Brooke Siem, MAY CAUSE SIDE EFFECTS: A Memoir
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[1:29]Brookseum is the author of a may cause side effects a memoir
[1:33]Brook is a writer whose work on antidepressant withdrawal has appeared in the Washington Post
[1:37]New York Post psychology today and more
[1:40]She was also an award-winning chef and food network chopped champion
[1:44]Her debut memoir on antidepressant withdrawal may cause side effects is available now
[1:49]And it was profiled in the New York Post
[1:52]And also on my Instagram when she came over
[1:55]And this was one of my first in-person podcasts in a while and we had a blast
[2:00]All right
[2:02]Welcome, bro. Thank you
[2:05]Thanks for coming to this in-person podcast
[2:07]Which clearly I haven't done in a while as I was unfamiliar
[2:11]I was so somewhat ready, but anyway, my family's all over and it's a mess
[2:14]So this is life
[2:15]Hello, it's very welcoming
[2:17]This is actually exactly where last night we watched your episode of chopped
[2:22]Which was amazing and even though I know you won and they knew you won
[2:25]I wasn't gonna give it away
[2:27]And so there was still some has some suspense, which was which was wonderful
[2:30]It's an entertaining 45 minutes of television
[2:32]Yeah, yeah, I didn't it didn't make it obvious or easy for myself or anyone
[2:37]You know, it was so funny because I had already read it
[2:39]So I was like you guys she might look calm here
[2:41]But she was so nervous and then I was like straining to see
[2:44]I'm like do I see little like postures on her arms like are they out in this scene?
[2:48]Yeah, now you couldn't I don't know if you could have seen those
[2:52]Obviously well, okay first of all your book may cost side effects was so good
[2:58]So so good. I'd loved it. You're a really great writer
[3:01]I don't always say that just so you know you probably are aware
[3:05]But your words the way like your turn of phrase was so amazing that I kept like
[3:11]Underlining and dog earring and screen chatting and and all of it even the way
[3:15]There were some way you described an x-ray machine which stuck out to me something like a thousand
[3:21]Well, I'll find it later. Anyway, I love how you write. So thank you
[3:25]You wrote that this took you a long time to write this book and that like the act of writing it took a long time
[3:31]Tell listeners a little bit about what your book is about and the backstory
[3:36]Okay, so my book it didn't start off
[3:40]as the book it became so
[3:42]The book is now about my experience with antidepressant withdrawal
[3:45]Which the long story short is I was a child of 15 and my father suddenly died
[3:50]And I was put on antidepressants right away because it was 2001
[3:54]That's what was starting to happen then. That's still what happens a lot now
[3:58]And you know, I was I was still a kid. I just was doing what the adults were telling me to do and
[4:04]Fifteen years later. I was still on these same drugs. Nothing had been changed
[4:08]They'd been really poorly monitored and I just realized that maybe it was time to see what I was like as an unmedicated adult
[4:15]So I saw psychiatrists and started to get off them and basically my whole life exploded
[4:19]I entered into severe antidepressant withdrawal, which was not something I'd even heard of. I didn't know what it was
[4:25]I
[4:25]Didn't know if I was having a psychotic break or what was happening and it took a long time to get out of that
[4:31]Almost a year and in the meantime
[4:32]I'd gotten this opportunity to travel around the world for a year and so I decided I was going to take that opportunity
[4:38]You know no matter what
[4:40]Thinking that might you know, I'd be stable by the time it was time to go
[4:44]I wasn't and so I got on a one-way ticket to Malaysia and started traveling around the world
[4:49]Having still experiencing antidepressant withdrawal trying to figure out who I was without these drugs
[4:56]Literally getting to know myself from the bottom up again
[4:58]And that's effectively what the book is about
[5:00]but it actually started because
[5:03]My literary agent at the time for a previous book because I'd written a cookbook for my bakery
[5:08]I just kind of heard a little bit about my travels and said oh you should try writing a book and pitch it and see how it goes
[5:13]And I was like okay
[5:15]I'd been doing a long-term project of saying yes to things and so I just said yes and
[5:20]It started off more as a travel memoir and it was pretty bad and eventually I realized the real story
[5:24]It was about the antidepressant withdrawal and so that took a long time to unpack and just start to
[5:29]Write and figure out what it actually happened to me because I didn't actually really know until I kind of started writing and researching
[5:35]And then you also did the piece on the grandmothers cooking along the way
[5:38]Yes
[5:39]So what happened was I'd been working in restaurants in New York and then I owned a bakery in New York City
[5:44]And we wrote a book for that
[5:46]And so when I decided to start traveling I was really burnt out
[5:49]I hated the industry
