Miranda Levy: Psychiatric Safari - A journalist’s experience with psychiatry and their medications

When journalist Miranda Levy couldn’t sleep due to a relationship upheaval, she sought support from her doctor and fell down a multi year rabbit hole into the wacky world of psychiatric medicine. Miranda lost herself in a health care system that has little understanding of the powerful psychiatric drugs they dispense like candy. The health care system also has little motivation to acknowledge the torturous effects that can come from withdrawal from these drugs. Miranda doesn’t mince her words about her experiences with the medical system and the physical addiction it created - where it failed and where it helped - and where it abandoned her when she was at her most sick and desperate and in need of help. Miranda tells how a treatment centre publicly humiliated her as part of their therapy. And how she felt compelled to lie at the treatment centre’s 12 step program and say “My name is Miranda, and I’m an alcoholic” - even though alcohol was not the issue, it was prescription medications that she was addicted to. Fortunately, Miranda took control of her health and destiny and started to slowly wean herself off the medications - an ongoing process that is taking years - but she’s got her sharp mind back, she’s back to work as a journalist, and she’s writing a book about her safari into insomnia, mental illness, and the psychiatric world’s version of ‘big game hunters’: Big Profit Pharma   Connect with Miranda Levy Blog - Tales of an Insomniac.com  https://t.co/wxRppQWFHJ?amp=1   MirandaLevy.co.uk Twitter @MirandaLevyCopy   Be a podcast patron Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions.  Premium Patrons get access to video versions of podcasts for $5 / month.   Be my Guest I am always looking for guests to share their medical error experiences so we help bring awareness and make patients safer. If you are a survivor, a victim’s surviving family member, a health care worker, advocate, researcher or policy maker and you would like to share your experiences, please send me an email with a brief description:  [email protected]    Need a Counsellor? Like me, many of my clients at Remedies Counseling have experienced the often devastating effects of medical error. If you need a counsellor for your experience with medical error, or living with a chronic illness(es), I offer online video counseling appointments. **For my health and life balance, I limit my number of counseling clients.**  Email me to learn more or book an appointment:  [email protected] Scott Simpson:  Counsellor + Patient Advocate + (former) Triathlete I am a counsellor, patient advocate, and - before I became sick and disabled - a passionate triathlete. Work hard. Train hard. Rest hard. I have been living with HIV since 1998. I was the first person living with HIV to compete at the triathlon world championships. Thanks to research and access to medications, HIV is not a problem in my life. I have been living with ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) since 2012, and thanks in part to medical error, it is a big problem in my life.   Counseling / Research I first became aware of the ubiquitousness of medical error during a decade of community based research working with the HIV Prevention Lab at Ryerson University, where I co-authored two research papers on a counseling intervention for people living with HIV, here and here.  Patient participants would often report varying degrees of medical neglect, error and harms as part of their counseling sessions.   Patient Advocacy I am co-founder of the ME patient advocacy non-profit Millions Missing Canada, and on the Executive Committee of the Interdisciplinary Canadian Collaborative Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Research Network. I am also a patient advisor for Health Quality Ontario’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, and member of Patients for Patient Safety Canada. Medical Error Interviews podcast and vidcast emerged to give voice to victims, witnesses and participants in this hidden epidemic so we can create change toward a safer health care system.   My golden retriever Gladys is a constant source of love and joy. I hope to be well enough again one day to race triathlons again. Or even shovel the snow off the sidewalk.