Adderrall withdrawal alone can cause suicidal thoughts, anxiety, depression, violent behavior, extreme fatigue, and insomnia. She flatly refused professional medical supervision to help with a safe weaning process. Then one day, she decided to quit all the drugs cold turkey. Even greater risks are present for people with bipolar disorder Psalm had been open about her distant past struggles with mental health. The dangers are magnified with the addition of the alcohol, which she regularly had in the mix. Taken on a daily basis, each of those drugs have serious side effects, even more so in that combination. She took these drugs without professional medical supervision, and began to harm herself all under the banner of serving others. And then to sleep at night, she would take Xanax, a benzodiazepine.Īpparently this pharmaceutical recipe was inspired by other “high functioning” professionals. I learned that Psalm had at some point started taking Adderall, a highly addictive form of pharmaceutical speed, for productivity during the day. Very slowly, I gathered the shards… bits of information from those closest to her in the final days. Then one day, when she appeared to be on the fast track to all she had desired, I received the shocking news. However lovely her new persona, I missed that barefoot yogini that I first met, drunk on devotion with wild hair always on the verge of dreadlocks. I watched from the distance via our connections on social media: her professional output remained remarkable, her beautiful photos were increasingly polished and business professional, and her marketing was ever sleeker, boasting all the answers to sexual fulfillment, financial abundance, and personal empowerment. I followed the intuitive, quiet call of my soul in other directions. Though I remained friends with Psalm and appreciated all that she was, I did not continue to attend her events during the last few years. I decided that I’d rather have a good quality of life than break myself in efforts to produce more than felt organic for me. I valued spaces of silence, hermitage, and non-doing. I needed to retreat into an intentional moon lodge with my menstrual cycle. I needed eight hours of sleep a night if I was to be naturally functional. It left me feeling depleted and disconnected. When I asked her about honoring the menstrual cycle, she felt it was something to push through rather than a ceremony to surrender to.Īs a facilitator and educator, Psalm’s personal approach was not sustainable for my body, mind, or soul. She was ambitious and wanted to reach the masses. “You can sleep when you’re dead!” she was famous for saying, preaching a regimen of scant rest and long work hours. In that early Women’s Leadership retreat that I attended, I remember her playing a motivational video of a male athlete training like a beast, encouraging us to generate that kind of relentless drive and momentum. I often pondered how she summoned the force to produce as much as she did: events, projects, photos, writing, media. Psalm seemed to be an unstoppable force of productivity. She was not a scholar she was a lightning rod for Shakti, the dynamic primordial creative embodied energy. She was willing to reveal herself so fully to the world as a sexual-spiritual being. She raised awareness about our culture of sex-shaming. She founded a non-profit called Courage to Rise, dedicated to women’s empowerment with programs in India and America. She taught hatha yoga to sex workers in the slums of India. She held a potent space for presence, connection, warmth, beauty, and ritual. She brought in the drums and the Kali chants, she lifted the spirits and provoked the bravery of many beings. She shared sweet practices that were accessible to rushing Americans. I hosted her at my yoga studio and attended one of her early retreats. Still, as green as she was, she was on a mission to heal the sexual trauma of the world, like a juggernaut. She was just taking root in her own practices and integrating her profound transformational experiences. She was fresh from India, activated, and in love with the path of yoga and tantra. I first encountered Psalm as she was just emerging into the seat of the teacher.
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