Laura Delano
Appearances
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
It's such a good point. And I often say, I do think socioeconomics is a huge piece of the puzzle here when it comes to struggles just generally and when it comes to the power that the American mental health industry has over our society today. And because I had access to the best of the best, I was going to McLean Hospital, New York Presbyterian. I was seeing Harvard Medical School.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
professors for consultations, we believed all the more deeply in everything we were being told because who would we be to question these leading experts? And so at the same time, we went so deep in because I think of this faith we had in all of these top doctors. But when I did eventually kind of have my awakening, you could say, and I realized that
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
this story of incurable mental illness needing lifelong treatment is just a story and it's actually one that's not based in much scientific evidence. And I eventually decided to come off all of these.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Totally. And I had no idea that the average length of a psychiatric drug trial was six to eight weeks when I was started on these drugs. And I also had no idea that there's zero evidence base for polypharmacy. These drugs have never been, you know, the safety and efficacy of these drugs have never been studied in combination with one another. And yet...
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
There I was on multiple psychiatric drugs for well over a decade. And I just assumed, I just took for granted, if my doctors are prescribing me this, this way, there must be an evidence base for it. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. And of course, you know, I eventually learned the hard way that's not true.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I completely agree. And in many ways, I feel for the tough position that we've put psychiatrists in over these past 30 decades that the psychopharmaceutical revolution has taken hold. The more prominence these drugs have come to play in... the treatment of struggling people, the, you know, the smaller the toolbox that psychiatrists have at their disposal.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
So the more prominence that psychiatric drugs have come to have as the kind of one and only first line treatment for people who are struggling, the fewer tools that psychiatrists end up having at their disposal until literally all they have is their prescription pad.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I've seen it. I have not read it, but I know it.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Indeed. And I would go so far as to say that a lot of what gets called serious mental illness, you know, the kind of stereotypical
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
person on the subway who's acting in a scary way, that at some point in that person's past, they also were having ordinary, typical, you know, perhaps on the extreme end of the spectrum of human suffering and then had enough time pass of not getting what they really needed or getting a lot of what they didn't need that things have kind of spiraled to the point where they look like they're in this separate space
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
class of suffering that's different than normal struggling.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Oh, I totally, I totally agree. I totally agree with that.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Yeah.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And there's a large movement of people around the world who actually challenge the idea of schizophrenia, even something as severe, you know, in our minds as that diagnosis that people who've realized, you know, they've heard voices, they've been psychotic, they've had all kinds of delusions, and they've actually realized these experiences that I was having were actually rooted in trauma and especially early childhood trauma.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And they became as extreme and intense as they became because they didn't actually address the root, the origins of what eventually led to this kind of severe, unmanageable situation.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And so I think, you know, this idea that there is a separate class of people who have, I agree with you completely that psychoactive drugs can cause brain, can cause neurological injuries that can have lasting effects, but I kind of put that in a separate category. I think we... Very common. Oh, I think you're right. Very, very common.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And I think what I... Because I grew up psychiatrized, as I like to put it, I grew up basically... believing that every single mental and emotional challenge that I had, and I had extreme challenges. I tried to kill myself for goodness sake. I mean, I was on a psych ward four times. I was what you would call a severe case of bipolar disorder.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
But when I look back now and I see that believing so deeply in this medicalized framework of understanding myself actually taught me to kind of give up any belief in my own capacity to grow, to change, to evolve, because I believed I just was at the mercy of this brain disease.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And I do think for a lot of people out there with all kinds of different diagnoses, that medicalized story can have this disabling effect. And the problem is when you're also on these very powerful meds, like you said, are only, you know, it really intended for short term use. And speaking for myself, my ability to step back and think critically about this was impaired because I was on five meds.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
You'll appreciate this, Dr. Drew. In the end, I was on lithium, Lamictal, Abilify, Effexor, and Ativan. Five psych drugs. And this was considered like a sophisticated regimen. I couldn't think, I couldn't.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
But this is the standard of care for a bipolar diagnosis. I know, it's a miracle.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Well, I had the bottom where I decided to kill myself because, you know, this life with treatment resistant mental illness wasn't worth living. And then I had my, I wouldn't call it a bottom as much as an aha moment where I realized this story of self that this future of, you know, psych wards and more and more meds and not being able to work and not being able to take care of myself, you know,
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
