings, yeah, the seasons, Jen.
So all these years, it's okay.
When we get to those seasons,you up that.

(10:07):
So what did I do?
I would always up my medicationevery single fall and winter
because that's when I wouldstruggle.
Okay.
So, so these conversations thatI was having were more so not
about let's really look at thesymptoms you're having now.
It was you were diagnosed withdepression when you were, you
know, 18 years old, and we gotto make sure that as a mom,

(10:27):
those symptoms don't come back.
Yeah.
It's arbitrary.
Yeah.

Speaker (10:32):
Well, and I think it's driven by fear.
Like it's a very fear, like,you know, I one of the things I
noticed, uh, Dr.
Terralin was posting about thisthe other day.
You know, people are like,well, it's better to be on the
medication than you know to riskthe mom dying from you know,
analyzing herself.
And yes, and I that kind ofstuff infuriates me because
there is zero acknowledgementabout the the impact of the

(10:55):
medication or the thewithdrawals or you know, any of
it.
Yes.
People, people feel, you know,have these feelings, people will
come into these medicationswithout ever having those kinds
of thoughts and start havingthem on the medications.
Like it's there is no, there'sno guarantee that you taking
these medications is actuallygoing to prevent those things,
but they but there's a lot of,and I honestly I don't blame I

(11:18):
want to get your your insightson this because you're you're
professional, you've been inmental health your entire
career.
I don't necessarily blame thepractitioners because they are
giving the information thatthey've been provided with.
And so I think that there'sunless you get a unique
practitioner who starts to getcurious and question what
they're being told, they're justparroting back all of the

(11:39):
information that they have beengiven about these medications.
And that medication or thatinformation is coming from
sources that are have a monetarymotivation.

Speaker 5 (11:50):
They're fraught, fraught with conflicts of
interest, right?
Yes, like just filled withthem.
And I my thought on this, um, Ihave changed my thought on this
over time.
And I I have to give a shoutout um to Dr.
Kendra Campbell.
Yeah.
Uh, she's a holisticpsychiatrist.
She was on the Gaslet TruthPodcast.
She was one of the earlierguests we had on, and she said
something to me that really Ihad such a hard time hearing it.

(12:12):
Like I was so mad for a while.
And she she said to me uh thethis idea that in and of a
nutshell, informed consent, allright, is gonna be coming from
Western medicine providers thatare in a very uninformed state.
And the information that theyare given is going to be, as you

(12:35):
say, parroted back from theresearch that they have have
built their careers within theacademia and what's given in
that respect.
And that's what they know.
I can align with that.
I think the reason why I wasable to get through the
statement she said to me, whichwas informed consent is also
your responsibility, Jen.

(12:55):
It is not fully theresponsibility of that
prescriber.
And always I was so mad whenshe said that.
I was so, so mad because I'mlike, never once did someone sit
down and go, risks, benefits,alternatives a year later.
Risks, benefits, alternatives ayear later.
Right.
And when I thought a little bitabout this, right, I was like,
okay, you're not wrong though,because as a therapist who has

(13:16):
been in the mental health fieldand working in the field for,
you know, 15 years now, I cantell you that I was trained in
that same way.
And until I finally got curiousabout how medications could be
causing harm, I've beenpreaching the gold standard of
treatment, which is psychmedsand therapy.

(13:37):
They are your gold standard.
People are gonna get better.
This is and because that's whatI was taught.
I was taught about the theoryof chemical imbalance in the
brain and that you know, therethat the how serotonin is formed
in the brain.
It's actually you don't haveenough of it.
I'm sure I was told thatthroughout my medical records as
well.
Um, I read all of them and Iwas looking for that line

(13:58):
somewhere, and I was looking forthe line that says Jen has an
imbalance in serotonin, right?
Because I I know I was toldthat at one point, right?
Yeah, I was taught that.
So I believed that.
I preached that as a as atherapist.
I perpetuated so many evilthings unknowingly, and I will
own them now.
I will talk openly about themnow.

(14:18):
Um, whether it was fromdiagnosing people and how much
stock I used to put in a stupidlabel, which that's something we
could talk about too, and likeall the way down to preaching
this idea to clients, like,yeah, you should go back to see
a psychiatrist.
Yeah, you should go back andsee your psychiatrist.
I didn't get curious about iteither.
So here Kendra says this to me,and I'm so upset.

(14:41):
And then I stand back and I go,but part of my power where I
was powerless is I did have anoption to read more, to not take
what was saying to me at facevalue, to get curious, get
inquisitive.
But I never, I never did that.
I never took the chance to go,okay, how is this impacting

(15:01):
people around me?
My husband, my kids, my parentswhen I was struggling from the
mental health aspect of this andtaking ownership for mental
health.
Michelle, you said this whenyou came on my podcast.
It was like there's a certainpoint where we have to stop
using that mental health as theexcuse because look what's
happening to people around us.
I know.

Speaker (15:21):
I know.
My kids saved my life for sure.

Speaker 5 (15:24):
Yeah.
You know, and so I I think Ithink that the idea of
prescribers being solelyresponsible for this, I think
it's inaccurate.
Um, I think that what they aretaught is what they're taught,
and that's all they know.
And just like me, until we gotcurious to look at something in
a different way, you you onlyknow what you know.

(15:44):
And our Western academia isgoing to only teach it one way.

Speaker (15:50):
It's still being taught that way, you know.
Well, and I have the the issueI have when the this informed
consent thing comes up over andover again, because I'll see
people who are verywell-intentioned, who are in the
right space, I think, moving inthe right direction, talking
about how we need to haveinformed consent.
And my argument with that isthat people who are in, so

(16:11):
people I work with are you knowsuffering from bipolar symptoms
and they're in crisis, you know,so they are sometimes ending up
in the hospital before they getdiagnosed, you know, because
they've gone, you know, they'redeveloped mania or, you know, so
they're they're very scarysymptoms that they experience.
Yes.
So they're going in, and evenif, even if, and I was thinking

(16:32):
back on this myself, on myexperience, even if I'd gone
into the doctor and they hadtold me all of the risks of the
medication, if that was all thatwas presented to me, I would
have taken it because I was incrisis and I needed help.
Correct.
Right?
Yes.
So we are not, I don't thinkthat the conversation can be
complete with just informedconsent.
I think we need to stoplabeling people, first of all.

(16:54):
And let's talk about that rightnow because you were told that
you had been, you've beenstruggling with depression.
And I've actually startedtaking issue with the buckets
that we put things in.
You know, we we put all ofthese symptoms into depression
or all these symptoms into theanxiety bucket, or all these
symptoms into the, you know, themanic bucket.
We don't call out the symptomsseparately.
We don't identify like what areyou actually experiencing when

(17:16):
you're a manic?
What do we actually experiencewhen you're depressed?
And why are you experiencingthose feelings or those
experiences or those, you know,why are you having this kind of
stuff happening?
There's no conversation aboutany of that because we have
pathologized the humansuffering.
We've pathologized.

Speaker 5 (17:33):
Regular human experience is pathologized
completely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I don't disagree with thatuh at all.
What's so interesting about thestory, and as we go through it
here, this this idea of thelabels, because I had, of
course, I had several labels puton me, right?
Diagnoses, going throughdiagnostically looking at

(17:53):
everything.
And they were really arbitrary.
And uh for those of you whomaybe don't have a ton of
knowledge on this, right, as atherapist uh and as a per as a
prescriber, somebody who um isgonna be prescribing or a
doctor, we have these, these,these codes that we have to put
on people in the field of uhcounseling.

