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.
Doctors told me this was my TBI.
That my brain was damaged.
That this was just who I was now.
They never once suggested it could be the chemicals--the psychiatric drugs that altered my mind, my body, and my spirit.
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.
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.
Months after my TBI, I was in Thailand.
Was it easy traveling after a brain injury? No.
But I did it.
After psych meds, I wasn’t living.
I was fighting for my life.
And the absence of validation made me sicker. And sicker. And sicker.
Then came the benzos.
The paradoxical reaction.
The injury.
The terror.
We had no idea it was the medication. And that ignorance--that alone--nearly killed me.
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.
I was preparing to die.
The day I was going to exit is the day we found online forums about psych med injury...
I have learned that sometimes the Universe needs us to hit rock bottom, before showing us the path.
That moment, by no imagination, didn’t heal me,but it kept me alive.
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.
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.
My feet bled from pacing.
I stopped working--again.
I lost everything that resembled a normal life.
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.
This is why validation is not optional in psych med harm.
Every person injured by psychiatric medication needs validation. And the severity of injury often determines how much validation is required just to stay alive.
For many, forums, social media, and groups are lifelines. They offer mirrors. Language. Reality checks. Proof that this is real.
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.
I was just trying to keep a pulse.
My only thought loop was:
How do I end this?
How do I end it now?
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.
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.
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.
Despite my formal training.
Despite the research.
Despite the papers.
Despite the success stories.
Despite people reaching out to me every day.
Despite coaching.
I still need to hear: You will heal.
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.
Forums.
Social media.
Groups.
Coaches.
Intuitives.
Shamans.
Astrolgoists.
Friends.
Partners.
Loved ones.
Anything that reminds us that this was an injury.
That we survived a war.
And that we are not just here to survive--
We are here to sing.
One Love,
Malissa