When I began to educate myself about what we know and don't know about these drugs, I realized my gosh, what if this doesn't have to be my fate? What if this story of treatment-resistant mental illness, and that's why my life is the mess that it is, what if it's actually the treatment? And so that was really the turning point for me where I realized I have to give myself a chance here.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I could always kill myself. I mean, that's the headspace I was in. I was like, if I try to come off these drugs and it doesn't go well, I always have that. But I knew I had to give myself a chance.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Ironically, I totally agree. Thinking about suicide ironically kept me alive for years because it was like the one- I understand. Yeah. Yeah.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I would say... What jolted me out of my psychiatrized slumber, you could say, was I did have a few experiences like what you're describing. And these experiences all had to do with the power that... a psychiatrist has to strip you of your rights. So I was forced to go into the hospital when I didn't want to go in. I actually did want to go in. I just wanted to get my belongings first.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And there was a whole kerfuffle with me and my psychiatrist and security guards were called and I was escorted over to the ward and given the so-called choice of going voluntarily or involuntarily. That was the first thing in me that just What is this? Like, I had known intellectually for years that people were forcibly hospitalized all the time. I had watched it happen.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
But I had never imagined that I would be that person. And when it actually happened to me, it forced me up against this idea. previously unquestioning faith I had had and all of these well-meaning mental health professionals to take care of me. And I realized they also have control over me. I've given them this power over me. So that was the first of a few experiences with force and coercion.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And then what really was my big turning point was actually finding a book that was the equivalent of, you know, a supportive person. For me, it was a book by a journalist named Robert Whitaker.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
The book is called Anatomy of an Epidemic, and it looks at the long-term evidence base for psychiatric drugs and makes a compelling case that if you actually look at outcomes, they're much poorer in people who stay on these drugs long-term. And that was... what really jolted me awake. And there I was on five drugs and my life had fallen apart over the previous decade.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I was a total, I was totally dependent on my family, totally disabled, couldn't work, had no friends, was just in crisis after crisis. And that book is what helped me step back and say like, what if it's not treatment resistant mental illness? What if it's the treatment? And that set me on the path that I've been on ever since. Yeah.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Well, maybe I could quickly kind of walk your listeners through how I got myself off of these drugs and which led me to the work that I do. And just to set the stage out the gates, the issue of tapering off of psychiatric drugs is a hugely important one. And I think right now, especially as more and more people in our current cultural climate are beginning to step back and question
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
their relationship to pharmaceuticals. By my account, there's somewhere between 65 and 70 million Americans on psychiatric drugs. So the issue we have here is that Getting on these drugs is very easy, but getting off them can be very hard.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And there are very few visible places where you can turn in our society and certainly within the mental health system itself to actually get good, safe, reliable information about how to taper off these drugs. And so when I decided in 2010, in my late 20s,
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
to come off the five meds I was on, I had no idea that because I'd been on these drugs for so long, my central nervous system was completely dependent on them. No one had told me that. It had never occurred to me to educate myself. And so I also didn't know, therefore, that stopping these drugs too quickly
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
would cause debilitating withdrawal symptoms so i came off five drugs way too fast in about half a year which is basically cold turkey and had a brutal time spent the first year you know it was a big success if i took a shower i was just i was just a mess and i would say the first few years off the drugs, you know, it, it really took that long.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
It took years for my, my body to recover from what I call pharmaceutical trauma, because these are potent psychoactive chemicals. And when, when, you know, they've been altering your body for decades, many, many years, it takes a lot to heal from them. So I just want to say that out the gates that it's a really serious decision to make.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
It's dangerous to start a psychiatric drug and it's dangerous to come off one. And what I ended up discovering a few months, year, a year in was that the people who knew the most about how to safely taper off of these drugs were not actually doctors. They were lay people. They were people who had to have had to figure it out for themselves because they had no support
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
from the mental health system itself. And so I began to connect with other people who were trying to come off these drugs. I was writing online about my experiences leaving behind the mental health system. And so people were finding me through my blog. And I just, I realized that my story is a much bigger story. What happened to me is not unique to me.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
This is happening at scale to so many people around the world who start psych meds for all kinds of reasons and And then years later, when they want to come off of them, have a hell of a time. And so I eventually started a nonprofit organization called Intercompass Initiative that now my husband Cooper runs. And our mission is we're not anti-medication. We're not anti-psychiatry.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
We're about helping people get good information about the drugs that they take and about how to safely taper off of them. And I think to me, the most important part of what we do is around helping people understand kind of take back the power and the ability to help themselves and one another in a mutual aid capacity.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Because I know for me, as someone who grew up in the mental health system, I believed for so many years that the only kind of valid help there was came from a professional. And there are some great therapists out there. Some of my closest friends are psychiatrists. I'm not bashing them, but they've Professionalized help has such a monopoly in our culture.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And I think a lot of us have realized that going through difficulties yourself, taking these drugs yourself and coming off of them actually gives you a different kind of expertise that can be really helpful to other people. So much of what we do is about helping people help each other.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Yeah, Moniz won a Nobel Prize.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Yeah, and I think one important point to make here is that because people are often brought off way too fast without realizing it, and the doctors don't realize they're tapering people too fast either, when people have a hard time after they've come off, they get told, oh, you're having a relapse of your illness because, oh, we tapered you slowly. We tapered you over a few months. Yeah.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
