Naming Harm. Reclaiming Truth.

People talk about “validation” as if it’s a luxury.
As if its reassurance or something extra.

In psych med injury, validation is oxygen.
Without it, many of us do not survive.

When I was withdrawing from antidepressants and entered protracted withdrawal, I didn’t know what was happening to me. And that not knowing was just as damaging as the symptoms themselves--if not worse. The unknown put my nervous system under constant threat. My body believed I was permanently damaged. That belief alone added an unbearable layer of stress to an already injured system.

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Doctors told me this was my TBI.
That my brain was damaged.
That this was just who I was now.

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They never once suggested it could be the chemicals--the psychiatric drugs that altered my mind, my body, and my spirit.

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And yes, my TBI was horrific. I will never minimize that. But when I look back with clarity now, nothing compares to psych med harm. And at that point, I hadn’t even faced the worst of it yet for me--benzodiazepines.

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What I see now is how completely spellbound I was by psychiatric drugs. So deeply altered that even after the TBI, I couldn’t fully remember who I was before the meds. But the difference is undeniable.

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Months after my TBI, I was in Thailand.
Was it easy traveling after a brain injury? No.
But I did it.

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After psych meds, I wasn’t living.
I was fighting for my life.

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And the absence of validation made me sicker. And sicker. And sicker.

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Then came the benzos.

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The paradoxical reaction.
The injury.
The terror.

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We had no idea it was the medication. And that ignorance--that alone--nearly killed me.

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Before I even began withdrawing the second time (after being forcibly taken off and given a two-week taper and then put back on for "escalated PTSD" which was actually protraction injury), I liquidated my assets. Increased my life insurance. Added beneficiaries. Wrote my notes.

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I was preparing to die.

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The day I was going to exit is the day we found online forums about psych med injury...

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I have learned that sometimes the Universe needs us to hit rock bottom, before showing us the path.

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That moment, by no imagination, didn’t heal me,but it kept me alive.

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What followed was a path I was never prepared for. But what I remember more than anything is how much validation I needed to survive it.

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During the benzo withdrawal--after being forced to cut 50% over just a few nights--I convulsed. I developed severe akathisia. My body threw itself forward and backward nonstop, 24/7 for a long time. My eyes bulged with terror. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, out of the walls, out of existence and hang from the cealing.

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My feet bled from pacing.
I stopped working--again.
I lost everything that resembled a normal life.

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I was so far gone, so neurologically injured, so spellbound by the psych med injury, that I could not believe for 1 minute this was from the psych meds. I trully believed it was trauma from the TBI or something else going on, despite my life not being like this after the brain injury. So I needed my ex-husband to remind me--over and over--that this was the drugs. Not me. That I wasn’t broken. That I wasn’t losing my mind. That this wasn’t my fault.

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This is why validation is not optional in psych med harm.

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Every person injured by psychiatric medication needs validation. And the severity of injury often determines how much validation is required just to stay alive.

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For many, forums, social media, and groups are lifelines. They offer mirrors. Language. Reality checks. Proof that this is real.

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In my case, I couldn’t participate--because my nervous system couldn’t tolerate stimulation. And every word I heard triggered me-- it was too much of a risk to speak to others. If i wanted to have any shot of surviving this, I needed to stay in my bubble. So I couldn’t be online. I couldn’t be in groups. I wasn’t building community for years in my case.

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I was just trying to keep a pulse.

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My only thought loop was:
How do I end this?
How do I end it now?

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My partner at the time--though we didn’t work out at the end--saved my life. He slept on the floor next to me for over two years to make sure I didn’t kill myself. He reminded me day and night that this was medication injury. That I would heal. That I was still me under it all.

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And while he was also part of the larger story--part of what led me indirectly into psychiatry in the first place, and someone I needed to heal from--I will always be grateful. Without him, I would not be here. Both can be true and both are true for me.

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Even now, 50 months after cessation of benzos and in BIND, I still need validation at times, particularly when in a bad wave ontop of my baseline.

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Despite my formal training.
Despite the research.
Despite the papers.
Despite the success stories.
Despite people reaching out to me every day.
Despite coaching.

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I still need to hear: You will heal.

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I have my own tribe now. And my tribe may look different from others in this community--and that’s okay. What matters is that every one of us has someone or something to lean on.

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Forums.
Social media.
Groups.
Coaches.
Intuitives.
Shamans.
Astrolgoists.
Friends.
Partners.
Loved ones.

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Anything that reminds us that this was an injury.
That we survived a war.
And that we are not just here to survive--

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We are here to sing.

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One Love,

Malissa

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