(18:14):
For me, I use the DSM, which isthe diagnostic statistical
manual mental disorders.
That's what I use to diagnose.
Insurance is going to use theICD 10, and physicians are gonna
code through that way.
They're very similar in coding.
Um, and essentially we have toput these labels on people so
that they can receiveprescriptions, so that they can
use insurance.
Um, people come to me and Igive informed consent on the

(18:37):
idea that you're seeing atherapist, and did you know that
I'm gonna label you assomething?
And there are risks to that,there's benefits, but I'm
telling you, and there'salternatives as well, uh,
believe it or not.
And so I have that conversationwith people.
I was I had so many labels puton me, and they're they're
actually really arbitrary.
And these, these books that weuse, these coding systems we

(18:59):
use, are are fraught withconflicts of interest.
The DSM book that uh cliniciansuse for diagnosing people with
mental disorders, the thirdversion that came out in the
80s, the individual who led thecrusade on putting it together,
honestly did a public statementindicating that when that book
came out that had hundreds ofdiagnoses in it, there were less

(19:21):
than 15 that were actuallyfounded in research.
And he felt so pressured to putthis book out that it led to
publishing something that nowthere's two more versions of it
that wasn't even rooted inresearch.
Most of it was not.
And fast forward to today,myself as a as a counselor in my

(19:44):
counseling business that Ihave, uh, anyone who prescribes,
anyone who sees a patient, weare labeling them and those
labels stay with you.
Most of them are quitearbitrary because we focus on
that so we can get to thetreatment versus where did it
come from?
And what are the what are thesymptoms?

(20:04):
What's the story behind thatlabel?
The story behind my labels hasbeen squashed and gone for many,
many, many, many, many years.
And yet that carried throughall these years where I was
being diagnosed.
I'm a mom getting ready to havekids and told we have to weigh
these, like to weigh this.

(20:25):
Like, you're what if thatdepression comes back?
How could that depression comeback when the issue that caused
it is 20 years old, right?
But it stayed with me foreverand it became part of my
picture.
It became part of the whybehind, you know what, you know,
your mood tanks, yourdepression gets worse in the

(20:45):
fall.
Um, actually, the reason mydepression probably got worse in
the fall was from several otherthings, including sunlight, low
vitamin D, uh, and that mynutrition and the fact that my
nutrition was pretty crappy formany, many years.
There's so many reasons thatcould have caused my mood to
tank in the fall.
It probably had nothing to dowith the depression.

(21:06):
It could have been aniatrogenic effect from an SSRI.
Because as we know, when youare on SSRIs for long term, they
will hit a plateau, which if myrecords beautifully show
increase.
Months and months go by,another increase, months and
months go by, another increase.
You could see it laid outbecause the medications itself

(21:26):
continue to plateau until you'reput on a max dose.
Yeah.
Um, because that is whathappens.
They lose that effectivenessover time as the brain continues
to recalibrate.
And so you could see thatspelled out right now in
hindsight.
I'm looking at it, I'm like, ohmy goodness, right?
So, so to get back to yourquestion earlier, it that was
one of the first times where Iwas like, I gotta get off this

(21:48):
stuff.
And that was the conversationthat was had with my OB.
I was told that the medicationsdo not break the placental
barrier.
Uh, I remember asking that forboth of my children, um, which
is grossly inaccurate.
Now, I had my children, guys,in the last uh 13 years.
Research goes back to the 80salready, showing that that is
disproven and is inaccurate.

(22:10):
So that was out there at thetime.
Did I get curious about it?
No.
I took what my physician wassaying as a truth.
And I went through, I followedthat.
So I had two children takingLexapro through both of the
pregnancies.
Both of those children umsuffered withdrawal, neonatal

(22:31):
withdrawal.
Just finished signing apetition for the FDA about all
of the other complications thatI had: birth complications,
neonatal withdrawalcomplications, mental health,
early mental healthcomplications, learning
disabilities that have nowoccurred, that all are could
very well be from such along-term use of a medication

(22:52):
that has completely changed howmy whole body communicates with
itself.
My one child I know was insignificant withdrawal, lots of
latching issues, feeding issues.
Um, the child was unable to,you know, holding them would do
nothing.
The colicy lasts forever.
Um, 15 months of not sleeping,couldn't connect with my child,

(23:13):
couldn't breastfeed my kidsbecause they couldn't latch on.
But the the list goes on and onand on.
Um and so that was the firsttime I think I got really
curious um and asked about themedications, but didn't didn't
go, all right, Jen, take whatthe doctor's saying, now go look
this up.
Yes.
Yeah, go go just go look it up,right?
So I'm in my 20s, and that wasprobably the first time.

(23:36):
Then we fast forward to aboutthree years ago or so, where the
second level of like, I'm gonnaask about this again came into
play.
At this point, I was with my umhad transitioned from my OB as
my prescriber to my familymedicine doctor.
And it was following someoneasking me, Jen, like, why are
you still on this?

(23:57):
It was following me starting toreally dive down the rabbit
hole of the impacts of SSRIs.
It was following me actuallylooking at all of the medical
issues that I've had that havepopped throughout my life, you
know, from everything from majordigestive problems to horrific
acne and everything in betweento infertility.

(24:18):
Um, there were two years whereI was told that I was infertile,
uh, did all the drugs, did allthe things, um, was able to end
up having children, but spentabout two years in the mindset
that I couldn't.
So all of these tiny littlethings, you know, precancerous
stuff that has popped along theway, all the all these, you
know, medical things, um,significant amounts of sinus

(24:42):
issues, you know, and you justkind of look at it, multiple
rounds of Accutane for horrificacne, prescription deodorants
because I'm sweating.
I cannot stop sweating.
And here a lot of these are allcorrelated and side effects to
this medication, right?
So a few years ago, I'm like,all right, it's time to dive

(25:02):
into this.
So I went down the rabbit hole,did all the research, went into
my prescriber, and it was alldismissed.
There is there is no way thatthis can be causing this.
No, Jen, my most recentadventure was Jen, your blood
sugar is high.
And we're gonna start somepre-diabetic protocols with you.

(25:26):
And I'm sitting here going, Iam the poster child of lifestyle
being dialed in.
Like, talk about sleep,exercise, nutrition to the gill,
like it doesn't make sense atall.
Yeah, mindfulness, wellnesspractices, and I'm like, this

(25:47):
doesn't add up.
So of course I present theresearch on metabolic
dysfunction after long-term SSRIuse.
And I'm told, no, no, no,that's not possible.
It's your liver, and the liveris causing these blood sugar
elevations, and we still we needto start looking at that.
So I stopped taking what wasgiven to me at face value, and I

(26:11):
made a decision that I don'treally care what you're saying,
I'm going to start to titrateoff of this medication.
And so that's when the secondproblem came into play.
Prescribers know how toprescribe, they have no idea how
to de-prescribe.
And I will take that battle onwith any psychiatrist, any

(26:35):
family medicine doctor.
I'll take it on with anybody.
Because you weren't taughtthat.
The curriculums today do notteach that.
It's not in there.
You're taught how to give thismedication to people, but you're
not taught when is it that westart to question, okay, well,

(26:55):
when is it time to maybe comeoff?
How do you know when maybe weshould look at coming off?
Maybe we should look at thesymptoms that you keep having,
and perhaps it's actually beingexacerbated by the medications.
Maybe this is there is thisiatogenic effect that's
occurring.
Um and so I started to getsuper curious about that.

(27:16):
And for me, what it led to isgoing back into that same
prescriber.
I brought the Moudsley's deepprescribing guidelines with me,
and I sat it in front of her andI tapped on it.
This, like, I was like such amother thing.
I'm like, oh my gosh, she'snever gonna talk to me again,
right?
I'm tapping on this book,right?

(27:37):
And I said, I don't want tolisten to what you're gonna say.
I want you to look at this andread this for a minute.
And what I was tapping on is ahyperbolic tapering chart that
was in there, and she looked atit, and then I turned to the
page that talks about um certoccupancy and what that really
is and the mechanism of actionwithin Lexapro and showing this,

(28:01):
and that was probably one ofthe most empowering days I had.
I walked out of there, stillnot um getting any further
because my demand was it's timeyou give me a liquid.
Yeah.
Because at that point I hadstarted to taper.
And it didn't still happen.
It took another appointment forme to do something very

(28:23):
similar.
And my prescriber was like, Ijust can't get on board with
this.
In the 20 years I've been inmedicine, I've never given
someone a liquid.
And I said, I don't care, butthen I'm gonna be the first
person that you do that to.
And I showed her everything Ihad.
Created, I built a case for whyI'm an expert in this, and I I

(28:48):
will do this and how it works.
And hesitantly, finally, I wasgiven a liquid.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
But it took a huge fight, a big fight.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
So that was kind of the start of um my deprescribing
journey, which was um threeyears ago, and also led me to
opening a consultation practiceto help people get off
psychiatric medications.

Speaker (29:14):
And you're not all the way off, are you?