A few months is actually very fast. And so people will end up staying on these drugs long-term because every time they think they're coming off slowly, they feel horrible. And then everyone tells them, see, this is why you need to be on them. And that's where public education is so important.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Well, I think, I mean, when I look at my own experience, I see that all the struggles I was going through were actually very meaningful responses to what was happening in my life, around me, in the culture of the town I grew up in. When I eventually came to believe that my struggles were symptoms of an illness, I cut off the ability for my suffering to mean anything else.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I stripped it of context. I depoliticized it. I basically came to see it as these meaningless symptoms of faulty pathology. And so when you think about how many people are... engaged with the mental health system today in our society, again, just people on psychiatric drugs alone, it's almost one in four adults and something like one in 10 kids.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And you think about how many of them are also like me, believing that their struggles are symptoms of an illness instead of responses to their lives. Maybe it's related to nutrition and diet. Maybe it's related to bad things that have happened to you. Maybe it's related to bullying or a meaningless job or loss of social connections. There's so many reasons why people have
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
challenges, sometimes they're biological in nature, thyroid issues. And, you know, of course, there can be real biological factors. But I think because our culture is so medicalized in how we think about struggles, we we end up not only perpetuating the suffering because we're all convinced that we can't really do anything about it because it's just faulty pathology.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
But we also end up disempowering ourselves from actually changing our world. I think if you look at COVID, for example, and how many people ended up on any anxiety drugs and antidepressants, that anxiety and despair was actually a really healthy response to have given to what was going on. And yet people ended up coming away from that thinking they were sick.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
So I think the consequences are significant and we have to step back and say, is this really the best way to make sense of our struggles? Or are there other more humanizing ways and contextualizing ways to think about it?
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Hear, hear.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
here, here, especially for our young people. And growing up in therapy, I think for a lot of us, certainly for me, taught me to focus a lot on myself and a lot on whatever emotion I happen to be feeling that day and kind of prioritizing it over everything else. And I think you're seeing the effects of that in our culture too, where young people feel
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
feel a strong emotion and then see their, see the world around them only through that emotion. And, and, you know, and, and there's a lot of kind of that itself can be quite immobilizing. And I think, you know, for me taking back my power and realizing I have to take responsibility here. for, you know, what I do with how I feel.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I think more young people are actually, you know, waking up from this, like, therapeuticized way they've grown up and realizing, like, you know, I don't know if I want to keep doing this anymore.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And I want to actually kind of step back into the driver's seat of my life and take responsibility for myself and not just, you know, be angry all the time at everyone and, and, you know, demand change just so I can feel better because life is hard. Life is really hard. And, and, uh, exactly.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Well, please come visit me at lauradelano.com. Our nonprofit inner compass initiative is theinnercompass.org. We have a free self-directed tapering manual. We have a community there. We have tons of information and find me on my socials. You can get all of that on my website and please read on trunk and let me know what you think of it.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I hope so too. Thanks for having me.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Yeah.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I don't.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Thanks, Dr. Drew. It's great to be here.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
so i was an intense sensitive um big feeling kid and at age 13 ended up having um what i now see was a profound kind of crisis of self where i realized you know i don't I really know who I am. I'm just performing these roles in school. And I had this total collapse internally where I just, I felt convinced that I didn't have, I didn't know who I was and I didn't have an authentic sense of self.
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14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And so that eventually led me to begin.
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14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Yeah, seriously.
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14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
Yes.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
But you see, Dr. Drew, this happened at a very opportune moment in the history of adolescent psychiatry. This was in the mid-90s. So you probably recall there was this huge push at the time to take angry, irritable, despairing kids and give them a bipolar diagnosis. And so that's what happened to me at age 14. Mm-hmm.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And so what, you know, was in retrospect, I see a very typical, if intense version of adolescence. You know, I was cutting myself and I eventually was talking about and thinking about death. And, you know, I was an extreme teenager. I needed help and my parents were overwhelmed. So I ended up getting this diagnosis within an hour of meeting a psychiatrist who I'd never spoken to before.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I just poured out all my pain to her and she concluded I had this incurable mental illness called bipolar disorder and that began what was a nearly decade and a half relationship with the mental health industry. And with each passing year that I invested more and more deeply in this idea that I was sick and that my difficulties were all symptoms of this illness.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And two meds became three, three became four, four became five. My life just began to fall more and more apart. And every step of the way, my parents and I were being told that my illness was just progressing. And eventually I reached the point where
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
I was declared treatment resistant because I was basically the story, you know, was I was just so sick that even all these, this great treatment and all these great hospitals, because I was going to the top doctors at the top institutions in New England, you know, even all of that wasn't able to help me.
Ask Dr. Drew
14 Years & 19 Meds: Why Laura Delano Stopped Years Of Psychiatric Drugs & Went “Unshrunk” + Paleovalley’s Autumn Smith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 484
And so that story of treatment resistance led me to... Let me ask a really challenging question.