≡ Menu

What Happened to Jordan Peterson: He and His Daughter Talk About Their 2 Years in Hell


Mikhaila Peterson Podcast #9 – Jordan B. Peterson – Family Update June 2020

Surgeries, unintended addiction to medication, anxiety attacks the could kill, operations and editions, bungled diagnoses, and oh yes a brush with incurable cancer. Those and many other factors sidelined the admirable Jordan Peterson and almost killed him and/or other members of his family.

An alarming and sobering account of the suffering that often comes with life.

The text underneath the video is rich in links to subjects and people mentioned.

This is a brief podcast with my dad Jordan Peterson about what happened to him and my family in the last year.

The following are links that may help elucidate some of the topics we discussed in this episode:

Paradoxical reaction to benzodiazepines – a condition dad was diagnosed with
https://www.acep.org/how-we-serve/sec…

Akathisia – something dad really really really suffered from – https://w-bad.org/akathisia/ – “Many medical professionals don’t recognize akathisia or that it’s a drug-induced state. Instead, they write off the symptoms as a “worsening of mental illness” or other condition. Sometimes they even raise the dose of the offending drug and when the patient’s condition worsens as a result, they may prescribe more medication which can sometimes further exacerbate the problem or that fail to offer relief. If the medical professionals you encounter are ignorant about akathisia or attempt to blame it on “something else”, present them with medical information on the condition or search until you find a knowledgeable physician.” [Go to video on YouTube for the full list of links]

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Bandmeeting July 8, 2020, 1:39 PM

    I was at a taping of the Steve Hilton show 2 or 3 years ago when Jordan Peterson was the guest. I only knew he was the new big deal at the time and not much else about him. It was pretty boring and was like listening to a self help guru spout bromides.

  • ghostsniper July 8, 2020, 2:21 PM

    Well, that things an hour long and I’m trying to figure out why a soap opera would be interesting to me.
    I don’t have a whole lot of extra hours laying around wanting something to do.

  • Beaner49 July 8, 2020, 2:37 PM

    I am not up to speed on this person so could You explain why he is special?

  • Vanderleun July 8, 2020, 2:54 PM

    OK. Here’s a start…..

    Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and the author of the multi-million copy bestseller 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, #1 for nonfiction in 2018 in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands, Brazil and Norway, and slated for translation into 50 languages.

    Raised and toughened in the frigid wastelands of Northern Alberta, Dr. Peterson has flown a hammer-head roll in a carbon-fiber stuntplane, piloted a mahogany racing sailboat around Alcatraz Island, explored an Arizona meteorite crater with a group of astronauts, built a Native American Long-House on the upper floor of his Toronto home, and been inducted into a Pacific Kwakwaka’wakw family (see charlesjoseph.ca). He’s been a dishwasher, gas jockey, bartender, short-order cook, beekeeper, oil derrick bit re-tipper, plywood mill laborer and railway line worker. He’s taught mythology to physicians, lawyers, and businessmen; worked with Jim Balsillie, former CEO of Blackberry’s Research in Motion, on Resilient People, Resilient Planet, the report of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability; helped his clinical clients manage the triumphs and catastrophes of life; served as an advisor to senior partners of major Canadian law firms; penned the forward for the 50th anniversary edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago; lectured across North America, Europe and Australia in one of the most-well attended book tours ever mounted; and, for The Founder Institute, identified thousands of promising entrepreneurs, in 60 different countries.

    With his students and colleagues, Dr. Peterson has published more than a hundred scientific papers, advancing the modern understanding of creativity, competence and personality, while his now-classic book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (released in June 2018 as a now bestselling author-read audiobook) transformed the psychology of religion. He was nominated for five consecutive years as one of Ontario’s Best University Lecturers, and is one of only three profs rated as “life changing” in the U of T’s underground student handbook of course ratings.

    In 2016, shortly before the publication of 12 Rules, several of Dr. Peterson’s online lectures, videos and interviews went viral, launching him into unprecedented international prominence as a public intellectual and educator. His work, public postings and discussions are featured on the following platforms:

    Jordan Peterson Videos, on YouTube, features Dr. Peterson’s university and public lectures (including a highly-viewed 15-part biblical series on Genesis), responses to the polarizing political crises of today, and interviews with people such as Camille Paglia, Jonathan Haidt and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The channel has 2.7 million subscribers, with 145 million views; videos derived from his online content by others have been viewed more than half a billion times.

    The Jordan B Peterson Podcast, with over 100 episodes, has attracted close to a million listeners per episode, with over 55,000,000 downloads (plans to expand this dramatically with professional development are underway). Ranking reliably #1 in the Higher Education category on iTunes (often occupying all ten of the top ten episode slots), it has consistently been in the top five in the general Education category;

    jordanbpeterson.com, his home website, contains his blog and influential recommended reading list, and attracts 25,000 views a day, for a total of more than 14,000,000 page hits to date;
    selfauthoring.com and understandmyself.com, his online self-improvement and self-understanding systems, respectively, attract 25000 users per month and were the focus of two Dr. Oz TV episodes (here and here) and three podcasts (one here). More information about these systems can be found below.

