Ep 32: Medicating Normal with Angela Peacock

It’s OK not to be okay - yet the world has increasingly become more and more addicted to the quick fix, or the magic pill that will dissipate our problems with one dose, or so they make you think. “Putting profits over people”, the pharmaceutical industry has capitalized on mental health for decades. 

In today’s episode you will hear from Angela Peacock, whose story has been featured in the incredible documentary Medicating Normal, which I believe EVERYONE should watch as a wake-up call to empower and educate ourselves on healing holistically versus being dependent on a system that is capitalizing on being broken. 

In this conversation, Angela shares with us her own personal experience serving in the military, and seeking solace through the VA system from a non-combat, life-threatening illness. Yet as Anna Lembke, MD, Associate Professor, Stanford University Medical Center, states, “the pharmaceutical industry] wants to disease-ify every single experience because they want to sell their pills to treat it”, where you will hear first-hand Angie’s experience in her story of overmedication versus finding natural ways to express her emotions not to  “numb the pain”. 

Let this story be the light for all who are suffering from mental health to hear how Angie has become a mental health advocate who is passionate about improving the health care system, for she believes this starts not with fighting Pharma (the system), but with empowering ourselves to KNOW what we need to heal ourselves to release this dependency on a system that is NOT serving us. 

"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -J Krishnamurti

About Angie: 

Angela Peacock, MSW served in the U.S. Army for seven years as a communications specialist. She deployed to Iraq in 2003 and was medically evacuated due to a non-combat, life-threatening illness. After medical retirement and a long period of recovery, she earned her bachelor’s in science in psychology and master’s in social work from Washington University in St. Louis. She was the first veteran since World War II to be inducted into WashU’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. She is a leader in the St. Louis Student Veterans of America community building and growing three new chapters and organizing a consortium of chapters across the region. 

Some of Angela’s past roles include Veterans of Foreign Wars Legislative Fellow, Wounded Warrior Project Courage Award recipient, member of the WWP National Campaign Team, and finalist for Student Veteran of the Year with Student Veterans of America. 

Her story of overmedication after trauma appears in the new film Medicating Normal (2020). Her current work is to plan and host community screenings of Medicating Normal across the world where members of the audience are invited to critically think about our modern mental health industry, informed consent, and psychiatric drug use and withdrawal. She is a mental health advocate, a writer, and YouTube creator who travels in her camper van across the United States with her service dog Raider, to improve the mental health care system for veterans and civilians alike. She can be found online @BeingHumanRV.

Connect with Angie: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beinghumanrv/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeingHumanRV

Medicating Normal Film: medicatingnormal.com