Shame in Withdrawal

Shame in withdrawal is something that comes up again and again with my clients, and I know it from my own experience too. It can feel like something is really, really wrong with you. Like you are somehow particularly doomed, because you have this horrible thing happening, this withdrawal.

Your mind might loop over all the reasons why you are especially worse off than everybody else, why your situation is especially hopeless. The shame and isolation around how your own story has gone, and brought you to such a devastating place, can feel crushing.

If you're experiencing that, I just want you to know: it is a symptom. It is a symptom of being in psychiatric drug withdrawal. It is not an indicator that you're not going to heal.

Everyone in withdrawal has felt this

I suspect that single person who has gone through withdrawal has felt shame about it, has felt like maybe they're particularly doomed, or that something is particularly wrong with them that makes them unable to heal.

I think it is just part of the healing process. Our brains go there. So many people I meet with, that I talk to, that are in my groups, myself, my own healing buddies, my friends who've gone through this, we have all felt terrible feelings of doom about our own situations, and the looping.

So know, first of all, you are not alone.

It feels horrible. You can feel like almost a castoff from society because you feel so disconnected from normal everyday life and functioning, almost alienated. And I think some of that comes from the accumulation of all the symptoms, especially the mental symptoms that come with withdrawal.

Break the isolation

You are not the only one who has felt that way going through this healing process. It is part of the territory. And sometimes when you share that with somebody else, it helps dissolve some of that feeling of isolation, because you realize it is not just you.

I really encourage you to break down that isolation by connecting with others. Reach out. Have a healing buddy. Come to a group. There are lots of different coaches who run groups. I have resources on my website you can check out. And through forums and other ways, just please connect.

Collect proof that healing is possible

When you are really looping on the reasons why you are particularly doomed, one thing you can do is look at the healing stories of other people who have healed, especially any that are similar to your own situation.

If you're thinking, "I'm never going to heal because I cold turkeyed," look at all the other people who cold turkeyed and healed. You can even print out their success stories. For a while I had them in my purse. I would take them out and reread them to myself because I was so overwhelmed with the mental load of believing I would not heal.

That was my evidence. Other people who cold turkeyed did heal.

Maybe your loop is, "I had preexisting mental health issues." So have other people, and they healed. Find those stories. It might be videos, printed stories, a healing buddy, a coach, audio recordings of people sharing their healing. Find that evidence and remind yourself of it.

Your situation is not impossible. It really isn't.

Preexisting issues are not the end of you

A lot of us got onto these medications because we had something else going on that was affecting our mental health, and this was supposed to help us, and ultimately it did not.

So what about that preexisting mental health issue? How will you ever face that or resolve it?

I want to encourage you: those things are resolvable. It is not insurmountable if you have anxiety, or you had depression, or some kind of traumatic experience, or some terrible family dysfunction that really got you to a bad place. Those are things you can heal from.

And honestly, on the other side of this, they are going to feel like small beans compared to what you've been through. You're going to be like, "Oh, I just faced the dragon, and I thought I had this little mean dog." Psychiatric drug withdrawal is major, extreme suffering, and you can heal from it.

You are healing from it. You are coming through this. You are here right now, making healing choices, and your body can do this.

Once you've come through this, you are going to see that other things in life are so much more manageable, so small in comparison to this behemoth.

So when your mind says, "But what about that preexisting mental health issue? I'm never going to be able to face life, I'm horrible, I'm doomed," it's not true. It is fake news. It is very normal to have anxiety, stress, trauma, an episode of depression, something happening in your life that really brings you to your knees. That does not make you ill-equipped for life. That does not make you unable to recover, to heal, to live a beautiful life.

I know you might feel like you can't believe that right now. That's okay. You are in the middle of this. It's hard to believe anything positive. But if you can, just a little bit, take my word for it: those things are not insurmountable. On the other side, you are going to realize that they really are things you can work with and overcome.

The doom loop, and the cave you will walk out of

In withdrawal, you can feel like this is the end of you, like your story is a tragedy. Your mind loops: this happened, then this happened, then this happened, and now I'm doomed. It feels like walking into a cave with no light on the other side and no way back out. A labyrinth of darkness and you cannot see your way through.

If that is what you are experiencing, that is just part of this process.

And you will come out of that cave. You will.

Your body knows how to heal

Amazingly, our bodies know how to heal from these things. We do not always know how they do it, but they do. That is just how we are made. That is human biology.

One of the things that has been taken from you in this process is that sense of confidence in your own body's resilience, your own brain's resilience. Some of that has been taken by marketing and deception, and by the overmedicalization of mental health.

I want to reconnect you with that. What you are doing here is coming back to the basics of human resilience, and to trust in your body's ability to heal and come through hard times.

Your nerve endings, receptors for different chemicals in your brain, can be broken off. This happens in grief, in trauma. The person stops experiencing joy or pleasure and goes into a depression. But those nerve endings do regrow and heal and restore, and then the person reemerges feeling better, normal, reconnected to life. That is the process of grief and healing.

We have lost touch with the reality of our own human resilience, and we have become dependent on mental health systems or medications to find that equilibrium for us. What you are doing here is allowing your body the chance to do that healing work and come out the other side. Even if you cannot see your way out right now, your body is doing that restoring work. You are going to feel better again.

Joy, purpose, and ordinary life are coming back

You are going to be amazed that you can actually wake up one day and feel good about yourself, good about your life, with a completely different outlook and perspective. You are going to be able to enjoy simple good things, the ordinary wonderful things of being alive, of being human, having relationships, motivation, joy, a sense of who you are and your purpose.

All of that can come back to you, and it will. You are just disconnected from it right now.

Whatever shame you feel, it is not the final word over who you are, over your healing process, or over your future. There is so much good that can happen to you in your life that you have not yet experienced. All the good is not behind you. There is good ahead of you.

And it might sound strange, but amazing things can happen through this experience, through this crucible time in your life.

Borrow hope until you can feel it yourself

Hold on to hope. Borrow it from other people who give it to you, because your brain might be saying, "No, no, none of that is true. You are doomed." Please hold on. Borrow hope from others. It is true.

You can come to the other side. All of us who have been through this have felt devastated that way. And it is not the final word. You can heal, you can come through this, and there is beautiful, good life for you on the other side.

If you want to connect and get some support in your healing journey, you can book with me. And if you want to connect with others who are healing, come join a group.

Your healing is on the way.