- Learn Psychiatric drugs & healthcare
- Prepare Readiness for drug tapering
- Taper Practical how-to information
- Heal Withdrawal survival
- More Placeholder text
- What's known about drug risks
- A primer on psychiatric drug dependence, tolerance and withdrawal
- Psychiatric drug taper rates: a review and discussion
- Introduction: the vital role of good preparation
- Step 1 – How do I feel about the idea of coming off psychiatric drugs?
- Step 2 – Learn about psychiatric drug dependence, tolerance and withdrawal
- Step 3 – What is my withdrawal beacon?
- Step 4 – Managing day-to-day responsibilities and tasks
- Step 5 – Building a support system
- Step 6 – Communicating with prescribers
- Step 7 – Listening to the body and its messages
- Step 8 – Being with pain and darkness
- Step 9 – Is the time right for me to taper?
- Step 10 – Get informed about your psychiatric drug
- Step 11 – Ensuring that a drug is relatively ‘taper-friendly’
- Step 12 – Interactions, reactions and sensitivities
- Step 13 – Taper rates
- Step 14 – Taper schedules
- Step 15 – Taper methods
- Step 16 – Preparatory decisions
- Step 17 – Gather the gear
- Step 18 – Essential skills
- Step 19 – Setting up a taper journal
- Step 20 – Implementing a taper
- Help Hub – Support articles
- Family and Friends – Support your loved ones
- Practitioners – Prescribers, coaches, doctors, etc.
- How "Mental Disorders" are Diagnosed
- An Overview of Psychiatry's Diagnostic Manual (the DSM)
- Unlearn "Mental Disorders"
- "ADHD" Stimulants
- "Anti-anxiety" Benzodiazepines
- "Antidepressants"
- "Antispychotics"
- "Mood Stabilizers" and Lithium
- "Sleep Aids" Z-Drugs
- How Outcomes are Measured in Psychiatric Research
- How Psychiatric Drugs are Researched and Marketed
- Exploring Alternatives
- Exercise: Exploring feelings and beliefs about psychiatric medications
- Reflections: To withdraw or not to withdraw
- Exploratory exercise: What does “support” mean to me?
- Optional exercise: Create an inventory of your needs and possible supports
- Reflections: Anchoring in a sense of safety and security for the taper road ahead
- Reflective prompts
- Tips and troubleshooting around a difficult relationship with a prescriber
- Reflections: To ask or not to ask your doctor?
- Exercise: How much do I let my body guide me?
- Readings: Physical health during withdrawal
- Reflections: Coming off psychiatric drugs is about journeying back to our own bodies
- Exercise: How do I manage deep and difficult challenges in my life?
- Optional exercise: Create an inventory of your strategies
- Reflections: Journeying back to being with ourselves
- Gather the key documents
- Reflections: Getting empowered through self-education
- ICI's guide to the FDA-approved drug label
- ICI's key to withdrawal-related information in the FDA-approved drug label
- Readings: Getting a handle on slow psychiatric drug tapering and finding the right rate for you
- Reflections: Making your chosen rate as safe as possible
- The options: A daily microtaper or cut-and-hold schedule
- Discussion: Comparing the pros and cons of daily microtapering and cut-and-hold schedules
- Reflections: Make a decision – or hold off for now
- Making a liquid mixture
- Using a digital scale
- Counting beads in a beaded capsule
- Using a compounding pharmacy
- Using a manufacturer’s oral liquid
- Reflections: Which psychiatric drug taper method is best for you?
- Making a liquid mixture using immediate-release tablets or capsules
- Using a digital scale to weigh powder from a crushed immediate-release tablet or poured-out powder or beads from a capsule
- Counting beads from a beaded capsule
- Using a compounding pharmacy to obtain capsules and/or liquid
- Using a manufacturer’s oral liquid
- Adapter caps
- Bead-counting surface
- Counting implement
- Digital scale
- Empty capsules
- Graduated cylinders and pipettes
- Jars
- Labels and pen/marker
- Measuring bowl or tray
- Mortar and pestle
- Pharmaceutical-grade powder filler
- Pill bottles
- Pill organizer
- Refrigerator and/or cooler bag
- Slip tip syringes
- Transferring implements
- Counting and making cuts with beads
- Diluting powder when using a digital scale
- Understanding the limits of a digital scale's accuracy
- Using an adapter cap
- Using a digital scale for weighing and making cuts
- Using a mortar and pestle for pulverizing tablets
- Using syringes
- Doing calculations for a taper
- Special tips for calculations and liquids
- Section 1 – Tracking calculations and amounts
- Section 2 – Listening to your body and tracking symptoms and experiences
- Review
- Sample implementation: Making and cutting a liquid mixture
- Sample implementation: Using a digital scale to weigh and cut powder or beads
- Sample implementation: Counting and cutting beads
- Sample implementation: Using a compounding pharmacy
- Sample implementation: Making cuts from a manufacturer’s oral liquid
Looking for something specific?
ICI for Family Members & Friends
Welcome!
If you are a family member or friend of someone who is in the midst of coming off and healing from psychiatric drugs, welcome. As we develop ICI for Family Members and Friends, our
hope is that it will grow into a warm, welcoming, encouraging home and hub for you on your journey as a caregiver for, supporter of, witness to, and partner with the person in your life who is reducing or withdrawing from medications. After all, the journey off psychiatric drugs is often far from an individual one—the people surrounding the person in the midst of tapering are on their own path, as well, investing their time and energy into learning about withdrawal, giving emotional and mental support, and grappling with their own hopes, fears, challenges, pain and struggle.
Join us, get involved, and share your wisdom
We are actively creating resources for this section with ICI’s Family Member and Friend (FMF) Task Force, a volunteer team of people who have had personal experiences supporting others who’ve come off psychiatric medications and who wish to share with others the wisdom they’ve gained along the way. These are people who have found that they’ve been able to successfully navigate the often-times difficult and scary journey alongside a person in withdrawal by informing
themselves about withdrawal-related issues, strengthening their abilities to communicate and advocate, staying in touch with a sense of compassion and understanding for the person they’re supporting, and finding ways to take care of themselves along the way. ICI is honored to have these supporters as a part of our team, and grateful for their willingness to share their experiences with us so that we can together build resources to help other supporters. We are actively seeking to grow our FMF Task Force, so if you are a family member or friend of someone who has gone through or who is in the midst of psychiatric drug withdrawal and you have time, energy, and wisdom you’d like to contribute to this volunteer project, please contact us. Your experiences and learnings are incredibly valuable—what you’ve been through can help many others setting off on the same path that you’ve walked down. We’re eager for you to join us!
Connect with other supporters
Many supporters have found that connecting with other family members and friends of folks on the withdrawal
journey has been a meaningful and nourishing way to find and offer mentorship, nourishment, and hope. If you haven’t already, consider joining ICI Connect, where you can find and connect with other supporters who live near you. Learning from others who’ve “been there”, exchanging resources, and providing support to one another can help make the struggles you’re facing feel more bearable.