Are you struggling to feel effective in your life and relationships? Do you feel that you are waiting for life to begin, are no longer in the driver’s seat, or are unmotivated to make necessary changes?
In I May Have Pushed Your Buttons, But I Didn’t Install Them, Jennifer Swantkowski, drawing from her three decades of experience in the therapist’s chair, provides simple yet thought-provoking and invaluable insights to help her readers slow down, reclaim a sense of agency and infuse their work, play, and relationships with meaning and purpose.
Through anecdotes and recollections from working with clients as well as her own personal journey, Buttons provides the reader with 52 profound and concise pearls of practical wisdom that are presented in a straightforward narrative.
Woven throughout this collection of vignettes and observations is the recurring theme of personal responsibility and holding ourselves accountable for our predispositions, attitudes, and mindsets and how they affect our perceptions about adversity, success, love, and life. Most importantly, readers will appreciate this book for its simple and memorable takeaways; easily recalled when their own choices get in their way of living and loving effectively.
Insightful book! This book is so insightful on how to take charge of your life and how to examine the role we play in relationships, and in different, real-life scenarios. These short, but powerful vignette chapters fly by, until you’ve carefully consumed them all, cover to cover! I will definitely be re-reading this thoughtful, life guidebook frequently. I highly recommend it!
My fiance and I have been in a rut for far too long and are overwhelmed and unmotivated. This book was recommended to me so my fiance and I have been reading one chapter each week together. I usually have a hard time with “self-help” books, despite being interested in the topic, because I can’t stand the fluff and repetition of saying the same thing over and over in ten different ways. I just want to get to the point and learn how to better myself. This book does exactly that. The chapters are concise and straightforward and we like how the writing focuses on accountability. We definitely need more of that. We are just a few chapters in, and I will update my review once we have completed the book but so far, we are really enjoying it!
I have read both of Jennifer’s books, and I subscribe to her YouTube Channel. I love everything she writes in her books and discusses in her videos because she speaks with immense wisdom and compassion. Jennifer is VERY emotionally intelligent, inspiring, and a mentor to many people. Furthermore, I truly respect her transparency and honesty.
In her most recent book, “I May Have Pushed Your Buttons, But I Didn’t Install Them”, Jennifer sheds her own nuggets of wisdom in life, and YES, it very much resonated with me. I purchased the book on my Kindle, but I learned so much from her writing, that I purchased a hardback as well to reference the chapters easily in the future.
Jennifer’s insights are not only profound but also incredibly practical. If you’re looking for a book that can truly change your mindset and give you tools for lasting change, this is it! Highly recommend to anyone on a journey of self-discovery and improvement.
This book is so insightful and helpful. It’s very easy to read and provides useful and solid relationship advice. I’d strongly recommend this book.
Grab a highlighter when you start reading this book. I read it on a plane flying out of state to lay a loved one to rest. Almost immediately as I started reading, I was able to see that what I thought was a stressful situation with grief, was actually one of gratitude and happiness. Grateful that I was in a position to honor my father’s final wish of being buried with his parents in Kansas. Happiness because my dad lived a long, full 88 years, and we didn’t leave anything unsaid. I lost count of the number of times I got goosebumps while reading. I have a good life, but this book gave me so much wisdom about how my life can be even better and easier. And yes, I discovered there are things I need to work on in regard to myself, and there is a difficult conversation or two that I need to have; but this book gave me the tools to recognize and deal with these things. So easy to read, yet so profound. Buy this book for yourself and buy more copies for the people you love!
I May Have Pushed Your Buttons, But I Didn’t Install Them is wisdom distilled. LIke the best cup of Italian espresso, drink it slowly, and take it in with a view. It will calm you, and if you let it, it might just change your life.
When someone is going through benzo withdrawal the one thing they want and need is a professional who understands and has compassion for what they are going through. I would recommend The Waiting Room to anyone going through benzo withdrawal as well as their family and support system. I love Jennifer’s style of writing; it’s as if you are sitting with a therapist who, through her own first-hand knowledge and lived experience, is compassionately walking with you and guiding you through the withdrawal process. This is a must read for all therapists, medical, and mental health professionals as it offers a clear understanding of the all too common experience of suffering created by medications and their discontinuation.
With a warm and engaging voice, Jennifer Swantkowski shares her lived experience with prescribed medication injury and withdrawal. Using her training as a therapist, she shares insights on coping mentally with the array of debilitating symptoms that can occur in these conditions. The overall message is one of hope and healing. This book is a must read for anyone who has been “benched” from medication injury and other forms of chronic illness.
