[ guest post by Alfred Thomas ]

The amount of psychiatric drugs being used continues to grow very rapidly. Well over 1 in 5 people in the US, and over 130 million worldwide are now using psychiatric drugs. Over 54 million people worldwide are using anti-depressants. Medicating with pharmaceuticals is becoming the default procedure for dealing with problems.

There are many alternative methods to psychiatric drugs, that do not have the side effects of pharmaceuticals. We need to raise awareness of these methods. In this era of social media, and its ability to spread ideas, and memes, this awareness can grow virally. Social media has been leveraged to raise awareness of marriage equality by making the red equal sign go viral, it has raised awareness of ALS by making the ice bucket challenge be ubiquitous. Can we do the same thing with raising awareness of alternatives to psychiatric drugs?

We are launching a social awareness campaign where people take photos of doing actions that can be alternatives to psychiatric drugs, and then include an orange dot or an orange in the photo. The photo is to show support for all those wishing to transition off psychiatric drugs, and looking for other methodologies. Accompanying the photo one can also share ones story, and/or a resource link. The intention is that we have a new cultural story of psychiatric drugs growing from this database of stories. Additionally we have a library of resources, videos, services and advice which everyone contributes to in an open source manner. With these links we can find out about yoga, meditation, music, art therapy, peer support, exercise methods and other options that help us feel better.

Please add your orange dot photo to our Orange Dot Facebook group. https://www.facebook. com/groups/773514439363445/

On twitter:

1. Post a link to a resource that is an alternative to psychiatric drugs along with hashtag #orangedot. You can also post an orange dot pic.

2. Retweet each others #orangedot tweets. (You can find these tweets by searching for the hashtag #orangedot ). The retweeting is what helps this campaign go viral.

(3. repeat regularly)

So an example of a tweet

#orangedot Alternative to Psychiatric Drugs: Yoga for anxiety http://www.yogajournal.com/category/poses/yoga-by-benefit/anxiety/

The idea is that we can turn to twitter and find a library of resources (that everyone is helping to create) by typing in the hashtag #orangedot. Please let your network know about this resource list.

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