Amanda Burrill - Self-Advocacy and Self-Belief – Escaping Psychiatric Drugs

Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health

Mad in America

Mental Health, Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 212 Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2020

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on MIA Radio, we interview Amanda Burrill. After a successful career as a Surface Warfare Officer and Rescue Swimmer in the United States Navy, Amanda was on track to continue her career as a professional triathlete and marathon runner, as she had already been competing internationally still while in uniform. Around the time of her discharge, she was prescribed a cocktail of psychiatric medications that caused physical injuries and leading to an early end to her rapidly accelerating career.

Amanda completed a Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University, a culinary arts degree from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and continued her work as a travel and culinary journalist; all while surviving a cocktail of over a dozen psychiatric medications over eleven years.

While being treated for a traumatic brain injury (TBI) by specialists at New York University in 2018, Amanda's doctors raised concerns about the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), benzodiazepines, stimulants, sleeping medications and mood stabilizers concurrently prescribed to her by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Over the next 12 months, Amanda was successful in withdrawing from her cocktail of meds, which included the SSRI, Zoloft. She now sees it as her mission to ensure what happened to her does not happen to others.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Madden America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry, and social justice.
0:13.1	Welcome to Madden America veterans. Here today we have Amanda Burrell. Amanda is a former lieutenant in
0:19.5	the United States Navy. During her six years in the
0:22.5	U.S. Navy, Amanda served as a surface warfare officer on the USS Dubuque. She served as the U.S.
0:28.2	Pacific Fleet's only female rescue swimmer and is the communications officer for the explosive
0:33.3	ordinance disposal group one, serving seven months in 2003 in Iraq and multiple deployments over the
0:38.7	next five years. During and after the Navy, Amanda was an Ironman triathlete, professional marathon runner,
0:45.2	where she completed 19 marathons around the world. Amanda also holds a bachelor's degree from
0:50.1	Boston University, a master's in journalism from Columbia University, and a culinary arts degree
0:55.4	from LeCordon Blue in Paris. Amanda, welcome, and thank you so much for joining us today.
1:00.3	Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. No, the pleasure is all ours. So we've been talking a lot
1:06.9	about the issues related to mental health and service members and veterans, but really
1:11.7	been looking at the role of medications and possibly harming and harming active duty service
1:18.6	members and veterans after they've gotten out of the military.
1:21.8	But before we get into that, I really like to maybe just have you tell part of your story,
1:26.2	maybe how this story kind of
1:28.4	started for you towards your path of treatment, and then we'll go into your experience in the
1:34.3	U.S. Navy.
1:35.3	Sure.
1:35.9	Well, through the lens of what we are both really interested in talking about, which is this
1:41.0	epidemic of people being over prescribed medication.
1:49.5	Really, what happened to me was towards the beginning of my military service,
	...

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