[5:51]I was just really resentful because I had loved cooking so much and it really the years just kind of
[5:57]beat it out of me
[5:58]Yeah
[5:59]And so when I started traveling I said okay I need to feel love in some capacity
[6:04]And cooking was always such a source of love for me and then it was gone and that made me so
[6:09]sad that I said okay when I travel I'm gonna avoid restaurants as much as possible
[6:13]At least the fancy ones I've been in that world. I worked in that world
[6:16]I don't need to do that
[6:17]And so I said I want to spend as much time with the people who are cooking everyday food as I can
[6:23]And old recipes and old styles and so I decided to seek out grandmothers all around the world
[6:29]And I ended up getting invited into like 14 different homes in 10 countries for continents
[6:35]And I'd spend some times days with these women learning old recipes from all around the world
[6:39]And we just would talk sometimes their translator sometimes with points because we didn't have one
[6:45]Sometimes they spoke English and we could actually really chat but it was a really interesting
[6:51]way of healing throughout this process and I depressed with withdrawal in a way that was very
[6:56]personal to me and the two things were happening at once I didn't really write about it too much
[7:01]in this book because I think in a way it just really felt like it was for me
[7:06]And so I kept it I kept it a little out of there but I've since written about it and still in touch
[7:11]With some of my grandmothers over Instagram. It's great
[7:14]I love that you couldn't make that a deal like
[7:17]I thought about that and then the story was really once I got into it
[7:21]The story was really about and I depressed that withdrawal and how so many people go through this
[7:26]And don't know that they're going through this and it wasn't even so much about
[7:29]Okay, I'm a patient. Let me write a book for other patients
[7:32]I want to write a book to help clinicians and prescribers understand
[7:36]What this experience is like and to help family members because
[7:40]All they see is someone who quite literally looks like they're having a psychotic break
[7:44]And you need to know that that's not what it is in order to help support that person through
[7:49]So I basically wrote the book I wish I'd had
[7:52]And it wasn't about cooking
[7:56]You talked though at the end about if you had known better
[7:59]You would have done a more hyperbolic tapering versus the doctor who you saw who
[8:04]You know, it just made me think you can't like how is it possible that you can just go out and like find any doctor
[8:09]They can do anything. They can have give you all the worst advice and it's okay
[8:14]Like it there are no checks and balances to the whole thing
[8:18]I wish I had a better answer for you. I just don't but I hear the story
[8:22]I'm gonna hear a for hundreds of times at this point starting to publicly talk about this. It's
[8:27]I think there's a thousand reasons why this is happening everything from the broken healthcare system to
[8:33]You know doctors only being able to take patients and get reimbursed for insurance if there's a diagnosis to
[8:40]not having enough tools to
[8:42]People wanting to quit fix to people like me who were medicated for a reason at a certain time and have never been guided on
[8:50]Safe tapering or even given given
[8:53]Given an indication that getting off these drugs at some point would be possible
[8:57]Like I was just in the impression that well, I was broken. I mean, I'm you know
[9:01]I was given the line about having a chemical imbalance and this will fix it
[9:05]So especially when you're a child and you're told that you you imprint that
[9:09]On to your soul and that becomes part of who you are and to start on rambling that means to unravel
[9:15]Your entire identity and everything you've been told about your life
[9:19]Not to mention that you were grieving and I was grieving
[9:21]I mean that alone presents a mental illness
[9:23]You know, I mean literally
[9:25]Yeah, I mean the symptoms the symptoms are identical and now we have prolonged grief disorder
[9:29]So now it isn't mental illness. Yes. I wish I had known that whenever it is like you've been grieving too long
[9:35]Think yourself up. I'm like well
[9:38]Anyway, you started though from a place of on the outside looking totally together
[9:43]And then revealing to us through the book that on the inside you were literally contemplating suicide and all the numbers behind that
[9:49]And what it would be like and with you would get a diagnosis
[9:54]Maybe that would be good because that would just like be the end and you wouldn't have to fight it which was such a sad moment
[9:59]And then you would rebound
[10:00]and didn't feel a little better and then you would go back to it and and yet you were still
[10:04]able to stay off these drugs.
[10:07]Like you came from a place of, I don't want to say desperation because you had a support
[10:13]system.
[10:14]Your mom is like amazing and you had Allen who was also amazing and I'm like, I'm
[10:18]getting caught this guy Allen.