Speaker 5 (29:16):
No.
So um people will ask me this alot.
So I started at 20 milligramsof Lexapro.
Um, as of today, I'm down to3.25.
I have been tapering, guys, fortwo years and two months.
It has been quite quite the thehell, truly.
I had to really learn a lotabout what tapering was and the

(29:39):
different ways in which youcould do this.
I started to have some prettyscary symptoms when I started
tapering that I've never had inmy life.
Suicidal thoughts, really lotsof lots of out of body
experiences, a little bit oftart of dystonia that started.

(29:59):
Lots of anxiety.
I had depression, not anxiety.
Now I have anxiety and I haveit, you know, big time.
Lots of questioning reality,perceptual issues, histamine

(30:20):
issues.
The list goes on and on and on.
A lot of things I never haduntil I started to taper.
Lots of paranoia, you know,like husband's been gone at the
gym for two hours.
That's too long.
He's doing something.
Never, never had that in mylife, right?
So lots and lots of symptomsthat started to pop, not as a

(30:43):
function of my originaldisorder, guys, as a function of
withdrawal and what happenswhen you change the brain.

Speaker (30:50):
And that's one of the things that drives me crazy,
too, is that because we've puteverything in these buckets, you
know, we've got the depressionbucket, the anxiety bucket, the,
you know, manic bucket.
Anything that happens whenyou're withdrawing from the
medication gets dumped in thatbucket and it's identified as,
oh, your disorder is comingback, or oh, now you have a new
disorder, or you know, it's yourillness.
And there is no there, youknow, I it drives me crazy that

(31:14):
they call it discontinuationsyndrome instead of
acknowledging this iswithdrawal.
Your brain adjusted to themedication.
It has changed the function ofyour brain, and when you take it
away, your brain goes throughwithdrawal.
It is no different than goingthrough like withdrawals from
from illicit drugs.
It is no different.

Speaker 5 (31:33):
It isn't.
And there's there's I reallyget into social media like this
topic with people, and there area lot of well-respected people
out there.
The Nicole Lambersons of theworld, the Mark Horritzes of the
world that that I don't, wedon't see eye to eye on the
semantics behind what we callthis.
Yeah.
And that's okay.
And I just want to throw thatout there because, you know,

(31:55):
like these are all people,they're colleagues, they're
people that I have so muchrespect for.
But as a consumer who's goingthrough this, my definition of
this is it is withdrawal.
I did a I put a uh a thing outat one point um on my podcast, I
did an episode where I wentthrough all of the symptoms of
what tolerance and withdrawalare in relation to um an

(32:18):
addiction and going through theaddictive disorders.
I hit every marker.
I met all the criteria.
My body is physiologicallydependent on this drug.
And when I remove this drug, myworld falls apart.
I'm seeking it out in placesthat I that, I mean, because you

(32:42):
can't go without it.
I mean, you, you know, you'vegot a certain half-life for all
these drugs, and you know whathappened.
I know what happens if I hitfor the 48-hour mark of not
taking this.
Things go real south real bad.
And if I don't have it, I'mseeking it out.
I'm finding ways to get it.
I'm I'm calling the girlfriendsI have that are prescribed
LexPro going, my my mymedication's not coming in.
I need to use some of yoursbecause you are trying to find

(33:05):
it.
No different than someone who'sstruggling and battling with
any kind of other addiction isseeking it out.
Because once you put it back inthe body, the withdrawal
symptoms go away.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (33:16):
They are gone, they subside.
And so I refer to this asaddiction.
I refer to it myself as beingchemically addicted and I'm
physiologically dependent onthis.
I am addicted to this.
I can't go without it.
And if I'm not extremelycareful with how I remove it
from my body, the withdrawal isso significant uh that I cannot

(33:39):
function.
Uh, I am so blessed.
I have never been put inpatientanywhere.
I could have been severaltimes.
Okay.
Um, the fact I haven't beendiagnosed with mania also blows
my mind because within states ofwithdrawal, I would have I tick
every box.
I tick every single box.
Um, and I've been there.

(33:59):
And I think part of the beautyof this is I had enough
knowledge of this before Istarted because otherwise I
would have gone in to myprescriber and I I would have
said, hey, like this is what'shappening.
I can't function, I can't live,I can't, and I would have
gotten, well, this is why youneed it and you need to go back
on it.
And it's a manifestation ofyour original symptomology, Jen.

(34:21):
You do have depression, like,you know.

Speaker (34:23):
Yep.
Well, and and so I went throughthe cross tapering.
So I took, I took, you know,used micronutrients to help me
heal my brain.
And then when I would get overmedicated, then we would taper
down a little bit, and then wewould wait, things would level
out, and then you'd start to getover medicated again because my
brain was healing.
And but then when you're done,one of the things that I also

(34:44):
learned is that this stuff wassaying your soft tissues for up
to 10 years.
There's research about this.
And so I started like I was anathlete and I would go through
like training sessions.
You know, I would, I would getinto really intense training,
and I didn't realize I waspushing the medication out of my
soft tissues into my body, andthen I would get depressed.
So I had one time when Ithought I would outsmart the

(35:08):
system and I was going to do acleanse.
And I was warned not to dothis, but I didn't listen
because I was just sick of the,I was sick of the med releases.
I didn't want to deal with thatanymore.
And I was so depressed andsuicidal that I, if I hadn't
known better, I would have goneinto the hospital.
But I had to like beg myhusband to, I'm like, I'm not
doing well.

(35:28):
I was like telling himeverything.
I was crying and stuff, but Isaid I can't go to the hospital
because they'll put me onmedication.
And I I I've come so far.
I was off medication at thatpoint.

unknown (35:37):
Yeah.

Speaker (35:37):
And it was scary.
It was a really rough thing.
And that's one of the thingsthat's hard when somebody is
going through this, there's nosupport system for it.
Like we have to create supportsystems, you know, through like
you're you're a support system.
Our my group is a supportsystem.
But that's one of the thingsthat's challenging when people
decide that they want to take,you know, take this on and they
do want to get healthy and theywant to help their brain heal,

(36:00):
that they have to, you know,they have to seek out help.
But we can't go in the hospitalbecause they're just gonna put
you back on drugs, right?

Speaker 5 (36:07):
You've got to seek the help out in a different kind
of way.
Yes.
When I work with people ondeprescribing, one of the first
things that we well earlier on,what we get to is we talk about
dial, I talk to people, I'mlike, you gotta dial in your
tribe.
And this is really important.
And you've got to know who theright people are.
Because if the people in yourtribe who support you and love

(36:28):
you, but are gonna say to you,listen, Michelle, like you're
gonna have to go back on that.
Yes.
Like, this is because yourbipolar is back.
Yes.
This is because that ADHD hascome back.
Those are not the people thatyou're going to need in your
tribe while you are goingthrough this.
Now, I empower people to teachthem.
Yes.
Here's what you're gonna teachthose people because they are in

(36:51):
the dark a little bit.
So here's what you're gonna,you're gonna teach them a little
bit.
If you want them in yourcircle, then give them the
information so that they canbetter understand the difference
between the fact that thereactually is no genetic marker
for major depression, everybody,and uh FYI, most most of these,
uh, most of the mental healthdiagnoses.
There's there's no there's nouh genetic biomarkers, guys.

(37:14):
I hate to tell you that.
Um, as much as the researchshows there is, the DSM gives me
all the beautiful stats onfirst degree relatives.
I hate to tell you, but it'snot there, okay?
Teach the people in your tribethat these are falsehoods.
Teach them that there is nosuch thing as your
neurochemicals being imbalanced.

(37:37):
Did you have your spinal fluidtapped?
No, I don't I don't think so.
Did you go seek out the amenclinics and have them do some
scans of your brain and reallylook at, oh, look at that brain,
and it's changed over theyears.
No, you didn't do any of thatbecause there wasn't science
behind prescribing in the firstplace.
And the science that is outthere is is is rooted in in

(38:01):
benefit um and cost benefit.
And so the point of, I guess,this rant is kind of to teach
your tribe some of those truths.
And those are the people yousurround yourself with, and
you're gonna need them.
In fact, you're gonna need toteach your prescriber some of
this too.
I taught my prescriber manythings.

