Patients take back their lives from psychiatric drugs

0:00Hello, our wonderful, wonderful audience. Here we are again. It's the Breggins, Dr. Peter Breggin. Dr. Peter Breggin. And Ginger Breggin, I folks, this is the Breggin hour. And I'm Peter Breggin, recovering stroke victim, and I want to tell people I'm doing better and better and better, and that they leave clinic hyperbaric oxygen. Hyperbaric oxygen clinic was ginger feels just turned the corner for me from a guy who was barely speaking to my real self who was here today. My real self is here today. Thanks to Ginger taking me down there. And I

1:03think my real self though came out not as certain about the hyperbaric as I am about what all the efforts to Ginger was going to. When you see the love of your life expending herself as I did first to save my life and then to save the quality of my life. The motivation of loving her just made me decide I wasn't going down with this stroke. I was coming back from it. And I deeply believe we are more than our brains. And I'm learning it firsthand now that I am more than my brain. I can't tell you exactly what it is people have puzzled about who we are or spirits or souls. But I believe with beings made in God's image. And one of the conclusions I'm coming to more and more that I'll share with you today is a little extra something. We have a great guest and I'll tell

2:08you about her right now. And then I'll tell you a little bit about what I've been thinking about love. It's like a little ordough. You want to take a minute and do the love and then we'll come back and come back to our guests and we'll show our guests. Yeah, let me do that. All right, good. Because I have a lot to think about lately with love coming through the stroke and going through recovery now. And having such so such a blessing in Ginger Breggens loving me and supporting me. And one of the things that I kept puzzling over was how hard it was for me to describe love. I mean, most descriptions of love come out of poetry or or old songs or songs. Another kind of poetry. Yeah, songs, old songs or

3:11songs. But to just sort of talk about it, I thought well, let's start with that. That's a major character. The accusation of love is that it's ineffable. Ineffable meaning difficult to express in language. And I think that what makes love ineffable is that love of any kind, for artwork, for looking at the moon and the stars at night or sitting in the woods or standing on a mountain and just seeing it or bird watching. For me, watching the birds come and go from bird feeder and sometimes a flock of golf inches or maybe three families or cardinals. Just amazing to see that that's kind of ineffable for me too. And I think it's because love is a direct connection with God.

4:14That God wants us to love one another. He wants us to love creation. The New Testament talks about I'm Jewish. That's why I call it the New Testament to distinguish it from my old one. The New Testament is very, very clear about what Jesus has to say and that what he's come to say and he's come really to kind of stand out for love the way no one and no place in the Old Testament does and comes to say I'm giving you a new commandment to love one another as I love you and that love you have for one another will be your page who you are. And I think that the reason why love is ineffable is it participates in God which for all of us is ineffable.

5:15I think that it is what God wants us to do to love one another and when we do it God gets close to us and it's present in our lives. And I think it goes hand in hand ginger's being close to me and loving me and helping me through the stroke in ways that she's just made the first priority. It's one of the first things I heard as I came out of like a dreadfully confused at the end of the stroke because I didn't know I was having a stroke. I thought I was having seizures. The doctors thought you were having seizures. And they overdosed me with a drug that gave for seizures right on top of the stroke. And I just had went to a state of confusion and I said I came out of it. I had to literally identify ginger for who she was. It was very

6:16confusing to me. I was this person taking such amazing care of me. I didn't know where to categorize or understand her. I never had such an experience. I think that for me more than what I wrote, whenever I've told a story of her meeting ginger, I talk about everybody knows me well. It's her this story. I've talked about how I just fell so in love with her. It scared me to death and I avoided her for approximately 10 years until fate, which I think is God's hand. One of my ex-girlfriends told Ginger that she knew me and they got to talking about me and she was very private. She never disclosed she'd been your girlfriend. She just said you were a great reference for her as a journalist. And then she told you I was coming out to Los Angeles

7:18with a TV show. It's when you were out in Los Angeles. Yeah. And that's how I met up with Ginger again. I called her because I got a number from this old girlfriend, quite recently old girlfriend, a lovely lady. And I spent about two days with Ginger. But on the first day, I asked her to marry me. I said, I don't want to do it, lose you again. And I'm just really all love I felt for you before. And you said, yes, you have to get over it. No, I said yes right away. Believe me, I wasn't going to let that pass me by. Then it was all logistics after that, sweetie. And we've been together now 40 years. What a 42 years. That was 1983. No, yeah, I know it was 1983. And then you came east and we at the end of 83. And then we