[10:20]The scene where you were laughing on the phone when you were like, I'm in, I think you're
[10:23]in Malaysia.
[10:24]Yeah, I'm a battle in Malaysia with like a man I've never seen before like, talk about
[10:29]him at a monster or whatever, it's like, yeah, that is pretty.
[10:33]Yeah.
[10:34]Yeah.
[10:35]Although I should point out so Allen has, it was a real research to you as you got off
[10:39]these drugs.
[10:40]Yes.
[10:41]Talk about that and how he taught you to like basically be kind to yourself.
[10:44]Yeah.
[10:45]So, so what had happened is again, I guess on the outside it did look like I had it totally
[10:49]together while I was on all these drugs but for me it just felt more like I was just continuing
[10:54]to play, to act out the rules that I had established for myself and been given like
[10:59]it wasn't even conscious.
[11:00]Like I just did it.
[11:01]I didn't feel like I was putting on a mask every morning and taking it off every night.
[11:05]It was just, I was just going through the motions but then I was also going on a down or
[11:09]trajectory so I was continuing to get more depressed and also more suicidal despite the
[11:14]fact that I was on all these antidepressants.
[11:16]So, you know, the math wasn't working out in my head and I finally had this light bulb
[11:19]moment and I was also having a lot of memory problems at the time.
[11:23]So my short-term memory was getting bad enough to where my business partner and I were
[11:27]getting in fights because she told me something and I'd forget.
[11:30]And we started to think maybe it has to do with all these, you know, psychiatric drugs.
[11:34]So when I got this opportunity to travel I was like I don't want to forget it.
[11:38]So that was one of the big reasons why I decided to get off of them.
[11:41]But then once I started to get into antidepressant withdrawal what happens and what happens
[11:45]to a lot of people is that there are all these hugely negative side effects.
[11:49]So physical, psychomotional, mental, hormonal, it's everything's going crazy and at the same
[11:56]time I was having these little moments of feeling like the lights turned on or colors
[12:02]got brighter or I'd feel creative or curious about something.
[12:07]And these were things I hadn't felt in 15 years, my entire 20s.
[12:11]I never felt that and those little moments for me were so important because I started
[12:16]to realize like wait a second, this is, there's part of me in here that I didn't know
[12:21]existed and I want to know more about that person and I'm curious about that.
[12:26]And so even though the vast majority of the experience was really awful and I was a struggle
[12:30]to keep going and to not just go back on the drugs, there was a big part of me that was
[12:35]just desperate to figure out like can I experience joy like is this possible?
[12:42]And I just needed to know.
[12:44]And so it got to a point where I started to lose hope and being able to experience that
[12:50]joy for more than just a moment because it had been going on for months and that's when
[12:53]we found Allen who was a kind of an unconventional counselor, I mean he kind of blended
[12:59]Eastern and Western modalities into his own little thing and it was all self-compassion based
[13:04]and for me, the reason why it was really effective is because I had so much memory loss.
[13:08]I had difficulty in traditional talk therapy, you know, going back to the time when I was
[13:13]an eight year old and an experience something, you know, I literally couldn't remember
[13:17]and I couldn't connect, especially all of the trauma around my dad being gone so fast
[13:21]that the memories were just gone.
[13:23]But Allen's technique allowed me to kind of tap into a metaphor or subconscious or a
[13:29]past life or whatever, you know, God with universe, whatever you want to call it, it allowed
[13:35]me to work with things in a very abstract way which for me was the only way I was actually
[13:39]able to start processing the trauma and the emotions and also like to get through with
[13:44]self and to, you know, start separating like, okay, what was me, what was because I didn't
[13:52]have this chemical in my body anymore and also like who was I and what did I want?
[13:56]So his process allowed me to do that and it's very difficult to explain.
[14:00]I hope I do a new day to get a job in the book because I didn't get a job.
[14:03]I almost don't want to try and explain what's like, no, no, no, no, you'll have to read
[14:06]it.
[14:07]No, it's great because you always alternate it like the thought and what it meant and then
[14:11]what you said.
[14:12]I'm parroting back to forth and but the takeaway from it from my perspective is that
[14:18]I took a long time for me to find a modality that worked for me and it wasn't traditional
[14:22]and but once I found it, it clicked and I started to feel like almost like I started
[14:27]to feel the healing happen pretty fast and so I'm really grateful that I had the ability
[14:32]and kind of it was my mom who brought him to me so I was able to just say like, okay,
[14:38]take what everyone's offering me right now.
