Noncompliant: Take Back Your Brainpower, #1

By Suzanna Stinnett

Millions of patients are turning to their peers in groups and forums to understand depression and antidepressants. Becoming your own authority sometimes includes being noncompliant in your doctor's eyes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peace Meal Press
• Release date: Jan 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386807865

Suzanna Stinnett

Suzanna Stinnett is an author and artist with a steady dedication to discovery. Researching and publishing information about brain health and longevity is her lifelong passion

Book preview

Noncompliant.  2019 Suzanna Stinnett

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Published by Peace Meal Press, Corte Madera, California

Introduction

N oncompliant is a direct reference to the medical system. There’s a deeper meaning, though, when patients become self-directed and healing becomes crowd-sourced. I am noncompliant as are most of my peers in the realm of prescribed drugs. To be self-directed, however, requires more inner authority than just avoiding doctors or refusing their protocols. I am also noncompliant with my peer groups. I am conducting my own experiment on antidepressant withdrawal. I seek to leverage my years of research and the success I’ve had with healing my gut, in the course I choose for tapering Effexor out of my life. Noncompliant is a word that is used too broadly today. Doctors consider their patients noncompliant even when their lack of cooperation is simply because they can’t afford the drugs. This isn’t noncompliance, my friends. This would be called lack of access. I object to patients being painted into a picture of self destruction, which is what the industry likes to portray. We have access now to more than our doctor’s interpretation of a study which was likely to be misinterpreted by their peers. We have access, and we are using it.

Ready? Here is the disclaimer:

This booklet contains information on tapering off the serotonin-disrupting drug called venlafaxine, or Effexor, using a self-directed protocol which draws on the generous wisdom and experience of my many peers, but ultimately stems from my own choices. I am not following anyone’s protocol, and am assuredly not following the advice of a doctor. Read this at your own risk. I advocate nothing except the option to explore your own course. I will lay out the tools and supports I am using to accomplish my taper in the last section of this booklet. This exposure to my process is in no way advice on how you might proceed. On the contrary, what I am stomping around and yelling about is that we all have the freedom to choose our own course. We have access to a deep well of direct experience. That is the most critical thing I want to convey. Use the resources of online groups and forums to come to an understanding of your experience, and proceed from there. No one can tell you what will work for you. 

While writing the booklet series for Take Back Your Brainpower, I’ve discovered a great need to vent my considerable daily anger. It’s daily, because every day that I participate in my forums, hearing the stories of my peers,