(38:21):
She's not very happy about it,and I don't know if she ever,
ever will get any farther inlife to actually take that copy
of the deprescribing manual Ileft there for her to read.
Ever.
Who knows, right?
Does it doesn't matter?
Put the people in your groupthough that understand this and
know this.
I also think the other thingthat you had said is is is

(38:42):
important, Michelle.
Now, this is not everybody'spath and journey.
One of the things I talk withpeople about when it comes to
deprescribing is um we talkabout micronutrients.
If you notice, I said I startedthis journey three years ago,
but I've only been deprescribingfor two years and two months
for myself because I spent oversix months preparing my brain

(39:04):
and my body for what I needed todo.
Um, I did a neuroadrenalprofile.
I went and had my levels ofserotonin, dopamine, glutamate,
GABA, all of my um, you know, mycortisol levels tested.
My norepinephrine was notconverting over.
And it's there, it's because ittakes cortisol.
And I that hormone was tankedfor me.

(39:25):
I had very little of it.
So I went and did some of thatstuff ahead of time, went and
got real smart on supplements,amino acids, micronutrients, and
I started doing that stuff formyself prior to starting.
I changed my lifestyle.
I went from being a marathonrunner and a crossfitter to

(39:45):
biking, yoga, yeah, lightrunning.
Yes, because I did the samething you did, Michelle.
I did the same thing.
One of the hardest truths iswhen I had someone say to me,
You are going to have to putdown those barbells.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (40:01):
Do you know what you are doing to your soft tissues
and to your adrenaline levels,which by the way, you need those
because they are tank gen.
Do you know what you're doingby getting up at 4 a.m.
every morning and doingCrossFit?
And I'm like, I'm helping mymental health.
Stupid question.
They're like, no, and walked methrough the whole thing.

(40:22):
And I'm like, shoot.
None of it's restorative.
Yeah.
I was depleting my body of whatit needed.
I was activating cellular levelprocesses that were screwing me
over.
And you need that stuff whenyou're tapering, you know.
So I talk about that with myclients.

(40:43):
I did it myself.
Um, it's not for everybody, butI found it very powerful.
And even in my taper now, youbest bet there's a regimen of
supplements and amino acids thatI will go through and shift and
change nutrients that are allthe nutrients that have been
depleted by Lexapro, look thatone up, guys, and find out why

(41:04):
it is that like you have allthese other things going on in
your life because you'vedepleted, I don't know, folic
acid, which is huge.
Yes.
Like, so I think it can be veryhelpful.
Um, not everybody I work withdoes that, but I do.
And it's been very, veryhelpful for me.
I know when I need a little bitmore 5 HTP.
I know when I'm struggling andI've got to bring some more GABA

(41:27):
in.
I know when certainmicronutrients, it's time to
dial some of those in and focusmore heavy on that than other
things.
I know what happens when I gomore than five hours and I don't
stick protein in my mouth.
I know these things because youget such a really great
relationship.
You learn to read yourself andlisten.
Yeah.

Speaker (41:46):
Well, and I think I think that's one of the things
that's so we kind of get robbedof that when we when we get
labeled with these labelsbecause we stop looking with
curiosity about what's going onin us, and we we let that we let
somebody else tell us that youhave an illness and you need
medication, and then we don'tknow that the medication is is

(42:07):
interrupting normal brain or youknow, physical processes and
that.
And we and we start to seeourselves with the lens of
illness, right?
So the human experience is nowillness, and we become
insensitive to our to ourselves.
And over the healing process,it what you're talking about is
becoming sensitive to thosethings again and learning how to

(42:30):
feel them.
That's why mindfulness, I lovethat that's one of your four,
you know, your four pillarshere, is because mindfulness
helps you to learn how to staypresent with emotions that were
suppressed and and and learn howto process them, like allow
your body to feel the emotionand process it in a healthy way
rather than trying to shove itunder with medication and

(42:51):
treating it like it's there'ssomething wrong with it, right?

Speaker 5 (42:55):
Exactly.
You become there's there's twodifferent things here you're
saying in here, you become yourlabel, essentially.
Uh and that becomes part of whoyou are and it defines you.
And that is one of somethingthat irks me so I feel so bad
when I am on social media orI've got I I have somebody
that's, you know, because I'mconstantly having people argue

(43:16):
with me, right?
Because I'm throwing out themost controversial stuff in the
world, right?
Like, so controversial.
And um, I will have people thatwill jump in from um you know
the the neurodivergent communityand they will say, nope, like I
when the the best day of mylife is when I was diagnosed
formally with ADHD and that Ifinally knew what was going on

(43:40):
with me, right?
The best in it, you know, andthat be their even their their
handle, their name is you know,ADHD survivor or uh SSR IN SSR
INS forever.
Yeah, meaning, you know, gottatake the SSRIs forever, right?
Uh, which that's spoiler alert,that's usually who I tag in all
my posts about SSRIs becauseI'm like, you're the audience

(44:02):
that that I was you, I was youfor so long.
Like maybe you should just Iknow you're getting irritable.
Good, get irritable.
Like, great.
Yeah, like maybe there'ssomething to what I have to say.
Yeah, but those labels defineyou, they become part of who you
are, they become part of yourstory.
Uh Michelle, when you came onour show, you talked so much
about like there was so muchstock that got put in the

(44:24):
bipolar.
Yes.
And when we only look at that,we stop considering everything
else that could be contributingto our state of being.
Yeah.
Everything, whether it's thebiggest stressors in life,
unresolved trauma, toxins in ourenvironment, the fact that that
we eat nothing but processedfoods and our body is not

(44:48):
functioning well, right?
Like the idea that themedications could be causing
issues, right?
There's there's a a laundrylist from the like alternative
world, and I'm air quoting thatright because I think it's just
the world that we should sit in.
But all the things we don'tconsider because it's no bipolar
to this is what we've got.
And so everything revolvesaround that label.

(45:10):
All of my care plan for allthose years revolved around
major depression.
Yeah.
Because I had that majordepressive episode.
I did have an episode.
Heck yes.
Um, I did have depression,anxiety, whatever you want to
label it.
And when I was 16, becauselet's see, I was in high school.

(45:32):
I had no idea who I was.
I was going through everyday16-year-old stressors.
I was comparing myself toeverybody in my world.
I was an athlete who felt shehad to have so much pressure on
her.
Academically, I am quite slowand I struggled so badly to keep
up.
So I put all my time into that.
These are everyday socialstressors, these are all the

(45:55):
things that are happening in a16-year-old's world.
But the label followed me andfollowed me up until I'm I'm you
know in my 40s now, followed meup until three years ago when I
decided that doesn't get todictate what's happening in my
plan of care anymore.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
But it was all gen suppression.
Yeah.

Speaker (46:17):
Well, and it and it also robs us of agency.
I feel like it really preventspeople from being responsible.
And that's where our feelingsof value and self-worth come
from, is our is our personalaccountability and
responsibility.
And so it robs people of theirfeelings of value and
self-worth.
And I think that's one of thereasons why people cling to

(46:37):
those labels so desperately isbecause that is the permission
structure for why you'restruggling so much in your life,
right?
Why you're damagingrelationships, why, you know,
and we want, we want to bringawareness and we want to, you
know, normalize and and that.
And whenever I see thosethings, I understand where it's
coming from, but it drives mecrazy because it they always

(46:59):
people always want to comparethese things like like bring a
make a correlation between forbipolar, between bipolar and
diabetes, right?
And I'm like, okay, so I don'tlike that comparison because
there's no basis in reality withthat.
However, if we're going to usethat comparison, let's talk
about normalizing.
We don't top a lot, you know,we don't normalize a diabetic
coma.
Like we don't normalizesomebody passing out because

(47:21):
their blood sugar's off.
Let's not normalize thesesymptoms.
If you're having the symptoms,your brain and your body are
screaming for help.
They're telling you.
We need to listen to them.
I one of the best things that Isaw, Dr.
Joseph the other day, orJoseph, I think it's Joseph, he
put on, he posted on X, he said,um, taking an SSRI when you're

(47:42):
depressed is like turning offthe fire alarm.
And I'm like, oh my gosh,that's such a great description.
Because you're asking yourbrain and your body are asking
for help and you're just like,be quiet, be quiet.

unknown (47:53):
Yes.