[14:40]And then your dad also had all those tapes that you found that that was amazing.
[14:44]That was, yeah, that literally happened towards the end of my first draft and my mom
[14:49]just like standing there was a zip like that one day, like that's what I found.
[14:54]I'm like, I'm like, so I was so impressed you even had a tape player.
[14:57]Oh, I had to find it.
[14:58]I think I went through a few of them and it didn't work and I ended up with this like
[15:01]old Walkman and it was scratchy and then half of them had some radio show.
[15:07]That's how you drove her up because I'm so frustrated, like I'm funny.
[15:10]And I like how many, like we always did that with even our VHS tapes, like how many
[15:16]times did I record shows, like we couldn't just buy another VHS.
[15:18]How much were they?
[15:19]Yeah, I mean, like we must have recorded over it like a hundred times.
[15:22]Yeah, and then you know, you'd have like some memory that you really wanted and some
[15:25]kind of a good jeopardy.
[15:26]I was like, oh, okay.
[15:27]Well, I didn't need my sixth birthday party.
[15:29]Yeah.
[15:30]Here's like little house in the prairie again.
[15:31]Oh well.
[15:32]There's still one of the side effects you had that was particularly cute was the sensory
[15:37]overload stuff.
[15:38]Had you had any of that before you went on the meds and do you continue to have it now?
[15:42]I know you referenced like sometimes you have to get out of like the busy city and just
[15:46]like move to the desert if you don't want to deal with the cars.
[15:48]Yeah.
[15:49]I've always been very sensitive, but I don't remember having these extreme reactions
[15:58]to pretty much all sensory like when I first started to get off the drugs, literally every
[16:02]one of my five senses, it was like the intensity it was turned up.
[16:06]So I struggled with lights being too bright.
[16:08]Audio input.
[16:09]No, I'm okay now.
[16:10]Yeah, audio input wasn't still is kind of the only thing that kind of lingers.
[16:15]I have a lot of trouble hearing different sounds at once and also just like actual noise.
[16:21]So I got custom earplugs made, which I in the first couple of years while I was still
[16:26]kind of re-adjusting into an unmedicated life, like I'd have to wear them in the airport
[16:30]because even just the kind of dinn of noise around me was too much coming in.
[16:34]That's really been the longest one to come back, but I don't have the emotional triggers
[16:38]anymore.
[16:39]But that which is great, like leaf blowers are the main of my existence.
[16:43]I cannot stand them because they just set something off in me.
[16:46]That is very emotional as well as like just drilling into my ear.
[16:50]But I'm very happy to say that like I can go past some landscape now and not burst into
[16:56]tears.
[16:57]So that's gross, you know?
[16:59]That's you.
[17:00]You know, it was so funny because on your episode of Chopped, you were so sure you were
[17:07]like, I feel like I did a great job.
[17:08]It's good.
[17:09]And they were like, we really like your confidence.
[17:11]And I was like confidence and I'm like reading your book.
[17:13]I'm like, this is so ironic, like this is not at all the way you present here.
[17:19]And yet there.
[17:21]So do you feel like even like despite all the turmoil and whatever is going on and like
[17:26]how you had to get through weaning all of the stuff and physical manifestations and all
[17:32]of it that like you can still feel really great about certain areas of your life regardless
[17:38]of how you feel about the other parts?
[17:40]Do you know what I mean?
[17:41]Like, can you compartmentalize like that?
[17:42]Is that easy for you?
[17:44]You mean like when I think back on my experience with Chopped or no, no, it's just anything.
[17:48]Can you be like, I feel you know, like I want to take this chair and break it into
[17:52]a thousand pieces and scream in the street and do all these things, but I'm an awesome
[17:56]baker.
[17:57]Okay.
[17:58]Because sometimes it's hard to hold those two things, right?
[18:01]Like I, some people it's more like I'm depressed.
[18:04]I'm bad at everything.
[18:05]I'm bad.
[18:06]Everything is terrible.
[18:07]There's nothing.
[18:08]Yeah.
[18:09]But it feels like no.
[18:11]Well, so when I was, you know, in the depression and also medicated everything was flat
[18:16]in a way where nothing was ever good enough and so it didn't even matter if I was, you
[18:22]know, better than average or something like because it still wasn't as good as somebody
[18:26]else or I knew that I was phoning it in half the time.
[18:29]So I just kind of like brushed it off and everything was just blah.
[18:33]When I was in withdrawal and serious withdrawal when it was very, very emotional, I was
[18:38]completely consumed by the the the the emotional swing of it all.
