I Disagree with Mikhaila Peterson

Mikhaila Peterson is the daughter of celebrity psychologist, Jordan Peterson. She has been through a wide variety of health issues which she claims to have cured through a carnivore diet where she eats only red meat.

She has a YouTube channel, Mikhaila Peterson, where she talks about the dangers of mental health medications. Her main issue with them is that they cause dependence and getting off of them can cause withdrawal symptoms. Mikhaila was prescribed antidepressants as a child and was on them for many years before discontinuing use and experiencing some very scary and unpleasant symptoms as her brain and body tried to readjust without the drug.

As someone who has been on and off mental health medications, who has experienced withdrawal symptoms, I still think her promoting the dangers of mental health medications is adding to the stigma of needing medicine for mental health. We hear a lot of stories about people getting off the "evil" mental health medications and then being cured and living this amazing life, but I'm willing to bet there are many others like myself, who wean themself off of medications and they still have a mental disorder. I think it's oversimplifying the issue to say that the problem is solely the psychiatric medications and if you just discontinue use then you will be this sparkling person you were always meant to be.

Withdrawal from benzodiazepines is not easy and there is something called tolerance withdrawal where your brain gets used to the medication and you go into withdrawal even while taking the medicine, so you have to increase the dosage in order to prevent withdrawal. This happened to me numerous times.

And when I weaned myself off of klonopin, for the fourth time a couple of years ago, I entered the deepest, darkest depression of my life. I couldn't get out of bed. And I could barely speak, only cry.

If I'm being honest with myself, I cannot blame these symptoms all on the medicine. I have to think back to the reasons I went on psychiatric medication in the first place.

It began with the death of my 18 year old brother and my complete inability to function after. I was so severely depressed and anxious I could not even properly do therapy because all I could do was cry through every session. Month after month.

Likely, I needed years to process this grief. But we don't live in a society that allows us to slow down and process things. If we're not making money, we're not contributing to society and society has no patience for people like that.

I did the only thing I could do as a 21 year old with post traumatic stress disorder, very little support, and a lot of bills to pay; I took psychiatric medications. And for years, those medications enabled me to remain financially afloat. I'm not 100% for psychiatric medications and I can also see the other side being the damage that they can cause; their potential for abuse, how they can numb you and separate you from your feelings, causing you to invalidate your lived experience and emotions.

But I see their place. When I weaned myself off of klonopin all those years ago, I didn't even have the confidence to make a phone call for a very long time. I ultimately took an antidepressant to help me out of the dark place I was in. I was able to re-enroll in school and start heading down a path that was going to lead me to a brighter future.

Then, my anxiety began breaking through the antidepressant and the panic attacks ensued once again. I decided to wean myself off of them and commit myself to a natural lifestyle. I wanted to heal myself, just like people like Mikhaila claimed to have done. I wanted to be a functioning member of society who didn't have to take medication because society tells us that taking medication means there is something inherently wrong with you. Or that you're not trying hard enough to heal.

I wanted to prove to myself I was strong enough to overcome my mental health issues. I had started a workout regimen with a personal trainer while on antidepressants which I continued even as I was weaning myself off. However, the increase in my heart rate from working out began giving me panic attacks and I was unable to weight train anymore.

I started eating a vegan diet. I began meditating and doing yoga every day. And I even had panic attacks while doing yoga. I was in therapy while on antidepressants as well as off so I continued to receive that support. I learned how to play piano while off of psychiatric medications.

But things became more and more difficult to manage even with these lifestyle changes. And then I hear people talking about how terrible these medications are for your health and it reinforces the fear and I internalize the stigma of taking mental health medications. I have felt like a failure for so long for not being able to overcome my mental disorder. Why couldn't I just meditate the PTSD away? Why doesn't eating salad cure me? It does for others, why not me? Maybe I just need to take Mikhaila's advice and eat only red meat as she did to cure her health issues and SSRI withdrawal. But I can't do that because I've worked very hard to start to recover from an eating disorder. I don't want to restrict my eating to that degree. Not to mention there isn't any research to back up that the diet is safe and nutritionally adequate.

I think taking psychiatric medications is not quite so black and white as some people claim. I think it's okay to take medicine for mental health issues and it's okay if diet and lifestyle changes don't solely cure you. It doesn't make you a failure.

These medications can be all the difference between functioning and not functioning for some people. I have seen it first hand, not just with myself, but with the people around me as well. I've seen the medications give people the confidence to step out of solely identifying with their emotions and think more logically about their lives and the steps they need to take in order to heal.

Maybe healing for me will ultimately lead me down the road of not needing medicine at all, but maybe I will need medicine. And I'm not going to judge myself for that anymore.

I spent years calling myself a drug addict and being cruel to myself for taking medications. I became angry with the medications because I needed somewhere to put my frustrations of having a neuro-divergent brain. I needed something tangible and external to blame for all of my problems; something I could overcome. If I had something I could overcome like a dependence on a substance, then maybe a clear minded healthy me would be at the finish line.

To anyone struggling with taking mental health medications, I just want to say this; we have this one life and medication is there to help. I don't want to waste my life in bed anymore. In a way, I feel like being told to be mindful is patronizing. Many days, my brain feels like a wild animal and I can't always make the choice to be present. I can't always choose whether or not I dissociate.

Sometimes taking psychiatric medicine is recovery. I tried for so long to recover from taking mental health medicine because I truly believed I was "less than" and a failure because I had to take it. If we chose our mental disorders then perhaps advice like "snap out of it" would cure us all. But because we can't just snap out of it, I'm thankful there are medication options to help me when even my greatest efforts to improve my life still don't change how my brain works.

Maybe you disagree with me. Maybe you're like Mikhaila and are furious with psychiatrists. But maybe you're more like me and you've spent years trying every lifestyle change possible to heal to no avail. Mental health disorders cause physical changes to your brain so if recovery is difficult, it makes sense.