Artist • Author • Activist • Advocate

I’ve finalized my Fall schedule for 2021, and I wanted to let you know what’s going on and where you can find me over the next few months.

BOOK UPDATE

Book sales for PSYCHIATRIZED have continued to be strong. If you haven’t purchased your copy of my memoir yet, you can get it HERE.

So far, 55 people have sent me photos of themselves holding my book for me to post on my social media pages! I *really* appreciate this! And if you’d like to be part of the fun, all you have to do is take a selfie (with book) and send it to me! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

I also wanted to mention that I really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to leave me an Amazon review about the book. This is incredibly helpful for indie authors, as it helps to gain exposure.

• • •

AUDIOBOOK ANNOUNCEMENT

This Wednesday, I’m starting to work on the audiobook version of PSYCHIATRIZED with Scott W. Fitzgerald of ROC VOX Recording & Production. I’m very excited about this endeavor. I know that when I was sick, it was very difficult (and sometimes impossible) for me to read. Hopefully, an audiobook will provide an addition option for people who’d rather listen than read.

• • •

BOOK LAUNCH in SYRACUSE, NY

             This is Renee McLain, y’all.

Sunday, October 3, 2021

4:30-6:30pm

8219 Marketplace, Building #10

Manlius, NY

This Sunday, I’ll be in Manlius, New York for my BOOK LAUNCH! I’ll be talking about my experience of healing after longterm prescription benzodiazepine use. Those of you who have read my book know that when I was at my lowest low, a woman named Renee McLain brought me home with her and took care of me for an extended period of time.

Many people have asked if I was imagining Renee, if she was real or a figment of my imagination.

The answer is, of course, she’s real!

Renee McLain happens to be the owner of Center of Grace Wellness Center in Manlius, New York, which is where my first book talk will take place! Renee will be at the venue and, after I speak, she will talk about what she does to help people to release repressed trauma(s). After the presentation, I’ll be signing books, and there will be a curated selection of my artwork for people to purchase. There will also be a small reception after the presentation for folks to enjoy.

To reserve your seat(s) HERE — or call BJ at Center of Grace at 607-227-3878. Seating is limited, so be sure to RSVP.

• • •

BOOK TALK in ROCHESTER

PSYCHIATRIZED: Waking Up After a Decade of Bad Medicine 

Thursday, October 14, 2021

Hillel Community Day School

191 Fairfield Drive

Rochester, NY • 6:30 – 8:30pm

I’ll be talking about my experience of healing after longterm prescription benzodiazepine use. Renee McLain will be present to talk about Somato Respiro Integration, and (finger-crossed), I’m hoping that my former therapist Vickijo Campanaro will be in attendance, too.  After the presentation, I’ll sign books, and there will be a curated selection of my artwork for people to purchase. For more details about the event and to reserve your seat(s) HERE. Seating is limited, so be sure to RSVP.

• • •

ZOOM ART CLASSES

If you’d like to join me Wednesday nights for my ZOOM ART CLASS for ADULTS, a small group of us meet weekly from 7-8:30PM EST. People can sign up for a month at a time or for the next three months. These classes are no pressure, and they are designed for connection and relaxation. For more information & details about supplies, click HERE.

And if you’d like to see an example of the kinds of things we do, click HERE.

Hope everyone is enjoying the cooler temperatures!

I’ll be in Booth #33 in the GREEN SECTION

845 Yellow Mills Road

Palmyra, New York 14522

Saturday 9/18 •  9am-5pm

Sunday 9/19 • 10am-4pm

 **$5 ENTRANCE FEE TO BENEFIT LOCAL CHARITIES

Children under 12 are FREE.

FREE Parking.

I’ll have magnets, tiles, prints, ornaments, original watercolors & acrylic paintings!

• • •

For more details about the show, click HERE.

Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered a copy of my memoir! Books are scheduled to arrive on August 12, 2021. As soon as they get here, I’ll start signing them & sending them out as quickly as I can.

The book is called PSYCHIATRIZED: Waking Up After a Decade of Bad Medicine, and even if you missed out on the opportunity to get a signed copy, paperback & ebook versions are available via Amazon. Click HERE to get yours!

SYNOPSIS

When a trusted physician tells Renée Schuls-Jacobson that he has the solution for her chronic insomnia — a “tried and true medication without any side effects,” she believes him. For seven years, she takes her clonazepam exactly as prescribed until, one day, she learns that her doctor is wrong: long-term benzodiazepine use causes all kinds of problems including profound changes in brain function.

With the help of an addiction specialist, Renée embarks on a slow, medically supervised taper, only to find herself cognitively scrambled and stuck in the nightmare of benzodiazepine withdrawal. For nearly four years, she endures hundreds of terrifying physical, emotional and psychological symptoms – none of which were present before taking the medication.

