Jordan Peterson in a new interview described his spiral in addiction to drugs and suicidal thoughts before he was diagnosed with schizophrenia – and then went through a controversial Russian treatment that he put into an induced coma for eight days.
The controversial Canadian psychology professor, who spent much of his career protesting against the politically correct, spoke to the Sunday Times, along with his podcast host daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, about his downward spiral.
“I do not remember anything. From December 16, 2019 to February 5, 2020, ”said the self-help author of the period he was sent to Russia for treatment. “I don’t remember anything,” Peterson told the British newspaper.
Peterson gained international fame for exploding in academic “safe spaces” and feminism, as well as for his refusal to use the preferred pronouns of trans people.
He wrote the international bestseller, “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos,” in 2018, but was battling the addiction to benzodiazepines prescribed to him after a violent reaction to a strict meat and vegetable diet.
Mikhaila, 28, her Russian husband and Peterson started the diet in 2016, but the three had a violent “sodium metabisulfite response,” she said. “It was really awful – but it hit him harder,” Mikhaila told the Times. “He couldn’t stand without passing out. He had this imminent sense of destruction. He was not sleeping. “
Peterson previously said he did not sleep for 25 days during that period, but the longest human sleep deprivation on record was only 11 days, the newspaper notes.
He was prescribed a low dose of antidepressants, which helped him recover, but the dosage was increased after Peterson went into depression after his wife Tammy’s cancer diagnosis.
“And things just fell apart insanely with Tammy. Each day was life, death and crisis for five months, ”said Peterson to the newspaper. “The doctors said, ‘Well, she got cancer that is so rare that there is virtually no literature on it, and the death rate in one year is 100%.’ So endless nights sleeping on the floor in an emergency and continuous surgical complications … So I took the benzodiazepines. “
Tammy Roberts recovered from complications with kidney surgery, but Peterson’s drug addiction worsened.
“Dad started to get super weird. It manifested itself as extreme anxiety and suicide, “said Mikhaila, who the Times reports” appears to have taken complete control of his business, “he said.
The politically correct crusader went to a clinic in Toronto, where he was supposedly withdrawn from benzodiazepine and prescribed ketamine, before being admitted to a rehab clinic in New York in 2019.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia at that time.
“Well, I went to the best treatment clinic in North America. And all they did was make things worse. So we were out of options, ”Peterson told the Times of the decision to undergo controversial treatment in Moscow.
“I had put myself in the hands of the medical profession. And the consequence of that was that I was going to die. So it wasn’t that [the evidence from Moscow] it was attractive. We just had no other options. “
In Russia, Peterson was intubated for undiagnosed pneumonia and administered propofol so that he could be induced into a coma for more than a week while doctors cleared the drugs from his system.
When Peterson left treatment, he had lost his ambulation, along with much of his memory, according to the report.
“He was catatonic. Very, very bad. And then he was delusional, ”said his daughter to the newspaper.
After making some progress, Peterson was taken to Florida in February, where his pain and suicidal thoughts returned.
Mikhaila then took his father to a private hospital in Belgrade, Serbia, where he was diagnosed with akathisia – a condition of unease linked to the removal of benzos.
Peterson, who also contracted the coronavirus while abroad, returned home to Canada to recover from akathisia. He told the Sunday Times that being labeled an “icon of white supremacy and hate speech” by employees of his book’s publisher affected his mental health.
“I was at the epicenter of this incredible controversy, and there were journalists around me constantly and students speaking out. It’s really emotionally difficult to be attacked publicly like that. And it happened to me continuously for, like, three years, ”Peterson told the newspaper.
“I was worried about my family. I was concerned about my reputation. I was concerned about my occupation. And other things were happening. The Canadian equivalent of the IRS was after me, making my life miserable, for what they admitted to being a mistake three months later, but they were just torturing me to death ”.
When asked about the apparent irony of turning to drugs after telling his followers that life is about fighting pain and suffering, the author deviated.
“No, I never said that. Look, if you are a viable clinician, you encourage people to take psychiatric drugs when appropriate. What I really encourage in people is to understand that it is not useful to allow their suffering to make you resentful. And, believe me, I already had a lot of temptation to resent what happened to me in the past two years, ”Peterson told the newspaper.
During the ordeal, Peterson wrote a sequel to his best-selling book entitled “Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life”. It is expected to be published in the spring.