A Mother's Journey Through Psychiatric Drug Harm and Healing
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How did Chelsea first become involved with psychiatric medications at age 16?
Welcome to the Madden America Podcast, your source for science, psychiatry, and social justice.
Welcome to the Mad in America podcast. My name is Brooke Seem, and I am the author of the award-winning memoir on antidepressant withdrawal, May Cause Side Effects. Today, our podcast is going to be a little different. I am here with Chelsea McVeigh, who I actually met many years ago now, because she was uh in antidepressant withdrawal while going through a pregnancy, and she was one of the first people I worked with one-on-one. And I decided that I wanted to check back in and follow up and see how she's doing because she has been part of my understanding of how this affects people in such a big way. So we will be talking to her about her recovery. And a little bit about Chelsea. She began her journey with psychiatric medications at 16, never imagining where it would lead.
At thirty one, during a new pregnancy, she suffered a severe adverse reaction that turned her world upside down. After years of fighting to reclaim her health and sense of self, she's now thirty-seven, a mother of two incredible boys and living proof that healing is possible even after the unimaginable. Chelsea, thank you so much for taking a little time out of your day to share your story. Yeah, thank you for having me.
I'm very excited about this. I kind of feel like This is the perfect way to give me closure to like close my chapter, honestly. I think that this is kind of what I've been needing and I feel like this is meant to be really. So thank you for having me.
You're welcome. It is such an interesting experience for me to see your face because I remember the last one of the last times we spoke because we were doing FaceTime as you were in withdrawal. And I would just notice almost like a um A wave would come through and you had a really interesting, uh, very quick, at least in my experience with you, up and down. Like we could be talking and you could be fine, and then you'd get hit with a wave in the middle of a sentence and I would watch your eyes change and we were navigating that back and forth. And now to see you and see that there's there's no wavering there and you're glowing and it's completely different. And I'm just so happy to see it. Ah, thank you so much.
Can you tell us a little bit about the circumstances that led to us working together so many years ago? It's funny because
What led Chelsea and Brooke to start working together during the early withdrawal period?
Before you and I met, like a year before, I knew that I wanted to get pregnant. I was already doing a hyperbolic taper because I had gotten really bad anxiety and I was given clonopin. I was teaching in the city and I was getting really anxious. No one told me that, you know, you shouldn't take this like every day, multiple times a day. I found surviving antidepressants and um I realized I think I'm in benzo withdrawal and I was only on it for four weeks. Then as I was reading, I was like, oh my God, like I'm on Zoloft and I've been on Zoloft since I was 16. And at the time when this happened, I was 29. So I was like, I want to taper this down. So I did everything the right way. Went into My psychiatrist.
I told her that I wanted to taper down. I told her that I was scared, obviously, because I just had this experience with clonopin. She didn't understand why I wanted to go down like very slowly. And um, luckily, Zolof does come in a liquid form. So I didn't have to go through a compound pharmacy. I was able to just get it at my like regular Walgreens. With a prescription. Um and I taper down from a hundred milligrams to eight milligrams in one year. So I was doing like a five percent taper and honestly it was going perfect. Like I didn't have any side effects. Then I got pregnant and I was on eight milligrams of Zoloft. Because I was on such a low dose, I had no plans of getting off of it while I was pregnant because I was on such a low dose.
I didn't want to rock the boat. But I got hit with the worst nausea. From My pregnancy. When I took the medication, it honestly made me feel even more nauseous. So I kind of like. Was like, you know what, I'll be fine.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
How did Chelsea first become involved with psychiatric medications at age 16?
0:04–2:38
2
What led Chelsea and Brooke to start working together during the early withdrawal period?
2:38–5:19
3
How did Chelsea taper off Zoloft and what challenges did she face during that process?
5:19–8:42
4
What severe adverse reaction did Chelsea experience while pregnant at age 31?
8:42–12:59
5
Why did doctors prescribe Lexapro and later other drugs, and how did Chelsea respond to them?
12:59–17:13
6
What was the experience of being hospitalized and the struggle to be believed by medical staff?
17:13–21:24
7
How did Chelsea give birth, cope with postpartum depression, and begin her recovery?
21:24–24:07
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
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Go/No Go - How Mental Health Research Took a Wrong Turn: An Interview with Marianne Apostolides
Unlearn Your Pain: Harnessing the Power of Neuroplasticity – A Conversation With Howard Schubiner
The Empire of Madness: Why Psychiatry Must Rethink Human Suffering - An Interview with Khameer Kidia
Using Lived Experience to Challenge Systemic Prescriber Inexperience in Antidepressant Withdrawal
Mercy, Magic, and the Medical Humanities: An Interview with Jussi Valtonen