This episode discusses sensitive subjects, including psychiatric abuse, false memories, psychiatric over-medication, and mental health struggles involving self-harm.
What happens when a culture’s collective fear is weaponized against the very people seeking help?
In this week's conversation, I’m talking with my friend and author Jamie Lyn Weaver. Jamie’s new memoir, Locked in the Psych Ward, chronicles her survival during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. She was kept in a locked ward for four years, heavily medicated, and coached into "recovering" memories of horrific events that never occurred.
Jamie discusses the audacity it took to finally put her story on paper and how the writing process itself became her path back to aliveness. We explore the role of "retractors" in healing and why her story is a vital warning for the world we live in today.
I’m Nancy Norbeck, and I’m your Messy Muse Mentor. I help people feel alive again through curiosity and play.
In this episode, I discuss:
The Anatomy of a Panic: How psychiatric "experts" used leading questions and hypnosis to manufacture a crisis.The Witness Effect: Why having a safe, non-judgmental witness is the most powerful tool for creative and personal recovery.True vs. Not True: The mental struggle of surviving a ward that functioned like a cult.Creative Resilience: How Jamie moved from a childhood belief that she wasn't creative to writing a prize-winning memoir.Ready to send your inner critic to summer camp for an hour and just enjoy some creative company? We get together once a month for a relaxed, co-working-style session where you can work on whatever you want—without any pressure to do it "right." We send the shoulds and inner critics off to summer camp where they're kept busy rather than getting in our way.
Join the Creativity Circle.
Episode breakdown:
0:00 About this episode, and content warning
1:05 Introducing Jamie Lyn Weaver: Surviving the Satanic Panic
2:50 The award-winning art Jamie forgot she made
5:53 Inside the Locked Ward: Why Jamie refused art therapy
8:42 The "Braun" Ward: 4 years of false memories and forced meds
12:56 The lack of advocacy and the "insurance game"
15:19 Dungeons & Dragons, Heavy Metal, and the 80s Panic
19:11 From intuitive writing to a completed memoir
24:15 The 100 Moments: Using structure to process the impossible
28:16 Finding the right coach: The power of being witnessed
32:58 "The police will meet you at the bottom of the stairs"
36:52 The "Feeling Wheel" and finding words for trauma
41:50 The "Apothecary" Reality: Surviving over-medication
46:33 Why being a "retractor" is a long road to aliveness
51:43 Jamie’s warning for the modern world
Want more? Here are handy playlists with all my previous interviews with guests in writing.
Check out the full show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join us for the Follow Your Curiosity Creativity Circle.
Please leave a review for this episode—it’s really easy and will only take a minute, and it really helps me reach new listeners. Thanks!
If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you’ll share it with a friend.