While healing from an iatrogenic brain injury that is not widely recognized by doctors, Renée leaves everything familiar behind and goes on a journey, meeting scientists and sages, healers and hucksters, who all teach her the same hard lesson: to stop seeking the help of experts and to trust her intuition.

In PSYCHIATRIZED: Waking Up After a Decade of Bad Medicine, the author contemplates the cost of compliance and exposes the truth about the dangers of psychiatric drugs as well as a discontinuation syndrome, which affects thousands of men and women worldwide.

Information about my upcoming book tour to follow.

Look for the hashtag #psychiatrized!

When you finish reading my memoir, I’d *really* appreciate it if you’d leave a written review on Amazon. Reviews helps indie authors to obtain more of a reach across the Amazon Books platform. 

During COVID quarantine, I decided it was time to finish my memoir.

And so I did.

I’m thrilled to announce the release of PSYCHIATRIZED: Waking Up After a Decade of Bad Medicine.

I’m currently taking payment for signed, paperback copies until July 31, 2021.

Copies will be shipped in August.

If you’d like to order a copy (or copies), CLICK HERE:

Or you can Venmo me at @rasjacobson.

Thank you all so much for your support during these last eight years of crazy-town.

SYNOPSIS

When a trusted physician tells Renée Schuls-Jacobson that he has the solution for her chronic insomnia — a “tried and true medication without any side effects,” she believes him. For seven years, she takes her clonazepam exactly as prescribed until, one day, she learns that her doctor is wrong: long-term benzodiazepine use causes all kinds of problems including profound changes in brain function.

With the help of an addiction specialist, Renée embarks on a slow, medically supervised taper, only to find herself cognitively scrambled and stuck in the nightmare of benzodiazepine withdrawal. For nearly four years, she endures hundreds of terrifying physical, emotional and psychological symptoms – none of which were present before taking the medication.

While healing from an iatrogenic brain injury that is not widely recognized by doctors, Renée leaves everything familiar behind and goes on a journey, meeting scientists and sages, healers and hucksters, who all teach her the same hard lesson: to stop seeking the help of experts and to trust her intuition.

In PSYCHIATRIZED: Waking Up After a Decade of Bad Medicine, Renée Schuls-Jacobson contemplates the cost of compliance and exposes the truth about the dangers of psychiatric drugs as well as a discontinuation syndrome, which affects thousands of men and women worldwide.

More information to follow under the hashtag #psychiatrized!

 

 

I’m excited to be able to enjoy post-Covid festivals and outdoor gatherings again. I’m vaccinated and will have hand-sanitizer; I’ve also changed my display to make it more Covid-friendly. This list will be updated frequently. Hope to see you there.

Festival Season 2021

June 5 & 6 • Fairport Canal Days  • Cannery Lot, Fairport NY • 10am-5pm

June 19 • Themata • Culver Road Armory, Rochester NY • 11am-4pm

June 26 • Pop-up at Purple Painted • 77 West Main Street Macedon NY • 10am-4pm

July 10 • Bishop Kearny Craft Sale • 125 Kings Hwy S, Rochester •10am-4pm

June 24  • Themata • Culver Rd. Armory, Rochester NY • 11am-4pm

August 14 • Jack Craft Fair • Buffalo Outer Harbor, Buffalo • 11am-5pm

Sept 18-19 • Purple Painted Lady Festival • 845 Yellow Mills Rd, Palmyra • 9am-5pm

NOTE: If you can’t make these festivals in person, I also take credit card orders via my website.

PS: Make a purchase during the month of June and you will be automatically entered to win my FREE ART GIVEAWAY. Drawing to take place on June 30, 2021 and the winner will be announced on July 1, 2021.

I started teaching online art classes via ZOOM during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020.

In All My Classes:

We focus on trusting our intuition, trying new techniques and — most importantly — gathering together with like-minded people online for relaxation and play. Some of the things we might paint include characters, critters, squiggles, abstracts, florals, high inaccurate figures and wonky portraits.

While I like to encourage people to experiment with watercolor, acrylic and multimedia, all you *really* need to participate is an open mind — and a few basic supplies.

People frequently ask me about which supplies I like, so I’ve finally compiled a list of some of my faves.

SUPPLY LIST:

If you’d like to join my Thursday night ZOOM class, click HERE for more info & to enroll. Online classes start October 3, 2024.

DISCLOSURE: I am part of the Amazon Affiliates Program, and I receive a few cents from every purchase made thru one of my links. I am grateful to you for clicking thru and helping me in this way!

Looking to do something artsy this summer from the comfort of your own home?

Look no further!

You’re invited to join me at JOYfilled Arts & Crafts Virtual Summer Camp to run July 22-24, 2021.