8:21agreed to get married and we did in 84. In July 4th, 1984. My new mental kind of a date from the book and from Liberty of America. In July 4th, 1980. And together ever since, I made this great discovery though that when I came out of the confusion surrounding my stroke and I tried to figure out who you were. And I realized that what made you seem unfamiliar to me was how loving you were and how just generally focused on me you were. And you would made a decision that your whole life was going to be about making sure I survived and that I got

9:21maximum recovery which meant you would take it over my medical care basically and my mental care. And I realized that what probably scared me into not seeing you for 10 years took up with us together again. One of the things was that actually I probably sensed that you loved me in a way that I was totally unfamiliar with. And I'm prepared to deal with wasn't that I was so loving of you. It was that you were so loving of me. But it was not in my category of things to explore. A woman who was as loving of me as I was of her when you were just so to me. Such an amazing. Well, we got married and there was a lot going on everything. So our lives were just full of your reform work and our kids and you know learning to deal with all. Learning to live together and you know who was going to get the closet that was in the bedroom and I gave it to you.

10:28I needed a bigger one. I don't think I have a news issue. No, it wasn't. I just decided you're getting the closet in the bedroom. You were very sweet. You cleared it out for me. Well, I just tried to set the house up for you. You really did. And I think you forgot a lot of that right after the stroke. So I, in addition to looking after how you were being treated and working on just reconnecting personally so much, I became your historian for your personal history while you while your brain knitted itself back together. So those first three months we spent just your resting and beginning to heal before we heard about the weave clinic. That was by the way, that's a feminine metaphor. My brain is not knitting itself together. It's hammering itself to back together. Okay. I can practically have a clanking in my ears.

11:35Well, anyway, I think that those first three months were really helping you to reconnect with your own history. I gave you the conscience of psychiatry, which is the book that our nonprofit published that we published with our nonprofit. Under your direction. Under my direction. And the conscience of psychiatry really documented your reform work. It was very valuable. But it always be wonderful people saying wonderful things about me. But in the way, you know what, we have another wonderful person with us today. Oh my god, yes. And I want to bring to. Yes, I want to bring her in. Okay. Go ahead and introduce her. Okay, it says right at the top of the page. Meet Jen Schmitz, therapist and holistic mental health pioneer. What interests me so much about Jen. And despite ignoring her, which is hard to do because she's very beautiful, very brave. Okay.

12:41She is a holistic, describing, deep prescriber consultant. She does what I do. She takes people of psych drugs. That's a very brave thing to do if you're not a physician or if you are. But if you're not a physician, you get attacked for doing it by psychiatry and by other non-physicians. Who don't want to take responsibility for changing the world? One patient at a time. And when they may, yeah, that's, that's really true. I think a lot of it is. They're doing it one patient at a time. It is. Because that's what you're doing, Jen. And a bless you for. Thank you. Thank you. I told Jen that many years ago, when speaking through an audience of therapists, I said that if any of them got in trouble as, as non medical therapists for taking people of drugs, and I would, without charge, become an expert on that day.

13:47And I think only one person has ever called me and said, I am in trouble. So I think that non prescribers are doing, I mean, non... Deep prescribers. This is my brain hammering while I'm trying to talk. My brain's been hammering, yeah, for two and a half years with this like drug withdrawal I've gone through. So I'm listening to you talk and I'm thinking, yeah, the symptomology that you experienced after your stroke is so very similar to not only the things that my patients go through when they are trying to deeper scribe for medications, but myself as someone who has been trying to get off of an SSRI after 25 years of use. And the cognitive decline is just, it's, it's unsurmountable. I can't even describe. You said the word historian before ginger and I'm sitting here thinking, I wish I had one of

14:47those in my life too. Not only recently in the last couple years of trying to touch her at off medication, but one of the biggest issues that I have is such a little memory. I don't remember my wedding day. I don't remember the births of my children. Oh, do you? You know, I don't, it's so difficult. I don't remember big vacations where I went somewhere tropical and you're there a whole week. It's like these memories never imprinted on really big things in my life. And that goes back all the way. That's very interesting that you think it didn't imprinted to begin with in the long memory. Yeah. That's what it is, I think. Yeah. We don't get one while in these drugs, we don't engage. We don't recall vividly. We don't. And I can't read have those vivid recollections. And now I have to put so much intention into a moment just so that I can try to remember it longer. This is the effects of the withdrawal. Right. Right. You'll recover from that. That's