This is a book that shouldn’t have to be written. After more than six decades of commercial benzodiazepine availability, it seems reasonable to expect that research communities would have clearly defined boundaries on initiation, limitations on duration of use, and discontinuation glide paths absent most of the actual reported agony. It seems reasonable to expect that medical communities notexhibit eyes wide shut by prescribing without informed consent, followed by discrediting and disparaging the agonies reported during medication discontinuation in words and inflections that smack of and stigmatize with accusatory psychosomatic self-culpability. No wonder tens of thousands of benzodiazepine survivors flock to online communities of similarly affected persons to find answers.
In The Waiting Room, Jennifer Swantkowski has given us a great gift: a master class on how she has and others might negotiate not only the nonlinear and imperfect journey through and beyond the clawed clutches of benzodiazepines, but also through the enormous difficulties posed by doubting clinicians who invalidate lived experiences. How, indeed, can one address the “smelly intruder” that is this medication and its angry, reactive receptors? Can one ever accommodate to this unwelcome visitor that won’t leave and remains unrecognized by medical providers who are supposed to acknowledge and assist in the restoration of health? Is radical acceptance possible whereby this caustic trespasser transforms into companion, advisor, and dare I say, friend?
To those affected by benzodiazepines, the author’s narrative will resonate strongly, suggests options for scenarios encountered along the way, and provides hope at the end of the day. To benzodiazepine prescribers, Dr. Swantowski’s gift includes replacing an old medical cosmology – one that still fundamentally revolves around medical provider at the center of decision-making – with a new one inclusive of right-sized expertise of authentically and fully-involved patients. And to all, she calls us to proceed deliberately, respectfully at “the speed of wisdom” – prudently slower than reactive symptoms and our culture otherwise seem to demand.
Unfortunately, this book had to be written. Fortunately, it is wonderfully done. Read on, then add your own chapters and your own understandings. It’s time.
The Waiting Room is a significant contribution to the discussion on the dangers of this country’s casual prescribing habits. Written with intimacy, deep intelligence, and the eye of a therapist, The Waiting Room is both a cautionary tale and a generous guide for those seeking to get off psychotropic medication.
Are you going through benzodiazepine withdrawal? Have you had an adverse reaction to a prescribed medication or struggled to come off a medication?
Both of these issues tend to be misunderstood and often leave individuals to suffer in silence with little to no support from the larger medical establishment. Benzodiazepines, whose most common brand names include Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, Valium, and Librium, are widely prescribed medications that have a high potential for physical dependence and, for many, result in dire consequences when they attempt to come off.
In 2020, the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics estimated that 66 million doctor visits per year in the United States results in a prescription for a benzodiazepine for reasons ranging from anxiety, grief, and insomnia to perimenopause, headaches, and pain. Benzodiazepines are also often prescribed to help manage adverse reactions brought on by other prescription medications, such as anti-depressants, steroids, and antibiotics. While they offer short-term solutions, they can often lead to long-term pain and suffering, as well as life-limiting and, at times, fatal outcomes.
In The Waiting Room, Jennifer shares her own personal journey of an adverse reaction to a medication, which led to the prescription of a benzodiazepine and her on-going struggle with a complicated benzodiazepine withdrawal process. Pulling from her 26 years of working as a clinician in the mental health field, Jennifer offers practical advice utilizing various biopsychosocial/spiritual skills, concepts, and ideas that have proven to be helpful on her journey towards recovery.
Insightful book! This book is so insightful on how to take charge of your life and how to examine the role we play in relationships, and in different, real-life scenarios. These short, but powerful vignette chapters fly by, until you’ve carefully consumed them all, cover to cover! I will definitely be re-reading this thoughtful, life guidebook frequently. I highly recommend it!
My fiance and I have been in a rut for far too long and are overwhelmed and unmotivated. This book was recommended to me so my fiance and I have been reading one chapter each week together. I usually have a hard time with “self-help” books, despite being interested in the topic, because I can’t stand the fluff and repetition of saying the same thing over and over in ten different ways. I just want to get to the point and learn how to better myself. This book does exactly that. The chapters are concise and straightforward and we like how the writing focuses on accountability. We definitely need more of that. We are just a few chapters in, and I will update my review once we have completed the book but so far, we are really enjoying it!
I have read both of Jennifer’s books, and I subscribe to her YouTube Channel. I love everything she writes in her books and discusses in her videos because she speaks with immense wisdom and compassion. Jennifer is VERY emotionally intelligent, inspiring, and a mentor to many people. Furthermore, I truly respect her transparency and honesty.
