Hi Prudence,

Thank you for your loving, informative posts. I'm about half way through the first module and excited to keep going. 🙂

After being on several (up to 8 at one point!!) psych and pain meds for over 10 years, including clozapine, I became interested in the farm to table movement and started to eat a lot of locally grown foods. From there I learned about food as medicine and began experimenting with my diet, with the goal of slowly coming off of meds. My constitution seemed to change with every new nutrient dense food added and every med removed! My body seemed to change so frequently, that I had to look at each day like I was a new person. It took a couple years to come off all meds and a couple more years to find balance in my diet and balance in my constitution.

I am currently watching and guiding a friend go through the same process of coming off psych meds. She becomes anxious as her body changes while she is learning to listen to its needs. I've also helped a friend with an autoimmune condition with finding the right diet for her nutritional needs and she has also experienced major changes in her constitution. 

I think anytime we make significant changes to our lifestyle, our bodies and minds will also make significant changes. Whether that's through diet, coming off/changing medications or adding a spiritual practice. Every change is very powerful. Which I find to be very exciting!

Much love,

Rachael

Hi Rachael😊

It’s lovely to hear from you! Congratulations on coming off psychiatric medications!

Im wondering if I may ask you some questions? What helped you the most coming off meds and how did you manage withdrawal symptoms?

I have tried to come off psych meds 40 times, and now I’m making my 41st attempt! I have lots of great support and I feel very hopeful! 

My biggest challenge is going into psychosis during withdrawal. I was wondering if you experienced this and how you managed it?

Its interesting you mention changing spiritual practices as I have recently done so. For 14 years I practiced kundalini yoga nearly every day and at times 3 times a day. A few weeks ago I made the decision to stop doing this. Now I do singing, dancing, affirmations, gentle short meditations and intuitive flow yoga. I used to practice 2-3 hours a day and now I do 30-60 minutes. I feel fantastic! I feel grounded. My intuition guided me in this change. For me I sense that gentleness is best while I withdraw from meds.

May I ask what spiritual practices you did while coming off psych meds?

You are an inspiration for me!

I hope you have an awesome and nourishing day🌸🙏🌸

Blessings to you🐬🦋🌈

Hi Prudence!

Thank you for your kind words and for sharing your experiences with me. I have a good feeling about your 41st attempt!! Kudos to you for keeping at it. The more we learn about ourselves and acquire resources, the easier it is to keep moving forward.

I'm happy to share my experience of coming off of meds with you. I hope it helps in your journey. The most challenging withdrawal was from clonazepam. I was on 4 mg per day before I started decreasing. Drinking lots of water and bone broth, eating homemade sauerkraut and keeping off refined sugars helped support me during this. I had also started my first spiritual practice doing svaroopa yoga with yoga nidra once per week. I went for gentle daily walks. I made sure to get plenty of sleep and talk about any anxiety or fear I felt with my therapist. It took about 6 months to be down to 1/2 of a .25mg pill per day. This is when I started to experience some psychosis. I continued to consume bone broth, but felt no desire to eat anything else. Or see anyone. Or do anything. I felt nauseous and like I couldn't tell what was real. Looking back, I see that this stage was part of my spiritual emergence. I was feeling, seeing and sensing things that I had never before and assumed that I was crazy. Of course the physical symptoms of drug withdrawal (nausea, sleepiness, sweating and tremors) were challenging as well. But, the psychosis symptoms were terrifying. I got through them by having the support of my twin brother. As well as making sure I kept drinking lots of water, continued my yoga practice at home (just 10 minutes a day) and slept a ton. I also took to painting. Everything I was seeing, feeling and sensing that made no sense, I put onto the canvas. It helped to get it all out. The symptoms were intense for about 10 days. Then slowly became easier. And after about 3 weeks I felt back to "normal". Well, what was now my new base level. I was clear headed and had a better sense of what was happening in my body. I had now cleansed my body of a drug that had taken over for 13 years. It felt great to not depend on it anymore.

This may sound crazy to some.....Recently I pulled out one of the paintings I did during that clonazepam withdrawal (7 years ago) and realized that it was a painting of a powerful experience I had in a group meditation just a few months ago! I feel that the psych meds prevented me from connecting with my spirituality and once I had removed "enough" of the toxins from my body, I began to have a clearer intuition and a deeper knowing of my emotions and bodily sensations. 

I hope this answered your questions. Please feel free to ask more questions, if this was not clear. 

I hope your day was wonderful and filled with love.  😊 

-Rachael

Hi Rachael 

Thanks so much for your reply and sharing your story with me! Big blessings to you!

I find it wonderful how you used art to express, release and manage your emotions during withdrawal! I am also an artist. I’m currently doing a creative project- I’m making a coming off psych meds oracle deck. It is to help me with the process and I hope one day it will help others too. I also have a YouTube channel which is about my journey coming off psych meds and the tools, resources and support that help me.

Its amazing to me how you managed psychosis during your withdrawal! I am very inspired and hopeful that I can manage whatever arises too. I agree that it is part of the spiritual emergence process, I believe all psychosis is spiritual emergence and people just need tools, resources and support to manage it. The problem I have had that when I have psychosis during withdrawal I get terrified and take myself to hospital, a bit of self sabotage there too. I hope now I have enough positive support around me and within me that I don’t feel I need to do that.

It is lovely to have met you! I’m glad you have a good feeling about my 41st attempt. I really appreciate the positivity and hope this gives me!

Namaste Rachael