19. Medicating Normal With Angela Peacock

Aug 25, 2020

Inside Episode 19 of The Courageously.u Podcast, Angela Peacock shares her courageous story of how the overprescribing of mental health medication almost killed her.

Angela Peacock is a former U.S. Army Sergeant whose normal response to deployment led to fifteen years of being overprescribed medications, multiple hospitalizations, and a whirlwind of disability. Over that time, Angela was prescribed forty plus mental health medications, and at the height of the prescribing, eighteen medications at once.

Four and a half years off all medications, Angela is now sharing her courageous experience in the mental health care system. As she continues to heal from the neurological damage and psychological trauma caused by being a "compliant patient," she facilitates discussion of the issues presented in Medicating Normal for communities worldwide. 

Later on in the episode, co-producer Wendy Ractliffe joins us in our discussion of the documentary Medicating Normal.

In today's episode, we talk about: 

• What led Angela to seek help from psychiatry (3:51)
• How Angela's normal emotional response to readjusting to Germany led her to being overprescribed mental health medications (6:08)
• What withdrawal from over thirty-six mental health medications looked like for Angela (9:07)
• How Angela went from a very successful army leader to a hermit (13:05)
• What the current system of care for veterans looks like (14:00)
• How Angela became involved in the documentary Medicating Normal (14:50)
• All about Medicating Normal (20:16)
• What inspired the making of Medicating Normal (23:23)
• How people responded to Medicating Normal (26:23)
• The advice Angela and Wendy have for someone considering mental health medication (31:22)

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ALL THE GOODIES FROM THIS EPISODE:

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https://courageouslyu.com/medicating-normal/

 

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