Welcome to the IAWP! We hope you will have fun healing here and we look forward to your contributions.

Our goal here is to create a safe, tolerant, collaborative, diverse, and innovative community that has fabulous synergy. We aim to have the minimum of hierarchy, but it will be the responsibility of the administration and staff to maintain a feeling of safety and warmth as much as possible.

We ask for your help in doing this. To this end, we would like to make the following suggestions –

Please try to keep in mind that almost everyone here is in a sensitive state, recovering from psych meds. Almost everyone has temporarily amplified emotions and some degree of cognitive slow down.

We want you to be yourself. Disagreement is a normal part of a healthy community – including disagreement with Administration and Staff. Please feel free to say what you think and ask for what you want, in a moderate way.

Please feel free to express your own opinion, but try to do it only once or twice, in a non-dogmatic way. Then, let it go, and agree to disagree. Take time to think before replying, especially if you feel heated. Avoid insistence. Less is more.

The Internet has made it possible for us to find each other. But the latest technology exerts a pull for speediness of interaction that is antithetical to building really good relationships. Here at IAWP, we encourage you to take your time responding. Slow is better.

Remember that it is much easier to misinterpret the written word of people you only know slightly – especially if you are from different countries. Please take time to try to discern the intention behind someone's post, even if you are concerned about it. Ask gently for clarification.

Please try to remember to tell people what they’re doing that you really like. Encourage people in their strengths. Keep in mind that almost everyone’s primary fear is of exclusion.

If someone starts a thread asking for help, please try to keep that thread about them. If their comment has triggered your own wish to ask for help, please feel free to start another thread of your own.

We are going to try to lead this community with an emphasis on mutual tolerance and compromise. Please feel free to think what you think, but let others think what they think.

If some action needs to be taken, we will aim for compromise.

We enthusiastically welcome people of different nationalities, races, ethnic groups, religions, genders, and sexual orientations!

We believe that there is still a lot left to discover about how these meds work; what is happening with us in recovery; and what might be helpful to our healing. We believe in tolerating a wide range of beliefs and preferences about this. Please feel free to state your theories and recommendations, but try not to proselytize.

Our goal is to help you heal from the impact of psych meds on your life, and become fully yourself, strong, healthy, happy, and self-loving.

We believe the best cure for withdrawal is happiness, creativity, being yourself, and synergy with others, so, as soon as you can, please join or start threads about the things that make you the most happy in life.

We also aim to help the international community reach critical mass in recognizing that psych meds damage health, relationships, and the environment.