[18:42]I mean, the best way you can describe it is like a second puberty if you just imagine,
[18:46]you know, what it was like when you were 13, but now you're 30 and you don't, it's worse.
[18:51]But what's happened now as an adult and I think that this is really a place where I tell
[18:57]people who ask me, this is a place where when people ask me for advice, I kind of tell
[19:00]them that this is where I think the goal is, is where you can be having an emotional breakdown
[19:08]or you can be really angry and at the same time you can still hold gratitude.
[19:12]Yeah.
[19:13]When you can have the duality that I think is the kind of, you know, the key that you've
[19:20]done something right in your recovery and your healing, and to me, it's very odd.
[19:24]I almost feel like there's, you know, maybe my higher self or whatever you want to call
[19:30]it is almost like observing the emotion and it feels a little disorienting because you're
[19:37]very aware that you're having, you know, you're hitting a pillow and you're breaking
[19:41]a chair in half and you're like, maybe that's not great, but it's in a non-judgmental
[19:46]way and then I feel like I also allow myself to do that and I also trust that this is going
[19:51]to end and I can kind of feel the emotion leaving me and at the same time I'm also very
[19:56]calm in the background like, yeah, you know, this is, it's going to pass.
[20:00]It's like, let it out, honey.
[20:02]And it's very odd to have it both happening.
[20:04]But I've now experienced this like in grief.
[20:06]You know, I've had loss of having this
[20:08]incredibly emotional reaction to grief
[20:10]and still holding gratitude for being able to experience
[20:14]grief in a cozy bed, had dog run away that was awful.
[20:17]And I remember just sobbing,
[20:20]but also being just so grateful
[20:24]to even be alive to experience it.
[20:26]So that's where I'm at now, and I think that
[20:29]that's what I tell people is kind of more of the goal.
[20:31]It's not to necessarily stop the emotion,
[20:35]or to never have these swings,
[20:36]especially if you're an intense person
[20:38]or an assensitive person.
[20:39]It's just to, you know, feel them.
[20:43]Feel them and be aware that you're feeling them, yep.
[20:46]Which is different than being consumed by it.
[20:48]Yes, I like that.
[20:50]I just wanted to read a couple of passages quickly
[20:52]because they were so pretty.
[20:54]Let me read this.
[20:54]I didn't cry, this is how you didn't cry at first
[20:56]when your father passed away
[20:58]and you sort of held it into later.
[20:59]You said, I didn't cry when my mother and I both shrunk
[21:02]into five feet tall figures of hips and bones,
[21:04]subsisting on nothing but deviled eggs
[21:06]and my grandmother delivered by the dozen.
[21:08]I wanted to run to my mother and run away from her.
[21:11]I wanted to press fast forward or rewind
[21:13]and send us forward or back.
[21:15]It didn't matter as long as we weren't there.
[21:17]When I saw my mother's red and swollen eyes,
[21:19]I knew I was powerless to help her.
[21:21]So we danced around each other,
[21:22]coexisting in a haze of involuntary life.
[21:25]Sometimes my mother slept all day
[21:26]and sometimes she didn't sleep at all.
[21:28]Sometimes we hugged each other in the hallway.
[21:30]Sometimes we didn't acknowledge each other.
[21:32]Mostly she was out of the house dealing
[21:33]with the logistics of sudden death.
[21:36]And then you talk about the collection agency.
[21:38]And then you say I didn't cry until one fall after noon.
[21:41]When I pulled a knife out of my flesh,
[21:43]it poured so deep into the fleshy space
[21:44]between my thumb and forefinger
[21:46]that when I lifted my hand from the apple,
[21:48]I'd been studying the knife held its place
[21:50]like a sixth appendage.
[21:52]Ouch, it didn't hurt him.
[21:56]You also, you talk more about your,
[21:59]how you thought you had an eating disorder
[22:01]and how the doctor you told dismissed it,
[22:03]which I could not believe too.
[22:05]That was amazing and terrible.
[22:08]And then let's see, oh, the remote.
[22:12]The fact that you're at your computer
[22:13]and the way you procrastinated is like applying
[22:16]to totally unlikely things.
[22:17]And the fact that you got chopped and remote
[22:18]you're at the same time and then had to go do them.
[22:21]And yeah, I mean, what better,
[22:23]what better way to,
[22:24]pretend you don't live your life
[22:25]than to try and be somebody else's life.
[22:28]Now I feel like those were not the best passages.
[22:30]But anyway, I promise like they were really great.
[22:32]Maybe I have another one from this part of the book.