15:53yeah. It's going to be a gradual recover. I've learned that I have to. Right. I've learned I have to do that. But going back historically, being on a psychiatric medication, being on a LexiPros since I was, I think I was about 17. My medical records say I was about 17. I can go back and that past all that past memory. It's just not there. It's I can't pull it. I can't look at photos and go, oh yeah. It's like a lot of it is lost on me. No, that sounds like it's the same as some of my acquaintances from high school that I've been in touch with from time to time. Some of whom got involved with not psych drugs, but street drugs. Sure. Back at that point in time over their youthful adulthood. And they have lost memory too for all that period of time. Yeah. I think that's pretty.

16:55The memories from being laid down the drugs. Just into fears with the whole process of engagement and recollection. Right. Right. And how we store things. I mean, it's hard to really store a memory and to really have that again imprint when you're not actually present. You're there. I mean, you're there physically. I was there at my children's births. Trust me. Yes, I was going to say. You know, like I and I can remember a few things right from from that day and those those days. So I mean, I know I was there, but if you asked me to go back and just recount that the times, my children, the time they came into the world, I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you what was happening around me. I couldn't I couldn't tell you the smells. I couldn't describe to you what my husband was doing. All things that you would think you could. We're at a break. So we'll be right back in just a couple of minutes. This is Dr. Peter McCullough. You know me from America Laugh Pulse

18:01and the McCullough Report. Well, I'm inviting you to join me in Nashville July 2nd, 3rd and 4th for a truly historic experience in 2026. America Laugh News 250 slash 10 Nashville. I'm calling all patrons to be a part of this unforgettable weekend packed with inspiring entertainment, incredible fireworks, and nationally recognized speakers who proudly stand for freedom. Together with you and our partners Clear and the Wellness Company, we'll celebrate two major milestones, 250 years of America and 10 years of America Laugh News led by Malcolm out Loud. I can't wait to see you there because your presence matters and you are family. So make history with me and Malcolm. Register now at americaloudloud.news forward slash Nashville. That's americaloudloud.news forward slash Nashville. We'll see you there. Struggling with your health, energy, and constantly feeling hungry?

19:02Want to save money on the rising cost of groceries and dramatically improve your health? Go to chemicalfreebody.com forward slash out loud today. Get nature's super multivitamin doctor formulated green 85 juice formula. Empower your immune system, cut your grocery bill, and save 20% on your first order. You wouldn't go a day without brushing your teeth or washing your hands. What about washing your nose? I mean your nose does filter the air you breathe. Air loaded with bacteria, viruses, and irritants. Make nasal hygiene part of your routine with Clear. No messy bottles to fill. No drowning sensation. Clear is a natural drug-free saline with the added benefit of xylitol, which blocks bacterial and viral adhesion. Available in stores and online at clear.com. That is x-al-e-a-r.com. And we're back with Dr. Peter Bragan and Ginger Bragan for the Bragan Hour on americaoutloud.news where you can go and hear us live when the show first airs on Saturdays and then again on Sundays

20:08at 4 p.m. Eastern time. Jen, you want to continue? Let me just finish a little more on that. And then the show goes out everywhere. Their shows go pretty much. Yes, they do. It goes to podcast on Monday and it goes to go to your go to your favorite podcast platform and look up the Bragan Hour. Yes. And you'll find it. And that's us. That's us. And what is this? Spotify. Spotify. Spotify carries us and the interviews, the radio show, the Bragan Hour is also carried on our page on americaoutloud.news so you can find back episodes there. And I bring the show out each week on our substack. And then our substacks are archived in our substack page, Ginger Bragan. Exactly. Which is probably where most people hear us.

21:13I think most people actually Malcolm said he got thousands and thousands of listeners live on Saturday and Sunday. So we have people listening live there and then people listen to the show also if they don't go in on Saturday and Sunday. They can hear us on Spotify when I release the show on Spotify, which usually comes a week later. Spotify carries every Dr. Bragan Hour of every time. Going once. Yeah. Yeah. You can hear it on Spotify too, but also on substack. All right, let's go on and have Ginger pick up again. And I also want to mention that another reason we wanted to have her on is because she works closely with Dr. Tara Lynn. Yes. Yes. On the gas like true gas lit truth podcast. Yes. And what are these ladies are? These wonderful professionals are really dynamic and interesting and exciting to listen to. And their their websites have a great deal of information.

