The Gaslit Truth

• College Readiness: The Hidden Cost of Being Overmedicated with Joanna Lilley M.A., NCC

  Send us a textMental health readiness is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of college preparation. While academic credentials and test scores dominate the conversation, students are rarely assessed for their emotional resilience and social readiness – the very skills that often determine their success.Our conversation with Joanna Lilley, a therapeutic consultant who works exclusively with college-aged young adults, reveals a troubling pattern. Many students who excel academically find themselves overwhelmed by college life, sometimes withdrawing after just days or weeks. The culprit? A lack of preparation for the independence, social navigation, and emotional regulation college demands.Parents play a crucial role in this readiness equation. The "helicopter" or "lawnmower" parenting styles that clear all obstacles from a child's path inadvertently prevent them from developing resilience. When these students face inevitable college challenges without their parents' intervention, they often crumble under pressure they've never learned to manage.The COVID pandemic has exacerbated these issues, creating significant developmental gaps for students who spent their formative middle school years in isolation. Today's college freshmen missed critical opportunities to develop social skills during lockdowns, making campus life particularly challenging.Perhaps most concerning is the over-medication of young adults. Many high-achieving students are prescribed multiple psychiatric medications to help them cope with academic pressure, creating additional risks when they mix medications with alcohol or discontinue them without supervision in college environments.What determines success isn't academic capability but rather having experienced adversity and developed coping strategies. Students need balance, social skills, and the self-awareness to recognize when they need help. For many, taking a gap year might be the wisest decision, allowing time to develop emotional maturity before attempting college.Ready to reassess what college readiness truly means? Listen now to understand how you can support genuine preparation that encompasses the whole person – not just their transcript. Support the showAre you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at [email protected] While you are at it, Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @thegaslittruthpodcast. Be sure to Hit that subscribe button and get alerts for more episodes! Thanks for listening!Follow Us individually at Dr. Teralyn: Instagram @Dr_Teralyn Facebook @DrTeralyn Tik Tok @Dr_Teralyn Therapist Jenn: Instagram @TherapistJen TikTok @Jenn.Schmitz

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• Your ChatGPT Therapist Is Gaslighting You About Mental Health

  Send us a textThe AI therapy revolution promises accessible mental healthcare at your fingertips, but is this technological quick fix actually gaslighting us all? In this revealing exploration, we test ChatGPT's capabilities as a Freudian therapist and uncover both the appeal and the deeply concerning limitations of algorithm-based mental health support.When we prompted ChatGPT to analyze feelings of loneliness and depression, it responded with surprisingly eloquent and validating language—far more sophisticated than many human therapists might use. This linguistic prowess creates what we call "the illusion of support," a façade of understanding that feels meaningful but lacks the genuine human connection that forms the foundation of effective therapy. While AI can parse your words and reflect them back with added flourishes, it cannot truly feel your pain or engage in the messy, uncomfortable work that real therapeutic relationships often require.The most troubling aspect of AI therapy tools is how perfectly they align with our cultural obsession with convenient solutions to inconvenient problems. Just as we've been conditioned to expect immediate relief from psychiatric medications, ChatGPT offers instant answers to psychological questions that have developed over decades of lived experience. Even more alarming is how easily AI validates potentially harmful self-diagnoses—when prompted with questions like "Do I have autism?" or "Do I have depression?", ChatGPT typically responds affirmatively with symptoms that could apply to almost anyone.Rather than viewing AI as either a replacement or a harmless tool, we believe this technology should serve as a wake-up call for therapists to emphasize what algorithms cannot provide: deep, relationship-based healing that transcends standardized interventions and worksheet therapy. The therapeutic alliance—not techniques or eloquent language—is what creates lasting change. As mental health consumers, we must recognize that true healing rarely comes from frictionless interventions but emerges from the challenging work of authentic human connection.Subscribe, rate, and share your thoughts on this episode. Send us your gaslit truth stories at [email protected] and join us in pushing back against the technological quick fixes that promise solutions but may be creating more problems. Support the showAre you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at [email protected] While you are at it, Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @thegaslittruthpodcast. Be sure to Hit that subscribe button and get alerts for more episodes! Thanks for listening!Follow Us individually at Dr. Teralyn: Instagram @Dr_Teralyn Facebook @DrTeralyn Tik Tok @Dr_Teralyn Therapist Jenn: Instagram @TherapistJen TikTok @Jenn.Schmitz

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• The Mental healthcare system almost killed me, but I'm still here to tell the story. Sarah Trueb's Fight Against Medical Abuse