[22:35]Let's see.
[22:36]You had so many great sentences.
[22:37]Well, I'll just read them later or something.
[22:39]I have about this one.
[22:40]My heart beats faster.
[22:41]Each breath shallower than the one before.
[22:43]I hope for relief when I walk into the gym,
[22:45]but the bubble tarp, serving as the roof
[22:47]provides no protection from the beating sun
[22:49]or the cacophony of construction.
[22:53]That's like really awesome.
[22:54]I like liberation.
[22:55]I literally, I like liberation too.
[22:57]It just only when my skin begins to tickle
[22:59]with sticky heat.
[23:00]Like that's another good one.
[23:02]Okay, anyway, whatever.
[23:03]I really like the way you write.
[23:04]Everything is very visual.
[23:06]Yeah, it's very visual and visceral.
[23:08]I don't understand people who can,
[23:11]you know, like the Dickens of the world.
[23:13]Yeah.
[23:14]These long sentences.
[23:15]I'm just kind of like,
[23:15]that's not how my brain works.
[23:16]I just need to get to the point,
[23:17]but like make you feel it.
[23:18]Yeah.
[23:19]I get that.
[23:21]Do you still have the diving mask and where is it?
[23:25]I do still have the diving mask.
[23:26]I, it's in my drawer right now.
[23:29]I have kind of like a diving drawer.
[23:31]So it's got snorkel and my skin and everything.
[23:34]And I've used it multiple times.
[23:36]And every time I use it,
[23:38]I take a picture and send it to Martin.
[23:41]I really hope he's in Indonesia now.
[23:44]And I really want to go down there with a book
[23:46]and give it to him because he doesn't know how much
[23:48]of an influence he was on my healing in that part of my life.
[23:52]Are you at all worried about big pharma in general
[23:56]with this book coming in?
[23:57]Yeah.
[23:58]Am I worried about big pharma?
[23:59]I think not really.
[24:01]You know, this is just one experience.
[24:03]And I don't really own anything.
[24:05]So there's nothing to take.
[24:10]I'm a writer.
[24:11]We're not known for our riches.
[24:12]And now, and you live in Reno now, right?
[24:14]I live in Reno.
[24:15]Yep.
[24:16]Went back home kind of mid pandemic and getting family time
[24:21]and after all my years and everything.
[24:23]And what are you up to aside from writing
[24:25]and now having to market this book and everything?
[24:28]So yeah, we're doing book marketing.
[24:30]And that is weird.
[24:32]It's all kind of, especially nowadays,
[24:34]it's not like people are being sent on book tours really anymore.
[24:37]So in some ways, it feels like nothing has changed.
[24:40]I still spend a lot of time on Zoom,
[24:41]but it's just for a different topic.
[24:43]But I also still very much work in the food industry.
[24:48]And I really enjoy having both.
[24:50]I do research and development for startups.
[24:52]And then I also work with elite athletes,
[24:55]like major league baseball athletes
[24:56]to help feed them and make sure they're eating
[24:59]what they need to perform really well.
[25:01]And so I'm basically like a personal hello fresh.
[25:04]Nice.
[25:05]And it's really nice.
[25:06]And I really love it.
[25:07]And I love the balance because cooking is still,
[25:12]luckily again, it's something that brings me
[25:15]a sense of peace.
[25:15]And so to be able to do that,
[25:17]well, and then also talk about this heavy topic,
[25:20]like it's really nice balance to talk about
[25:22]antidepressant withdrawal, and they go,
[25:23]make cookies.
[25:24]It's great.
[25:25]I think that the main issue with antidepressants
[25:31]and coming off of them after a long time
[25:33]is like what you point out in the book,
[25:35]how do you know who you are underneath all that
[25:39]if you actually need to be medicated
[25:41]or if it's withdrawal symptoms?
[25:43]And maybe you're the person who needs to go right back on,
[25:46]but maybe you're not.
[25:46]And how do you know?
[25:47]And what if you wait a year and something terrible happens?
[25:49]Or what if it gets worse?
[25:51]Or what if, I don't know.
[25:53]So the tricky part about this is that
[25:55]even though we're starting to see a lot more research now
[25:59]and about withdrawal specifically,
[26:02]and also about the long-term effects of these drugs,
[26:04]because most of these drugs,
[26:05]there's no long-term studies.
[26:06]Most of the studies who improve these drugs and all drugs,
[26:09]you're six, eight, 10 weeks maybe.