This event will feature at least THIRTY unique workshops taught by TWENTY different artists.

Participants will sign up to attend several LIVE classes and, at the completion of the event, you will have video access to ALL THIRTY workshops! There’ll be virtual Happy Hours, a virtual Campfire & much, much more.

I’ll be teaching two classes — WHIMSICAL MULTIMEDIA GIRLIES & FUNKY FLORALS and a fun little FREE mini-class, too.

Some of the other classes being offered include: Dream Big with Mandalas, Drawing Out & Quieting Your Inner Critic, Masks We Wear, Collage and Painting with Deli Paper, Intuitive Basket Weaving, Artist Trading Cards, Tutti Fruity Paint Over Collage, Blending with Acrylics, Intuitive Painting, Vision Board Workshop, Sculpting with Wool, Painting with Wool, Beginning Watercolors, Intro to Acrylics, Tooling and Dyeing a Leather Card Wallet, and Chakras 101 Workshop – with more being added. With so much variety, you are sure to find something that peaks your interest. 

Please click HERE for more info & to sign up.

(When you sign up thru either of the above links, I receive credit for inviting you!)

  • All You Need is a Phone, Tablet, or Laptop
  • Learn and Create From Home!
  • Extended Access All Class Recordings
  • Supply lists provided for each class

Hope to see many of you there!

xoxo

I recently had the opportunity to share my story on Positive Blatherings, a vodcast hosted by Scott W. Fitzgerald.

I’d never met Scott before this interview, and he literally knew NOTHING at all about my story.

This conversation was an incredibly positive experience for me, and while I know many of you have seen it, I thought I would share it on my blog, in an effort to continue to spread the word about the dangers of longterm benzodiazepine use, even if you are only taking it exactly as prescribed, which is what I did.

The interview is also available as a podcast here, if you prefer.

I am so fortunate & grateful to have been interviewed by, my friend, the multi-talented Ya’cub Shabazz of Sankofa Studios for giving me an opportunity to share my story on his inspirational podcast.

I hope you will learn a bit more about my experience during benzodiazepine withdrawal as well as my artistic process — and then click over to check out Ya’cub’s website, his podcast series, & his educational series.

Before I write another word, I want to say thank you.

I could not have made it thru this year without the support from my family, friends, and devoted clients. Without festivals in 2020, it was especially challenging to do business. Nearly all of my sales were to repeat customers — and that truly means the world to me. Thank you for thinking of me this year, for thinking of small businesses, for shopping local. I am truly grateful to each & every one of you. I am wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas & a Happy Healthy New Year.

• • •

LOOKING BACK AT 2020

This past year has been very difficult for everyone. Personally, I’ve felt off-center for most of 2020. Ideologically, I’ve vacillated between thinking humans need to fight this pandemic with everything we’ve got and believing that the planet is sick and tired of us and doing its best to purge itself of us. (I still lean toward the latter.) As a person who was profoundly injured by a pharmaceutical product that was (up until recently) generally considered “safe,” I am ambivalent about this vaccine that has been developed in WarpSpeed. I’ve watched our government unravel under a deeply flawed leader, and I have ached with the realization that 50% of our country embraces his racist vitriol. I’ve leaned into terribly uncomfortable situations and tried to hold oppositional worldviews in the same headspace.

Sometimes I’ve done this well; other times, I’ve failed miserably.

I HAD PLANS, Y’ALL.

Big plans.

At the end of 2019, I was feeling confident & optimistic & planned to acquire new gallery space, participate in more festivals/shows, to network with more people professionally and socially, maybe even allow myself to date again.

I THOUGHT 2020 WAS GOING TO BRING CLARITY.

Unfortunately, the pandemic did not allow me to achieve many of the goals that I set for myself at the end of December last year.

However, I pivoted quickly & created new intellectual & professional challenges for myself.

SO WHAT DID I DO?

Like everyone else, I took my life online.

I TOOK MY MEMOIR WRITING CLASSES ONLINE.

I bought a monthly membership to ZOOM. Being able to continue with the women in my Intro Memoir Writing & my Advanced Memoir Writing Classes provided me with some sense of normalcy. Tuesdays & Thursdays became anchor days, and I looked forward to checking in with everyone, hearing about how everyone was handling the big (and not always pleasant) changes in their lives.

I TOOK MY ART CLASSES ONLINE.

After two failed attempts, I created a functional overhead camera setup and I started teaching art classes online, too.

When I ran out of acrylic paint in early April, I started playing with watercolors, showing up every day for nearly three months to paint LIVE on Facebook. As it turned out, a bunch of people joined me to paint in real time every day — and LOTS of people tuned into to watch at their leisure because they found watching me paint relaxing and entertaining. I ran monthly contests, sending free prints to people who created art that moved me the most.

