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The Trauma of Psychosis: My “Bipolar” Journey

Mad in America

I tell this story through the lens of akathisia (and a similar condition known as restless leg syndrome or RLS) since it was an early indicator for me that while I was being treated for the typical symptoms of bipolar, I was actually dealing with trauma. In May of 2021 I had a severe manic episode that led to psychosis.

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Beyond Medicalization: Psychedelic Therapy and the Promise of Community-Based Healing

Mad in America

Author’s note: For transparency, I am the co-founder of Elemental Psychedelics, a state-approved training center for psilocybin mushroom practitioners in Colorado. Taking all of this into consideration, the question for me has become: Do psychedelics represent something meaningfully different here?

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How I Developed a Critical Perspective on Psychiatry

Mad in America

I can think of many examples throughout my early career where I saw many people admitted to psychiatric wards having suffered an adverse life event, recent or past trauma, only to leave with prescriptions for multiple drugs to treat their new presumed diagnoses.

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Power, Privilege & Controlling the Narrative: Vested Interests in ‘Mental Health’

Mad in America

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on our affiliate site, Mad in the UK. It was written by David Hansen, a crisis worker at a person-centred, survivor-led mental health crisis service. I have tasked myself with mapping out my understanding of how therapy and mental health relate to politics. Is therapy political?

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Recovery of Soul After 22 Years on Antipsychotics

Mad in America

There appears to be more dopamine uptake due to the antipsychotic-induced brain compensatory mechanism as a response to the suppressed blockade state in an effort to achieve energy equilibrium. A fter 22 years and many attempts I finally stopped taking antipsychotics.

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Depression: Psychiatry’s Discredited Theories and Drugs Versus a Sane Model and Approach

Mad in America

P sychiatry’s serotonin-imbalance theory of depression, long discarded by researchers, was finally flushed down the toilet by psychiatry and the mainstream media in 2022. And psychiatrists’ primary treatments for depression—their so-called “antidepressants”—are now circling the drain. 2) What approach to depression makes sense? Genes and depression?

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Does Grief Cause Memory Loss? Understanding the Cognitive Impact of Bereavement

Center for Integrative Psychiatry

Grief is more than just sadness, its a profound emotional experience that can affect your entire body, including your brain. This is sometimes referred to as grief brain fog, and its a real, biological response to emotional trauma. Your brain is under stress during bereavement. Is Memory Loss from Grief Permanent?