[26:12]So we're only now starting to get to a point
[26:14]where people have been medicated for decades,
[26:16]and we're only now starting to be able to see the effects
[26:21]of that and not a small amount of people.
[26:25]I mean, there are certainly people who thrive on these drugs,
[26:29]and that's what we hear about, because it's a nice boat.
[26:32]And people who do well on things tend to talk about them.
[26:35]People who don't have any positive or negative response
[26:38]tend not to say anything.
[26:39]People who are having a negative response are debilitated.
[26:43]They're not, they're just debilitated.
[26:46]And there are a lot of people like that.
[26:48]The rough numbers are around 50% of people
[26:50]experience withdrawal symptoms
[26:53]and about half of those experience severe symptoms.
[26:57]It's a huge amount of people
[26:58]given how many times and millions of people
[26:59]are on these drugs.
[27:00]And so for me, it's like, look,
[27:03]I'm not a doctor, I'm not here to tell people
[27:06]what to do with their health, or get on them,
[27:09]stay off them, whatever.
[27:10]It's everybody's individual business.
[27:12]But I think is a real problem in a real shame
[27:14]is the fact that when we recommend these drugs,
[27:17]when we put people on them, there's never
[27:19]a plan to take them off.
[27:20]There's never any sort of discussion
[27:24]about what the ideal timeline is for these things,
[27:27]which they've only been studied for six months to two years.
[27:29]So why are we putting kids on them?
[27:33]And then 15 years later, we haven't taken them off.
[27:35]Like that's not how these drugs were designed.
[27:37]And it's not how they were studied
[27:38]and there are consequences to that.
[27:40]So I hope that my story in this book
[27:42]just further expands the conversation.
[27:45]I hope it helps people have more informed conversations
[27:48]with their doctors.
[27:49]I hope it helps legitimize the experience
[27:51]that so many people have.
[27:53]And I hope it really helps stop over prescription
[27:57]and also over diagnosis.
[27:59]Because as I said at the end of my book,
[28:00]like had I gone to the wrong doctor
[28:03]at any point during this year,
[28:04]I could have been diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia
[28:08]or she was in one.
[28:10]I can't quite remember.
[28:10]But basically there was three major diagnosis
[28:13]that could have led to even stronger drugs
[28:15]or institutionalized for an illness that I never really had.
[28:20]And so not only is that, you know,
[28:23]but happens to people all the time
[28:24]that they end up getting diagnosed
[28:26]with something that they don't have.
[28:28]I'm just listening to the cost of living podcast.
[28:31]I think they don't want it.
[28:34]But that ends up being a strain on our entire social security
[28:40]system and ends up being a strain on family members.
[28:42]And also people who really need help
[28:44]and really have serious mental illnesses
[28:47]that aren't the atrogenic,
[28:48]they're not caused by some of these drugs.
[28:51]They're not necessarily getting the help either
[28:52]because the system is overwhelmed.
[28:54]And so all in all, like this is avoidable.
[28:57]The bottom line is this is avoidable.
[28:59]And we're starting to learn how best to de-prescribe,
[29:02]but we don't necessarily have the tools.
[29:04]Like, you know, 37.5 milligrams of effects
[29:07]are the smallest amount you can get from a pharmacy.
[29:10]Well, when you go from that to zero
[29:13]it's a huge amount of stress on the body.
[29:15]You can't go to a pharmacy right now
[29:16]and get smaller dosages.
[29:18]You have to literally get a drug scale
[29:20]in your home, open them up and count the beads.
[29:22]And that's what people are doing
[29:24]to get off of these drugs safely.
[29:25]And so even just the knowledge of that,
[29:27]whether or not that's from your clinician
[29:30]or you as a patient, like that can,
[29:34]that helps a lot of people avoid unnecessary suffering
[29:37]and also just help them become more
[29:38]in tune with who they are
[29:39]because not everybody wants to spend their whole life
[29:41]on these drugs.
[29:42]And we should be able to take people off them
[29:44]in a safe way that doesn't destroy their lives.
[29:48]What are you most worried about with this book coming in?
[29:52]I feel lucky in a way like this book took six years
[29:55]to gestate and get born.
[29:58]I hope at this point I...
[30:00]I've kind of already experienced the gamut, you know, I've gotten the nasty comments.
[30:05]I've been told I'm dangerous.
[30:07]I've just doesn't make any sense.
[30:09]I've been rejected just because somebody has a good experience.
[30:11]Like, so I think I'm not so much worried about public perception anymore because also
[30:16]the great majority of the information and contact I get from people is people who have similar
[30:23]stories.