22:22And a lot of people and a lot of people. Oh, these two women. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty neat. What's what started between Terry and I as calling on the phone for hours talking about psych med harm, talking about how I could get through withdrawal, talking about references like just getting into these deep almost philosophical conversations about our profession as therapists and the harm we've perpetuated over the years because we didn't know what we didn't know, right? Western education gave us one heck of a siloed view on psychiatric medication and how great it is. And so we'd spend hours talking. And finally here and I were like, we need to put this we need to put this into a show. We've we've got to do a podcast on this.

23:23And we didn't know where it was going to go. We didn't know what was going to happen. And here we are now, you know, over 110 episodes later and a following growing of people who want to hear what we've got to say. So it's it's pretty cool. Yeah. It's wonderful. Yeah. Welcome to the Greg and I. Hey, it is so it's so great to be here. I mean, I so Peter, your book psychiatric drug withdrawal, not only as like a as a therapist who's understand what is trying to understand every single thing I possibly can about psychiatric medication, but to set that aside as a consumer who has trying to go off of psychiatric meds, your book was the very first book I ever read. And every single concept in that book blew my mind because I'm like, why didn't nobody teach me this? Like two degrees, a licensure later, all these practicals, it I knew none of this.

24:26And it was an awakening for me. So to have the conscience of psychiatry sitting in front of me is pretty damn cool. So thank you, Peter. It's really. It's a pleasure to be talking with you too. It's really cool to be here. So you will recover all this stuff with time that you were talking about. Yeah, to be sure you about that. Yeah. And it's slowly coming down. People seem to really get over their drugs when they get off. Yeah. Unless there's some really particular illness they got from them, that was very damaging. And I think the hardest part of this too when I look back is, you know, I was 40 years old when I finally had some information on drug harm. Okay, I'm 43 now. I was 40 years old when I decided to dive down the rabbit hole of, well, what if psychiatric drugs aren't the gold standard of treatment like I've been taught? And the hardest part to rectify with this is as I learned more and I have now been two and a half years into tapering off of

25:28an SSRI. I look back to that 16 or 17 year old self and just go, gosh, how is it that in all 25 years? No one ever said to me, hey, maybe it's time you don't need this anymore. Or remember that issue you had that you went on when you were a teenager, when you went on that drug? Do you still have that problem in your life anymore? Because if you don't, why are you still taking this, right? And that's the part of this that I think I have to keep grappling with. I didn't get curious enough. I didn't get curious enough sooner. It took 25 years and two degrees in a field and to finally just at some point, something dropped in my lap where I went, yeah, why am I still on this? That's one of the harder parts. And that's something that I talk a lot with my clients about when I work with them is, you know, how did this start for you? And are those still the same issues

26:29you have now? Because it's very rare I meet with people like myself. We've been on psychiatric drugs for years, not months, not the four to six weeks for the drug trial, years and years. And what's happened over those years and the damage that can be done. And, you know, the irreversible effects and all the medical issues I've had in my life and, you know, you just look back and go, this all could have been because of that. But nobody ever, no one ever told me. I just went with what was being told, which is, oh, does it seem to be helping? Sure, you're not depressed. Okay, well, good. Let's just keep you on it. Well, what kind of mom are you going to be if you go off those drugs, Jen? Like, remember, you started them because you were depressed. Okay, well, we got to be careful with that now that you're going to be having kids. The manipulative language around this that was said to me and that I hear every day with my clients

27:29and how to get people to get curious about that there maybe is another side to this? That's the challenge I tried to take on. And I want to tell people, you know, that I want you to get curious about it because that's where change starts to happen. As soon as you start to really get curious about stuff that you never quite thought could be a thing. That's so important. And, you know, it's no accident that you weren't asked that question and that patients who have been prescribed psychiatric drugs are never asked that question because I mean, the question of the question of how could you do without them and do you still have that same problem and have you considered ever tapering down on your drugs and coming off of them? That the whole system is designed to suppress any inquiry that has to do with stopping psychiatric drugs over a long period of time or whatever. And that's because the drug company influence is so

28:34overwhelmingly present in medicine and as well as psychology and psychiatry and through media, through social media and through the legacy media, you know, the newspapers we used to read and magazines. And in addition to that, those drug companies have in this country permission from the FDA to advertise directly to consumers. And I'm sorry, I lost track. Yeah, I distracted you. I wasn't sure if that noise was... No, it's Bella and I don't think it's going to get Bella is sitting under my desk and on a little pad that's like a pad for her to lie on and she's busily trying to dig a hole to China which she does. It's the action of a sweet little mammal trying to create a nest when there are no leaves.