In her most recent book, “I May Have Pushed Your Buttons, But I Didn’t Install Them”, Jennifer sheds her own nuggets of wisdom in life, and YES, it very much resonated with me. I purchased the book on my Kindle, but I learned so much from her writing, that I purchased a hardback as well to reference the chapters easily in the future.
Jennifer’s insights are not only profound but also incredibly practical. If you’re looking for a book that can truly change your mindset and give you tools for lasting change, this is it! Highly recommend to anyone on a journey of self-discovery and improvement.
This book is so insightful and helpful. It’s very easy to read and provides useful and solid relationship advice. I’d strongly recommend this book.
Grab a highlighter when you start reading this book. I read it on a plane flying out of state to lay a loved one to rest. Almost immediately as I started reading, I was able to see that what I thought was a stressful situation with grief, was actually one of gratitude and happiness. Grateful that I was in a position to honor my father’s final wish of being buried with his parents in Kansas. Happiness because my dad lived a long, full 88 years, and we didn’t leave anything unsaid. I lost count of the number of times I got goosebumps while reading. I have a good life, but this book gave me so much wisdom about how my life can be even better and easier. And yes, I discovered there are things I need to work on in regard to myself, and there is a difficult conversation or two that I need to have; but this book gave me the tools to recognize and deal with these things. So easy to read, yet so profound. Buy this book for yourself and buy more copies for the people you love!
I May Have Pushed Your Buttons, But I Didn’t Install Them is wisdom distilled. LIke the best cup of Italian espresso, drink it slowly, and take it in with a view. It will calm you, and if you let it, it might just change your life.
When someone is going through benzo withdrawal the one thing they want and need is a professional who understands and has compassion for what they are going through. I would recommend The Waiting Room to anyone going through benzo withdrawal as well as their family and support system. I love Jennifer’s style of writing; it’s as if you are sitting with a therapist who, through her own first-hand knowledge and lived experience, is compassionately walking with you and guiding you through the withdrawal process. This is a must read for all therapists, medical, and mental health professionals as it offers a clear understanding of the all too common experience of suffering created by medications and their discontinuation.
With a warm and engaging voice, Jennifer Swantkowski shares her lived experience with prescribed medication injury and withdrawal. Using her training as a therapist, she shares insights on coping mentally with the array of debilitating symptoms that can occur in these conditions. The overall message is one of hope and healing. This book is a must read for anyone who has been “benched” from medication injury and other forms of chronic illness.
This is a book that shouldn’t have to be written. After more than six decades of commercial benzodiazepine availability, it seems reasonable to expect that research communities would have clearly defined boundaries on initiation, limitations on duration of use, and discontinuation glide paths absent most of the actual reported agony. It seems reasonable to expect that medical communities notexhibit eyes wide shut by prescribing without informed consent, followed by discrediting and disparaging the agonies reported during medication discontinuation in words and inflections that smack of and stigmatize with accusatory psychosomatic self-culpability. No wonder tens of thousands of benzodiazepine survivors flock to online communities of similarly affected persons to find answers.
In The Waiting Room, Jennifer Swantkowski has given us a great gift: a master class on how she has and others might negotiate not only the nonlinear and imperfect journey through and beyond the clawed clutches of benzodiazepines, but also through the enormous difficulties posed by doubting clinicians who invalidate lived experiences. How, indeed, can one address the “smelly intruder” that is this medication and its angry, reactive receptors? Can one ever accommodate to this unwelcome visitor that won’t leave and remains unrecognized by medical providers who are supposed to acknowledge and assist in the restoration of health? Is radical acceptance possible whereby this caustic trespasser transforms into companion, advisor, and dare I say, friend?
To those affected by benzodiazepines, the author’s narrative will resonate strongly, suggests options for scenarios encountered along the way, and provides hope at the end of the day. To benzodiazepine prescribers, Dr. Swantowski’s gift includes replacing an old medical cosmology – one that still fundamentally revolves around medical provider at the center of decision-making – with a new one inclusive of right-sized expertise of authentically and fully-involved patients. And to all, she calls us to proceed deliberately, respectfully at “the speed of wisdom” – prudently slower than reactive symptoms and our culture otherwise seem to demand.
Unfortunately, this book had to be written. Fortunately, it is wonderfully done. Read on, then add your own chapters and your own understandings. It’s time.
The Waiting Room is a significant contribution to the discussion on the dangers of this country’s casual prescribing habits. Written with intimacy, deep intelligence, and the eye of a therapist, The Waiting Room is both a cautionary tale and a generous guide for those seeking to get off psychotropic medication.