Speaker (47:53):
We'll feel better if you just be quiet.

Speaker 5 (47:55):
You stop, you stop listening to yourself and you
give the power to the whitecoat.
And this is something you'llsee on a lot of my socials.
In fact, like a lot of mybusiness stuff I have is me
wearing a doctor's coat and itsays Jen Schmidt's not an MD.
And I'm like dumping out abottle of pills.

(48:16):
I gave my agency to somebodyelse for a very, very, very long
time.
And I didn't listen to myself.
Now the warning signs werethere.
The red flags were there.
In fact, I I had somebody whodid this a comparison and they
called it feather brick uh Mactruck, I think is what they had
said to me.
They said, first it tickles youlike a feather.

(48:36):
You notice things are wrongwith you, and you're like, nah,
I'm just gonna, I'm not reallygonna listen to it, right?
Like, I've got a symptom goingon.
I'm gonna chalk it up to, Idon't know, my crappy job.
We'll chalk it up to that.
I'm stressed at my job.
Then something else happens andit hits you like a brick,
right?
And it you pause longer and yougo, I wonder if this could be

(48:56):
due to something else going on.
But I dismiss it again, right?
Like medically something comesup and you're just like, okay,
so I have acne and I need tostart on Accutane, one of the
most dangerous drugs in theworld that you sign your life
away for because if you have achild on it, they're gonna have
14 toes.
It's dangerous.
Meh, I okay, sure.
It must be coming fromsomewhere.

(49:17):
I don't know, right?
And then it hits you like a Mactruck.
And the Mac truck comes whenthe medical diagnoses and
problems you have, the mentalhealth issues you have are so
exacerbated that you can't lookaway from it anymore.
And there you are sitting in aspace of your marriage is
failing, you're you can'tconnect with your children,

(49:40):
you're in a job that it's gonnakill you if you stay in it,
which was this is all my storyhere as I'm talking.
Um it's gonna kill you if youstay in it.
You've you've been incorrections now for a long time.
You're not gonna make it.
And you and it hits you so hardthat you pause and go, okay,
this isn't cool.
So the Mac truck comes.

(50:01):
And usually by the time the Mactruck comes, guys, sometimes
it's too late.
There are lots of things for methat were too late because I
didn't listen to the feather.
I didn't listen to the brick, Ididn't listen to the agency
inside of me.
I gave it to the white coatrepeatedly for many years.
I missed out on my children'sbirths.

(50:21):
I can't remember any of it.
I missed out on all the firstswith them.
I can see it in pictures, but Icouldn't tell you anything
about it.
I missed out on the firstvehicle I had and how the
remembering the excitement ofbeing 16 years old and getting

(50:42):
that for the first time.
I missed out on what a sexualexperience should be like for
the very first time and whatthat feels like and the emotions
that go along with what that isbecause I was medicated.
I missed out on connecting withmy spouse for the last 16 years
that we've been married.
I can't do that.

(51:04):
I can't actually get to adeeper level of emotion.
It's not there for me.
The centers of the brain thatthese drugs impact to allow for
natural human emotion andexperience, I can't get there.
I'm the person that was alwaysput in charge of all of the um

(51:26):
really horrific things that werekind of going down in the
prison.
Um, I worked there for many,many years throughout many
prisons in the state ofWisconsin.
Um I believe I chose thatcareer because Lexapro helped me
choose that.
Um, I could be veryemotionless.
Almost one could say callous.
I could go into a circumstancethat could be gruesome, scary,

(51:50):
there's death, uh, and peoplewould go, bring Jen in because
she can handle this.
I'd be the person in the familysystems when there would be
someone sick or or um someonewas dying, and I'd be the one
that would be there helping thembecause I'm not connected to my
emotion.
I can walk you through the endof this.
That's the person I became andwho I was.

(52:12):
Um, it served me very well interms of growing throughout my
career.
And yet, I mean, this is Ithink why I chose the career
that I did, because it's notlike you're super connected to
your clients when you're in aprison system.
You do a lot of maintenancetherapy.
Crisis, crisis, crisis, crisis,crisis.
That felt fine for me to dothat because I could handle all

(52:34):
that.
But I can't get to thoseemotion states, guys.
Like I, for your listeners thatare out there, I I can't feel
like genuine remorse.
Um, I I can't feel um I'mstarting to be able to feel
guilt.
So I can give you that onebecause I can kind of start to
feel guilt a little bit.

(52:55):
I can't feel pride.
Um I'm very emotionally cold inmany ways.
Um, I was sitting with myhusband the other night and he
is just in it and going throughsome things, and I caught myself
just feeling meh apathetic, soapathetic.

(53:15):
Instead of sitting with thehuman who I care about more than
almost anything in the worldand being able to connect on
that level, I can't I can't doit.
Now I'm getting little glimpsesof it as if I started to
titrate a bit, but I can't Ican't go there.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
And it's it's so disgusting.

Speaker 5 (53:36):
I'm so angry about it.
That's what I've been robbedof, um, those experiences.
Uh and that's where themindfulness work comes in
because I have to intentionallycreate this for myself, even if
it feels kind of forced.
So that's the part of psychmedthat we don't know about.

(53:56):
Guess what?
In in 15 years, you're gonna beon the antidepressants have
ruined my marriage Facebookgroup, going, Yep, here I am,
here I am, right?
Like because you you lose theability, you lose that human
ability and the agency, you lyou lose that.
Um the areas of your brain thatare impacted by these drugs,

(54:20):
they do they they do remove thatand slowly over time, um, they
they they don't open up.
You you can't have higher orderthinking.
The emotional centers are areare dulled down so much.
Um you have no sex drive, it'sgone.
It's gone.
Like completely.

(54:41):
PSSD is a very, very realthing.
Um and and so I I think it'simportant for people to have
awareness of this.
Everything I've said today arethings that I've gone through
and that I am I'm still goingthrough.
Um it's a hard reality to lookat your kids and your family and

(55:02):
and know that you you reallymissed out on so many years of
what could have been joy or truehappiness.
Because you you can't you can'tfeel it.

Speaker (55:15):
Yeah.
I spent a lot of time mourning.
You know, it was there was alot of regret and a lot of
mourning.
And then I kind of came to apoint one day when I thought,
okay, I can't go backwards, Ican't do anything about the
past.
So what are we gonna do movingforward?
And and I one of the things I'mreally grateful for is that
there are so many resources nowdeveloping because of all of
this that there are brilliantminds.

(55:37):
There's somebody that I had onmy podcast a little while back,
and for some reason that thename's going out of my head, but
she has been working fordecades in neuroscience where
she has found ways to help thebrain heal itself, like trigger
healing in the brain.
And they she started workingwith you know people who had
autism, but it's transferable.

(55:57):
And so I started working withthem because I had I could not
feel connected to my oldestdaughter.
Like I had a there was, and Ithought there was something
wrong with me.
Like I was doing therapy, I wasdoing all kinds of stuff.
I didn't know for years thatthis was a result of the
medication that I had been onfor years that had like blunted
my emotions, and working withthem started rejuvenating my

(56:21):
brain, and like you know, all ofthis stuff started coming back.
And we had, I'm just I want tosay this to you so that there's
hope because she got married inMay, and it was one of the most
incredible experiences of myentire life.
The whole day was perfect, andI felt so emotionally connected
to my daughter, and it was sucha gift.