29:42I don't think the mic picks it up and I think I can't hear it guys. I can't hear it on my. I'm sure our listeners will be very tolerant. So anyway, all I was saying was here in this country, the big drug companies spend a vast majority of their promotional funds advertising directly through radio, TV, social media, etc. And that in itself puts a clamp on any legacy media being interested in interviewing someone like you Jen or like Dr. Bragan. The other thing is that the censorship industry and it's become an industry now. Those PRs and those content managers and so forth that all the big tech social media has were massively expanded during COVID so that

30:44you've got people looking over all of our shoulders and you've got algorithms and computerized programs searching for key words that then alert sensors to come in and tell you Jen or tell us here at home that you absolutely must not talk about deeper scribing. You can't talk about coming off of the drugs. You certainly can't talk about the MRNA vaccine and so forth and so so on. Right. Well, and even coming from someone who's not a medical provider, as you had said, Peter, you know, I don't have a medical doctor. I am a licensed professional counselor. All right, that is that is my license. I am told repeatedly that by talking about risk benefits and alternatives of psychiatric medication, which is what informed consent is, right? I am told that I am grossly out of the scope of my practice and that this is such a problem and

31:46I get shut down so frequently for that. And so to your point, Ginger, yes, that is that and that's an algorithm that's pushed that there is a there's a social dialogue around this that is, you know, that that continues to be filtered. Yes, I mean, it's like climbing up a mountain forever. And I get the word out. Yeah, I'm never going to hit the tap, right? I'll get a few steps in and maybe somebody will go, hey, I can see you and I'll go, okay, great. One person saw me. I want you to know, Jen, that Peter's been doing this kind of education for the public about the damaging effects and psychiatric drugs and other biological psychiatric interventions, any kind of attempt to harm healthy tissue, which is what has treatment, shock treatment, psychocergery, lobotomy, yeah, electrical stimulation, right? Right. And any of those, gosh, I lost my track again. And I interrupted you on your list. I think so.

32:50They've probably going to say this is all been met with resistance. Well, yes, it started this. We've been experiencing this at one point or another all along. And yet, what happens again and again, and this is the good part is we don't hear about the numbers of people we've reached through Peter's books through our own podcasts and our own radio shows through our website, except sometimes 10, 20, 30 years, 40 years after the person has received a message that Peter sent out into the world, we get an email or a comment in our sub-stack or something else. Someone will say, I heard from Dr. Bragan 25 years ago, or I read toxic psychiatry back in 1990, or et cetera, et cetera, or I heard him in 1980 at a conference that he presented at. And they inevitably have amazing stories to tell about how that redirected a portion of their lives

33:54to enable them to, for instance, refuse Ritalin for their child in school, stand up against the school wanting to just drug their little boy as he came in because he was rambunctious or helped them themselves in understanding what was going on and then working out themselves how to do withdrawal. So your words mean so much more and reach so many more people than you'll ever know. It's truly, it's a miracle every time it happens. And you're part of that. You're part of people healing in their lives every day when you and Dr. Terrellin do your podcast and through your work. Yeah, we're there to ruffle feathers. We are there to whistle blow. We are there to do all of the things that seem out of context and crazy and yet they really aren't the things we're

34:56talking about. Like the world has painted these as so controversial. But yeah, they really aren't, you know, just for the brain folks. Yeah, like, it really isn't. Like when you, when you boil this down to just basic, basic, like how I would talk to my, my son, my 12 year old son, I would say, what you're doing right now, what you're eating. Here's how it's impacting your brain. Here's what happens to your amygdala in your hippocampus when you do insert whatever it is. Anything that goes into the mouth and that goes into the body. So I do a lot of nutrition work with people, right? Anything that goes in that mouth hole. If you think for a second, it's not going to impact your brain. You're actually grossly inaccurate, right? And that includes psychiatric medications. As well, anything that's going to change how your brain organically wants to function,