[30:24]And so I know that I know that the work matters and that's helped me through.
[30:29]I think that there's a real, we're just not, I don't know if we're fully ready to accept
[30:36]that the personal responsibility and healing from some of these, you know, distal illnesses,
[30:44]disorders or just whatever you want to call them, I don't even like calling them that.
[30:48]I think we're in a hard time where there's a lot of things that are wrong in the world.
[30:52]There's a lot of things that are having a deep effect on people's mental health.
[30:58]And we don't have the tools to fix them.
[31:01]And if we don't rely on these drugs, what do we do?
[31:07]And I think that we, I don't have an answer for that and I don't, I hope that people understand
[31:12]that it's not about, you know, wanting to people to suffer or telling people they're bad
[31:18]for taking them.
[31:19]It's not about that.
[31:20]It's just learning to follow your own compass, find what works for you, take control
[31:26]of your life and to cultivate deep, deep self-awareness in order and, you know, discover
[31:33]the balls you have in order to make changes where changes need to be made because I
[31:38]think that that's what a lot of people need to do in order to improve their circumstances.
[31:42]And that's really hard when you have to cut out family or, you know, your financial,
[31:46]deep financial situations.
[31:47]I don't know.
[31:48]I don't know the answers and that's the problem.
[31:49]It's okay.
[31:50]It's okay.
[31:51]It's okay.
[31:52]It's okay.
[31:53]But I think I'm okay to talk about it, but I think that's part of, maybe that's the biggest
[31:57]worry is that people think I'm like trying to say one thing about this and I'm not.
[32:02]It's the whole point is that this is messy and complicated.
[32:04]And it's your experience.
[32:05]Yes.
[32:06]But the conversation needs to be broader.
[32:08]Yeah.
[32:09]And your story is amazing.
[32:10]And the way you write so openly and honestly.
[32:13]And beautifully.
[32:14]It's great.
[32:15]Thank you.
[32:16]And if anything, it's, it's like a good read, you know, like entertain people for a couple
[32:19]hours.
[32:20]Really glad you hear that because that I was worried about that because, you know, there's
[32:25]such a tendency and, you know, so-called misery memoirs to just like, you know, we're
[32:30]gone out all over the page about how terribly your life is and that's not always fun for
[32:33]people to read.
[32:34]So I really tried to not do that.
[32:35]But I don't know how it comes off to other people like this, so all right.
[32:40]Last question.
[32:41]What advice would you have for, to aspiring authors can help?
[32:47]And by that, I mean, I, that my book would not have happened.
[32:52]There were three major editors that helped me along the way.
[32:55]And I, you know, and you worked with Laura Munson, right?
[32:57]Yeah.
[32:58]Oh my gosh.
[32:59]Yeah.
[33:00]Yeah.
[33:01]I know her, I've gotten to know her through the podcast and we did an event together.
[33:02]And we email a lot.
[33:03]And I don't know.
[33:04]I love Laura.
[33:05]And I read her book in, you know, two books.
[33:07]Anyway.
[33:08]Yeah.
[33:09]Yeah.
[33:10]She's amazing.
[33:11]Laura was my, like, lighthouse in the fog.
[33:12]Like, and I just kind of found her writing retreat online.
[33:16]And I raised some money through grants funded by my state and was able to go.
[33:22]And so that, that's the advice is I think that there's a lot of people, I recently did
[33:25]a calculation on how much this book costs, it's a great rate.
[33:29]It was a lot of money.
[33:30]But what I realized was that the reason why it happened is because I asked for help.
[33:37]And I knew I needed it and I took it.
[33:39]And I think that's the biggest thing is that we, most, I think authors almost really experienced
[33:44]just cannot see the force for the trees.
[33:46]You don't really know what the story is.
[33:47]You need somebody else to do it.
[33:49]And like, it helps to pay a professional whose job it is to do that as opposed to a friend
[33:54]who wants to tell you what you want to hear or something.
[33:56]And so I'd say just get help whether or not that's taking a class or finding, you know,
[34:01]a good writing group or finding a way to hire an editor early on.
[34:07]It hurts.
[34:08]It hurts to be told your work means help.
[34:11]But that's what makes good books.
[34:14]Well, Brooke, thank you so much.
[34:15]Thanks for coming on to the Treadbooks and for sharing your story.
[34:19]Thank you so much, Libby.
[34:22]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[34:26]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibyowens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[34:30]Books.
[34:31]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[34:35]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[34:38]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan, in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[34:42]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and