(56:42):
And so I want people to hearthis is real, the trauma is
real, the sadness was real, theregret is real, but there is
hope because now that peopleunderstand this, there are
brilliant minds at work tryingto help people heal and trying
to help repair the damage andgive people hope to be, you
know, to be able to recover andlive full, productive, happy

(57:03):
lives, right?
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (57:05):
Yeah, oh, oh, for sure.
And the the we uh I say thisall the time to people like your
your brain, it's not it's notbroken.
Okay.
It the brain is one of the onlyorgans in the body that can
fully do exactly those thingsthat you were just saying,
Michelle.
Um, and so the the idea thatwe're stuck where we are and

(57:26):
that it is hopeless.
I have a lot of people thatreach out to me and people that
I see that are, I just don'tknow if I should move forward
with trying to get off of thesemedications, Jen, because I it's
hopeless for me.
And I talk a lot about some ofthese concepts with them.
And and it it's it's a that'swhere the psychology behind this
is, I think, really importanttoo, which I think I'm really

(57:50):
blessed as being able to be adeprescriber and walk people
through like the logistical partof Thai trading and all the
different ways we could do this,right?
And whether we're gonna, youknow, hyperbolically taper,
whether we're gonna do somemicro tapering, right?
Like we're gonna cross-tape,however, it looks for people,
right?
Like that part I love, but thenI love the ability to have the

(58:11):
expertise, not only academicallyin psychology, but subjectively
and personally going throughthis too, because I can offer
all of that because there's somuch psychology behind this.
Yes.
Like when you get to a spacewhere you realize that all those
years of you thinking it was ayou issue, like with your

(58:34):
daughter, right?
Like all the therapy, thetreatment interventions, the
what is wrong with me, right?
Yeah.
When you get to a space whereyou're like, oh my gosh, this
wasn't me.
Yes, but yet now there's allthis damage, right?
Like there's synthetic braininjury damage that's happened
now because you you do, you havea synthetic brain injury, guys,

(58:55):
and people don't like to hearthat, but you started with
nothing, there is a syntheticsynthetic injury there.
So you've got that going on,and then you're you've got the
ability to go, but if this isn'ta me issue, there's a hard
truth of going, okay, but thenif I spent a lot of time trying
to address this in the wrongway, there's different ways that

(59:15):
you can view that.
But in the end of it, no,actually, everything you've
done, you needed to do.
Like this had to be part ofthis process.
It had to be.
Yeah.
And so there's so muchpsychology behind deprescribing
and like trying to get off ofmedication as well.
I got people I see that arejust talking to me to just
figure out whether or not theyeven want to do it.

Speaker (59:35):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 5 (59:36):
Because you've got to walk your way through all the
mind trickery and the fear.
Yeah.
Every narrative you've beentold, you have to unlearn.
Yes.
Yes.
You know, like this idea likeyour power coming in to come
from internally and not fromsomebody else.
That is a foreign concept.
Like, you gotta work your waythrough that.
You gotta work your way throughthis idea that like there's

(59:59):
nothing Probably wrong with yourlibido.
It's not because you're notskinny enough.
It's not because your partnerdoesn't desire you.
You're taking a medication thatis actually taking that from
you.
And then you work through theyears of the dieting and all the
crap that you tried to do, orthe doctor's telling you it's
your weight.
This is why you're havingissues with libido.

(01:00:21):
It's like I was told by myprescriber, and I again I was
trying to find this in my notesso I could blast it out on
social media.
I very distinctively remembermy prescriber saying to me,
because I went to her and Isaid, I have no sex drive.
I talked with my mom aboutthis.
I talked with my aunt about it,and I got very kind of in their

(01:00:44):
own way, kind of funny,dismissive answers.
Well, everybody goes throughthis, you know, like, well, my
aunt, she's like, just take myoh my gosh, my grandmother, rest
her soul.
She'd say, just take a shot ofbrandy and just go do what you
know you gotta do.
All women go through this,right?
Oh my gosh, my grandmother.
And I I would get things likethat, right?
And I'm like, I'm just notbuying it.
So I asked my prescriber andshe said, you know, Jen, what

(01:01:04):
you need, if this is reallyhappening, you need a sex
therapist, Jen.
And here, this whole time itwas from these SSRIs, right?
And and of course it was notwritten in the notes in the
dictation.
Shocker, shocker.
That's fine.
But these narratives, then youhave to undo the psychology
behind like all these beliefsystems you had about yourself

(01:01:26):
in your world.
Yeah.
And so sometimes that's youstart with that, right?
So it's just stuff you wouldnever consider.
These these are the things thatyou would never think that
you'd have to do, right?
Yeah.
But you you gotta work your waythrough the cognitive part of
that because going off ofmedication, the e uh and this is
this is I my judgment, the dosedecrease and playing around

(01:01:49):
with the science behind that,that part is actually pretty
easy.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:01:54):
If we know the mechanism of action, if we know
the half-life of the drugs, ifwe can understand, like if it's
an SSRI, if we can understandcert occupancy, if we can
understand withdrawal symptomsand pay attention to them, and
that it only means we went alittle too fast and we need to
alter our method.
That part I think is a littlebit more black and white than

(01:02:14):
also having to undo all of thebelief structures that you've
had, uh feeling like lied to,yeah, um, very much so as a
patient.
Um you know, having to undo allof that I think can be quite a
different process as well.

(01:02:34):
Uh because there's so muchpsychology behind it.

Speaker (01:02:38):
Yeah.
And I I want to, I think that'sa great segue into what you do.
I I think I would love for youto tell my audience what it is
you do now.
So you started years ago, youwere for many years, you were
working in the prison systemwithin traditional, traditional
like therapy and and you movedinto it's very obvious from your
story why you moved out of thatspace.

(01:02:59):
But could you talk about that alittle bit and talk about what
it is you do now and how youserve your clients?

Speaker 5 (01:03:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
I I would put it into likethree pockets of hustling right
now that I got going on.
So the first pocket is um thetherapy pocket of this.
Um, I'm a licensed professionalcounselor.
That is what I did most of thetime when I was working in
corrections.
The last, well, I should saythird, I shouldn't say most of
the time.
The last third of that career,I was actually a supervisor and

(01:03:26):
I was overseeing um the mostseriously mentally ill
individuals that uh were in theprison system in the state that
I reside in.
So my job was to oversee thatmental health unit.
Um, so I had gone from beingthe therapist and I worked in
multiple correctionalfacilities, male and female.
Um, my areas of expertise, mymy niche areas were working with

(01:03:49):
psychopathology, uh workingwith borderline personality
disorder, um, and working withlike really antisocial
personality disorder.
Those were the areas ofexpertise that I kind of landed
in.
So I was working with thosethat were pretty severely ill
and were trying to and and theirlives each day.
That was my population.
It was very, very, very acute.

(01:04:09):
Worked within that field andthen moved into supervising.
So then I would oversee theunits, the staff, the social
workers, rec therapists, theofficers, all of the above,
worked hand in hand with all thepsychiatrists, the doctors, the
teachers.
My job was to run amultidisciplinary team of all of
those.
And so I did that for manyyears, wanted to work my way up

(01:04:31):
into being the deputy warden andwas in the process of starting
to go to that next rung and thatnext level when I decided
something I don't really knowwhat it was.
Um, finally, maybe freakinglistened to my agency and went,
uh, if you keep doing this,you're not gonna make it.
It's gonna take you down.
I was medicating a stressfullifestyle at that point in many

(01:04:54):
ways.
I was medicating with alcohol,medicating with SSRIs.
The alcohol was obvious.
The SSRI thing was not.
I that was just part ofeveryday life for me.
So I decided to make it, makeit, make a, make a leap.
And I left state service, Ileft the sure thing, left all
the things, and went intoprivate practice as a therapist.
Pretty quickly from startingthat jump, I started to dive

(01:05:19):
into some of the more holisticor alternative viewpoints of
things, if you want to look atit that way, because traditional
uh Western education didn'tteach me any of that stuff.
Um, it didn't teach me aboutthe true research behind
antidepressants or otherpsychiatric medications.
Uh, it didn't teach me theimportance of holistic
alternatives and really lookingat nutrition and how that is a

(01:05:44):
huge driver.
Uh, and so I started down thatrabbit hole and ended up getting
a certified in some neuralhealth coaching stuff for
specifically for addiction, uh,because I was fascinated by it.
So before I knew it, the stackof books started growing and the
articles I start reading,right?
And I'm like, okay, there'ssomething to this.
As I started to work ondeprescribing myself, I realized

(01:06:08):
that I could offer this to theworld too.
And so I opened a consultingpractice, uh, which is separate
from my therapy practice, whichis very specific to helping
people titrate off of thepsychiatric medications.
Um and then within all of that,started um hours and hours of
me sitting with uh Dr.

(01:06:30):
Tara Lyncel, who is one of mycolleagues, and us just spending
just so much time going, whyisn't this more out there?
Why isn't there more stuff onthis?
Like, and we just we just wentcrazy.
And she had already been inthis realm a lot longer than I
had.
She was my very first mentor,actually, in Corrections, uh, 15

(01:06:52):
years ago.
And we only worked together fora very short time and then we
separated past.
And she was the one that Ireached out to, and I was like,
okay, you left and opened aprivate practice.
How'd you do it?
And so one thing led toanother.
And so her and I grew arelationship again, and we
talked all the time, and we'relike, that's it.
We got to start a podcast.
So, you know, so then right?