35:58then we're going to have an issue. You can't get something for nothing, right? The output is going to change. And if you just look at that from the most basic, how you'd say it to our sixth grader science, like they're like, oh, yeah. And as long as we view something as a treatment and not a drug, it is always going to be viewed as a treatment. And that's where it gets really messed up because that's how it's viewed is as a treatment. And it's not. When I talk to my clients about psychiatric drugs, I talk about the mechanism of action. And I will compare it to another drug that's a stimulant or to caffeine or to like, I will lay it all out there. And I will talk about that with them. And they'll kind of sit there kind of dumbfounded. And I'm like, the same things happening in the brain. But you've been taught that this one thing is a treatment. And it's helpful. But the mechanism of action is the same. And they kind of just sit there and they're like, huh. I've never thought about it that way. And I'm like, well, no, because you've never been given informed information in that way either. Right. And so it opens these discussions about viewing

37:01things in a way that they need to be viewed and a drug to be viewed as a drug. Because that's what it is. It's altering the state of the brain. So it's like a talk about it simply, very simply. And we don't have to get crazy in the science. I'm not, you know, simple. That's wonderful. We are out of time again. This is our second set segment. And we will be right back with part three. Feeling off lately, bloated brain fog low energy, it could be parasites. These sound vaders, so we can your gut immune system and mental clarity. That's why Dr. Peter McCullough and the doctors at the wellness company formulated a hypermectin in mebendousoclens, a medical great solution designed to help eliminate parasites and restore balance. No gimmicks, just real medicine trusted by top doctors. Go to twc.health4th slash out loud and use code out loud for 20% after your first order. Take control of your health today. The smartest food on the planet doesn't come from a lab or in a package. It grows in a class jar. I'm Doug Evans, author of the National

38:07Best Seller, the spout book. Sprouts deliver up to 100 times the antioxidants of mature vegetables. They grow in just three to five days for under a dollar serving. Get your spouting kit at thespoutingcompany.com slash out loud. Use the code out loud for an exclusive offer. Gross smarter. Have you been looking for a healthy snack from the go? Well, not all energy bars are soft and sugary. Bear bars are a crunchy, savory bar made from just six simple natural ingredients. Bear bars are plant-based. Organic gluten-free contain six grams of protein and a low temperature dried for a unique crunch. Most energy bars are based on chocolate or fruit and are held together with serps or sweeteners. To learn more, just visit bearbar.com slash out loud. Peter, just so you don't run out of time at the end, I'd love for you to be able to comment

39:13at this point because I know at the very end we have to, we are compelled to stop because we can't air longer than the time we're allotted by the radio station. Well, why don't you share anything else you'd like to share? You're watching me ginger gently try to deal with a major conflict that often happens at the end of the show and which is I cut him off. The effects are marriage. And well, we work through it. She's going to get little signs to put up in front of me. So, so I did be like an authority there, making the statement a card, two minutes left, that kind of thing. But thank you, ginger. I think it's really good because otherwise I would have waited longer to comment. Yeah, I think it's good to have this opportunity. Thank you for this positive way of handling it. You're welcome. So like saying, hey, here's some time. See, I learned from

40:16you every day still. Go ahead. Yeah, it is. Thank you, honey. So, go ahead. I'm often working with couples because I like to have a person involved, somebody that's close to them when they're coming off the meds. In case they get very angry and upset, they need somebody to tell them, hey, it's maybe the trouble to draw or they become very depressed and self injurious and thinking about hurting themselves or something to have somebody right there to say, don't think it's your life. Everything is going pretty good right now. Honey, this is the drugs doing it. Do you remember you talked to Wonders about that? And it's so interesting because what I specialize in is helping people love each other again

41:21because a woman who's been 25 years on a drug has very likely lost her some of her affection for her dogs or children or life or work or something else. And I've seen some wonderful things go on where women, when they realize this, they start talking to their children about it and their children are so happy to hear mom recognizing how she wasn't quite this fully there in childhood. They can talk about it and make up for it as adults. A lot of positive things come out of realizing these things and people as they come off the drugs, they do kind of remember as you were describing that they don't remember and if those things they can revisit with loved ones and start remembering

42:25more of and being told more about relearning. There's a lot of positive things that can happen and they can start to love again. And once people are loving each other again then they probably don't need me anymore. Maybe just a few directions on how to talk to your wife like you actually do love her or to your husband. People need to learn to do that in our culture. They shy about putting a very high priority on the love between them. And that's one of the worst things about psych drugs. They're anti-love drugs. But it's a tough subject to sell to anybody. I had a book that I thought would be grabbed up and made at best sell right away called anti-love drugs. I loved the title, anti-love drugs. Little subhead about what your psychiatric drugs might have to

