Laura Delano
speaker
735 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard 12 Jun
Laura Delano’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
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.
I've seen it. I have not read it, but I know it.
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
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
class of suffering that's different than normal struggling.
Oh, I totally, I totally agree. I totally agree with that.
Yeah.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But this is the standard of care for a bipolar diagnosis. I know, it's a miracle.
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,
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.
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.
Ironically, I totally agree. Thinking about suicide ironically kept me alive for years because it was like the one- I understand. Yeah. Yeah.
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.
Showing 681–700 of 735 · page 35 of 37
← Previous
Next →