(01:07:15):
So the two business venturesturn into a third essentially,
which also fills the advocacybucket because we were like,
this is how we can give backreally truly.
And so that was last Februarythat that started.
So a year and four or fivemonths ago, um, and the Gaslit

(01:07:35):
Truth podcast was born out ofthe idea that we need to be more
curious.
Big food, big pharma, bigpsychology, everything in
between is gas, is gaslightingus.
The educational systems are,the medical systems are, and
before we know it, it's startedto spiral now into um an

(01:07:56):
international show, which is sovery cool.
And how we got, you know, thisis how we connected.
Um, so I have a few differentpockets, I guess, of hustles of
things that I'm I'm working on.
So those are my kind of threethree areas.
Um yeah.

Speaker (01:08:12):
That's amazing.
And I I just I it's sointeresting because so many
people could be in your shoesand never never question.
Like, I I think that's one ofthe things that I love that
you've talked about on here thatI am a huge advocate of is X,
you know, taking backresponsibility for yourself,

(01:08:32):
accepting personalaccountability, responsibility,
like ownership.
I can't, you know, I I had thesame thing.
Like over the years when I wasbeing told, you know, I had a
chemical imbalance and you knowthe medication was like insulin
and you know my bipolar was likediabetes, like my brain would
like accept that on a certainlevel.
Then I'm like, okay, but wait aminute, why do you have to keep
changing the medications?

(01:08:52):
Or, you know, if this is, youknow, or or when they were
trying to, you know, withinwithin the mental health system,
there is a lot of permissionfor bad behavior because you
have an illness and you can'tcontrol it.
And so everybody just has tolearn to, you know, support you
and live with you and you know,and all this.
And and so I, you know, Imentioned earlier, like I my
children save my life.
I literally, the react the realrealization that maybe it's not

(01:09:17):
my fault, but it's absolutelynot their fault.
Like they don't deserve this.
There's gotta be a better way.
I just I my my soul wasrejecting what I was being told,
but it took a long time for meto get to the point where I
started thinking, wait a minute,maybe what I'm being told is
not true.
And even after I got to thatpoint, that's one of the things
I actually would like to askyou.
So I it's taken five years ofresearch to really unwind

(01:09:43):
everything to get to the pointwhere I'm like, this is all like
the entire foundation of thisof psychiatry is wrong.
Like that, you can't.
I I put a post on X one timewhere I'm like, trying to fix
the current psychiatric systemis trying to is like trying to
remodel a house on a crackedfoundation.
Like the foundation itself isflawed, and we need to, we need
to like rip it out and startover again because the the

(01:10:06):
entire system is you know isbased on faulty assumptions.
Yes.
What how long did it take youto like uh did you go through
that process yourself?
I'm assuming you must havebecause you were trained in
traditional, you know,psychology.
You worked in that for so long,you were steeped in it.
How did that what did thatprocess look like for you?
And how did you like pull thatout of your?

(01:10:27):
Do you know what I mean?
Do you know what I'm asking?
This is not very simple.

Speaker 5 (01:10:29):
No, I do know what you're asking.
Yeah, I um so so when I startedto the the the pointed question
that was asked to me is why areyou still on this medication?
That I think for me, at leastwith my crappy memory I have
going on here, like thatquestion sparked something for
me.
The spark led to a reallysimple like Google search.

(01:10:51):
I remember just kind of, allright, Google Scholar, here we
go, Jen.
What's the impact of SSRIs onfill in the blank?
Right.
Like, and so I started thereand I remember I got I started
to read a few articles, and I'mlike, okay, well, this one still
is showing that it's fine, youknow.
And so I started asking somemore colleagues.

(01:11:14):
I'm like, you know, I need youto remind me about back in the
day when we learned about how toread research, because this was
a big part, right, of of ourdegrees.
And I said, tell me all thethings, right, that I I'm
forgetting that I need to lookat within research.
And so the discussion startedabout, well, look at the sample

(01:11:35):
size, look at whether or notit's a you know,
placebo-controlled double blindstudy.
Look, look at like who thecontrol group is and how the
control group is formed.
And I kind of went back into myacademia like brain and went,
oh yeah, I've learned all thisbefore.
Like I had to, I had to do someof this.
Okay, got it.
And so I started Googling alittle bit more.
I'm like, okay, what are thethings I want to look for?
Because it again, my memory isso, so shot.

(01:11:57):
I mean, it's amazing.
I I I have a couple degrees anda license.
Truly.
I mean, I don't think I've everread a whole book in my entire
life and I couldn't tell you alot of what I learned in school
because it's that arbitrary.
Anyways.
So I started down that littlerabbit hole, and it didn't take
long for me to go, okay.
And I started to just read afew research articles.
And I started to see withinthem, like, well, huh.

(01:12:20):
This talks a lot about likesexual side effects being one of
the number one things thathappens.
And then I start, I grab mylittle leaflet, my little
insert.
Yeah, I even have one righthere, right?
All the little things that camewith my prescription, and I'm
reading through all of it.
I'm like, I'm gonna look theside effects up.
Looked up all the side effectsand like throw.

(01:12:41):
I start reading them and I'mlike, huh.
That one's actually buried inthere on page three.
So yeah.
And so I started with that.
As I started, my algorithmnaturally started spitting out
all of this stuff for me whenI'm start when I'm looking
things up.
One of the first things thatpopped for me, damn it, Robert
Whitaker is his books.

Speaker 4 (01:13:03):
And I feel like I have to say, I have to say that
word in front of Bob's name.

Speaker 5 (01:13:08):
He's such a great guy.
He's been on my show.
I I have so much respect forthe mad, but I'm like, just so
you know every time I say yourname, I'm gonna say damn it in
front of it.
Um and I read, there you go.
I read Madden America first.
Oh, that's and then I readAnatomy of an Epidemic.

Speaker (01:13:23):
I just want to warn anybody listening that you need
to read them if you want to likereally understand how messed up
everything is, but they arereally hard to read.
It's so hard to read them.

Speaker 5 (01:13:33):
I I know.
So I started with those, andthen I started into Peter
Breggan's work, and then Istarted reading Joanna
Moncrieve's work, and so itstarted with this, right?
And it started to spill intolike, you know, better brain for
nutrition and all these, allthese publications, salt, sugar,
fat, that are all out there.
And I just started going downthese, these, these rabbit

(01:13:55):
holes, essentially.
So for me, that was the startof it.
I emailed Dr.
Yosef.
I'm like, what else can I read?
I remember like a year agoreaching out to him.
I'm like, do you have anything?
Right.
I'm like, where's the research?
Where's the and he's like, Jen,it's not all put out there
pretty with a bow on.
So it's and it's not, right?

(01:14:16):
So I started to dive into theresearch that's from the 80s
about SSRIs and it breaking theplacental barrier.
And so I slowly just startedcreeping into all of this.
And it really got me set upinto a space then where I could
better understand um how to lookat research in in a very

(01:14:36):
different way.
Because spoiler alert,everybody, when you're in
college and you're going to be aPhD, a psyche, uh a licensed
professional, a counselor, asocial worker, whatever it is,
you're not taught like, here'sthe way to navigate research.
You're given the research andyou are taught that it is the
research.

(01:14:57):
Okay.
Um, they spend more time tryingto get you to write APA double
space format style, 20-pageblah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
than they do.
Going, you might want to lookat this study and the idea that
when Prozac was in was was onthe market, the control group
was made up of people who wereon it.

(01:15:18):
They washed the drug out ofthem really quickly, put them
back on the drug, and look howgreat they did.
And that became your controlgroup.
And and so, you know, I I Istarted to just dive in that
way, and I I I hit all thewebsites, like all of a sudden,
it shows up in your feed,antidepressantinfo.org.
All of a sudden, all the PSSDnetwork, they all start popping

(01:15:40):
in, you know, and Iantidepressant coalition, and
then you start to and I start topull articles off that and I
start reading that.
And it really became a lot ofself-study.
And so people will ask, youknow, they'll ask me, how did
you, where did you get your atformal education on how to
deprescribe?
This girl found it all.