43:30do in your marriage. And but we've never been able to sell. I've had top agents try. I've had a turn down by always without explanation by top publishers. I've got to read it. And I think there are also anti-god drugs. They provide this kind of generalized cognitive dysfunction. And despite what atheists and leftists and communists tell us, believing God's a higher function, not lower function, and requires a very spiritual attitude to it life. Requires a sophisticated way of thinking that evolved slowly over you and you met within

44:31humanity, going through all kinds of stages along the way from worshipping rocks and stones. It's all in the Bible and getting able to actually love one another. I think that when you withdraw from psychiatric drugs, the one of the things you'll experience is your ability to love increases and with it all, the term oil that goes along with that. It's good to have a psychotherapist like you are a psychotherapist, helping people withdraw. You do a much better job than a non-psychotherapist because when people come off the psych drugs, they start to have no their feelings become available. That's exactly it. The drugs take away the bad, but they take away all the good as well. They just reduce the human being.

45:34Yes, and myself, I've experienced that. I was explaining to somebody the other day, the stuff you said about marriage, it's real hard and I don't know if we have time to talk too much about it, but it's got 11 minutes. Okay, we have 11 minutes. Okay, before we get into that, I want to talk about it. I think it's really important to talk about it. I think it's imperative. In fact, on the Guest Literature's podcast, we have now had multiple guests come on and talk about that exact thing. Facebook groups like anti-depressants ruin marriages. We've had guests come on from that group. They follow us. They're fantastic. And we all talk about this idea of really, truly not being able to feel connection to somebody and to feel that closeness and to truly feel love. Like at the beginning of the show, when you were talking about your definition of love, I'm thinking, well, if somebody asked me that, it'd be like, well, it's a noun. It means to be

46:35fond of a strong attachment. I'd give you the logical Webster's Dictionary answer, because that's all I'm able to muster up, but I know it's there and I can slowly feel different levels of it coming back as I'm titrating off of my medication. But it's a very interesting space because it almost takes away a piece of who you are. I can't feel certain emotion. I still can't. I can't feel pride if my life depended on it. I have tried to feel it. I have tried to sit in it. I've tried to manifest that. I've tried to meditate around this for years. I still can't. It'll calm. I know it will. But something as simple as that, when you can't feel these emotion states, these deeper emotions, you can't make a connection like that in your marriage with somebody. There's implications to that over time. I don't think people recognize how that can happen. In fact, they don't know what's happening

47:35when they're in it. They're spellbound, as you know. That's a thing. I didn't know it. I would blame every issue in my marriage on my husband. When in reality, I couldn't even understand myself and my role in everything. Because I can't get to that level of self-understanding. You can't get there. You think you can. You think you're there. But you can't. And so how that implicates itself within relationships, within your marriage, how going through PSSD, for example, can impact your inability to have a sexual experience. Let's PSSD with your spouse. Post SSRI, sexual dysfunction. Oh, there you go. And that's huge. For some people, they're all genuine. You haven't gone through that. You're still on a med. No, actually, I've been on this med on it, off it, on it, off it. I would increase it, decrease it.

48:36The seasons would change. I'd go from 20 to 5. My prescriber would say, Jen, you know how you get in the summer. Go down on it. And the winter, go back up. So talk about the ability of protracted withdrawal to just continue to harm itself repeatedly over 25 years for me. So I have gone on and off, up and down, right? And what that's done to me. And what that does when it comes to sexual dysfunction, when it comes to the inability to connect with someone on that level, no, it becomes newsweather in sports. It's a task. It's not something that I can feel a deeper connection in. Those are the issues that can come and they're implicated within marriages and within relationships when you are on a psychiatric drug. I was never told that. That wasn't a thing. I was told, well, Jen, I think you might need a sex therapist if this is what's happening in your marriage. That's what I was told by my prescribers. And so, of course, what did I do? I wouldn't look

49:39for sex therapist, right? I'm like, I guess I need to find somebody, right? Like, I have no sexual drive anymore. I'm not, I don't, I can't feel that for my spouse. And when you start a psychiatric medication, when you're a teenager and your entire, your whole body isn't even developed yet, right? Your immune system is still trying to figure out what to do. Your metabolic structures have, I mean, my goodness, none of that's developed in four months. Yeah, into your mid-twenties, right? Like, like, none of that has happened for me. I was stunted so early. I was stunted at such an early age. And so it... Thank you for being so brave as to share with us. Yeah, that's really true. This is so brave. This is so brave. For when you're in there, loved what they're loving husbands, don't stand. You're welcome. And I think what you said, Peter, is so important. When I work with people and even my husband will attest to this, having somebody who understands drug withdrawal is that's the battle. Dozing down is the easy part. Like, that part is easy. You have withdrawal,

