Laura Delano is an inspiration. A Mad In America blogger, Laura writes and speaks about her withdrawal from psychiatric drugs with great power, honesty, and clarity. After many thoughtful discussions with Laura, I invited her on Madness Radio for an in-depth interview about her experiences and about the broader challenges of living with and without psych drugs. The interview was timely, as I’ve just finished the second edition of the freeĀ Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs guide I wrote five years ago, and Laura was one of the contributors helping with the revision. As more and more voices like Laura’s come forward — young people drugged in their teens and early twenties waking up to years of harm at the hands of medical deceit — I hope we can head towards a new cultural context around coming off meds. Psychiatric patients are not second class citizens: psychiatric medical decisions include the same rights of choice and informed consent as any medical decision — including the right to a second opinion, to take risks, go against doctor’s opinions, try alternatives, and take charge of our health care. We need to focus the discussion on how best to help people come off medications, not whether or not “coming off meds” is too radical to even discuss.
Ā Madness Radio: Coming Off Psych Meds Laura Delano