(01:16:01):
Yes.
And I'm still finding it all.
You know, I I'm finding it allthe time.
I open open up the Mousleymanual.
You know how many articles arecited in there, people?
Great.
Pick one, look it up.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
Yes.

Speaker 5 (01:16:15):
Very slowly, right?
And I'm just like, so I'm alsokind of going out of tangent
here, but to answer yourquestion, that's how I got to
the space where I am.
I also started to get to thatspace within my counseling
practice.
Um, personally, I have a very,very difficult time with um
diagnosing.
I have a very, very difficulttime with labeling people.

(01:16:38):
I have a very honest informedconsent conversation with my
clients about that before theythey seek out services if they
want to use insurance.
I'm very open with people aboutthis.
Um, I'm very transparent as aclinician because I want people
to know I do have biases and I'mgonna, you know, I'm gonna keep
them in check.
But here's what they arebecause you need to know that.
Um, my website shows people whoI am.

(01:17:00):
Um, my psychology today profileshows people who I am.
So I think it's important thatpeople you look at that before
you go see somebody because I amgoing to bring these types of
things in.
Yes.
And if I'm not your cup of tea,then I'm not your cup of tea.
But it's very far from thetraditional counseling realm,
right?
Um, I'm gonna talk to you aboutnutrition a lot.

(01:17:22):
I'm gonna talk to you abouthyperbaric oxygen chambers and
what this is going to do for therestorative pieces of the
brain.
I'm gonna talk about cellularfunction.
I'm gonna talk about all ofthis stuff.
Yes.
I'm actually gonna talk aboutthis label that you have, and
let's actually go through thewhole thing.
Let's go through the etiologyof it.
People's story in theirnarrative, their whole story is

(01:17:42):
what matters to me the most,whether I'm I'm deprescribing or
I've got a therapy client.
It tells the whole truth.
And when you put the wholething together, you can really
see people have these ahamoments where they're like, oh
my goodness.
There it is.
Uh-huh.
So I understand that you'vebeen diagnosed with bipolar one
and biar two, uh, bipolar twoand ADHD and major depression,

(01:18:04):
and um, that you've been uhmalingering.
Okay, I'm telling you rightnow, at the start, I'm not
giving you all those labelsbecause my job is also to look
at what came first.
Okay, yeah, you had a traumawhen you were nine years old and
you started getting medicatedat nine.
Let's start there.
Yeah.
And so for me, that's what Ibring to the game.
So I know your question wasabout like how did I get through

(01:18:28):
the research brain and how didyou find these things?
But um, that's kind of how Ioperate.
Because I think it's worth justgetting just getting curious
and having inquisition andagency is what it's really all
about.
And self-study, guys, is goingto be your best friend.
It's gonna be your best friendanytime somebody on social media

(01:18:51):
is like well, research shows, Idon't even reply.
Listen, I don't, I don't evenwant I'm not even I'm not even
gonna entertain it.
Okay.
If you look up my stuff, you'regonna find me being tied to
things like the FDA petitionthat's going out, where Kelly
does Folk Road has done a greatjob of putting 20 articles out

(01:19:12):
about this and the impact ofSSRIs on a pregnancy that are
not fraught with conflicts ofinterest.
Like, go find my stuff and lookat that stuff.
Yeah, stop taking what yourprescriber says as like face
value.
Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:19:24):
Don't take what I say as fast value, face value.
Like, go look it up, guys.

Speaker 5 (01:19:28):
Like, don't believe me either.
People get so mad in mypractice when they're like, so
I'm paying you a verysubstantial fee to offer
consultation on research, andyou're telling it on what's
going on with me, and you'retelling me to go do my own
research.
And I'm like, Yep.
Yes.
Because you have got to beempowered to figure it out

(01:19:49):
yourself, too.
I don't believe everything Isay.
I'm gonna tell you to go lookthis up.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:19:55):
Um, because that's what got you in this problem in
the first place.

Speaker (01:20:00):
Yep.
Yep.
Oh my gosh.
I could talk to you all daylong.
This has been so amazing.
It's even better than I hopedit would be.
Well, thank you.
So I always put people on thespot at the end, but I want to,
what is the one thing that youwant somebody to take away from
this conversation today?
What's the one thing you'llhope that they'll remember and
they will incorporate forthemselves?

Speaker 5 (01:20:22):
Yeah.
The one thing I'm gonna say,and this is just rooted in very
subjective personal experience,is when a prescriber or anyone
in that medical field, evenyeah, I mean you could be with a
counselor, right?
Um, a therapist, apsychiatrist, you know, when
anybody says something to youthat doesn't sit quite right,

(01:20:46):
and you're uh believing whatthey're saying and that's the
truth versus taking what theysaid and thinking about it and
internalizing it and seeing ifit makes sense for you.
Okay.
If you get done with thatprocess, because that's all you
gotta do, Dr.
Michelle gives me someinformation, I'm gonna take it

(01:21:08):
in and I'm gonna let it sitwithin me.
I'm gonna try to figure out ifwhat they just gave me makes
sense for me.
If it doesn't, stop pause.
You don't have to do anythingand just take a moment to go,
all right, I'm gonna get curiousabout what this means for me

(01:21:29):
because I understand you'resaying this, but it doesn't add
up.
Stop.
Look it up, research it.
Spend, spend an hour of yourlife to try to stop what could
be years of things that youcan't undo once you get into it.
Don't lose inquisition.
And so I think that's mybiggest message for everybody.

(01:21:51):
Um, I was a sheep, a quietsheep, just following the herd
um from age 16 to 40.
Yeah.
And so I I didn't, and I knewit was there.
There were times when it wasthere.
It was there with my prescriberwhen I was trying to have kids.
It was there, but I didn'tlisten to it.

(01:22:12):
So don't take what's being saidto you at face value.
And I think the other thing is,is you are smarter than your
prescriber.
You know more than the personthat is handing you those
medications because the personhanding you those medications is
not taking into accountsubjectively what's going on
with you and your whole story,nor is there science behind that

(01:22:35):
prescription.
There is not.
My spinal tap was not, fluidwas not taken, my brain was not
scanned.
I was not given a significantamount of objective assessments
either.
It's the quick four question uhquestionnaire that goes out um
that hits the four big areas ofdepression.
Yes, that's what you're given.

(01:22:55):
So there isn't a lot of sciencebehind this, guys, at all.
So if that doesn't feel right,stop.
Yeah don't give them yourpower.
You're actually more powerfuland you are actually knowing
smarter and know yourself betterthan the person on the other
side of the table.
Oh my gosh, I love that somuch.

Speaker (01:23:11):
You are amazing.
Where can people connect withyou?

Speaker 5 (01:23:14):
Yeah, yeah.
People can find me atgensmitz.com, J-E-N-N, Jen with
two n schmidz.com.
All my stuff is on there.
Uh the podcast, the gaslightpodcast is on there, my
deprescribing stuff is on there,my therapy practice is on
there, all the above.

Speaker (01:23:29):
I'll make sure everything is linked and then
show notes.
Uh, thank you so much.
This has been an amazingconversation.
I'm so grateful to you.

Speaker 5 (01:23:37):
Thanks for having me, Michelle.
It feels feels good to be ableto tell the world a little bit
more about this.
And hopefully there are peoplelistening that go, okay, I'm
gonna just get a little morecurious.

Speaker (01:23:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
Perfect.
All right, until next time,upsiders.
Thanks for joining me on theUpside of Bipolar.
Your journey to recoverymatters, and I'm grateful you're
here.
For more resources, visitwww.theupsideofbipolar.com.

(01:24:08):
If you're ready to dive deeper,grab my book, The Upside of
Bipolar, seven steps to healyour disorder.
If you're ready to heal yoursymptoms, join my monthly
membership, The Upsiders Tribe,to transform chaos into hope.
Until next time, Upsiders.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Burden

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}EP 69: When Labels Replace Lives: Reclaiming Choice, Curiosity, and Consent with Jenn Schmitz, MS, LPC

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Burden

All Episodes

EP 69: When Labels Replace Lives: Reclaiming Choice, Curiosity, and Consent with Jenn Schmitz, MS, LPC

Stuff You Should Know