    Dr. Peterson’s popular guide to writing essays can be found here.

    His public lecture tour, The 12 Rules for Life Tour, covered more than 160 cities, drawing approximately 500,000 ticketed attendees in the US, Canada, Australia and a variety of European countries;

    jordan.b.peterson on Instagram has over 1,300,000 followers;
    Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, on Facebook, has over 860,000 followers and 720,000 likes;
    @jordanbpeterson on Twitter, has over 1.4 million followers;
    r/JordanPeterson on Reddit has 207,000 followers;
    Jordan B Peterson on Quora has 34,000 followers and 9,000,000 answer views;

    When active, originally, on the crowdfunding site Patreon, Dr. Peterson had 10,000 active subscribers and was the 2nd most highly funded creator on the site, the 6th most subscribed for video providers, and the 10th most widely subscribed of all Patreon accounts. He left Patreon in January of 2019, citing emerging censorship on the platform (see Goodbye to Patreon) and has now established subscription and donation services which can be accessed here. He is involved in the creation of a new site for creators and those who follow them called ThinkSpot, which is currently in its beta version (see thinkspot.com).

    Dr. Peterson’s classroom lectures on mythology and the psychology of religion, based on Maps of Meaning (2016 version here), were turned into a popular 13-part TV series on Canadian public television’s TVO. Malcolm Gladwell discussed psychology with him while researching his books; Norman Doidge, author of The Brain that Changes Itself, wrote the forward to 12 Rules; and bestselling thriller writer Gregg Hurwitz employed several of his “valuable things” as a plot feature in his #1 international bestseller, Orphan X.

    With his colleagues, Dr. Daniel M. Higgins and Dr. Robert O. Pihl, Dr. Peterson has also produced two online programs to help people understand themselves better and to improve their psychological and practical functioning. The most recent of these, UnderstandMyself, provides its users with detailed information about their personalities, based on work he published with his students here. Tens of thousands of people now know themselves better, as a consequence of completing this 15-minute program. His original self-analysis program, the Self Authoring Suite, (featured in O: The Oprah Magazine, CBC radio, and NPR’s national website), has helped over 200,000 people resolve the problems of their past, rectify their personality faults and enhance their virtues, and radically improve their future. Research documenting the program’s effectiveness can be found here and here.

    Any questions?

  • Gordon Scott July 8, 2020, 2:59 PM

    Jordan Peterson is a decent guy trying to live a decent life, and to tell the truth. He’s a liberal, no doubt about it. He’s also one of the most articulate spokesman for sense, virtue and freedom. He suffered endless attacks by leftists, media and former colleagues.

    He, and his family, had 18 months of hell. His daughter (the one in the video) had her ankle replaced, for the second time, due to a disease that was melting her joints. Then his wife’s cancer, thought to be mild, turns out to be virulent and nearly always fatal. At one point she nearly died every three days for two months.

    He went on a benzodiazepine to help with anxiety. But he didn’t react well, and soon his anxiety was off the charts. He tries to get off it, and it triggers akathesia. Peterson describes it as feeling like an electrical shock every three seconds. This was night and day for months.

    Probably not your cup of tea, Ghost. His lectures are more entertaining. But for people who admire him and his courage, it is a welcome update that helps fill out the few rumours about his absence from public life.

  • Auntie Analogue July 8, 2020, 3:26 PM

    For me Jordan Peterson’s video lectures, like Stefan Molyneux’s, are a foolproof soporific. Your mileage may vary.

  • Kevin in PA July 8, 2020, 3:35 PM

    Gordon,
    You are correct that Peterson is a liberal. I think he is very much a liberal in the classic sense of the word though. To be more clear, the use of the word liberal to describe, Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, and the rest of them is inaccurate. They are progressives with fascist / Marxist tendencies.

    I respect the man for his position of intellectual integrity. He is a thoughtful and erudite mind and an eloquent speaker. A true intellectual. Check out his lectures that have been instrumental in giving some degree of hope to young men who are seemingly direction-less.

    He has also done a Biblical series that is quite fascinating. I guess it is accurate to say he approaches the subject from a humanist perspective, with an understanding of the power of myth (to borrow from Joseph Campbell) and how allegory is useful for bringing direction to those who are seeking it.

    I was pleased to learn of his ongoing recovery. Among his lectures he has spoken often about suffering, dealing with suffering, learning from suffering, and that the reality of life is that life is full of suffering. Very sorry to learn his personal ordeal.

  • James ONeil July 8, 2020, 4:25 PM

    Yea Gerard but in listing his accomplishments you left out one biggie, he accomplished something millions of moms couldn’t do, he got a lot of youngsters to clean their rooms! 😉

    Seriously though, considering …moves in mysterious ways; If he hadn’t stood tall to new speak, which started his fame and gained him a modicum of fortune, he and his wife would probably be dead now, not able to afford the the travel to facilities and the medical treatments that, hopefully, have extended their lives.

