Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs
We wanted -- and I think succeeded in creating -- a guide that would accurately represent psych drug risks and benefits fairly, without falling into simplistic pro- or anti- camps. We wanted to give essential lessons about how the coming off process works, without acting like we could predict what people would go through or provide any kind of definite blueprint for action. We wanted to counter pharmaceutical propaganda and psychiatric myths, but also avoid just putting out our own counter-propaganda. We had to distill years of experience, testimony, stories, insights, lessons, and crucial wisdom gained from hundreds of individual peer counseling connections Icarus and Freedom Center have made. We wanted to explore the helpfulness of meds for some people in the same discussion as we explored the harm of meds for others. We needed to cover complicated issues like biology and genetics accurately, and gather the most state-of-the-art research in a very politicized and confusing area of science. We had to ensure the factual information was all backed up and air-tight (thanks to the British survivor movement for their help in this), and fearlesslessly swim against the brain-disorder mainstream belief system, while also not making any claims we couldn't support with solid sources. We had to truly create new language for things rarely discusssed before, including new ideas like "diverse-ability" and "mad maps." We needed to include reference to the key works that have come before this guide, works that were our stepping stones. And we needed it all to look beautiful, consistent with the message that creativity is at the heart of so much of "madness."