Posted on 02/08/2020 2:39:44 PM PST by Jayster
A controversial psychology professor and self-help author who has spent much of his career railing against political correctness is recovering from an addiction to tranquilizers, his daughter said. Jordan Peterson, 57, emerged last week from an intensive care unit in a Russian hospital after being treated for a dependence on benzodiazepine, an anti-anxiety medication. Peterson sought alternative treatments in Russia after being repeatedly misdiagnosed in North American hospitals, including a clinic in New York, Mikhaila Peterson said in a video script she shared with Canada’s National Post newspaper. “He nearly died several times,” the daughter said, adding her father had been taking the drug for years to treat anxiety brought on by a severe autoimmune reaction to food. Doctors increased his dosage last year to help him cope with stress after his wife, Tammy, was diagnosed with cancer. The daughter and her husband took Peterson, a professor at the University of Toronto who has long battled depression, to Moscow last month; he was diagnosed with pneumonia and put into an induced coma for eight days, according to the National Post. She described her father’s withdrawal as “horrific.” In the past, Peterson said he was able to beat back depression with the meat-heavy diet his daughter encouraged him to adopt. Cutting out greens altogether improved both his mental and physical health, he said in a 2018 interview. “The Twelve Rules of Life” author has been released from the hospital and is taking anti-seizure medication, his daughter said. Although he has trouble walking and typing on his own, he is “on the mend,” she said. “He’s smiling again,” she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Same.
Terrible news.
Jordan Peterson has been a giant in exposing the fraud of post-modernism.
Ditto.
I love the guy and hope he’s back to his old self soon. I also wish his wife a full recovery from her cancer.
Use of Benzo's is called 'chewing your booze' for those who use it to try to wean off alcohol, because it's the same receptors and interactions. Therefore it also has a similar mechanism of withdrawal. Opiate withdrawal is said to be more suffering, but it won't kill you. Booze and Benzo's will.
I think Jordan as a yoot drank a lot, but he cut out the booze in time not to become a drunk. BUT ... he had the anxiety thing. For a short time when I was quitting booze I entertained the notion that I could bridge my way to getting sober with Benzos. NOPE! Very bad, nasty things. I stopped them very quickly and the sleepness nights were awful.
In my case at least the booze was a remedy for an anxiety that was intrusive and yet had no real explanation. I eventually decided I could not keep it at bay by any action other than medicating it. But then any attempt to treat it with booze or drugs only digs you in deeper. So you find yourself caught between a rock and a hard place. Keep drinking - misery. Don't drink - misery.
Hence why a solution involving faith is often all that will work. Intellectually, all evidence points to misery. If you can transcend your own thinking, perception is reality, and the perception is that you have no choice but to suffer. So -> if that's the case, it becomes a rational choice, though in fact incorrect, to at the very least make yourself feel better for now, whatever the consequences.
Can't speak for him - we're all different - but I think if Jordan can finally get free of the notion that there is a substance method of dealing with the anxiety, and that there in fact IS a root to the anxiety that is discoverable and solve-able or transcenda-able, he will one day be the happy peaceful man he deserves to be. He has done the world a lot of good and has a lot more good to do if he chooses.
Good luck Jordan you wikid smaht bastihd!!!!!!
Amen!
Of all places, why go to Russia for treatment?
Yes odd place to go for that?
I was misdiagnosed with severe anxiety and put on valium. Turns out I have/had thyroid cancer and a nodule was spiting out extra thyroid chems. Just had surgery. Now I have to very slowly get off the dang valium. I’ve heard it’s hell. Bet it takes at least a year to titrate down.
That’s a shame. Hope he has a speedy recovery.
OH my gosh!!! What a terrible thing to happen to him!
His thoughts and talks and writings are magnificent. There is something about him that screams autistic genius. He is wise beyond human reasoning.
I hope to hell he recovers completely. In fact, I’ll be praying the very thing.
Been there, done that, too. Glad you got thru it.
Peterson Family Update - February 2020
-PJ
Yeah - far enough past it to smile when I look back. Hope you too! Like being in a house on fire, but a house of mirrors. Even when running for the front door, you may well be running for the boiler room and not know it. Hence ... very lucky to have stumbled out the right door just before she blew.
I find it that drinking too much causes anxiety. So that’s why I try to take it easy lol.
benzodiazepines can be harder to quit than heroin ... cold turkey can send you into fatal seizures, so withdrawal has to be REAL slow, sometimes months of agonizing dose reduction ...
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3814867/posts#17
and yes, StolarStorm, withdrawal using the Valium protocol can take a year ... and every dose reduction brings on withdrawal symptoms ...
Sounds like Peterson's daughter is arguing that he had a reverse-ish paradoxical reaction to the benzos (this is not unreasonable, I had some not-on-the-label reactions myself,) but that he has no psychological addiction (just physical withdrawal.) She describes what he describes as exactly what I remember.
This sounds like it could be partially true (not psychological) and part wishing it were true. But I have no idea and don't care - he and his daughter have a soup of autoimmune and other genetics that would challenge anyone -- add to that Peterson's overactive mind and in sum God has given you a powerful but very challenging spaceship to pilot through life without running into a few asteroid belts, and the challenges that mind altering substances present can not be solved by the mind that is altered, no matter how keen it is. It's like trying to fix a hammer with a ... broken hammer, or seeing your own eyes.
I just hope he gets clear of it.
ugh. I’m going to wait a while to heal from the thyroid surgery and slowly wean. My new doctor wants this to occur and I don’t want to be dependent on it. I’ve heard exercise helps a lot (increases GABA receptor sensitivity) and there are other ways to cope. I’ll be doing a lot of reading on the topic in a few weeks. Valium has a long half life so it’s supposed to be easily to titrate down than some others... so there is that.
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