I rounded out 2020 teaching two individual art classes each day & offering group classes once a month. I learned how to create successful Facebook Events, and I plan to do more of this in 2021.

This year, in addition to selling my work via my website, I started selling my work LIVE via Facebook and ZOOM. Much gratitude there to my friend Tricia Campbell for helping me to facilitate a successful holiday season. I was surprised by how much actually sold, especially before Black Friday. I will definitely do more of this in 2021, for Valentine’s Day…and I have a super cool, very fun idea percolating! More on that in 2021.

I PLUGGED IN TO COMMUNITY.

Once I figured out that things were going to be okay for me financially, I worked on creating some kind of social life for myself.

In April 2020, when we were all locked down, I set up a Facebook Group for people from my high school. We had several meetings where a bunch of us checked in & caught up. My friend Kim Colby Luber and I co-hosted an interactive game for members of my high school graduating class of 1985 to play together; we played a few other games, and then a few other members from the class took over, which I appreciated. The group is still there, and I know that if necessary, it wouldn’t take much to resurrect activity there.

I feebly attended a few online exercise groups and checked in with a local divorce group via ZOOM even less frequently. After spending five hours a day teaching online, it didn’t feel great to sit in front of a screen for very long, but I did my best.

I TOOK CARE OF MY PHYSICAL HEALTH

I ate well.

I slept well.

And I scheduled that stupid knee surgery that I’d been postponing. At six weeks out, I’m walking two miles a day before it starts to ache a bit. Hopefully, it’ll be even better in another two months.

I TOOK CARE OF MY MENTAL HEALTH

In the ideal world, I process challenging things by sitting close to someone, talking things out face-to-face, and hugging it out. COVID has forced me to manage my own sadness.

I learned how to do this during benzo withdrawal and my subsequent divorce, so it SUCKED to have to move into what feels like solitary confinement yet again. I’d only just acquired a few people to whom I can turn when I am struggling. Suddenly, COVID made it so those people would no longer let me in.

I am eternally grateful to my father and a few close friends in different time zones who allowed me to call or text them whenever I needed to do so.

I LET SOME THINGS GO

I’d hoped to play my drums more.

It didn’t happen.

I hoped to complete my memoir in 2020.

It didn’t happen.

I just didn’t have the mental energy to work on something so emotional with everything being so dang emotional all day long.

Also, I spent too much of 2020 hoping that a certain person would come around and care about me the way I cared for him. After chasing him for way too long, I’ve finally realized he’s not my person. When someone cares about you and your feelings, they want to see you. They want to talk to you. They don’t ghost you; they don’t make you a last priority. This has been a painful realization – and I’ve learned that sometimes people’s actions do not always align with their words, and I need to pay attention both. (You’d think I’d know this by now, but I seem to be in the “slow class” when it comes to healthy relationships.) At least I see this clearly now, and I will exercise more caution before allowing myself to get attached to the wrong person in the future.

MY YEAR IN NUMBERS

Each year, I like to reflect on different areas of my life. Most of these things are subjective, but I also like to look at the numbers, too. After all, numbers don’t lie. Blue reflects numbers that were up from last year; Red represents numbers that were down from last year.

8,667 – combined followers on all social media outlets

1,587 – people on my mailing list

384 – unique pieces of artwork sold this year

160 – unique client sales

30 –people I spoke with who are healing from an iatrogenic brain injury

90 – individual art classes taught

100 – number of ornaments sold

19 – Best selling print image DON’T LOOK BACK, FLOWER FACE

2 – number of shows/festivals in which I participated*

(PS: I didn’t really participate, but my work was represented. Much gratitude to Stephanie Rober Sheedy for bringing my work to Naples, New York; to Lauren Hirsch for showing my work during her holiday pop-up shows at Lauren Hirsch Custom Framing & Original Art in Naples, New York; and to Erika Sorbello for carrying my work at her amazing Gallery Salon in Rochester, New York.

1 – speaking engagement via ZOOM

0 – number of first dates I went on

SO WHAT’S NEXT?

I’m not sure.

But that’ll be the topic of my first post in 2020.

I definitely need to do some hard thinking on how I want my life to look and feel moving forward. Changes definitely need to be made, so the questions are:

  1. What kinds of things can I change realistically, given that COVID restrictions will continue for some time and the future is uncertain?
  2. Also, how can I continue to thrive personally & professionally in this extremely challenging climate & culture.

I am curious to know how y’all are doing. What has worked for you this year? What has gone to shit? Please share your thoughts here or on Facebook or via DM. It helps me to read your words, and — if you post publicly — chances, are your words will help someone else, too.

XOXO

PS: Artwork in this post is still available. Please inquire if you are interested in purchasing.

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