  Send us a textWhat happens when the very system designed to heal you becomes the source of your deepest trauma? Sarah Trueb's life changed forever when, at just 39 years old, she suffered a stroke after years of medication mismanagement and medical dismissal. Once a successful massage therapist helping others heal, Sarah found herself fighting for her own survival against a healthcare system determined to label her physical symptoms as "all in her head."Sarah's journey began with seeking help for PTSD following a family trauma. Instead of appropriate trauma care, she was immediately diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed lithium—the first in a cascade of 33 different medications that would wreak havoc on her body and brain over the next several years. Despite showing clear signs of medication sensitivity and developing increasingly severe neurological symptoms, healthcare providers continued to view her through a purely psychiatric lens.The most chilling aspect of Sarah's story is how her stroke warning signs—numbness, facial drooping, and slurred speech—were dismissed as "stress" or "anxiety" by medical staff. Even after suffering a stroke while under medical supervision, Sarah faced continued skepticism, being prematurely discharged from rehabilitation and labeled with "conversion disorder," a diagnosis suggesting her symptoms were psychologically rather than physically based.Today, Sarah lives with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), a complex condition affecting over 300,000 Americans that disrupts how the brain and body communicate. Her symptoms include chronic pain, seizures, vision problems, movement disorders, and more. Despite these debilitating physical symptoms, she continues to be accused of "faking" when seeking medical care.Sarah's powerful testimony serves as a warning about the dangers of medical gaslighting and the deadly consequences of siloed healthcare thinking. Her advocacy for the TRUBE Act aims to create systemic change and prevent others from suffering a similar fate. This episode forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: sometimes the most dangerous place for a vulnerable patient is inside the very system meant to provide healing.Subscribe to The Gaslit Truth Podcast for more stories that shed light on unethical practices in healthcare and mental health systems. Have you experienced medical gaslighting? Share your story at thegaslittruthp Support the showAre you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at [email protected] While you are at it, Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @thegaslittruthpodcast. Be sure to Hit that subscribe button and get alerts for more episodes! Thanks for listening!Follow Us individually at Dr. Teralyn: Instagram @Dr_Teralyn Facebook @DrTeralyn Tik Tok @Dr_Teralyn Therapist Jenn: Instagram @TherapistJen TikTok @Jenn.Schmitz

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• Suicide Swatted: The Dark Side of Psychiatric Human Trafficking with Gina Fournier

  Send us a textWhat happens when institutions weaponize psychiatric care to silence whistleblowers? In this eye-opening conversation, former community college professor Gina Fournier shares her traumatic experience with what she terms "psychiatric human trafficking" – a harrowing journey that began when she questioned academic standards at her workplace.Gina's story unfolds like a dystopian nightmare – she was "suicide swatted" by her employer after speaking out, resulting in forced detention at a psychiatric facility where she received virtually no evaluation or meaningful treatment. The clinical certificates authorizing her confinement were riddled with irregularities, including one signed by a doctor who never examined her. Most tellingly, her release came not when she was deemed "well," but when her insurance coverage ran out.The aftermath has been equally disturbing. Permanently labeled with code "48" in law enforcement systems, Gina describes years of ongoing retaliation, including additional suicide swatting incidents when she's sought justice from elected officials. Her testimony raises profound questions about the intersection of institutional power and psychiatric authority – and how easily mental health designations can be used to strip individuals of their credibility and rights.This conversation isn't just about one woman's ordeal. It's a sobering examination of how psychiatric labels can be weaponized against those who challenge authority, particularly women. It's a cautionary tale about the dangers of involuntary commitment without proper safeguards, and the lasting damage such experiences inflict. For anyone navigating mental health challenges or supporting someone in crisis, Gina's message is clear: peer support might be safer than institutional psychiatric help, which too often causes more harm than good.If this episode leaves you questioning the systems we've entrusted with our most vulnerable citizens, that's exactly the point. Share this conversation to help shine light on psychiatric abuses that continue to happen behind closed doors, even in 2025. Support the showAre you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at [email protected] While you are at it, Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @thegaslittruthpodcast. Be sure to Hit that subscribe button and get alerts for more episodes! Thanks for listening!Follow Us individually at Dr. Teralyn: Instagram @Dr_Teralyn Facebook @DrTeralyn Tik Tok @Dr_Teralyn Therapist Jenn: Instagram @TherapistJen TikTok @Jenn.Schmitz

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• Your Complete Guide to Medication Tapering: The Final Stage Pt 3.

  Send us a textYou've been gaslit into believing medication tapering means cutting pills in half and taking them every other day until you're done. The reality? Your brain requires a much more sophisticated approach.In this final installment of our medication tapering series, we reveal the neurological science behind why standard tapering methods fail so many patients. Discover what's actually happening as your brain's receptors adjust when medication levels change, and why those challenging symptoms aren't a "return of your condition" but genuine withdrawal effects your prescriber may never have warned you about.We dive deep into the hyperbolic tapering method, explaining why initial reductions often feel deceptively easy while those final milligrams can be the most challenging. Learn to identify withdrawal symptoms beyond the obvious brain zaps—from headaches and vivid dreams to digestive issues—that signal when your taper is moving too quickly for your unique neural adaptation.The most crucial factor in successful tapering? Individualization. Your withdrawal timeline might look nothing like someone else's, even on the same medication. Some experience effects within days, while others don't notice symptoms until weeks after a reduction. Understanding your personal pattern becomes your most powerful tool.Whether you're contemplating a medication reduction or currently struggling through withdrawal, this episode provides both scientific understanding and practical guidance to navigate the journey with greater confidence and fewer setbacks. Connect with us directly if you're ready to create your personalized tapering plan with evidence-based support. Support the showAre you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at [email protected] While you are at it, Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @thegaslittruthpodcast. Be sure to Hit that subscribe button and get alerts for more episodes! Thanks for listening!Follow Us individually at Dr. Teralyn: Instagram @Dr_Teralyn Facebook @DrTeralyn Tik Tok @Dr_Teralyn Therapist Jenn: Instagram @TherapistJen TikTok @Jenn.Schmitz

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