    Bookworm posted. in her bookwormroom blog, an essay today on pushing back against the madness of the left, Peterson is perhaps the best at pushing back and thoroughly demolishing their pretensions.

  • Terry July 8, 2020, 4:39 PM

    Jordan Peterson is the most articulate man I have listened to in my humble life experience. He is also by far the most dangerous adversary to debate. I have seen Jordan Peterson demolish so-called journalists in a manner the journalists were totally unaware of.

  • Tom Hyland July 8, 2020, 4:51 PM

    Ghost, if you can spare a half hour, watch this video of Peterson interviewed by British news TV personality Cathy Newman. This was Peterson’s finest hour. Happened about two years ago. Newman incessantly cried out, “So what you are saying is….” in an attempt to paint Peterson as a human pig. It didn’t work. This is astounding calm and reason in the depth of a pre-planned ambush.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54

  • Gordon Scott July 8, 2020, 5:15 PM

    Tom Hyland, yeah. Best I thought was about a week after that interview. Britain’s Channel 4 had posted the 30 minute interview on the web, while a very shortened version aired. Then, after Cathy Newman started whining that people were making threats, and they had considered security measures, Peterson broke his silence. He said he had contacted Newman and offered to do another interview, on a friendly basis. Channel 4 declined. He said either there were threats, or there weren’t. Either they needed security or they didn’t. But the implication that he had urged his followers to go after Newman and Channel 4 (this is not exact) caused Peterson to snort, and say that if he had called out his followers, the building would be rubble.

    He’s right. But he wouldn’t do that.

  • Uncle Mikey July 8, 2020, 5:34 PM

    Peterson took point in the culture war for a long time, sneerers. You’d have been crushed in his place.

  • Jeff Brokaw July 8, 2020, 5:46 PM

    The most important thing to know about Jordan Petersen is that he risked everything — his career, his reputation, prison, etc — to defend free speech in Canada, a country that doesn’t even offer Constitutional protections for it.

    How many people with anything to lose in America would even do that? When tested he stood up for sanity. We need a lot more like him.

  • captflee July 8, 2020, 5:46 PM

    Say what you will about the good perfesser, he’s a right interesting fellow. At his best he seems like an old school academic liberal from before the deluge of the sixties, which in the Current Year makes one Horatius at the Friggin’ Gate compared to most of us. He is absolutely a genuine influencer of young men, I have seen it among my son’s friends, and positive influences of his ilk are not exactly thick on the ground these days.

    Growing up in a small city whose then biggest industries were government and higher ed, even then and there mostly lefty pursuits, I was able to discuss/argue my heterodox politics and philosophy with a wide spectrum of lefties, from grease monkeys to PhDs, and like most of you never cast a thought that any offhand comment of mine might forty-five years in the future utterly destroy my life. Maybe in China, with their insane Cultural Revolution, but never here! And the powers that be have now gotten their fondest wish, and have dissolved the 1965 people and elected another (Thanks, Berthold!). How insane are we to tolerate this?

    Glad to hear that Dr. P. is recovering. I may wait a while on viewing the video, ’cause some of it sounds a little too familiar, and I’d rather be able to view it with a bit more detachment than I can at present summon up.

  • Mary Ann July 8, 2020, 5:52 PM

    Gerard, Gordon Scott, Kevin in PA, James O ‘Neil, Terry, Tom Hyland, Uncle Mikey…YES and thank you. My son and I heard Dr. Peterson speak in Cleveland 2 years ago. He’s made a significant impact on my son and the many young men that attended the lecture. I am heartened that he is recovering.

  • Casey Klahn July 8, 2020, 7:04 PM

    I was not into Prof Peterson’s method of speaking; it was a bit grating and he was, to my ear, a bit supercilious. I recently heard him again on a topic I couldn’t resist hearing, and I realized that he speaks as if teaching college freshman. Ok, I thought. that’s why he sounds that way.

    He’s certainly worth a listen, but keep your own beliefs as you do. He isn’t CS Lewis or GK Chesterton.

    I wish him better than he’s getting. He’s a good man and needs a break, IMO. Gpd bless him and his family.

    Any acting-out in Canada is an act of fierce courage. My god those people have a stick up their ass that bends at the end and slaps ice like a hammer. It must be very hard to be Canadian – almost as hard as being a Seattleite.

  • Gordon Scott July 8, 2020, 7:32 PM

    Jaysus, Casey! Warn a guy not to be drinking something when he reads that “slaps ice like a hammer” line!

    and yeah, the Seattle comparison is apt.

  • Vince913 July 9, 2020, 5:00 PM

    Thank you Vanderleun for that thorough synopsis. Through his writings Peterson has increased my vocabulary, intellectual thought process, Biblical knowledge as it relates to human nature and so much more. Now I can quickly understand people’s personality proclivities making resource management rewarding. ( I can tell people what to do in a way that inspires performance) His lectures and writings are for deep thinkers. If you like that type of exercise Peterson’s books and recommended reads are for you.