50:46we'll dose back up. You understand your symptomology, you play around with that. That's the easy part. It's figuring out who you are and having somebody that can be by your side to understand what's happening and support that. I think is probably the bigger task to this. The science behind deeper describing is easy. The psychology behind it is the difficult part. That's the hardest part. When you're trying to discover who you are and you don't know because you have been so numb out for so many years, you sit in front of your spouse and you're like, I don't even know who I am. You feel an emotion and you're like, I don't know what that is. I've never experienced like true loss. And so now you've got to go back through and understand and feel all the loss that you couldn't process before because you didn't know how. So to have somebody next to you who understands that is huge. And I'd like to add just very briefly that the sexual dysfunction

51:51also frequently accompanies taking SSRIs and other psyched drugs from men and young men. And again, if a young man is in his late teens and he started on an SSRI and he starts to have erectile dysfunction, he doesn't have a clue. And the next thing you know, he's going to go online to the hymns website and talk to a teladoc and get a prescription for ED, erectile dysfunction medication. And then he's taking two things. The second thing because the first thing is injuring him without him understanding that it's the psychiatric drug. I'm not aware of any such information about hymns in particular. Oh, yeah, sorry. I used that as an example of the multiple numbers of online ED resources that are there that you don't know what they're saying that people can

52:52can. Well, they offer ED medication with teladoc. Pretty easily accessible. It's very easy accessible. I myself went to the hers website and put in all kinds of symptomology that I could be having. And boy, it's pretty darn easy to get a prescription sent to my home. And I'm not criticizing that because these human beings who need to any of us human beings who need to get that kind of help, they deserve all the help they can get. But they aren't fully informed as you're saying about the fact. That's what they deserve. Yeah, they and they that's the part I think that people are missing. Is the risks, the benefits, the alternatives, like a conversation around what in what really truly makes you informed before you start that drug so that you can make the best decision. For someone to say to him, actually, this is very common. 50 to 60% of men that go on an SSRI

53:53do have PSSD. And here's what it is. It can be emotional numbness. It can be genital numbness. It can be erectile dysfunction. It can be all these things, right? And it's it could be that the drug is doing this. I don't know. I'm not in love. Right. It could be. Yes. If your love feelings are suppressed, so maybe your sexual feelings because it's all one package guys. Right. And your or could be your hormones are being altered. How easily it is that when we change the structure of the brain and how the neurochemistry is happening, we're going to alter hormones. And so that could be leading to what's occurring. All these different possibilities. But that's what an informed conversation should be. That's what should be given to patients. And unfortunately, it's not. And so I just feel like that's kind of where I come in. And even in my therapy practice, people get very inquisitive about the medications and the drugs. And I will have informed conversations with them. I'll have people ask me, I'm taking a bunch of

54:56meds. How effective is EMD are going to be for me, Jen? If I can't process emotion. Or how effective is psychotherapy? You're even cognitive behavioral therapy going to be for me. And I will have a conversation about that. And those are all very smart questions. They're valid. It's absolutely valid. We have one minute and 45 seconds left, Jen. Would you let people know how they can reach you? Either for both for your podcast with Dr. Terrell and those who can reach out to you as a therapist. Sure. So if you're looking for therapy services or you're looking for some coaching on deeper scribing, you can find me on my website, which is genschmits.com. Jen with two ends, genschmits.com. Very simple. And if you're looking for the Gas Lit Truth podcast, you can find it on my website or you can go to the Gas Lit Truth podcast at gmail.com. And that's got all things gas light on there. So pretty easy to find me or to find the show.

55:59Great. Peter, we've got one minute. I think you're wonderful. Thank you. Jen, I think you're doing really good work. We should come back again and talk about love and marriage. That's something that I'm thinking about doing in my next book on. Yes. How do you relate to people in a loving way for a whole bunch of years? How long will we be together? 42 years, honey. How did that happen? It just rolled right along and then it happened and God bless you and God bless us. We're very fortunate. And Jen, thank you so much. Thank you. And thank God for having me on. Yes. And God bless you too. We'll be in touch again soon. Thank you.